Authentic liturgy feeds spiritual hunger and inspires mercy

Our son attended the same Catholic high school in Chicago that I attended. Though it is not a Precious Blood school, it was the place where I first met the Precious Blood fathers. We had two C.PP.S. priests there in the 1980s. One of them was the first person to teach me about Catholic Social Teaching, a course I now teach for seminarians at Catholic Theological Union. I’ve come to know the Precious Bloods and their charism much better and in a different way now at CTU.  

Like in a lot of Catholic schools, Mass was a regular part of life for me and for my son when we were high school students. After one Mass day late in our son’s senior year, he mentioned casually to us over dinner that he had faked being sick that day to avoid getting in trouble for cutting out of Mass. He had been out in the hallways during Mass, he was seen by an administrator, and he lied about not feeling well to avoid detention. It worked. 
My wife and I put our forks down. “Wait. Why weren’t you in Mass?” 

“I wasn’t Mass. It was a pep rally.” 

“It was a pep rally? I thought it was Mass.” 

“It was supposed to be Mass, but it seemed more like a pep rally.” 

Long, long pause. 

Finally, I asked him, “So you’re telling us that you cut out of Mass because you’re a liturgical snob?” 

“I guess so, yeah.” He resumed eating. 

My wife and I exchanged a look. We shrugged, and we kept eating, too. We were satisfied. 

I should be clearer here about something. We are not liturgical rigorists with strong “read the black, do the red” opinions. We don’t have those conversations in our home. We are comfortable with all sorts of liturgical expressions. We like and we expect good liturgy, which can take many shapes. There is not just one correct way to celebrate Mass. True liturgy is any liturgy that succeeds as liturgy. I think this was what our son was telling us he understood, and we felt grateful that he had gotten that message. An event that sang the school’s praises without a focus on Word and Sacrament didn’t seem much like Mass to him. As parents — mission accomplished. 

My good friend and faculty mentor when I came to CTU was the late Robert J. Schreiter, C.PP.S. Bob wrote about how we overcome our sinfulness and reconcile ourselves to God’s goodness when we hear the Word and when we receive the Body and the Blood. In this sense, no matter how common the liturgy and Mass days may be in our Catholic experience, something that is profound, life-changing, and world-altering happens each time the liturgy is enacted. 

Certainly this means that liturgy is meant to challenge and to change us. When Gaspar del Bufalo brought a message of reconciliation and redemption to the towns and houses of the Umbrian countryside, his missionary appeal lay in pouring out abundantly a message of God’s love overflowing and overwhelming our tendency to sin. The message resonated, and Gaspar won renown because of how plainly people could see God’s love and mercy, a reconciling spirit, at work in him. They were people starved for hope, justice, and reconciliation. Gaspar showed them where those can be found. He brought them a difficult and encouraging Gospel. 

But we also know that our liturgy does not always succeed. It is easy enough to sink into routine. Sometimes, a triumphal spirit in our Church can overtake us: we congratulate ourselves for being Catholic and for the institutions we have built to do good works. Other times, our abundance helps us forget how much we need liturgy. That might mean an abundance of wealth that creates an illusion of self-sufficiency. But also, it can mean an abundance of how much the Church and the sacraments are available to us. Some parts of the world are “deprived of the Sunday Eucharist for long periods of time” (Aparecida Document, 100e). The liturgy may mean more to people for whom it is not available so abundantly as it is at a Catholic high school in Chicago.  

I think something like that combination of factors explained why the liturgy did not succeed for our son that day. It is not uncommon for Mass to be seen as a community-building exercise in Catholic schools. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just not so clear to me that celebrating the community with a regular tempo of abundantly available liturgies will succeed to change and to challenge anyone. The young person who looks for something deeper may find those liturgies disappointing. 

Often in our Church, we ask, “Where have all the young people gone?” and, “How can we get them back to Mass?” That question came to our dinner table. As our reaction to our son’s account of his day may tell you, I think those are the wrong questions. 

Mass is a means by which we nourish spiritual hunger. “The Blood of Christ cleanses souls and sanctifies them,” as St. Gaspar told us. Yet Mass also is a sacrifice enacted by a community where a priest presides. In an important sense, Mass is what all of us bring to Mass — our need for mercy and our longing for conversion that means closeness to God.  

The question is less “How do we get young people back in the Church?” and more “How do we show them that our Church community is where their spiritual needs will be met?” How do we show them that church nourishes the broken world where they live? 

Pope Leo XIV addressed this in his apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te. He quoted St. John Chystosom (347-407), who told us, “Feed the hungry first, and only afterward adorn the altar with what remains.” Pope Leo reminded us, “Works of mercy are recommended as a sign of the authenticity of worship, which, while giving praise to God, has the task of opening us to the transformation that the Spirit can bring about in us, so that we may all become an image of Christ and his mercy towards the weakest.” 

True liturgy does that. But before we convince young people to join us for Mass, they need to see our commitments to justice and peace out in the world — the homes, towns, and countryside where St. Gaspar went forth. The faith they see at work in and through us in the world will tell them all they need to know. And then I think they will find their way back to Mass all on their own. 

Steven P. Millies, PhD 
Professor of Public Theology 
Chair, Department of Historical and
Doctrinal Studies 
Director, The Bernardin Center