I have been asked to say my piece on the “Things I Like”. It is not so pleasant to record likes as to register dislikes; but anyhow, here goes.
Mass I like High. I should say as high as possible, if that makes sense. I like the Grand Manner, I like the divine Drama to be enacted with all the propriety and pomp which only the Catholic liturgy can evoke.
I favour rich vestments, but plain even tending to severity. I fancy the Gothic chasuble, amply and draping the whole man, which the miserly Roman fiddleback cannot hope to do. I look with favour on the large and roomy surplices which in these days flourish mainly among the separated brethren.
I favour a solid block of marble for an altar, without any gradine, and a great crucifix with six great candlesticks. These should shine and exemplify the honesty of sacristans. I like the sacred signs and gestures made clean and whole; the genuflections, for instance, correct and full. I like the censers swung, not set a-tremble.
High Mass is comfortable because there is little kneeling. For the most part, except for a few minutes, you stand up to it. This standing has effect and conveys the sense of drama. The congregation is supposed to assist; and assist, in the etymology, is to “stand by.”
I like Chant plain; polyphony is only a rather distant second best. The Latin I like spoken well; the parts to be said aloud or sung being done, as the prescription says, clearly, distinctly, in a manner befitting their meaning. My world’s worst is to have them rendered dolefully. This would apply to all the rest of the spoken or sung parts of the ceremonies.
I like the Roman missal to be in everybody’s hands; failing in Latin, then at least in any language, provided it is the missal. I like the instructions to the people which will ensure this result/ I favour the order of the day as a part of everybody’s knowledge; everybody turning and making the commemorations of, the day. For this reason I like sermons which inform, as people left to themselves will not inform themselves.
I like incense and plenty of it; and people also to be given their share of it at the time appointed. I like the Pax coming down to all altar servers. I would prefer some other material for their cassocks than the cheap red stuff so often seen.
High Mass takes time; let it. I am in no hurry and have no desire to bolt. Some think High Mass will grow stale by frequency; I don’t, It, of course, requires the cooperation of many persons and the use of many things; and cathedrals frame it best. I am drawn, therefore, to cathedrals.
I favour Sunday Vespers before Benediction. As things are, the Benediction services are too short, and some hurried choirs cut hymns down to three verses; I like the Latin hymns whole.
I cannot say how much I like the Psalms. I consider them to be the loveliest achievements of language and would in certain moods give sixpence to the professional poets and bid them leave me in peace.
I have a flair for the Breviary but, owing to the needs of journalism, read It about a fortnight in advance of the time, scouring the future for good things that may be used in the weekly screeds. The Breviary teems with wonderfully apposite pieces of writing. I sometimes wish others than clerics were also put under compulsion to read it. I would like to read a lesson in the public recitations; but I am not entitled.
I would indeed relish a sojourn with the Benedictines, chanting the Divine Office in its entirety with them.
If it came to wishing, I could ask for nothing more exhilarating than a long stay in Rome, discovering the 20 centuries of the eternal city for myself, layer by layer. But even before that I should see for myself all the sacred places of the Holy Land. Without going to the extent of sin, I am envious of H.V. Mortan, whose In the Steps of the Master is one of the most fascinating English popularizations of the Gospel story that I know. I like the visual imagination of the scenes of the Lord’s story. At the moment, I cannot have enough Lives of the Lord which attempt to restore this.
In the vast field of the literature of the faith there must be dozens and dozens of separate items to draw and hold down even so fractional a capacity as mine, but let an occasional dip into St. Thomas Aquinas typify those preferances.
For some time I have been taken with a new zeal for the New Testament, beside which the earlier enthusiasm for secular literatures seems only vanity and vexation of the spirit.
For the rest, let a catalogue of other sundry likes suffice: the Office of Christmas, the legend of Santa Claus, wads and wads of money (if I had) to give away on his behalf, Christmas in the cakes and ale; the face of the Madonnas, bells in the distance, the hospitality of the presbyteries; the fervour of crowds (without, if possible, being crushed in them,) the Credo in the square at Lourdes, Westminster cathedral, unusual saints; Mr. Belloc’s phrase of “the Church for pride”, the Catholic attack, delight of finding a man a Catholic whom I took to be something else; the Adeste Fideles, to hear which is to be transported any time into Christmas; the visits of the parish priest, the reason why anyone became a Catholic, the immediate kinship in the faith consequent on strangers meeting and revealing it; well-stocked Catholic book and newspaper stalls.
Add to these, Catholic contacts in other lands, dipping into the Catholic Who’s Who, reading the details of any Catholic directory; the news that a mixed marriage is not coming off after all; the substitution of the requiem Mass cards for floral wreaths as tokens of sympathy, the black coffin of the poorer folk, the grace of being conscious enough to hear read out the commendation of the departing soul; awareness of the Catholic’s Catholicity and the Church as world-wide, the Thanksgiving after Mass, which I read no matter what my available time is, the life and work of G. K. Chesterton, Catholic laughter (for there is such a thing); the Catholic world maps, the pre-eminence of the papal flag, the Prayer for the Pope, a world observation of the Pope’s day; the work of all Catholic scribes except one.
Catholic Digest of America 1946
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