News

Change in worship style among Western Catholics

In Western countries something is happening to Catholic worship.  Yes, there are things happening in Vatican departments to guide proper worship. And there are efforts in English speaking countries to furnish Catholics with fresh texts for their liturgy. But there is something else happening at another level, the local level.

Somewhat imperceptibly, Western Catholics are seeing their worship less as something they go to but something they do. Whereas in the past Catholics have gone to Mass (Eucharist), today there are some who do Eucharist (Mass). This is by no means a universal phenomenon among Western Catholics, but it is nevertheless a phenomenon among some.

It is not about saying one way is better than the other. But it is about saying there is something happening at the grassroots.  There are increasing numbers of Catholics in the West who have drifted from any form of practicing Christianity.  Could these people be among those who have fallen between going to Eucharist and doing Eucharist?  There are many Western Catholics who still go to Eucharist and who do so gladly and with great faith.  And there are some, more often younger Catholics, who don’t go to Eucharist, at least not often, but who would understand themselves as doing Eucharist.

This latter group would perhaps unwittingly have a different take on Jesus’ command, “Do this in memory of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). When they set out to be present to people at home and at work, and especially among the poor and disadvantaged, they inherently know they are “doing this in memory of him”. They are somewhat aware that when two or three of them gather in his name he is in their midst wherever that be (cf. Matthew 18:20). It is a different understanding of real presence.

Underneath all this is a different take on “going to church”. For these Catholics could it be that Church has come to them in their work-a-day lives? Could it be that they both experience and see their loving lives as worship? If that were the case, it would not be unlike the worship that the prophets called for and which Jesus encouraged, the kind that God wants (cf. Amos 5:21-22).

In this evolution among Western Catholics, we are left with the yet unanswered question: when and where will we tell the stories and hear the Scriptures that entice believers to such a way of worshiping, this Jesus way of living?

In transitional times it is not easy to see what it happening, nor is it easy to understand it even when we do see it. In that sense this early 21st century is, in Western Catholicism, a time to wait on the guidance of God’s Spirit, not least in trying to better understand Eucharist.

To that end, for the feast of Corpus Christi, Fr. Anthony Kelly, C.Ss.R., provides food for thought when he asks “How can Eucharist make us more attractive and meaningful?” That he says “is the real question”.

Click HERE  to read Fr. Kelly’s article.