Dignity is something Jesus shunned

18th August 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Fr. Jerome LeDoux
Contributing Columnist

In a recent circular letter, the Congregation For Divine Worship announced that the placement of the sign of peace within Mass will not change, but it suggested several ways to do the rite with greater dignity, especially having the priest stay at the altar. Since the peace rite can be a distraction situated bet­ween the Consecration and Com­munion, they want a one-song limit.

Dismayed, Janae Tinsley Page, an OMM Church member, could not wait to let me know the shocking news. My immediate reaction was gross, unbelieving shock and disappointment.

What about the distraction of people who refuse to give a sign of peace and people who refuse to receive Communion from certain Eucharistic ministers? That is the real caricature of dignity.

Can anyone imbedded in the black culture of music and praise believe that the Church has a “desire” to have no song at all or, at most, to have a “dignified” song for the rite of peace, and a rite of peace so “dignified” that the priest does not even come down from the altar? I am convinced that Jesus laughs at certain times during the Mass, especially when afflicted religious siblings are putting all ill feelings aside and laughing while hugging, kissing and shaking hands.

True, Black culture is not monolithic, for there are Blacks who do not relate to the lively exchanges characteristic of Black Catholic worship. But most of us find a special joy and spirit of well-being in direct social reaction during worship. And it is not just Blacks. About 1992, a very young white female, reacting to the movement of the Holy Spirit during our spirited hug of peace during our Sunday Mass at St. Augustine Church in New Orleans, told me, “This is the first time the Church has ever spoken directly to me! I feel changed. Thank you!” Can anyone want more?

Who thinks of dignity when listening to the joy-filled Mexican Mariachi bands? They are inspirational and spirit-lifting anytime, whether at Sunday Mass, weddings or funerals. Again, liturgical dancing and singing in India and many African countries evoke no images of dignity, but rather images of grace, well-being and the joie de vivre. It is just great to be alive and well!

Culture cannot be concocted and decreed down from the top powers that be, but must be sprouted and formed from the grassroots up. Doctrinaire, ivory-towered worship leaders suffer under the delusion that they know everything about community liturgy. However, liturgy at best is a cooperative effort with leaders necessarily beginning with culture at the grassroots level.

One of the greatest mistakes the Roman Catholic Church has made down through the centuries is the ignoring and suppression of local cultures around the world. To this day, Latin America bears the scars of cultural suppression and abuse by deluded missionaries of centuries past, some of whom even questioned whether the local people were sufficiently civilized to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. So the locals did not have enough dignity?

Until very recent decades, the Church’s cutting edge was hardly better among foreign missionaries in other countries like Indonesia or Africa where missionaries imported their own language and culture from Europe. Their “gift” was to suppress and replace the culture of the local people whom they claimed to evangelize. The “Good News” was, “Become like us!”

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is a two-edged sword that cuts the other way, “When not in Rome, do as the respective locals do.” What the Vatican needs is a good dose of the New Orleans Second Line led by a Parade Marshal, brass band and a long queue of people.

The Church has always been jealous of guarding its unity, but has thus thrust itself into the trap of ignoring the blessings and glories of diversity. Contrary to misguided ecclesiastical ideology of Church leaders, far from destroying or even lessening unity, diversity brings out the splendor of being many diverse members and nonetheless one body as Paul states so movingly in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 and Romans 12:3-8. Unity in diversity and diversity in unity should be the glory of the Church. Rather than exclude, they fully include and complement one another.

Dignity has its place, as Ecclesiastes 3:1 states, “To everything there is a time, and a season for every purpose under the heavens.” But the explosions of Alleluia, Halleluia and Praise the Lord have no time to look left or right to see whether it is okay to get happy in the Lord. And what if one breaks out into the gift of tongues or is slain in the Spirit? Are we to confine in a box or bottle the movement of the Spirit and the Spirit’s “unutterable groanings,” as in Romans 8:26?

Little do sullen liturgy overlords of the Vatican realize what wet blankets they are, how much they rain on the happy parades of peoples whose culture is celebratory and joyful. Amid the worst conditions imaginable, even the slaves displayed irrepressible joy in the “Great Amen” made so popular by Sidney Poitier in the 1963 film, “Lilies Of The Field.” While most slave songs may be characterized as the Holy Blues – whence came the secular blues and jazz – many of their songs are triumphant testimonials of deep faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In John 9:6, Jesus showed that dignity is not always desirable when “he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his (the blind man’s) eyes.”

Frankly, no matter what anyone thought of me, if I could heal blindness or any other disability or disease, I would be overjoyed to make mud and smear it all day long and well into the night!

The Chief Priests, the Pharisees, Scribes and elders of the people had dignity — some call it gravitas. In fact, they sat on it. And they crucified the Ruler of the universe! In John 4, Jesus ignored protocol and sexist laws by conversing with a Samaritan woman in public. Matthew 5:1 depicts Jesus sitting on the ground while preaching, and Matthew 9:10-11 shows Jesus incurring the wrath of the Pharisees by hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. Worse, Luke 7:38 has Jesus allowing his feet to be washed by a public sinner. Where was the dignity and righteousness of that? Will you judge as the Pharisees did? And Matthew 26:20 features the Last Supper with Jesus and his apostles receiving their First Communion while reclining at table. Hardly dignified.

The Vatican’s Congregation For Divine Worship should experience the closing Mass of any Black Conference or Congress. We rightfully sing, “Jesus, you’re the center of my joy!”

This article originally published in the August 18, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.