Celebrating the Mass Silently (And More on the Rite of Marriage)

ROME, JULY 1, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: Recently at our local national shrine I was visiting the Blessed Sacrament when a young priest whom I had never seen before began to set up for Mass. I sat down to wait, really happy to be there for this surprise Mass; it was 10 p.m. The priest "said" the whole Mass silently. At first I was confused. I'd never seen this before. It actually was quite beautiful nonetheless, and he did speak once, to invite us to receive Communion. Tell me about this please. If the canon is a public prayer, how can this be? Was it indeed valid? -- T.H., Santa Clara, California

A: From the description I would suppose that the Mass was celebrated by a traveling priest who had not had time to celebrate beforehand. In this, at least, he showed commendable devotion to his daily Mass, which is recommended for all priests even if nobody can be present.

If a priest celebrates alone or with just an acolyte he may use a subdued voice in celebrating Mass. He may not, however, "say" any part of the Mass internally. Because the Mass is a public prayer of the Church, all of its parts, including the readings, must be proclaimed vocally.

This vocal proclamation, even if audible only to the priest himself, is required for the Mass to be licit and is essential to the validity of the consecration.

Pope Pius XII affirmed this point in a 1956 discourse regarding silent concelebration. The issue was later formalized in a decree of the then Holy Office on March 8, 1957, that declared that according to Christ's institution, only he who pronounces the words of consecration validly celebrates.

In the case at hand, given the late hour, the priest was probably surprised to see anybody present at all and might not have known how to react.

Although perhaps excused by inexperience, the moment he realized that there were people present and interested in participating in the Mass (as shown by his inquiry regarding Communion), he should have celebrated in such a manner that the people could hear him and take the parts proper to the assembly.

In this way the Mass as an action of the whole Church would have been manifested more clearly.

All that I have said up to now presupposes that the priest celebrated according to the ordinary Roman rite and in the vernacular.

If he was using the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, then he would have correctly celebrated Mass in a low voice and in Latin.

In the wake of our column on the rite of marriage (June 17), a reader from Malmo, Sweden, asked about a particular situation: "I know some married couples who converted from the Protestant 'church' to the Catholic Church; they had to be reconfirmed because their bishop isn't in line with the apostolic succession. (I've learned in the Catechism that only the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have kept the unbroken line of the apostolic succession.) My question is: What is the reason that they aren't remarried according to Catholic rite as well, since the priest/minister who married them isn't in line with apostolic succession?"

There are two basic reasons. First of all, according to traditional Catholic doctrine, the minister of the sacrament of matrimony is not the priest, deacon or other official witness. Rather, the bride and groom themselves act as ministers in bringing about the sacrament. The official rite of marriage and the presence of an ordained minister as official witness are canonical requirements for the validity of the sacrament under normal circumstances. Canon law, however, foresees some circumstances when a couple can validly marry without the presence of an ordained minister, although never without the presence of some witnesses.

Therefore, in the case at hand the Protestant minister's lack of apostolic succession is irrelevant to the sacramental validity of the wedding.

The second reason is closely related to the first. Catholic teaching is that any valid marriage between baptized Christians is ipso facto a sacramental bond, even among Christians who do not recognize matrimony as being among the seven sacraments. Thus if two validly wed Protestants become Catholic, there is usually no need to perform a new ceremony since the marriage is already fully sacramental.

It is necessary to repeat the wedding only if some circumstances strongly suggest that the original wedding might not be valid. But the marriage normally enjoys the presumption of validity.

For the same reason, when non-baptized spouses, joined in a valid natural marriage, are baptized, there is usually no reason to repeat the wedding, since the very fact of baptism automatically converts their natural bond into a sacramental unity. It is sufficient to note the fact of the sacramental marriage in the margin of the baptismal register.

Another reader asked about scheduling: "A wedding is scheduled to take place in our parish at our usual 6 p.m. Mass. Some few parishioners are upset about this and claim that weddings must be done at a separate Mass. Is this permissible? I should tell you that we are in a semirural community and our pastor, as with so many priests, must take care of two parishes."

There is no rule that weddings must be held in a separate Mass and, indeed, because the sacrament is not just a private event involving two families but a joy for the entire faith community, it is recommended that, on occasion, weddings be held during regular community Masses. The same principle holds for some other sacraments such as infant baptisms.

Although the practice is allowed, there are some restrictions regarding what prayers and readings may be used, depending on the liturgical season and particular feast days. For this reason it is not always possible to use the full ritual Mass and the readings of matrimony if joined to a regular Sunday Mass.

Since such a Mass is a bit longer than usual, the faithful should always be advised ahead of time so that those who need to can make alternative plans.

This is interesting. My husband wasn’t baptised when we were married in a Protestant service, and I’ve spent the last 15 years asking priests if we’re “really” married. Our priest in Broken Arrow did a “renewal of vows” and blessing for us, back before Pat was born, just to make me feel better.

These are good points. One of the reasons that the Novus Ordo was able to get in was that many priests celebrated the old mass badly. Complete silence was an abuse, because that meant the participants actually didn’t know if the priest was even saying the Mass. That’s why, even if a priest said most of it inaudibly, there were certain phrases (Te igitur, for example) that he was supposed to say aloud, not only to orient the congregation as to where he was at that moment, but to show that he was really saying it.

I would assume that this young priest was simply poorly trained.

There was a great post on Fr Z’s blog today about “The Hissing Lady,” btw. She’s the self-appointed monitor of behavior who drives people away from the TLM. Worth reading!

Yes, and she’s always willing to volunteer her child-rearing tips. We had a family with 11 children turn up at Mass last Sunday. The kids were well dressed and very well behaved; the baby and the toddler fussed a bit, but Dad took the baby out, so nobody really had any cause for complaining that their special devotional moments were being disrupted! However, on the way to Communion just behind the family, I heard the intentionally audible hissing about “all those children, you’d think they’d know better, look at that poor woman,” etc. The latter, by the way, was a very lovely woman in her 40s who seemed to be just fine and obviously had gotten skilled in ignoring the remarks.

I was disgusted and wanted to turn around and tell them that if more people had had 11 children a few years ago, we wouldn’t be having the problems we are now having in the Church. There’d be families that were still whole, priestly and religious vocations, and an entirely different culture.

... wanted to turn around and tell them that if more people had had 11 children a few years ago, we wouldn’t be having the problems we are now having in the Church

I wish you had, on behalf of all of us.

I don't find this attitude at the Spanish Mass. Maybe a congregation of (mainly) poor, immigrant families doesn't attract people with their noses in the air.

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