domingo, 15 de julho de 2012

Concelebrated Mass—One or Many?

Concelebrated Mass—One or Many?

By “Etienne Raton”

(Nom de plume)

Cardinal Charles Journet once wrote, in an article in
Nova et Vetera, the following

words:

Allow me to say a word about concelebration. Let us imagine several persons

coming together to baptize simultaneously a little child. There would be several

baptizers but only one baptismal action,
plures baptizantes, una baptizatio. In

concelebration, one equally finds several “consecraters,”
plures ex aequo

consecrantes
, but only one consecrating action, una consecratio.1

The above words express an important theological fact regarding the Holy Mass, one

which is rooted in the teaching of the Magisterium and the theology of St. Thomas

Aquinas, and which is important for all to understand, namely the unicity of a

concelebrated Mass, indeed of any Mass.

The holy Cardinal Journet always had the good of God’s Church in the forefront of his

mind; his love for the Church was as a principle from which flowed all his priestly

activity, be it preaching retreats, hearing confessions or writing theological tracts. It was

this love of the Church which urged him to clarify this small but extremely important

point regarding the concelebrated Mass, a point which was and is still at times

misunderstood. Being a faithful disciple of the Angelic Doctor, Journet knew that a small

error made in the beginning often leads to a graver one later on; and hence he was quite

aware of the disastrous conclusions which would follow from a misunderstanding of this

seemingly insignificant point. Inspired by his efforts to proclaim sound teaching in this

area, we hope to present the Catholic doctrine,
ever ancient ever new, concerning the

unicity of a concelebrated Mass.

Perhaps one can begin by asking the question why anyone would think that a

concelebrated Mass is more than one Mass in the first place. From where would one

derive such an idea? There are a few possibilities. First, and that which is most often

used as a source, is the following sentence found in an allocution of Pope Pius XII:

There are as many actions of Christ as there are celebrating priests.
2
At first glance this

would seem to be a very clear proof that the Church holds for multiple Masses resulting

from a concelebration; but when read in context the words take on a different sense. The

pope is refuting here the error, common at the time, which states that the laity’s

participation at a Mass carries with it a value equal to that of the celebrating priest. The

pope stresses that the actions of Christ, the actual offering of the Holy Sacrifice, are

based on the celebrating priest’s liturgical actions and not the laity’s. The question of

multiple priests concelebrating was not the issue at hand.read...