A Catholic Liturgy Classic of the Early 20th Century

 

Just recently (on a transatlantic flight) I had the joy of reading the 2022 enlarged reprint in English by Romanitas Press, Kansas City (4th edition, three previous by Herder) of the book by the French Benedictine monk, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B. “Catholic Liturgy: Its Fundamental Principles”, originally translated into English in 1924, from his work of 1920: “Liturgia: Ses Princips Fondamentaux”.

Don't mind if I simply recommend this work in all its parts. I read Chapter X The Divine Office with particular interest, for the good counsel it gives on praying the traditional Breviary. As an older man who has been praying the traditional Office for less than six years, it reassured me in the crisis to which I succumbed after previously reading advice by Pius Parsch suggesting the amount of Latin study which should go into a proper recitation of the psalms, not to mention the hymns of the Latin Breviary (Woe is me!).

Dom Gaspar is good all around, writing with balance and perspective, not to mention depth and eloquence. In this spirit, the monk's Chapter VII Holy Communion is unbeatable for description and analysis of the situation with the reform of the Communion fast, as it presented itself almost a 100 years ago. He helped me in particular to deal with a question posed to me by the Prior of the Benedictine Monastery in Norcia concerning an article he sent in reprint from a Sub Stack: "Ricostruire Montecassino. Dinamiche della pratica del digiuno eucaristico tra ricerca di Dio e ricerca di se'." posted by an anonymous author Clusinus on December 5, 2022.

Clusinus is right in contending that the present one hour fast before receiving Holy Communion is no fast at all, because of a Sunday, a lay person can leave the remainder of his double latte in the car and still have fasted an hour by Communion time, if he gets to church 15 minutes before Mass time and, as a good Catholic, sits toward the back. Clusinus despairs of any sort of restoration (whether of the three hours discipline of Pius XII or of an earlier practice of absolute fast from midnight before Communion). He argues from the reconstruction of the Abbey of Montecassino after its wartime destruction in a horrendous bombing during World War II. He maintains as do many others that the restoration of the historic monastery might have been accurate in most details but is spiritless. 

 I told the Prior of Norcia, that I agree with Clusinus that the old Communion fast is beyond restoration in the sense that fasting from everything including water from midnight on would provoke a scandal among the folks (accustomed to their water bottles, gum, and cough drops as they are) which would be hard to make salutary. Even so, for the sake of helping the cause of stirring up our faith in the Real Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, some kind effort to make receiving Holy Communion more deliberate has to be made.

One of my own suggestions, proposed by me at Forty Hours Devotions I have preached and in discussions with priests would be a return to the use of the Communion Rail, with Communion received kneeling (for those who are able) and most especially on the tongue. Oddly enough my argument has much to do with the Communion fast. Many people might leave the double latte out in the car, but they forget to get rid of their chewing gum. In bygone days (maybe?) that meant sticking your gum on the underside of the seat of the pew before marching up to Communion. While some still do that, as is evidenced by the church cleaning crews with their spatulas scraping the evidence off from time to time, Communion in the hand enables some of these offenders to just tuck their gum back in their cheek (think about it!).

I bet Dom Gaspar never faced such questions, but sadly we do. Even more tragically they take their toll on genuine faith in Christ truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI