Why I’m Catholic (Reason 14)
From Dave Armstrong’s list:
Catholicism retains the elements of mystery, supernatural, and the sacred in Christianity, thus opposing itself to secularization, where the sphere of the religious in life becomes greatly limited.
I mentioned Mass rites previously, and it serves to note that I have also talked about, at various times, my preference for the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom over that of Pope Paul VI. There’s many reasons for this, but it chiefly has to do with exactly what Armstrong is getting at, above — for me, at least, the Chrysostom liturgy (especially when I catch it in Ukrainian) better reflects the sense of mystery that one should necessarily find in the Catholic faith, and thus heightens the sense of the supernatural and the sacred that should necessarily imbue the Mass.
Not that the Paul VI rite lacks these things entirely, of course — I’m no Rad Trad. But I do find I struggle to discern them more in a Paul VI Mass than in a Chrysostom Mass. Part of that has to do with the formality of the affair; the Paul VI Mass is more informal. Part of it also has to do with the overall symbolism; churches which typically offer non-Paul VI Masses tend to be more decorated with icons and candles, and the vestments of the priest(s), acolyte(s), and altar server(s) tend to be more elaborate. And it’s through such details at this that I find I hear God most clearly, through the symbols and gestures, the majesty and the humility, the transcendental mystery of all these little outward signs.
And when I can’t understand the language of the Mass, that adds even more to the experience, because it hammers home the sense that God is, to someone so merely human as myself, utterly incomprehensible to me save by His own good grace. Not that I think bringing the Mass to people in their common tongue is a bad thing, by any means…but I do wonder if sometimes, something wasn’t lost in the translation.
