Fr Godfrey Carney's Catechism on the Mass

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

A short Catechism of the Mass
By Father Godfrey Carney

Fr Godfrey Carney

A Brief History of the Return of the Traditional Mass in the Archdiocese of Liverpool

Introduction by Bishop Fulham

Fr Godfrey Carney is a priest of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, (my home diocese,) who although well into his nineties is still serving as a priest of the diocese. Father was ordained a priest in 1934 and to date (yes he's still living) has been a priest 61 years.

I have had the singular privilege of assisting at many of Father's Masses and receiving Holy Communion from this saintly priest. With a delightful brogue which betrays his Irish origins, Fr Carney has served in various parishes in the Archdiocese throughout his more than six decades as a priest.

I know a lady on the west coast of the United States who remembers Father as a curate in her parish when she was a little girl (and that was many years ago now !). The last time she was home she told me ("he's still going strong !"). Many years, Father !

Father Carney resides at St. John's, Fountains Road, Kirkdale, Liverpool (pictured on the right). The last Mass I saw Father celebrate was Ash Wednesday1995 in the Lady Chapel at this Church. He preached movingly and simply (his simplicity in preaching is most endearing) about the hidden ness of penance during Lent

Father's undying love for the Traditional Mass was palpable each time I attended his moving celebrations of that Rite. He was one of the first priests that flew to Rome in 1988 to obtain a celebret for the Traditional Mass from the Ecclesia Dei Commission and began saying the Traditional Mass at 11.30 am at St. John's every Sunday thereafter.

The then Archbishop Derek Worlock, much opposed to the Traditional Mass, eventually moved the Indult Mass to St Mary's Highfield Street, the oldest continuous parish in the Archdiocese, which was demolished in 2003. St Mary's was the home parish of my paternal grandparents and consequently the parish my Father grew up in. It was so moving to attend Sunday Mass for over a year of my life, literally in the parish where the "Faith of my Fathers" was practiced. I still remember the experience of someone playing the carillon bells as I arrived for Mass one spring Morning as the theme tune from the 1940s film The Bells of St Mary's starring Bing Crosby as Fr O'Malley was ringing out over the neighborhood.

The original neo-Gothic church (designed by Augustus Wellby Pugin) was destroyed by German bombing during the 1940 blitz. To this day My father recalls the desperate attempts by parishioners with buckets of water to salvage their church.

After the war, a new Church was built according to the modernistic architectural styles then in vogue amongst the Benedictines (since St Mary's was for a long time staffed by that order) and was opned in 1953. With urban depopulation in the 1970s and 1980s the original parishioners were relocated out of the parish and St Mary's was unfortunately demolished in 2003.

The Indult Mass is now offered at St Anthony's on Scotland Road with the gracious permission of the current Archbishop who actually celebrated the Mass for the community several years ago - the winds of change certainly swept through the Archdiocese after 1996 !

The following catechism (originally appearing in Fr Paul Crane's Christian Order) is a beautiful explanation of the Traditional Mass. (+TF)

St John's Church

St John's Fountains Road - to which the Traditional Mass returned in 1988 through the labor's of Fr Carney

St Mary's Highfield Street May Procession

Abbot Lightbound OSB at the Dedication of the
newly rebuilt St Mary's.

St Mary's just prior to demolition in 2003.
I attended Mass at this Church from 1993 - 1995

Q. What is a sacrifice?
A. A sacrifice is the offering of a Victim to God by a priest to acknowledge that God is the Supreme Being, the Creator of all things.

Q. What is a Victim?
A. A Victim is the thing that is offered. Often in the Old Law (before Christ) it was an animal, killed, and its blood poured on the altar by the priest. The people who gave the animal were saying by this to God - "The animal represents us, it represents all creation. We give it to You to show that we give You ourselves, that we are Yours, that everything is Yours". In this act there is adoration, thanksgiving, pleading for forgiveness, pleading for help for soul and body. The Victim was often eaten afterwards in a ritual meal. These sacrifices were offered for many centuries in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Q. Did Christ abolish all that?
A. It is more true to say that He fulfilled all that. Those old Covenant acts were foreshadows of the new and everlasting Covenant. At the Jewish Passover Supper, before His passion began, He lifted all those sacrifices up into His own Sacrifice when He made the Mass.

Q. What is the Mass?
A. The Mass is the Sacrifice of Jesus on the cross offered up continually under appearances of bread and wine. It is the final perfect sacrifice.

Q. Are there a number of Rites of the Mass?
A. Yes, quite a number. In the Eastern Church - that means in Greece, Egypt, the Middle East, and further north - there are various rites of the Mass - the Greek rite, the Byzantine Rite, the Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and others. In the Western Church (with few variations) - the Roman Rite.

Q. Why are they different?
A. They developed that way from the beginning of Christianity. Different places, slow travelling, slow communications, different languages. But the same Mass. The same essential act of worship.

Q. What is the essential act?
A. The essential act in the Mass is the redeeming Sacrifice of Jesus Christ which He offered once on the Cross of Calvary, and which He continues to offer through the priest at the altar under the appearances of bread and wine for the living and the dead.

Q. Do all rites look alike?
A. They don't look the same, but there is the same general structure in every rite, the same broad outline - the Offertory, the Consecration, and the Communion.

Q. What is the Offertory?
A. The Offertory is the first part of the Sacrifice proper. It is an integral part of the Mass. The priest offers the bread and wine to God the Father - the bread and wine that will be changed into Jesus' Body and Blood when the Consecration comes. Now, everyone present can give themselves in that act of offering. Jesus will transform those gifts at the Consecration. He will join us then, and we will join Him, and become one with Him in His great Redeeming Act.

Q. What is the Consecration?
A. The Consecration is the centre point, the climax, the very heart of the Mass. At that moment the bread and wine are changed in being, changed into Christ Himself, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. There is no change in colour or shape or touch or taste. All those "bread and wine" appearances remain the same. It is the inner essence - the substance - that changes, changes from being bread and wine into being the Body and Blood of Christ. This change is called transubstantiation.

Q. Do we see this change?
A. No. This is a hidden change, from one hidden thing into another hidden thing. The inner reality, the substance, of every material thing is always hidden from our senses, hidden from all experiment. Chemical analysis does not touch substance. The mind knows substance. The senses only contact the outward appearances, "the messages", that comes to the senses - colour, sound, taste, and so on. The change at the Consecration is a change of substance, and Christ is present in the way of substance.

Q. After the Consecration, what remains of the bread and wine?
A. Only the appearances, the "messages" to the senses, the external reactions. The substance, the real thing there, is Jesus Christ.

Q. How can Christ become so small?
A. Christ is there "substantially", that is, in the way in which substance is present in anything at all. Substance has nothing at all to do with size. A tiny crumb of bread, a tiny drop of wine, is just as truly bread, and as truly wine, as all the bread and wine in the world. We believe in this hidden change because the words of Christ Who is God Almighty, Who made the universe from nothing. We don't know how God did that, but He did it. We don't know how He does this, but by His words we know He does it.

Q. What words?
A. The words which Christ spoke over the bread and wine at the Last Supper the night before He was crucified. These words have some small variations in different Gospels and different rites, but the following is a summing of the words - "Take ye and eat. This is my Body given up for you. Drink of this. This is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the New and everlasting Covenant. It will be shed for you and for many, so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in remembrance of Me". If these words mean what they say, then that change of substance takes place. Christ clearly meant what He said.

Q. It's hard to believe, isn't it?
A. It is. The people who were there when Christ promised to do it found it hard. So hard that they walked away and left Him. And He didn't try to stop them and explain away the hard saying. He must have meant it. The gift of Faith helps us to believe.

Q. Christ could do it. But how can the priest do it?
A. By his own personal power, the priest, of course, cannot do it. But when he was ordained he was given a share in the mighty Priesthood of Christ. He was empowered to speak at the altar, in the Person, and character of Christ. Christ ordained the Apostles, and all priests, when He added at the Last Supper the words - "DO THIS, IN MEMORY OF ME". Christ commanded and thereby gave the power. Christ makes this great change, using the priest's voice and actions. Christ does it, through the priest.

Q. Apart from the change, what else happens?
A. Christ is really present. He is present in a posture of sacrifice, both Priest and Victim. "This is my Body given up for you. This is my Blood, shed for you". The Cross and the Mass and the Last Supper are one and the same action, done by the same person - Christ Our Lord.

Q. Does Christ die again in the Mass?
A. No. He died once on the Cross. He dies no more, but His act of loving self-surrender, His Act of Sacrifice for us, goes on at every Mass in a real living way. He is there really and truly, making Calvary present before us, and before every generation until the end of the world.

Q. Why the separate consecration of His Body and Blood?
A. His Body and Blood are not really separated. In His death on Calvary they were separated. But He rose to life. He lives. That is why it is not necessary to receive Him under both appearances. We receive the complete Christ under one appearance. The priest has to receive under both appearances in order to complete the sacrifice. But, in the separate consecration, we are given a vivid sign of death. The Mass reminds us of the Death of Christ for us. St. Paul puts it like this - "As often as you do this (that is, the Mass), you shall show forth the death of the Lord until He comes again".

Q. Does this add anything to Christ's sacrifice on the Cross?
A. No. It is the same sacrifice. It is not a repetition of Calvary. Christ is a Priest forever. He is a Victim forever. His priestly Act goes on forever. The Mass makes it present to us. The Mass applies its power to our souls.

Q. The Communion - what is that?
A. It is the last part of the Mass. The priest receives Our Lord, and gives Him to the people. Christ lives in us as Food, to strengthen our souls with His Divine Life, to be one with us in love, to unite us to Him and to each other. "Communion" means "Many united in One".

Q. What must we do to prepare to receive Him like this?
A. We must be baptised Catholics. We must be freed from mortal sin by a genuine Confession beforehand. We must be fasting for one hour. We must be in the right frame of mind - believing, hoping, loving, reverent, and humbly thankful for such a Wondrous Gift.

Q. About the language. Is Latin forbidden in the Mass at present?
A. Certainly not. The New Rite of Pope Paul VI was issued from Rome in Latin (1970). It can be said either in Latin or in the language of the country. The Second Vatican Council explicitly states that Latin must be preserved in the Mass.

Q. That is the Tridentine Mass?
A. That is a name given nowadays to the Old Rite of Latin Mass which developed in the Western Church (the Latin Church). That Ancient Rite was revised and ordered for all the Latin Church by Pope Pius V. He did this, following on the great reforming Council of Trent in the 16th century. The word "Tridentine" is from the Latin "Tridentinus", an adjectival word, descriptive, referring to the town of Trent in Northern Italy in which the Council was held - "The Tridentine Council".

Q. What was the Mass like before that?
A. In the beginning, very simple, in various languages. In Latin from about the fourth century, it grew up with variations in different parts of Europe. Gradually the order of Mass used in Rome at the Pope's Mass, spread and influences the rest of Europe. Pope Pius V trimmed it and unified it so that the Catholic anywhere in the Western world heard the same Latin sounds wherever he worshipped.

Q. What was the situation before the Fourth Century?
A. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire which covered all the Mediterranean lands and all Western Europe. But in the early centuries Greek was also spoken in the West. The Gospels and Epistles were written in Greek. Greek was used as the language of worship. The Mass in the West was in Greek in the very early centuries for a time. Gradually Latin took over. The 'Kyrie Eleison' - ('Lord have mercy') is part of a Greek Litany still in the Mass. There was never a sudden change. From very simple beginnings the Mass grew, variations coming and going, but a natural organic growth.

Q. So Roman influence prevailed?
A. Ultimately yes. Rome being the centre of the Church, and the Holy Apostolic See of Peter, had a unifying influence on the whole Church in Faith and Morals, but also in ways of worship. "The law of praying is the law of believing".

Q. Why Latin nowadays? A "dead" language?
A. Latin is old and beautiful and sacred and unchanging in meaning. It is a lovely heritage handed down to us. It safeguards the Holy of Holies from profanation and abuse. It makes for awe and reverence and mystery surrounding the Mystery of Faith. It unifies the whole Church. It makes us feel "at home" in all countries. It is a language sanctified by the holy use of centuries of Saints and Martyrs. It is a lovely veil that covers and yet enhances and radiates the Mystery of our Redemption. To throw it away is a great mistake.

Q. What is the Canon of the Mass?
A. "Canon" means something fixed, permanent, a rule. The Canon of the Mass is the central Eucharistic Prayer surrounding the Consecration itself.

Q. How old is the Canon?
A. The Canon is the oldest part of the Roman Mass. We have a description of it written by St. Ambrose in Milan in the 4th century. Its wording is very much the same as the Roman Canon is today. Obviously it was still old in St. Ambrose's day.

Q. Would you describe the Canon in the Mass today.
A. The Canon begins with the Preface, which is an introductory Prayer of thanksgiving and praise ending with the 'Sanctus', and angels' cry of praise in Heaven. Then the Canon itself leads up to the Consecration with beautiful pleadings through Christ to the Father, that He accept the sacrifice. We pray for the Church, the Pope, the Bishop, for all here present, for all the living. We unite ourselves with our Blessed Mother Mary and St. Joseph, and with all the apostles and Martyrs and all the Saints. The priest spreads his hands over the bread and wine, calling down the Holy Spirit of God and His power. Then he acts and speaks the words of Christ at the Last Supper, and the Great Change takes place and Christ is present and Christ's Sacrifice is present from then on.
The prayers continue, recalling His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension, and offering this most Holy, Pure, Spotless Victim to the Eternal Father, asking Him to accept this offering. We pray for the Dead. We plead that we sinners may be allows, through God's mercy, to join the company of the Saints and Martyrs. All this we plead for through Christ Our Lord, and to finish the Canon the priest holds up Christ's Body and Blood in a gesture of sacrifice, saying: "Through Him, with Him, in Him, is given to You, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen".

Q. What happens then?
A. Then the Communion begins at once with the Lord's own Prayer - the "Pater Noster" - the "Our Father".

Q. What happens before the Canon?
A. The Offertory. The priest offers the bread and wine to God, speaking of them already as sacred gifts, dedicated to the most sublime purpose of the sacrifice. Then he turns to the people and says, "Orate Fratres" - "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father". And for this the people pray also.

Q. Why does the say my sacrifice and yours? Why not our sacrifice?
A. We all share by Baptism in the priesthood of Christ. We all can, and should, offer ourselves as baptised members of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, giving our lives and activities to the Father with Christ, putting our lives into the Mass, and putting the Mass into our lives. That is the wonderful way in which we can become part of this sublime Act. But the priest at the altar has received another Sacrament - Holy Order. He is a minister of Christ. He has the power of acting in the person of Christ as he says the words of Consecration and so brings about the change, and the sacrifice is present. So the words "My sacrifice and yours" show that vital distinction. Without an ordained priest, there could be no Mass.

Q. What happens before the Offertory?
A. That is called the "Fore-Mass", or, the "Mass of Catechumens" or, "The Liturgy of the Word". It centres rounds the Bible. Two reads from the scriptures - the Epistle, read on the right hand side of the altar (the south side) and the Gospel, read on the left hand side (the north side).

Q. Why is the Book taken across after the Epistle to the other side of the altar?
A. One reason, the Gospel of Christ is read on the north side of the church with the priest facing towards the north, because in former times the north was considered to be the pagan area and not yet converted. Another is that it is a symbol of the changeover from the Old Testament to the New, from the Old Law to the New Law, from Moses to Christ, from the synagogue to the Catholic Church.

Q. What follows the Gospel?
A. On Sundays and Holydays, usually a sermon. Then the Nicene Creed just before the Offertory.

Q. Why was the first part (the reading and preaching) called the Mass of the Catechumens?
A. Because in the earlier centuries, the catechumens, that is, converts under instruction in the Faith, met for the Bible reading and preaching, and having responded with the creed, they were blessed and sent away. Only baptised Christians could stay on to join in the Sacrifice.

Q. Why does the priest kiss the altar and genuflect often and make the signs of the Cross over the host and chalice?
A. To show reverence for the place of sacrifice, for the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, to express the supreme holiness of this great act of worship. For the same reasons, the people kneel for Holy Communion and receive Our Lord on the tongue.

Q. Is the altar not also a table? Is the Mass not also a Holy Meal?
A. Yes. The Communion of the Mass is a Holy Meal coming from the Last Supper, a Sacred Banquet in which Christ is received, and from that aspect we can think of the altar as the table of the Lord. But the Mass is first and foremost, the sacrifice of the cross.

Q. Why doesn't the priest face the people in the Old Rite?
A. The priest and people face in the same direction. They face towards the East, where the Sun rises. Jesus is the Sun of Justice. He rose from the dead on Easter Morning as the Sun rose in the East. That has always been the way. Both priest and people faced God together. In fact, in the New Rite, there is no law which commands the priest to face the people. The Pope does not face the people when he says Mass in his private chapel in the Vatican.

Q. What about the Introit, the Gradual psalm, the Offertory Verse, and the Communion Verse?
A. These are psalms or part of psalms. They are often sung in Plain Chant at High Mass. They became shortened in time to one verse or two, with a repeated response called an 'antiphon'. The "Introit" ("he goes in") at the beginning of Mass was an entrance psalm sung as the priest went in procession to the altar in large churches. The "Gradual" - a psalm between the Epistle and the Gospel, was sung on the step below the Gospel platform. "Gradus" means "a step".

Q. What is said at the beginning of Mass at the foot of the altar steps?
A. Priest and servers say alternatively Psalm 42. It is most appropriate. One verse sets the tone for the whole Mass. This verse is set at the start of the psalm, repeated in its own proper place within the psalm itself, and again at the end of the psalm. This is the famous - "Intriobo ad altare Dei" - "I will go to the altar of God: to God who gives joy to my youth". Then before he mounts the altar, priest and people confess that they are sinners and ask for pardon by saying the 'Confiteor".

Q. Why is it called "Mass"?
A. This word "Mass" is from the Latin word "Missa". Before he gives the final blessing, the priest says to the people 'Ite, missa est' which means "Go, it is the dismissal" or "Go, you are sent". Somehow or other the word "Missa" became the short name for the whole great Action. A good reason for this is that the people are being told - "You have met Christ in His saving Sacrifice, you may have received Him into your souls. Now just as He said to His Apostles, "Go, teach all nations", so, you are now sent to take Christ with you to your homes, and wherever you go. You are sent on a mission. You are missionaries, apostles, of Christ.

Q. The Last Gospel. Why and what is it?
A. After he has given the final blessing, the priest goes to the north side again to read the Last Gospel. This actually is the start of the Gospel of St. John. It was once part of the thanksgiving after Mass. It reminds us as we read it, that the Eucharist is truly a continuation of the Incarnation itself. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and the Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth".
The Mass contains the whole of the sublime Mystery of the Redemption. The ancient Latin Rite is a masterpiece to be cherished.

Q. This account of the Ancient Roman Rite is rather jumbled, it hops to and fro, doesn't it?
A. We want to give a portrait, not just a photograph of what the Mass means. Jesus is there, Himself. He is doing the Act, making the great Change, giving Himself in the act of the cross, and giving Himself to us in love. We must centre everything in the Consecration, the very heart of the matter. The Consecration is like the verb in the sentence. It gives life and meaning to all that goes before it, and to all that comes after it. The Mass grew outward from the Consecration.