SHOULD PUBLIC DEVOTIONS precede the Sunday Eucharist? With the outbreak of hostilities in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, one parish I know of began the practice of a pre-Sunday-Mass recitation of the rosary as a prayer for peace. And this practice continued past the end of formal hostitilies. Before the Gulf War, Sunday eucharistic celebrations in this parish had been preceded by time for community building and a musical warm-up. Now that time has been pre-empted.
Liturgical prayer is an act of the whole church, the family of God united together in Christ. Individuals participate in liturgy as members of the whole. Devotions, on the other hand, even when prayed by a group of people, are acts of individuals, distinct from liturgical prayer. That distinction between liturgy and devotions is true even of practices that once served to supplement or replace weak forms of liturgy, as A. G. Martimort has noted: "The problem of the relationship between the liturgy and devotions arose from the very beginning of the liturgical movement. The devotions had often been more popular than the liturgy. Most of these devotions had in fact been intended as replacements for liturgy, for example, the little office or the rosary." [1]
That distinction, however, is not clear to many people, who tend to see any ritual actions performed in the church building as more or less equally "official." And especially when a practice such as reciting the rosary is done right before Mass begins, it makes that event seem to be the official beginning of Mass.
Even though these popular devotions were growing less popular before and during the Second Vatican Council, [2] they were still widely used by a sizeable population, and even the Vatican had to keep repeating the distinction between liturgy and devotions in official statements. [3]
The public celebration of devotions such as praying the rosary, juxtaposed to the beginning of the liturgy, especially the Sunday eucharist, for whatever excellent reason the practice is begun, raises another issue: There is an incongruity between what we claim the liturgy is for Catholic Christians and an invitation to pray the rosary in public just before the liturgy begins.
2. When this preparation time is replaced with a recitation of the rosary, something very important is taken away. The devotion takes up or intrudes into a very valuable time that each of us needs to become part of the gathering assembly. Jesus is calling the people together; he is not a devotional object for isolated individuals. (And what is true of Jesus at this moment is also true of his mother.) Our gathering together is what the eucharist is all about -- to make us one in Christ. As Joseph Gelineau wrote, "On Pentecost the disciples of Jesus 'had all gathered together.' From this assemby the church was born. There is no church (= convening of a group, gathering together) without an assembly." [5]
And the process of coming into the building, getting our bearings, greeting each other, preparing for worship, even before the "official" beginning of the ritual, has that same goal: to make us one in Christ. Preparation for worship cannot be cut off from the rest of the liturgy; particularly, as Jean Lebon says, "We should not neglect this process [of forming the community] if we believe that assembly is the first sign [of Christ's sacramental presence]." [6] That process consists in more than simply gathering a group of people together in a room. Michael Henchal tells us that the process makes us something new: "[It] means that we have passed over from being just a crowd to being community." [7] But we need time to become community, especially in those parishes that are so large that it's hard to feel like we belong.
3. My third objection to the public praying of the rosary as a form of intercession for particular needs (such as peace in the Persian Gulf) is that it duplicates that petitionary parts of the eucharist. The penitential rite, the general intercessions, and the eucharistic prayer all contain petitionary elements; in the general intercessions, especially, we pray for our general and specific needs as well as the things that burden our hearts.
In the past, Marian devotions have lent themselves to an exaggerated view of Mary's role in the mystery of salvation and in the lives of Christians today. Anthony Wilhem says that, even today, "some people tend to regard Mary in isolation from the church as one who grants favors in her own right."[8] The liturgy keeps things in perspective, by placing the commemoration of the Mary and the other saints during the eucharistic prayer, for instance, within the commemoration of the mystery of Christ. A prayer life built around the expectations and images of the liturgy keeps us focused on what is important, and when devotions intrude into that perspective, they bring with them the risk of a distorted vision of Christinity and its role in the world.
[1] A. G. Martimort, ed., The Church at Prayer, Volume 1: Principles of the Liturgy, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1983, p. 13.
[2] Andrew Greeley has noted that "most of those things which were called popular devotions weren't all that popular ... The people were no longer interested because these devotions did not respond to their religious needs." A. Greeley, The Catholic Why? Book, Chicago, IL: The Thomas More Press, 1983, p. 30.
[3] The contemporary official attempt to draw a line between liturgy and devotions began with the [Roman Catholic] 1955 reform of the Holy Week services. The official commentary on these revised and restored rites stated: "The faithful are to be taught the incomparable value of liturgy, which ... is by nature far superior to other kinds of devotional practices, excellent though these are." Quoted in Martimort, The Church at Prayer 1:1-4.
[4] Eugene A. Walsh, S.S., The Order of Mass: Guidelines, Glendale, AZ: Pastoral Arts Associates, 1979, p. 19.
[5] Joseph Gelineau, Learning to Celebrate, The Mass and its Music, translated by Mary Anselm Grover, SNJM, Washington, DC: The Pastoral Press, 1985, p. 5.
[6] Jean Lebon, How to Understand the Liturgy, translated by Margaret Lydamore and John Bowen, New York: Crossroad, 1988, p. 93.
[7] Michael Henchal, Sunday Worship in Your Parish, West Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1980, p. 34.
[8] Anthony Wilhelm, Christ Among Us, Mahwah, NJ: The Paulist Press, 1981, p. 396.
1992 Bio: Fran Begonja, author of this article, is a student of liturgy who recently moved to Kirkland, WA. She has served as a Eucharistic Minister and Liturgy Committee Member is various parishes in Maryland and Nebraska.
2002 Bio: Since this essay was written, Fran has studied for orders and now serves as a a priest-presbyter in The Apostolic Catholic Church in America. Her pastoral activities these past several years has been mainly in the areas of street ministry, womens ministry and healing ministry.
THE COMMUNITY AT PRAYER
First, this public practice takes away the time for other forms of personal reflection and private devotions that individuals might use to prepare themselves for the community's action. Second, it takes away the community's opportunity to form itself for worship. As the late Eugene Walsh reminded us:
A preparation period should become a regular expectation of the parish communtity for every Sunday Mass. The community needs to come to regard this period as a necessary and welcome time for preparing themselves to worship and pray together. Such a period is essential if we claim to be serious about the role of the celebrating community. Not to have such a period is to give a clear sign that the people's ministry at Sunday Mass is really not very important. It is a way of declaring that the people of the celebrating community are second-class citizens. [4]
ANY PLACE FOR DEVOTIONS?
Is there a place for public, devotional prayer in the worship life of the church? Yes, but it should not intrude on or replace the necessary time that the community needs to form itself into the sacrament of Christ's presence. Devotions respond to personal and group needs for certain forms of prayer, but especially when they are celebrated in public ways in the parish's space for communal ritual, the should conform, as much as possible, to the structure of the liturgy. As the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (#13) put the matter: "These devotions should be so fashioned that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some way derived from it, and lead the people to it, since in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them."
NOTES
This courtesy page last updated 10 Sept. 2002.
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