What do you feel at Mass?

I am not one ordinarily to dwell on a question of emotion. There are any number of better questions one might ask about the Mass. "What do you think of the Mass?" "What is the meaning of the Mass?" Even "What does the Mass mean to you"? Nevertheless, there is something about this question of feeling that may be significant as well.

How does assisting at Mass make you feel? I know that as much as I have always loved the Mass, it was not until my first-hand discovery of the classic form of the Roman Rite that I have found myself consistently looking forward to the experience. Many of you would probably empathize if I mentioned the fact that I have for many years greeted the prospect of Sunday morning Mass with a mixture of anxiety and even dread. There was too much of what Martin Mosebach describes as the experience of going to Church to find God and coming away a theater critic.

Trying to suppress tears during the Asperges at St. Albertus today, I tried to sort out the mixture of emotions that has made my more recent experience different. What is it that I now experience? What does it mean? Is it joy? Yes, but something also heavier. Something not unmixed with sorrow at the tragedy of human sin that gives rise to the need for cleansing: "Asperges me, Domine, hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor" ("Thou shalt sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall become whiter than snow").

This mixture of emotions is rooted, I believe, in the mystery of the Sacred Heart into which one is profoundly drawn in this Mass. There is no artificial touch of the "happy-clappy" here. There is no mistaking the congregation itself for the focus of attention, or of thinking that we are here to evaluate the presiding priest as a performer for his ability to entertain or engage us. Partisans of the usus antiquior often describe the liturgy as "beautiful"; but this gets at only a half truth, for the heart of our Faith involves a reality that elicits conflicting emotions. Both agony and ecstasy, joy and sorrow, beauty and horror lie at the heart of the Christian mystery. This mystery is symbolized precisely in the beauty and horror of the crucifix: the instrument of redemption is also a hideous instrument of execution. "O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem" ("O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer").

Various Protestants who visit the Catholic Mass are sometimes puzzled that the congregation sometimes exhibits so little "joyful enthusiasm" such as they are often accustomed to in their own services (although there are exceptions in some Catholic parishes that seem to be adopting certain Protestant strategies for generating that affect). It may be true, as some may worry, that the lack of "joyful enthusiasm" could be due to the spiritual deadness of many Catholics. Yet it could also be due to the fact that what many Catholics experience at Mass is more profound and complex than what can be easily captured in a smiling happy face. The emotion is far closer to what is expressed in the face of our Blessed Mother in Michelangelo's Pieta. It is neither happy confidence nor abject despair. It is neither joy nor simple sorrow. It is the expression of a mother grieving over the death of her beloved son, but also with a touch of quiet expectancy: she is profoundly aware in the midst of her grief that God's mystery of redemption is being worked out through this horror. Michelangelo deftly captures this in his masterpiece. There is nothing here of the Buddy Christ of Catholicism Wow!