While traveling recently, I went to Mass at two different parishes. Both liturgies were celebrated by the book. Both had a few genuinely uplifting moments. And yet, taken as a whole, they both felt flat.

I spent some time reflecting on why, if nothing was done wrong, the liturgies were uninspiring. The presiding was competent. The lectors read well. The musicians did their job. But it felt like each minister was doing their part without any obvious flow to and from the other parts of the liturgy. In both cases, the liturgies were not telling a single story. They felt disintegrated.

I doubt that a catechumen or any other newcomer to Mass would be able to detect that disintegration. They would simply feel bored, and maybe conclude that this is just the way Catholic worship is.

This is a problem for catechumenate ministry. If the liturgy is the privileged place of catechesis and a primary source for formation, it is crucial that the liturgy does what it is intended to do.

Competence vs. storytelling

For the liturgy to fully do what it is intended to do, it has to flow. It has to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. When the ministers of a liturgy don’t share a clear sense of what the Mass is doing — even though each of them still “does their job” competently — the one continuous flow is disrupted into a collection of disconnected pieces.

As catechumenate ministers, we probably can’t fix the disintegration of the liturgy. But what we can do is teach catechumens to perceive the integration that is there, even if it is not perfect. And we can help them, and ourselves, “fill in the blanks.” We can teach them what to focus on in the liturgy and how to recognize what’s working and not working.

What is liturgy actually for?

We’ve all sat through boring liturgy. Sometimes, it’s not the fault of the liturgy. Sometimes it’s us. We have to come to liturgy with the right attitude and some amount of preparation. Having the right attitude means not expecting to “get something” from the liturgy but rather to contribute our part.

The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 48)

Preparation means knowing what the liturgy expects of us and being prepared to offer our gifts to support the worship of the community.

We come to the liturgy to be caught up in something. The Cappadocian Fathers would say we are to be caught up into the sacred dance of the Trinity. The Western Church would say we are joining ourselves to the very self-offering of Jesus Christ to the Father.

The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy describes the goal of the eucharist in particular as coming together to praise God, to take part in Christ’s sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s Supper (see 48).

The Constitution goes further. It says the liturgy, “draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire” (10).

A sacrifice of praise

Sacrifice requires something of us. There is a cost. Think of a parent reading a bedtime story to their child. Imagine the end of a long work day, after having made dinner, gotten the child ready for bed, and barely being able to keep their eyes open. And then reading the story with real enthusiasm, using character voices, varying their pace as the story ebbs and flows. Wouldn’t be easier to just mumble through it and get to sleep?

For those of us that don’t have children, the bedtime story may not seem like much of a sacrifice. But the parents that that make the nightly effort might tell us differently. The Mass asks the same of us: hearts and minds attuned to voices, full and active participation, and the effort to be present even when we aren’t feeling it.

Through that kind of seemingly small sacrifice, we join with Christ’s ultimate sacrifice on the Cross in the liturgy, which the Constitution describes as “a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us” (47).

Giving and receiving

The Mass is a sacrifice, and it is also “a paschal banquet” where we are fed. We bring what we have, and we receive back so much more than we brought. This giving and receiving of gift — offering and being fed — is not only the story of Jesus. It is the story of the church. Just as Christ gave his Body and Blood as nourishment for the world, when we share in Communion, our “amen” is a promise to share our own body and blood with those most in need.

Filling in the blanks

When we understand the story-flow of the liturgy — especially eucharistic liturgy — we become like the child hearing the bedtime story. The more we hear the story, the more we learn the characters, lines, climaxes, and flow of the story.

When a parent tries to skip a page or two, the child will often stop them, forcing them to go back to read the missing part. Similarly, when the liturgy is not well integrated and the story is not flowing, we can fill in the blanks ourselves because we know what the story is supposed to be.

This is the place where catechumenate ministers can have influence. We cannot control who reads at Mass, how well the choir is rehearsed, or whether the presider is skilled in his role. But we can help our catechumens come to Mass already knowing the story so that even a liturgy that doesn’t flow well still has the possibility of setting them on fire!

We cannot control who reads at Mass, how well the choir is rehearsed, or whether the presider is skilled in his role.

But we can help our catechumens come to Mass already knowing the story so that even a liturgy that doesn’t flow well still has the possibility of setting them on fire!

Training catechumens to catch the flow

When a liturgy seems disintegrated, it is usually because one or more of four “elements” of the liturgy is out of sync. The four elements are word, music, movement, and environment. By helping our catechumens understand how each of these is supposed to work, we can help them fill in the blanks for liturgies that are not flowing well.

Word

The prayers, readings, and psalm of a given Sunday are not selected at random — they usually echo and illuminate one another. Every word in the liturgy, from the opening prayer to the dismissal, is meant to move the assembly along a single story arc with a beginning, middle, and end.

What to prepare: Encourage catechumens to read the Sunday readings — and even the opening prayer (the Collect) — ahead of time. Once they’ve seen the thread connecting the readings to the prayers once, they’ll start listening for it every week, even when the lector’s delivery is flat.

Music

Liturgical music serves one purpose — enabling the assembly’s full, conscious, active participation in offering praise. The key criteria for a liturgical song is if the assembly can sing it and actually does.

What to prepare: After Mass, make note of which songs your catechumens actually sang and why. Was it the melody, the familiarity, the range? When a song works, make a point of thanking the musicians and telling them specifically why it worked. Ask the catechumens to thank them as well. This helps the catechumens begin to understand the role of music in the liturgy and reinforces with the musicians what serves the assembly.

Movement

Standing, kneeling, walking, processing all help tell the story. The lector’s walk to the ambo isn’t just getting from point A to point B; it announces, by their very presence moving through the assembly, that something momentous is about to happen.

What to prepare: Teach catechumens the meaning behind the postures and processions. Connect the movements at Mass to other movements in their lives, such as at sporting events, shopping centers, family gatherings, or getting through an airport. For example, what is similar and different about standing when the “fasten seat belt” sign goes off after landing and when we stand for the final blessing at Mass?

Environment

The shape and quality of the worship space and its symbols — the altar, the ambo, the font, the Paschal candle, the vessels — either help or hinder the story being told, whether or not catechumens can name why.

What to prepare: Since catechumens can’t change the space, teach them to read it critically and mystagogically. What does the placement of the altar say about what happens there? What does the material of the ambo say about the weight of the Word proclaimed from it? Just asking these and similar questions and teaching the catechumens how to ask them is itself formative.

What’s at stake

This “filling in the blanks” strategy is not a substitute for well-celebrated liturgy that flows seamlessly through a story arc. Every parish has a responsibility to celebrate compelling liturgy that sets the community on fire.

But we cannot wait for perfect liturgy to form disciples who can enter into it with their full head, heart, and body. We have to find ways to form catechumens to enter fully into the celebration of the liturgy, even when liturgy is not at its best.

If we help our catechumens learn the story the liturgy is telling — and how to fill in the blanks when necessary — we give them something no individual presider, musician, or lector can deprive them of. We give them the ability to be drawn, every time, into the sacrifice of praise, and set on fire.