ARTICLES

"Please Remain Standing"

WHY IS THE BISHOP VIOLATING EUCHARISTIC PRAYER NORMS?

By Anne Knight

At This Year's Diocesan ordination Mass May 29, the congregation stood throughout the Eucharistic Prayer. So said Mary Ann Simard, a member of St. John the Evangelist church in Encinitas, where the Mass was held. She said Bishop Brom, always the main celebrant at ordinations, did not orally instruct the congregation on whether to stand or kneel. However, the Mass booklet for the occasion contains the following instruction: "Please remain standing during the remainder of the Eucharistic Prayer."

This was not the first time Simard had witnessed the congregation standing during the Eucharistic Prayer at San Diego diocesan ordinations. She has attended them for seven consecutive years and, as far as she recalled, the same thing occurred each year since 1995, when the ordination Mass was held at St. Michael church in Poway. Simard provided 1995 and 1998 ordination Mass booklets to News Notes. Both contain the same instruction to stand during the Eucharistic Prayer.

Two years ago, at an ordination at Our Mother of Confidence church in University City, when Simard saw the congregation standing during the consecration, she said to the people near her, "This is the consecration. We're supposed to be kneeling." One woman answered, "The bishop wants us to stand." Simard said this response left her incredulous.

Other local Catholics have heard the bishop specifically ask the congregation to remain standing during the Eucharistic Prayer. "He did at the chrism Mass last year at the Immaculata," said a parishioner of St. Mary Magdalene parish in Bay Park. "I knelt anyway."

Number 21 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, included in the Sacramentary, stipulates the following regarding the congregation's posture at Mass:

"They should kneel at the consecration unless prevented by the lack of space, the number of people present, or some other good reason. But it is up to the conference of bishops to adapt the actions and postures described in the Order of the Roman Mass to the customs of the people. But the conference must make sure that such adaptations correspond to the meaning and character of each part of the celebration."

The Sacramentary also contains an "Appendix to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal," Number 21 of which states: "At its meeting in November, 1969, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops voted that, in general, the directives of the Roman Missal concerning the posture of the congregation at Mass should be left unchanged, but that No. 21 of the General Instruction should be so adapted so that the people kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, that is, before the Lord's Prayer." In 1995 the U.S. bishops reaffirmed the 1969 norm on kneeling during the Eucharistic Prayer.

The diocese's office for liturgy and spirituality prepares the ordination Mass booklets. Liturgy and spirituality director Mary Ann Fallon and Bernadeane Carr of the diocesan office of communications both declined to comment on Simard's report, citing the diocese's prohibition against speaking to News Notes.

One diocesan priest, who asked not to be identified, said that Bishop Brom, in having the faithful stand during the Consecration, "may be anticipating changes in the norms."

Several spokesmen for Catholics United for the Faith, a lay apostolate that disseminates and promotes the Church's authentic teachings, were reluctant to comment on the subject because a bishop was involved. But a CUF fact sheet titled "Eucharistic Consecration: Kneeling or Standing?" states: "As GIRM, number 21 provides, there can be exceptions to this norm. But an exception that becomes a norm ceases to be an 'exception.' And, in various places in the country, standing during the consecration has in practice become the norm."

Simard said that St. John's church was only half full at this year's ordination ceremony; thus the exceptions allowed by the GIRM were not applicable.

Her account raises the question of whether an exception permitted for several years has in fact become a "norm" for diocesan ordinations, and one which violates the directives of both the GIRM and the national bishops.

More questions could be asked concerning the potential this practice has for confusing or misleading laymen and newly ordained priests, and the chancery's commitment to instilling reverence for the Eucharist. "At Mass, the most important event in human history is made present for us," the Catholics United for the Faith fact sheet explains. "It is this truly awesome sacrifice -- Christ's timeless offering of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity -- for which we kneel.... Kneeling or lying prostrate is traditionally associated with the most solemn form of worship."

CUF also publishes a step-by-step protocol for addressing doctrinal and liturgical issues with Church authorities. For more information, contact CUF at 827 N. 4th St., Steubenville, OH 43952 / 1-800-693-2484 / 740-283-2484.