Sacramentality and Active Participation
BOOK CLUB 2 | INTRO: A Devotional Journey Into the Mass
Alright, friends, book club is BACK! I am thrilled to be walking through this lovely and accessible little volume with you over the coming months. Chris Carstens has done a truly excellent job of breaking down the structure of the Mass into bite-sized chapters, with a variety of practical “take-home” ideas. Frankly, I’m worried that there won’t be much for me to say, and that you should just read the book instead of reading my thoughts on the book! It’s that good. Let’s go ahead and dive in!
For this semester’s Book Club, we’ll be reading through Chris Carstens’ A Devotional Journey Into the Mass. When I first read it, several years ago, I appreciated the practical tips offered in each chapter for how to enter more deeply into each moment of prayer throughout the Mass. Now, two kids later, I find it truly essential. Not only has this book given me a framework and a language to use when speaking with my children about the liturgy (although it has!), it has also given me a reasonable expectation of what it looks like to participate in the liturgy as a mother and as a distracted-and-distractible human being. (Carstens himself is a father of eight, so it should hardly be surprising that his book is useful in this way!)
Attending Mass—or any prayer service, event, or party—with very young children can be challenging. Attending Mass during a season of particular emotional or physical distress can be challenging. Attending Mass when you don’t understand what the heck is happening during the Mass can be challenging. And, let’s be real, attending Mass when you’re a human person? Yep, that can be challenging too.
Part of the challenge is that we don’t fully know how to see the liturgy with liturgical eyes. We don’t exercise that muscle frequently, and so we allow our vision to stop at merely the physical. We see the vestments change colors throughout the year. We smell the incense. We hear the consecration bells ringing. And we think, “Oh, isn’t that just lovely?”
But the reality is that the physical, sensory details of the Mass don’t exist merely for their own sake. They exist to point us toward Christ, toward Heaven! The Lord created us as embodied souls, and He has given us a liturgy that speaks to both our physical and our spiritual needs, if we know how to look.
This book’s central thesis, or at least its goal, is that our participation in the Sunday liturgy truly becomes the “source and summit” of our entire lives. In other words, how can we spend time during the week preparing for Mass and digesting what we received at Mass? How does our attendance at Mass shape our behavior in every aspect of our life? Rather than giving a mandatory list of things we have to do, this book offers us options, suggestions, and reflections on the ways in which we can enter into the Mass in our current season of life (yes, even when that season feels more like monkeys than monks!).
Active Participation
Carstens’ introduction gives us a brief history of the origin of the term “active participation”—a term that has been much thrown-about but, perhaps, little understood in the decades since it was coined. Active participation in the liturgy is the skill that Carstens is trying to teach us:
[I]f “active participation” is not principally an external and visible action, then what is it? This book attempts to answer that question, giving eight simple ways to engage physically and spiritually, body and soul, in the saving work of Jesus Christ made present in the Mass.
It is easy enough to accept that “active participation” is more than just maximum physical busyness, and experience will tell us that there are times when such busyness can pull us away from the stillness and silence that our souls desperately crave.1 However, it’s another matter entirely to grasp the heart of this term, to come to understand and implement the type of whole-person engagement and integration that the Lord desires for us.
Sacramentality and Mystagogy
From “active participation”, we move on to a discussion of “sacramentality” and “mystagogy” as the interpretive lenses the book will use to examine the liturgy.2 In other words, throughout the book, we will be looking through the physical, sensory experience of the Mass to the spiritual realm, in order to better understand what the posture of our heart ought to be in each moment of prayer:
The Jesus who carried out the Paschal Mystery in the flesh two thousand years ago is the same Jesus acting today in the sacraments. To touch, see, and hear Jesus today is to do so through the medium of the sacraments. It is the process of mystagogical catechesis that leads our natural senses to encounter the supernatural and liturgical Jesus. Thus, in focusing on each of these eight elements of the Mass, we focus on the signs and the symbols, the words and the actions of the Mass, each of which brings Christ and His saving work to the surface—so that we can actively participate with Him in His work.
Carstens wraps up the introduction with an exhortation to each of us. What we are seeking to uncover is the truth about our participation in the Mass as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. If we are truly the members of the body of which Christ is the head, then we—as alter Christus—have a role to play:
Each of the baptized, says the Council, has not only a “right” but also a “duty” to participate actively. Jesus doesn’t need our help in redeeming the world—but He wants it. Even though He is the liturgy’s principle worker, He calls us to be His co-workers, His cooperators, His co-laborers (that is, His collaborators).
Table of Contents
There are eight chapters and a conclusion, so our study will take us about ten weeks, including the video call that I am hoping to host in March. I am including all the chapter names here, and will add links to each post as it goes live!
Introduction (this post)
Video Call Discussion—March 11, 2024 (RSVP)
Recording will be posted on March 14, 2024Summary: What Have We Learned?—March 21, 2024
This will have us wrapping up the Thursday before Palm Sunday, which (I hope!) will give us time to flex these sacramental muscles and really prepare to enter into the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter with a new appreciation for everything that is happening in the Mass!3 Whether or not you regularly attend Catholic Mass, whatever Missal your parish uses, or whatever language you speak in the liturgy, I hope that this series will bear fruit in your prayer life, in your experience of the liturgy, and in your understanding of the faith.4
Do you struggle to focus or maintain that “spiritual sight” during the Mass and other times of prayer? What are you hoping to learn from this book?
Perhaps we’ll tackle Robert Cardinal Sarah’s The Power of Silence in a future book club? Thoughts?
CCC 1075: Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ (It is “mystagogy.”) by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the “sacraments” to the “mysteries”.
Carstens has also authored a book titled A Devotional Journey into the Eastern Mysteries, which I have not yet read but would like to! Glancing at the Table of Contents, it does seem like it would be feasible to read the entire book during Holy Week, as a guide to each day of the Triduum, if you’re into that kind of thing. I think I might be—any interest in this? Let me know in the comments. While I certainly wouldn’t post each day with a discussion, perhaps a thread on Notes or over in the Subscriber Chat would be feasible for those looking to discuss? I don’t know. I like to stay off tech during Holy Week if possible. We’ll see.
I don’t know where else to put this postscript, but if you’re interested in taking a much deeper dive into the topics discussed in this book, I’d highly recommend “The Liturgy Guys”, a now-retired podcast for which Carstens was a host. Their entire 34-episode sixth season walked through the Mass with this lens.
cc @Chantal LaFortune !!
Down for The Power of Silence one day, and for Easter Mysteries during Holy Week!