The Jargon of Liturgists:
Brain-washing the Faithful (Part 2)

Minister
This title once referred to the celebrant, deacon and subdeacon at solemn Mass (sacred ministers) or to those authorized to administer the sacraments. Now it simply includes anyone who does anything noticeable in the liturgy, from the ushers (ministers of hospitality) to the organist (minister of music). Again as in the case of "song," one notices a lack of specificity. Anyone can be a "minister" of anything.

Word. Eucharist. Church. Liturgy
These terms become jargon when used without the definite article, "the." A dependable rule of thumb is never to trust anyone who drops his articles, as in "to do Eucharist" or "to be Church." The idea seems to be to eliminate (along with capitalization) the notion of the Eucharist or the Church as a specific definable entity. Whatever the user of the term would like "Eucharist" or "Church" to mean becomes its meaning.

Sinfulness
Of course, we are all sinful, but that (apart from original sin) is because we commit sins. "Sinfulness," as habitually used in place of "sin(s)," seems to remove the concern with specific sinful action and to replace it with a wistful feeling of regret that we, as a society, are so "sinful" (particularly, of course, in our "structures of oppression").

Preparation of the gifts
Banishing the word "offertory" in favor of "preparation of the gifts" implies quite a different relationship between ourselves and the oblata. "Preparing" the gifts is hardly the same as offering them. A whole devotional tradition of offering ourselves with the bread and wine on the corporal, to be transformed with them by the action of Christ in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, is here obliterated by a simple substitution of words. The Missale Romanum and the Graduale Romanum still refer to the cantus ad offertorium. What is good enough for the editio normativa should, one would think, be good enough for us.

Who has not, in discussing the sacred liturgy with a diocesan or parish liturgy director, seen the wince of fastidious pain and the subsequent condescending smile when a term such as "hymn," "offertory," "Sanctus," or "celebrant" has been used? Who has not felt the gently scornful reproach with which the functionary has quickly pronounced the current jargon term in response, with almost audible italicization? The clear message is that one is a hopeless reactionary, or at least pitiably ignorant of the politically correct liturgical worldview at the moment.

No doubt, many who use and promulgate "litjargon" are simply passing on what they have been told is the preferred usage of the Church. But someone, somewhere, had to have originated these deceptively innocent sounding xpressions. Whether intended or not, the net effect of their constant use is to brain-wash the faithful, to persuade them that the process of desacramentalizing and desupernaturalizing the worship of the Church has somehow been officially mandated, and that they must adjust their thinking accordingly.

What can be done? Perhaps little beyond insistently, constantly, habitually using terms which express unequivocally the Church's real theology of worship, and banishing the jargon terms entirely from our own speaking and writing. Perhaps we must wait for a new generation of "legitimate liturgists" (to use another of Father Skeris' felicitous coinages), nurtured in the real teaching of Vatican Council II and the post-conciliar popes, to restore sanity and Catholicity to the common liturgical practice of the ecclesia orans.

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Calvert Shenk's music is published by, among others, CanticaNOVA Publications. His music is available in our Online Catalog