THE LITURGICAL CONFUSION

Rev. Fr. David Okolie

Dearest brothers in the vineyard, in one of my recent posts, I promised to tell you about one LITURGICAL CONFUSION that I experienced from our two brothers in the vineyard. I am here just to do that.

Now, not too long ago, I experienced two of our brother priests from two different Dioceses, BREAKING THE BREAD (i.e Fractio Panis) at the wrong time during the Consecration. The correct Liturgical Action is that the BREAD should be broken while the ‘AGNUS DEI‘ is going on. Instead, these our brothers committed a LITURGICAL ABUSE by breaking the Bread when they pronounced these words: “He himself took Bread, and, giving thanks, he said the blessing, BROKE the Bread and gave it to his disciples, saying…”

There is no doubt that some of us that do the same, perhaps, INNOCENTLY, must have learnt it from other priests who commit the same ABUSE because no Liturgical text and Professor would actually teach that.

Well, this is exactly what the ‘General Instruction of the Roman Missal’ (GI) says about the above:

The priest BREAKS the Sacred Host and puts a piece of the host into the chalice to signify the unity of the Body and Blood of the Lord in the work of salvation… The supplication AGNUS DEI, is, as a RULE, sung by the choir or cantor with the congregation responding; or it is, at least, recited aloud. This invocation accompanies the FRACTION and, for this reason, may be repeated as many times as necessary until the RITE has reached its conclusion, the last time ending with the words ‘dona nobis pacem (grant us peace) (cf. n. 83).

👉🏼Dearest brother priests, the truth is that, no matter how we try to say that such things as the above do not matter, I sincerely tell you that they really matter. Whenever we abandon the laid down RITES and begin to do our own, we cannot really be sure of the VALIDITY of what we are doing and then the innocent faithful are made to suffer spiritual lack. Was it not just recently that all the Baptisms celebrated by a particular priest over the years were declared INVALID by the Church because he used the wrong formula. According to the report, instead of using ‘I Baptize You…’ he was using ‘WE Baptize You…’ You can read more about it on the internet.

Finally, beloved brother priests, let us get our GI and the other LITURGICAL TREASURES which we shared the other time, for effective celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, for our own spiritual good and those of the Christ’s faithful.

Remain blessed🙏🏼