This essay was written for Crisis Magazine, so you may read it in full there (freely). While anyone is welcome to read it, it will be most intelligible to Catholics. The introduction follows:
Imagine that you’re in a quiet chapel and trying to pray before the tabernacle. But in the sanctuary, staring at you, is someone else. That person is also, at least nominally, trying to pray. It is easy to imagine that this mutual posture is not conducive to the most productive kind of prayer. Yet, this is increasingly how we orient our highest form of worship, with neglect for the impact on the priest who leads such prayer.
Every weekday morning, I co-host a Catholic radio show, which we begin with a classic Morning Offering: “O my Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my works, sufferings…” The show is available on YouTube, so I am looking into a lens throughout. For months I have been haunted by the question, “Am I really praying?” I am performing the physical gestures and saying the right words, but if prayer (imperfectly defined) is to place oneself in the presence of God, it would be very difficult for me to say yes.
Ultimately, however earnestly I am trying to pray, I am conscious of the live audience and how they perceive the moment. They evaluate everything: the perceived flippancy or reverence as I cross myself, the emphasis placed on certain words, whether I glance around the room or stay focused, whether I nod at the name of Jesus, everything. As a result, that prayer becomes inherently somewhat performative.
“If we treat the priest as our personal performer, we sully his vocation, reduce the sanctuary to a mere stage, and do the disservice of reorienting the Mass toward us—both physically and spiritually. The Mass will never entertain us as secular performances do. It was never meant to. The altar is where Heaven meets Earth and is therefore beyond us and our fickleness. Let us orient ourselves to that reality.” Thank you Sarah. I attend both the NO and the TLM (preferentially) and can attest to this easily recognized difference.
Let's be thankful the priest's that aren't doing Only Fans