STOP IT!
 

Don’t you not know where you are?

     You are at the foot of the Cross — and Jesus Christ is hanging upon it!

That is why it is called The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.!

And you clap?! Seriously?

     Both during Mass — which is blasphemous  — and then, again,  after Mass. Think about it!
This is a certain: if you applaud during Mass or after Mass, you completely fail to understand where you are and Who is there.

     Humor me, and consider this: let us suppose that you are transported 2024 years ago and you are standing at the very foot of the Cross with Mary, Mary Salome, and the Apostle Saint John. They are weeping inconsolably. The Blood of Christ, dripping from every wound and laceration inflicted upon Him, falls onto the hands of His Mother, Mary. They are devastated …

     But you are not. You are clapping your hands gleefully, applauding the greatest sacrifice — and the most gruesome crime in all history.

     It is true that the Roman soldiers tortured Christ, spat upon Him; the High Priests of Jerusalem mocked Him and ridiculed Him — the blasphemy, the taunting, the outrage that they heaped upon Him was cruel beyond measure — but in an unspeakably perverse way, you may have exceeded their cruelty, for what they did in their malice, you have somehow surpassed by making Christ’s crucifixion, His agony and His death  ... trivial — by applauding it.

     Yes, the Sacrifice of Jesus at the Mass is “unbloody” —  which is to say, Christ is not be crucified again in the Mass — the Mass re-presents the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, which is to say, His Crucifixion — it re-presents it in a way that allows us to participate in that salvific event, to be present in that event that occurred in time but reverberates throughout eternity! When we close our eyes at Mass and prescind from our senses, we are as really present at His actual crucifixion as if we were standing before Him 2024 years ago on Golgotha.
 

The One Possibility

     There is only one possibility — one only — for this literal disgrace, this unimaginable outrage: You do not know, understand, or comprehend ... where you are!

     We will have the audacity to tell you again: you are at the foot of the Cross — and Jesus Christ is hanging upon it! That you do not witness it with the eyes of your body, but must grasp it with the “eyes of Faith” as you must grasp everything spiritual, is no excuse. If you have come to Holy Mass for feelings and sensations, or for what you can experience with your five senses, either the building you have entered is not a Catholic Church or you have mistaken it for a Protestant meeting house. Sadly, since Vatican II, the distinction between the two is often tenuous.

     If, however, you persist in engaging in this sacrilegious act of applause at Mass because “everyone else around you is doing it; even the priest,” then I suggest that you must contend with a harsh reality if you consider it carefully: it would appear that the world in which you have chosen to live does not, and cannot, allow the Living God to dwell in your presence. His Blood, it would appear, is a contagion to you, a harbinger of suffering and death that you have banished from your presence; His lacerated Body must be a scourge to your conscience, an unwelcome reminder of the price paid for the sins you no longer confess because the only real sins in your world likely are “social sins”, “collective sins” (in which there is no personal responsibility), “sins against the environment”,  “sins against mother earth”, and sins against “the Amazon basin” as our recreant pontiff sadly reminds us. There apparently are no sins against God: only against the biosphere and, increasingly, the homosphere. But, to acknowledge your sins against God is to acknowledge your own complicity in His suffering and death — and you, apparently, will not tolerate that, let alone acknowledge it. And yet, at Mass, we insist that,  ♫ “We are the Light of the World”♫ ...
 

A “Jolting” Example

     Let us look at this more closely. Most people would agree that applauding during (or after) the execution of a criminal would not be — let us say, in good taste and terribly inappropriate, no matter what his crime. Nevertheless, you will not only witness his execution; you will find yourself capable of sprightly playing your guitar or your piano, and singing utterly banal folk songs as he is being lethally injected or electrocuted. But you recognize that even in secular society to do so would be unacceptable — even condemned as outrageous! You would be vilified and ostracized — as well you should be.

     If it is inappropriate to do these things during (or after) the execution — of even the vilest criminal — why is it appropriate with Jesus Christ during (or after) Mass. He is the Innocens Patri: The Innocent of the Father. Sinless. Blameless.

     How can we possibly clap our hands — applauding His crucifixion? Are you really capable of doing this the Presence of Christ crucified on the Cross?

     Pope Benedict XVI was unequivocally clear about this:

“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of the liturgy
has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment.” ²
 

     Entertainment: isn’t it what the Novus Ordo Mass largely became in so many, many, parishes around the world after Vatican II? Say it is not so!

Where is Christ in the mix?

     Mass as the venue of entertainment is such a tiresome, banal, and profane conclusion to something unutterably sacred — a Holy Sacrifice. The gesture of clapping or applauding is totally secular, mundane, and unrelated to worship. It is, however, completely proper to entertainment …

     Why this final focus on man, instead of God? All those listed above — wittingly or not — call our attention away from Christ … to themselves. It is noteworthy that in response to the applause heaped upon soloists, “music ministers,” choirs, altar “servers,” and guest speakers ... each properly bow in turn … as befits entertainers and their audience — not God and His worshippers. Lately, I have even begun hearing hoots and whistles from the congregation … How much more can we secularize the Mass?

     With the whimsical Francis micromanaging the Church, sad to say, I’m afraid much more.

Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

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¹ The Canon of the Mass is the most sacred part of the Mass, and it begins with the “Epiclesis” — or the calling down upon the Holy Ghost to transform the bread and wine into the actual Body and Blood of Christ: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down Your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”, and ends with the final Doxology: “through Him, with Him, and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor be Yours almighty Father forever and ever. Amen.”
² https://www.catholic.com / & https://www.apostoliviae.org/resources/9654/is-it-okay-to-applaud-at-mass-heres-what-popes-have-said-about-it 
³ Joseph Ratzinger Collected Works: Theology of the Liturgy