The Mass We Understand—and the Faith We Don’t

What good does it do to understand the Mass if one doesn't know the Faith underlying it? Now, people may understand the language, but they have little idea what it means.

From Crisis

By Mark Haas

Being able to understand the words of the Mass doesn’t necessarily mean you understand its mystery.

For nearly 60 years now, multiple generations of Catholics have lived entirely within the experience of the post-Vatican II liturgy—the Novus Ordo Missae, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969. One of the pastoral goals of the reform was intelligibility and fluency of the Mass texts.

Full disclosure: I love both forms of the Mass, and I am a music director at a parish that executes both with intentionality, reverence, and beauty.

After Vatican II, the spoken texts of the Mass were rendered into the vernacular so that Catholics could consciously follow and understand what was being prayed. This desire really stems from what Vatican II was trying to accomplish. In the pages of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council stipulates: “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious and active participation (actuosa participatio) in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (SC 14). The documents also allow that “the use of the vernacular may frequently be of great advantage to the people” (SC 36 §2). It’s worth noting that the vernacular could only be implemented at the discretion of the local Ordinary (bishop).

And yet the same document insisted that “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites” (SC 36 §1). The Council proposed both fluency and continuity, vernacular and Latin, comprehension and sacred transcendence.

But here’s the uncomfortable question we need to ask: What has this experiment in making everything understandable accomplished? Catholics now attend Mass in their own language almost everywhere in the world. The prayers, readings, and Eucharistic Prayer are fully understandable at the level of vocabulary. Missals, digital aids, and printed worship aids make every spoken word available. And yet, in an age of seemingly total intelligibility, belief and practice among Catholics has sharply declined.

What has this experiment in making everything understandable accomplished? Catholics now attend Mass in their own language…And yet, in an age of seemingly total intelligibility, belief and practice among Catholics has sharply declined.Tons of Catholics just don’t show up to Mass anymore. Basic doctrinal knowledge has eroded. Catechesis in many places has reached a historical low in clarity and content. Earlier generations who memorized the Baltimore Catechism could readily answer the foundational question: “Who made you?” “God made me.” “Why did God make you?” “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

By contrast, many Catholics today struggle to articulate what sin is, why confession is necessary, what the Sunday obligation is, what a sacramental marriage is. Devotions once taken for granted—like the Rosary—are unfamiliar to many. The Church’s teaching on Heaven and Hell is often vague. Even among musicians, Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony—explicitly upheld by the Council—are frequently unknown.

The irony is striking. In an age in which Catholics can understand virtually every word of the Mass, many understand very little about the Catholic Faith itself.

Here’s what I think this means: being able to understand the words doesn’t necessarily mean you understand the mystery. The Mass is not merely an instructional exercise. It is primarily divine worship—latria—offered to God. As Sacrosanctum Concilium reminds us, the liturgy is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows” (SC 10). The Mass is not primarily designed for our intellectual mastery but for our sanctification.

Pope Benedict XVI often warned against reducing the liturgy to horizontal accessibility. In Sacramentum Caritatis, he wrote that the ars celebrandi must foster “a sense of the sacred and the use of outward signs which help to cultivate this sense” (SC 40). He emphasized that the liturgy is not something we create but something we receive: “The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation” (SC 6).

Similarly, Pope John Paul II advised in Ecclesia de Eucharistia that “the liturgy is never anyone’s private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated” (EE 52). The liturgy’s sacred character transcends immediate intelligibility; it forms us precisely by drawing us into something greater than ourselves.

Even modern voices have recognized the unintended consequences of post-conciliar simplifications. Bishop Robert Barron has spoken candidly about his own upbringing in the 1960s and ’70s, noting that Catholicism in that period was often “dumbed down.” He has stated that in an effort to make the Faith more accessible, much of its intellectual and mystical richness has eroded away, leaving many with thin and sentimental versions of Catholicism rather than the robust theological traditions of Augustine, Aquinas, and the great mystics.

The opinion of this author is not an argument against the vernacular, nor against the Council. It is, rather, a call to examine whether we misunderstood the Council’s vision. Vatican II did not abolish Latin. Nor did it call for the simplification of doctrine. It called for deeper participation in the mysteries of Christ.

Understanding every word of the liturgy is a worthy pastoral goal. But true understanding requires more than translation. It requires catechesis, beauty, reverence, silence, and formation in the full doctrinal life of the Church.

The real tragedy isn’t that we can now understand the Mass; it’s that we confused understanding the words with understanding the Faith. In seeking to make everything accessible, we have perhaps lost the sense that the Mass is not merely to be understood but to be adored.

If the next generation of Catholics is to flourish, the task is clear: recover doctrinal clarity and celebrate the liturgy in a way that reveals its transcendent mystery. Only then will Catholics not merely understand the words of the Mass, they will understand the Faith those words proclaim.