"When You Come Together"

A reader writes:

My wife and I came home to the

Church a couple of vigils ago, much to the chagrin of my in-laws, who

are a different breed of Protestant than I am used to.  Of late, they

have started being really active in the "home church" movement, in

their search for the simplicity of the early church.

This is where my question comes in.  As far as I have been able to

deduce so far, one of the biggest verses they use to support how their

"home church" meetings go is 1 Cor. 14:26, which seems to be describing

some type of church service.  How do Catholics reconcile this verse

(and following) with the current order of the Mass? 

Okay, well, let’s look at the verse:

1 Cor. 14:26: What then, brethren? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a

lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be

done for edification.

Paul is not here attempting to give an exhaustive description of what happens at each and every Christian worship service. He notes that these things do happen at Christian worship services, but he does not say (or imply) that these things must occur at the service. Nor does he say that the service consists of them. He does not even say that they form the provide the principle structure of the service. They are simply things that happen at some services.

Lemme give you a comparison. Suppose the pope was writing to a mixed audience of priests, deacons, and laity (as was Paul) only about a contempoary Catholic Mass and said:

What then, brethren? When you come together at Mass, some sing hymns, others read the readings, some play instruments, some distribute Communion, some preach the homily. Let all things be

done for in accord with the rubrics.

These are all things that happen at Mass, but you can’t use them to read off an order of worship for Mass. Nor can you even infer that they all must occur in each Mass. Some Masses don’t have singing or instruments, for example. Nor can you infer that any person in attendance can do any of these functions. Only priests and deacons can preach the homily. The list simply isn’t suited to developing an order of worship.

The point Paul is making is that the service is not just taken up with a single thing (like tongues, which he’s correcting a faction in the Corinthian church about). Different people play different roles and have different contributions to make. An ad hoc list of some of those contributions does not allow you to reconstruct an order of worship.

It may not even allow you to identify the single most important thing at the service. That’s true of both Paul’s list and mine. Neither mention the consecration of the Eucharist. In fact, if you are writing more for the people than for the clergy, you’ll tend to emphasize the things that the laity can do and omit more of what the clergy can do. In my list, I included a few clergy-oriented items (the homily and the distribution of Communion, even though some laity can also help with the latter). Paul was probably writing even more for the laity than I was and so didn’t mention the Eucharistic elements of the service.

And that’s assuming that Paul had a distinctly Eucharistic service in mind. He may well have been thinking of everything Christians do when they get together. The modern analog for that would be writing a list that not only named things Christians do at Mass but also at bible studies, CCD classes, choral services, the liturgy of the hours, etc., etc., etc. If that’s what Paul was thinking of then there is absolutely no way to derive a standard order of worship from what he wrote.

But then there isn’t such a way in any event, because his purpose is not to give an order of worship but to make the point that different people get to contribute different things "when you come together"–not necessarily "when you come together for the main Sunday worship service."

The reader continues:

Also, this verse

seems claim that the ideal service should be something in which various

people come together, each person playing an active role in the

"planning" and carrying out of the service. 

Paul doesn’t say that at all. We don’t know that he’s envisioning all these things happening at a single, standard service, and he doesn’t any anything at all about who plans such services. It could well be that the pastor plans the whole thing and assigns different tasks to those who are able to do them (e.g., singing to those who can sing).

Nor can it be inferred that Paul literally means that every single person should be playing some kind of "solo" role in the service. While all may take part in the prayers (just as we do today at Mass), there are only so many opportunities to "solo" that can exist in a single service, and it cannot be legitimately inferred that Paul would expect the congregation to break itself down into smaller units so everyone can have a chance to "shine" and be the center of attention at the service.

Indeed, in Paul’s day as now, there were numerous people who did not feel comfortable "taking the spotlight" and who would refuse to push themselves forward in front of everybody in this way. Paul’s point is just that God has given different gifts to different people and that they all have a place in Christian worship. Going beyond that is going beyond what can be legitimately inferred from the text.

Is it that this verse is

making reference to a "disciplinary" thing and that we simply say that

the order of service has changed (I know St. Justin Martyr bears

witness to the Mass ca. AD 150)?  Or that this verse simply doesn’t

*necessarily* refer to the weekly gathering?  Or something else?

There is a disciplinary aspect to the matter. While the fundamental framework of the Mass was there from St. Paul’s time, there has been considerable development in the details over time. We also should recognize that not all services, even in the first century, were necessarily Euchairstic services. We simply can’t infer very much from what Paul wrote about what each and every worship service today ought to look like.

Certainly, I know that the New Testament speaks of bishops, presbyters,

and deacons… and I don’t think they have any…at least not in their

house.  Which I suppose is a question for *them*. 

Actually, don’t assume too quickly that they won’t have folks that they call "bishops" (or "overseers"), "presbyters" (or "elder"), or "deacons." They may well have such individuals; they just won’t be validly ordained (or it will be a shock if they are).

But if their

response circles around 1 Cor. 14:26, I would love to have something

semi-intelligent to say.  I hope this hasn’t been too confusing.

Not at all! Hope this gives you a starting point!