For flere dager siden leste jeg i referatene fra bispesynoden om en katolsk biskop i Russland, erkebiskop i Moskva, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, som snakket om hva som var det viktigst for ham i denne synoden som omhandler eukaristien. Jeg har tenkt mye på det biskopen sier, når han Da han (som flere andre biskoper fra Øst-Europa) legger vekt på hvor viktig det er at messen alltdi blir feiret med alvor og verdighet – ellers viser presten med sine handlinger at messen ikke betyr så mye. Han sier bl.a.:
For me personally, I would say accuracy in celebrating the Mass and the liturgy. I’m very sensitive to this expression of our faith. I believe very much in lex orandi, lex credendi, ‘the law of worship is the law of faith.’ The Mass is not the property of the priest. It was established by Christ, and its essentials come from above. The church can change some things, as it did after the Second Vatican Council, but it does so in the form of norms, and we have to preserve them. It’s not some kind of show for the priest to arrange according to his own whims. … Maybe we’re just more traditional, I don’t know. Generally, we feel that failure to preserve the norms and to be accurate in the liturgical rites is one of many reasons that causes the faith of the people to decline. If there is no piety, if there is no accuracy, if the priest is doing I don’t know what …. if the priest doesn’t seem to take the Mass seriously, why should the people?