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Notre Dame Center for Liturgy

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Eucharist Bibliography

Eucharist Bibliography:
Sunday Celebrations in Expectation of the Eucharist (1958-present)

Note: In this and other NDCL bibliographies, materials have been selected primarily with parish ministers (rather than professional scholars) in mind. Most of the resources are in English and were published in North America.

Historical Note

Many Roman Catholics regard the issue of "Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest" as a pastoral problem that arose only in the postconciliar period. It is assumed that the problem flows in part from the impact of changing demographics on parish life and in part from a shortage of ordained clergy. Yet the roots of the present "crisis" actually go back to at least the sixteenth century, when modern missionary activity began in earnest. We still possess, for instance, the letter that Francis Xavier wrote on 15 January, 1544, after he reached the Indian village of Cochin along the Pearl Fishery Coast. Christianity had been introduced to this region five to seven years earlier, but—in the absence of regular catechesis, preaching and liturgy—it had all but disappeared. Thus, Francis found it necessary to hold Sunday services that were catechetical rather than eucharistic in nature. These non-eucharistic Sunday assemblies obviously did not reflect an absence of ordained clergy (Francis was a priest). They were necessary because the people needed greater instruction in the fundamentals of Christian faith. (It is unclear from Francis's letter of 15 January 1544 whether, in fact, Mass was also celebrated among the people of Cochin on Sunday.)

What Francis Xavier described were not, then, "Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest" nor were they "communion services." They consisted instead of prayers and instruction (about the twelve articles of the Creed and about the Commandments).

"We translated the prayers from Latin into Malabar, beginning with the sign of the Cross, confessing that there are three persons in one sole God, then the Creed, the Commandments, the Our Father, Hail Mary, Salve Regina, and the Confiteor."
[See The Letters and Instructions of Francis Xavier, trans. J. Joseph Costelloe (St. Louis:The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), 65]

Francis went on to explain how the people memorized and recited these prayers at the Sunday gathering, and how-after each article of the Creed and each Commandment-he offered those present instruction in the faith. These instructions were punctuated by the popular recitation of prayers (the Our Father, the Hail Mary).

Francis also indicated that provision was made for how to proceed in villages where, on Sunday, there would not be a priest present:

"Leaving one in this village who could continue with what had been begun, I went to visit the other villages and proceeded in the same way . . . I leave a copy of the prayers in the villages which I visit, and I order those who know how to write to copy them, to learn them by heart, and to recite them every day. And I give them orders on how all should be assembled on Sundays to recited them. I therefore leave someone in the villages to see that this is done." [The Letters and Instructions of Francis Xavier, 67]

In this passage from his 1544 letter, Francis seems to envision a situation where local villagers assemble on Sunday in the presence of a (presumably lay) leader who would conduct a (non-eucharistic) service.

The first attempts to deal pastorally with Sunday assemblies that were not "eucharistic" in nature seem to have developed, then, in missionary contexts. The focus was on prayer and instruction—and also, on proclaiming the Word. Francis mentions, for example, how—in conjunction with his ministry on behalf of the sick—he "ordered the boys who knew the prayers to go to the homes of the sick, and all those of the house and neighborhood to assemble there, and all to recite the Creed many times, and to tell the sick person that he should believe and that he would recover; and after this to say the other prayers." [The Letters and Instructions of Francis Xavier, 67]

Boys who could read apparently helped in this ministry by reading the gospels over those who were ill.

One might also note here, the Instruction issued by Propaganda in 1659 to the Vicars Apostolic on their way to the East:

"In no way and under no pretext should you attempt to urge those people to change their customs and habits, so long as they are not in flagrant contradiction with good morals. What would be more absurd than to transplant France, Spain, Italy or any other part of Europe into China? It is not Europe that you are to take with you, but the Christian faith which in no way rejects or condemns any usages or customs so long as they are not immoral, but rather preserves them whole and intact."
[Cited in Karl Weber, "Making the Mass Catechetically More Effective," in Johannes Hofinger, ed., Teaching All Nations , rev. and translated by Clifford Howell (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961, 148]

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