by Gabriele Cantaluppi

The habit of underlining certain moments with applause is increasingly widespread within liturgical celebrations. Indeed, it is often the priests themselves who urge them. It is good?

«There, where the applause for human work breaks out in the liturgy, we are faced with a sure sign that the essence of the liturgy has been completely lost and has been replaced with a sort of entertainment of a religious nature» he wrote Cardinal Ratzinger in his book Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy.

Those who share this thought believe that the temple of God is not the place of applause, because with applause the attention shifts: man is celebrated in place of God. Applause is always in relation to men, when they do something beautiful, something we like; the attitude of wonder and gratitude that the faithful should have during the celebration is lost and we transform the church into a theater.

Perhaps, for a more serene judgement, we need to consider at what moments the applause breaks out today, even if we need to get it into our heads that the liturgy is not the property of the celebrating priest and therefore must not become a spectacle or entertainment. it is a very serious mistake: in the name of a mistaken idea of ​​creativity, banalities, incorrectness and sloppiness are sometimes committed.

In the Latin liturgy, applause is not an entirely new custom: when Saint Augustine preached, he was often interrupted with applause, because the listeners expressed their approval of what he proposed. They did not applaud him as he spoke, but the content of his preaching, as the texts that describe this habit explain.

This is the real discriminating factor: the reality is that today we applaud men and not the work of salvation. 

Today, clapping your hands is showing your joy and participation in the event performed by someone to whom we want to show our full approval: baptism, wedding and even funerals.

Applause during liturgical celebrations was abandoned when public worship took on a mystical-sacral vision, overshadowing the convivial aspect of agape. In the Tridentine mass of Saint Pius V the sense of mystery is very alive: at the altar there is only the priest, and the active participation of the faithful (i.e. the speaking part) is reduced to a minimum: he participates by joining the priest in his great priestly prayer, intimately, in the adhesion of the heart and faith. 

After the Second Vatican Council the altar is turned towards the people, the language is that of common speech, and this shift towards direct communication can lead, if pushed too far, to excesses, which in reality happen: continuous dialogues even outside those reported, improvisations, loss of the sense of the sacred, of mystery, of transcendence.

The question is whether the applause arises for the realization of the saving work (sacrament) celebrated or to express a particular consent to the people who have received the sacrament as a gift of the Father's mercy. 

The 68th Liturgical Week, held in Rome in August 2017, had as its theme A living Liturgy for a living Church, capable of saying and communicating the mystery of God to the man of today. And in the final meeting, Pope Francis invited us to experience the liturgy as protagonists and not as spectators, because the liturgy is life and not an idea to be understood. Being a protagonist is also expressed with the rituality of gestures. 

In their experience, priests know that softness, affability, a smile and sometimes letting go are more fruitful and communicative than all the apologetics lessons they could hold from the pulpit with a grim face: this is also where acceptance comes from. , perhaps reluctantly, of some applause on the occasion of celebrations.

To conclude: it is not a question here of the condemnation of the gesture itself, but of the use made of it in directing it, even if it must be recognized that, almost always, it is for human motivation.