Mystery as an Antidote to Spectacle
The Pope and the Reclamation of Wonder
(image credit: Latin Mass Photographer, December 20th, 2024)
Much has been said about His Holiness Pope Leo XIV’s first week in the Petrine Office. I won’t repeat the analysis that many have given in this short reflection. Instead, I’d like to focus on two quotes from the Pope, one from before his Pontificate began, and one from just the other day.
The first quote came in 2012 when then Bishop Robert Prevost addressed the subject of “The Counterculture of the New Evangelization” to the Synod of Bishops:
“Moreover, the Church should resist the temptation to believe that it can compete with modern mass media by turning the sacred liturgy into spectacle. Here again, church fathers such as Tertullian remind us today that visual spectacle is the domain of the saeculum, and that our proper mission is to introduce people to the nature of mystery as an antidote to spectacle. As a consequence, evangelization in the modern world must find the appropriate means for redirecting public attention away from spectacle and into mystery.”
A return to traditional forms of worship is the missing piece to the New Evangelization. Over the past few years, I, like so many young Catholics, have developed a love and a preference for the Traditional Latin Mass. Although I attend both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms regularly, the proliferation and revival of the Latin Mass are frequently on my mind, and are the subject of much discussion among some of my close friends. It’s been reported that Pope Leo XIV (as priest/bishop/cardinal Robert Prevost) would celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass privately. This, along with the quotes provided here, gives me and others great hope that Pope Leo XIV will reverse the disastrous Traditionis Custodes and return the Church to the norms under Summorum Pontificum, with which Pope Benedict XVI blessed the whole Church in 2007. In the letter accompanying the Motu Proprio, Benedict said:
“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”
Now to the second quote from the new pope. In his address to the participants for the Jubilee of Oriental Churches on May 14th, 2025, Pope Leo XVI highlighted the need for Eastern Catholic Churches to preserve their traditional liturgies, citing the “great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies.”
“The Church needs you. The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense! We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty! It is likewise important to rediscover, especially in the Christian West, a sense of the primacy of God, the importance of mystagogy and the values so typical of Eastern spirituality: constant intercession, penance, fasting, and weeping for one’s own sins and for those of all humanity (penthos)! It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism.”
Language such as this demonstrates an appreciation for liturgical tradition and beauty that this Pope's predecessor lacked. His emphasis on mystery as the antidote to spectacle resonates deeply with me. In a world filled with noise, distraction, and spectacle, participating in the Extraordinary Form draws me into a greater sense of wonder and awe at the love of God for me and the magnificence of His sacrifice of salvation. I know I speak for many young Catholics who feel robbed that the Latin Mass was stripped from us and remained hidden from us, and it’s saddening that this Mass, our family heritage, the Mass that formed and fed the saints for centuries, is now viewed with suspicion and contempt by many. Among my generation, the longing for mystery and identity is being manifested in piety and the desire for the ancient. It gives me great hope that the next generation of priests prefers to celebrate Mass ad orientem, diverting the attention away from himself and to the Lord, inviting us into a deeper encounter with mystery. We continue to pray for Pope Leo XIV and his ministry, that he might lead the Church, the “ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history and a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world” as he described it in his first homily as the Successor to Peter.