Awe & Wonder

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
18 Nov 2007

Recently a couple of good friends went to the wrestling.  One was a grade four boy and the other an elderly priest, who accompanied a couple of senior lads from the Cathedral choir and their family.  One senior lad’s grandfather is a keen wrestling fan and the enthusiasm has jumped a generation to the grandson.

Both my friends said that the noisy sell-out crowd had a marvellous time.

I grew up in an Australia before television, but we used to listen to the wrestling on the radio each Friday night.  I can still remember the names of Chief Little Wolf, Jesse James, although I don’t know how much of the excitement was produced by the radio announcer.

What do different generations, and not only the males, like about wrestling?  My young friend enjoyed the wrestlers belting up one another without getting hurt, and the yelling of the crowd supporting the favourite and denouncing his opponent as a “Pom”.  Whether they were individual or tag team bouts, he preferred victories after a struggle and liked to cheer the underdogs.

This slickly produced show business is a long way from the killing in the Roman amphitheatres, but the hunter which lies dormant in us still likes struggle, violence, spectacles, heroes and villains.  They make the adrenalin run in our veins, without any risks.  They answer (in some way) the human need for challenge and excitement.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, it was my privilege to preside at another celebration in St. Mary’s Cathedral which also met a basic human need: the need for worship.

Early in November I celebrated the ancient Catholic Mass in Latin, with nearly 2000 worshippers.

From the late fourth century Western Catholics celebrated Mass in Latin, until forty years ago.  The so called Tridentine rite we used has its origins even before the reforms of Pope St. Gregory, late in the sixth century.

We sung the ancient Latin chants, named after that Pope, which some claim are similar to the way Jesus would have chanted the psalms.

Those present prayerfully rejoiced in the ancient and complicated ritual and the "old Mass" with its silence is good at suggesting the Divine, provoking us to awe of the Mighty God, who stands behind the immensity of the cosmos and the tides of history.

A surprisingly high percentage of people report that they have experienced wonder and awe, often religious awe; a realization of our powerlessness before the beauty, majesty and power of nature, or of God the Creator, behind it.

In the old Mass I find the many particular actions required of the celebrant to be distracting; I miss too the regular responses of the congregation and the lively sense of community this can engender.  The English is easier for everyone also.

But the old Mass calls us to worship in a way that is rarely equalled today.