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Views from the Choir Loft

Eucharistic Fasting, Hunger, and Pent Up Energy

Dr. Alfred Calabrese · March 17, 2020

AST SATURDAY evening we watched another press conference from the White House. At this point the Dow Jones Industrial Average had just recorded a nearly 2,000 point rise after a week of historic losses. The President talked about the “pent up energy” that would one day be released upon our economy once the crisis of the coronavirus had subsided.

The phrase struck me because I have been thinking about pent up energy and Eucharistic fasting in the wake  of the suspension of public celebrations of the Mass across many of our dioceses, including my own Diocese of Dallas.

We take many things for granted until we lose them. Even after only one week, I know that so many are distraught that they cannot receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Musicians, especially, are profoundly missing being able to sing for the sacred Liturgy, especially during this rich season of Lent. We feel the dryness of the Lenten desert. It is real. We have been forced to fast from that which we love. Our longings for the Liturgy and the Eucharist are being pent up.

Eucharistic fasting is not new. It was not always the case that the faithful could receive the Eucharist each Sunday, let alone daily if desired. St. Augustine is said to have excommunicated himself to be in solidarity with the sinners who could not juridically receive communion.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, writing as Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, said that such a fasting, “could…sometimes be useful or even necessary, to renew and establish more deeply our relationship with the Body of Christ.” (Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, p.86, Ignatius Press, 2005) In these days, when belief in the Real Presence is waning, could Eucharistic fasting be beneficial? 1

Cardinal Ratzinger went on to say, “Yet from time to time we need a cure from falling into mere habit and its dullness. Sometimes we need to be hungry…” (Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, p.88)

Imagine the hunger that will need to be satisfied when full public Masses resume, the pent up desires that will be released. Imagine people, filled with emotion, joy, and thanksgiving, streaming to Mass to receive the Lord, conscious now of what it is that they’ve missed, what it is that is real.

I believe, too, that there is pent up energy for sacred music and for beauty. For the liturgy and the eschatological. For heaven. How parched will have been our spiritual lives, how absent of beauty. Like a thirst that must be quenched, sacred polyphony, chant, and excellent hymnody will be like drinking from cooling waters.

Musicians need to be ready. We don’t know when this will happen, if we’ll receive plenty of lead time or only a few days notice. My suggestion to you all is to be ready for any contingency. Plan what would happen if you returned on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, or even later. Are you ready? If needed, reimagine musical plans so that your choirs can sing things they know very well. The faithful will want to hear you at your best, singing as beautifully as possible. They will have missed you, even if they don’t yet know it. Keep in contact with your choir through email, text, or phone. Make sure they are healthy, and remind them how much they will be needed when the time comes.

Let us pray for the Church, for the Pope, for the sick, for the world.

 


NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1 I was struck when looking at the various statements from Americas bishops regarding the suspension of public celebrations of the Mass how few mentioned the Eucharist. From what I could find, Cardinal Cupich of Chicago was most explicit when he said, “This was not a decision I make lightly. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our life as Catholics.”

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: March 18, 2020

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About Dr. Alfred Calabrese

Dr. Alfred Calabrese is Director of Music and Liturgy at St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas, TX. He and his wife have two children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“If he converses with the learned and judicious, he delights in their talent—if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their stupidity. He is not even offended by professional jesters. With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women (even with his own wife) he is full of jokes and banter.”

— ‘Erasmus on St. Thomas More (England’s 1st lay Chancellor)’

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