KISS Principle - Keep It Simple (is) Stupid

It usually takes an impetus of some sort to really propel me to do anything. I guess that’s a law of physics of some sort. But these past two days have brought to light something that has been on my mind: simple liturgy.

With the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, it should be celebrated with great solemnity and even has rubrics for a grand procession or a solemn entrance. In the seminary, we had the opportunity to do it and we did the best we could with what we had. I looked forward to it in the parishes. Unfortunately, like most feast days it was met with these words: “let’s just keep it simple this year”.

These words of “keep it simple” were repeated quite a lot in the sacristy that day, which really makes me wonder. Was it really overly extravagant last year or the year before? When was this feast ever celebrated to its fullest prescription? It certainly seemed like a feast that enjoyed such solemnity to the point of having liturgical rubrics prescribed. Yet with deference to the people in this day and age, we take the options that will cause the least complaints and will be the least cumbersome for the people that have to work in the real world. Feast days have been moved, abrogated, and chipped away because it would cause undue burden on the faithful. Heaven forbid that a “work of the people” would actually involve work!!! In some ways, it almost seems as if we were apologetic about taking up people’s precious time. What kind of hypocrite would I be if I preached about pausing for time with God and then rush through the Mass as if there were more important things to do in this world?

To take the simplest route, the path of least resistance preserves the essential and removes the “extra” stuff. It would be acceptable in extraordinary circumstances where the “extra” stuff could not be done without great difficulty. I think this route would be taken when one has not properly prepared. But next year, who knows what “keep it simple” will mean? As this maxim repeats each year, something will be lost: a lighted candle here or a blessing there. In the past these were “essential”, but now a simple action will suffice as “essential”. Since man is a creature of habit, he will continue to “keep it simple” until even the essentials of the liturgy have eroded away.

When the prevailing attitude and approach shuns ornamentation, there will be decline in the sense of the sacred transcendent and an increased effort on the part of the believer to put meaning and value into the thing. That prevailing attitude was a reaction against the “more is better” attitude. So now: “more LESS is better”; which naturally reduces to nothing in the end. Well, I think the reaction against the “more is better” is really a misunderstanding and oversimplification of what ornamentation really was.

Ornamentation to architecture and liturgy is to accentuate the essential, not to occlude it. It is not the simplistic view of dumping as much as possible into something to make it better. Rather, the ornamentation is the fruit of what comes from the essential. To “get back to the essentials” would only undo what was done only to have it be redone again later. Stripping things down to the essential elements, scrapping off any ornamentation that grows, is to reject the faith that has caused the ornamentation to flower in the first place. In “keeping it simple”, how far can you go before the “it” is no longer kept?