The other day someone was talking about a priest they had seen who was not reading anything from the missal during mass – he had memorized everything. The attitude was positive… “It is impressive,” “he could look at us and just engage us more directly,” etc. I have heard too before of a priest who decided once to memorize the Gospel reading for some Sunday… Woah! Father memorized a few lines! What a performance!

Needless to say, I don’t think it’s good. Of course, it is good to memorize the liturgy – especially just in case one is put in a prison camp without a missal… And of course it is good to memorize Scripture. But even if one does that there a few problems with this treatment of the liturgy.

First, it comes off as a “performance by Father So-and-So.” It is distracting. It points to the personality of the priest, not to God.

Second, there is always the chance that a mistake gets made. Oops.

Third, it doesn’t match the way Christ knew things. This is the one I offer for the most consideration… The Lord had and has several different kinds of knowledge… Not only acquired or empirical knowledge (the “I observed it and learned it” kind), but also infused knowledge (the kind immediately given by God about real things). The Lord further has beatific and Divine knowledge, but here I just want to focus on the infused and acquired knowledge. What good is it for the Lord to have acquired knowledge when He already knows all singular things past, present, and future by infused knowledge (and by beatific and Divine knowledge)? Why should He learn anything?

To bring it into sharper relief… Why does the Lord READ the scroll of Isaiah at the synagogue in Nazareth? (Luke 4:16-20… It is at least directly implied.)

As St. Thomas explains, it is most fitting that the Lord’s powers be reduced to their proper acts most fully, such that they are not rendered useless. Because Christ is fully a human, He has the same kind of intellect you and I have – one which can learn by comparing one thing to another, by reasoning from effect to cause. So, He did that. And there is a certain kind of satisfaction in knowing and in demonstrating a truth in a different way from the way one already knows – like finding a new way to prove some mathematical theorem. Christ does this when He asks questions, reasons, or even looks around. He already knows by the other kinds of knowledge, but it is good to have the display of power through acquired knowledge.

One can even perhaps have had the unique and somewhat strangely satisfying experience of READING a prayer that is very familiar, like the Hail Mary. There IS something different about it – and we have intimated that difference here. It is a kind of maximization of our own faculties of knowledge and the manifestation of that knowledge. It therefore models Christ’s own knowledge and teaching better.

Where custom allows for the recitation of particular common prayers from memory (like the Our Father), then the celebrant does nothing wrong in so doing. But it should not be done outside of legitimate custom except for a very serious reason.