Archive for the ‘Liturgical Renewal’ Category

« Older Entries

Quote of the Week: Thank you, Damian Thompson!

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

From Damian Thompson – April 19, 2010

“Correctly orientated worship, believes Pope Benedict, is a sine qua non for the operation of the redeeming love of Christ in the world. That is why his request that priests should say Mass facing a crucifix on the altar is so important to him; he would prefer that the celebrant faced eastwards, in the same direction as the congregation, but at least the central crucifix helps ensure that the consecration is not directed at the people, which would make it more like a Protestant shared meal than a sacrifice.

But Catholics should ask themselves: when did they last visit an ordinary parish church and see a priest observing the Pope’s wishes? Just as the correct orientation of the altar matters enormously to Benedict XVI, so the disregard of this reform tells us a lot about the fundamental disconnection between the Pontiff and his priests.

This disconnection is made possible by the immense power of the bishop and the diocese in the Church – a power that also made possible the sheltering of so many clerical sex abusers not just from the police but also from the Vatican. Much of this power is derived from Scripture: the diocese has been the fundamental unit of the Church since its institution. A crucial problem is that the Vatican – a tiny organisation, really, about the size of a middle-sized American corporation – has neglected its historic role of aligning Catholic bishops with their Pontiff. Benedict XVI wants to reform the Church; but how can he do so when the dicasteries (major departments) are run by cardinals and archbishops of widely differing degrees of loyalty and mental alertness?…”

For the whole article/blog post, go to:

 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100035325/benedict-xvi-after-five-years-time-is-running-out-for-a-great-reforming-pope/ 

Posted in AD ORIENTEM: Turning Towards the Lord, Damian Thompspn, Liturgical Renewal, Pope Benedict XVI, Quote of the Week, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

Quote of the Week…

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

George Cardinal Mundelein

“But after all, for us Catholics…a church….is more that just an ordinary spacious attractive meeting house.  It is even more than just a house of prayer.  It is the place for us where the living Presence of the Godhead dwells, it is the great audience chamber where the God made Flesh and Dwelt Among us is here constantly, here ready for you at all times, to listen to your prayers and your petitions.  It is the one place, the one spot perhaps for each of us that is intimately connected with the most important, the greatest events of our lives.”

  

- George Cardinal Mundelein, Archbishop of Chicago, 1939

 

Posted in Famous Sermons & Homilies, Liturgical Renewal, Pictures from the past, Prayer/Spiritual Life, Quote of the Week, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

The Spring EMBER DAYS

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

TODAY, Wednesday, February 24 and Friday and Saturday of this week are the traditional spring EMBER DAYS (or Lenten Embertide).  Below you will find a brief explanation of the traditional Ember Days:

The “Quatuor Temporum” or “Four Times,” or Ember Days

What Are They?

  • The Ember Days are four series of Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays which correspond to the natural seasons of the year. Autumn brings the September, or Michaelmas, Embertide; winter, the Advent Embertide; Spring, the Lenten Embertide; and in summer, the Whit Embertide (named after Whitsunday, the Feast of Pentecost).
  • The English title for these days, “Ember,” is derived from their Latin name: Quatuor Temporum, meaning the “Four Times” or “Four Seasons.”
  • The Embertides are periods of prayer and fasting, with each day having its own special Mass.

What Is Their Significance?

The Ember Days Are…

Universally Christian,

  • The Old Law prescribes a “fast of the fourth month, and a fast of the fifth, and a fast of the seventh, and a fast of tenth” (Zechariah 8:19). There was also a Jewish custom at the time of Jesus to fast every Tuesday and Thursday of the week.
  • The first Christians amended both of these customs, fasting instead on every Wednesday and Friday: Wednesday because it is the day that Christ was betrayed, and Friday because it is the day that He was slain. (And we now know that this biweekly fast is actually older than some books of the New Testament). Later, Christians from both East and West added their own commemorations of the seasons.
  • The Ember Days thus perfectly express and reflect the essence of Christianity. Christianity does not abolish the Law but fulfills it (Mt. 5:17) by following the spirit of the Law rather than its letter. Thus, not one iota of the Law is to be neglected (Mt. 5:18), but every part is to be embraced and continued, albeit on a spiritual, or figurative, level. And living in this spirit is nothing less than living out the New Covenant.  

Uniquely Roman,

  • The Apostles preached one and the same faith wherever they went, but sometimes instituted different customs and practices. Thus, Christians came to love not only the universal faith but the particular apostolic traditions which had initiated them into that faith.
  • The Roman appropriation of the Ember Days involved adding one day: Saturday. This was seen as the culmination of the Ember Week. A special Mass and procession to St. Peter’s in Rome was held, and the congregation was invited to “keep vigil with Peter.”
  • Observing the Ember Days, therefore, not only celebrates our continuity with sacred history, but with our own ecclesiastical tradition. 

Usefully Natural,

  • But continuity is not important because of a blind loyalty to one’s own or a feeling of nostalgia. On the contrary, the Christian fulfillment of the Law is important because of its pedagogical value. Everything in the Law (not to mention the rest of the Bible) is meant to teach us something fundamental about God, His redemptive plan for us, or the nature of the universe, often on levels that are not initially apparent to us. In the case of both the Hebrew seasonal fasts and the Christian Ember Days, we are invited to consider the wonder of the natural seasons and their relation to God. The seasons, for example, can be said to intimate individually the bliss of Heaven, where there is “the beauty of spring, the brightness of summer, the plenty of autumn, the rest of winter” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
  • Second, because the liturgical seasons of the Church are meant to initiate us annually into the mysteries of our redemption, they should also include some commemoration of nature for the simple reason that nature is the very thing which grace perfects. 

Communally Clerical,

  • Another Roman variation of Embertides, instituted by Pope Gelasius I in 494, is to use Ember Saturdays as the day to confer Holy Orders.* Apostolic tradition prescribed that ordinations be preceded by fast and prayer (see Acts 13:3), and so it seemed quite reasonable to place ordinations at the end of this fast period. Moreover, this allows the entire community to join the men in fasting and praying for God’s blessing upon their calling and to share their joy in being called. 

And Personally Prayerful

  • In addition to commemorating the seasons of nature, each of the four Embertides takes on the character of the liturgical season in which it is located. In fact, the Ember Days add to our living out the times of the Church’s calendar. For example, Ember Wednesday of Advent (a.k.a the “Golden Mass”), commemorates the Annunciation while the Ember Friday two days later commemorates the Visitation, the only time in Advent when this is explicitly done.
  • Embertides thus afford us the opportunity to ruminate on a number of important things: the wondrous cycle of nature and the more wondrous story of our redemption, the splendid differentiation of God’s ordained servants — and lastly, the condition of our own souls. Traditionally, these were times of spiritual exercises and personal self-examination, the ancient equivalent of our modern retreats and missions. Little wonder, then, that a host of customs and folklore grew up around them affirming the special character of these days.

MORE ABOUT EMBER DAYS from: With Christ Through the Year by Rev. Bernard Strasser, O.S.B., illustrated by Sister M.A. Justina Knapp, O.S.B., Bruce Publishing Company, Copyright 1947.

While man’s prayer is often entirely a petition, liturgical prayer is primarily praise, thanksgiving, and adoration. A typical example of this is the Gloria of the Mass in which we note the gradual rise of praise of God until it reaches a wonderful climax: “Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. Adoramus te. Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.” (We praise Thee. We bless Thee. We adore Thee. We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory.) In her official liturgical prayers the Church constantly exhorts us to praise, adore, glorify, and thank God. Moreover, she has set aside special seasons to offer prayers of gratitude for the gifts of God. This happens four times a year on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of the ember weeks which fall at the beginning of the four seasons of the year.

Ember days and ember weeks originated in early Christian days, and were first celebrated in Rome. Early in summer, in Pentecost week, the wheat was harvested. In order to thank God for this harvest, at the Offertory of the Mass a part (a so-called tithe, a tenth part) was offered for the benefit of the Church, the priests, and the poor. In like manner, it was customary to offer tithes of the other harvest in their respective seasons. When the grapes were harvested in September, there was another week of thanks, and similar offerings were made in December when the olive crop was gathered. The fruits of these harvests, wheat, wine, and oil, have been put to the highest possible use in the liturgy of the Church, for she uses them sacramentally, that is, as external signs of the inner grace imparted through her sacraments. She uses them sacramentally, that is, as external signs of the inner grace imparted through her sacraments. She uses bread and wine at the holy sacrifice of the Mass and at Holy Communion; she uses oil at Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Order, Extreme Unction, and for many of her sacramentals (baptismal water, blessing of bells, churches, chalices, etc.). Later, a fourth week of thanksgiving was added in the spring, when it is but natural for man to thank God for the awakening of nature, the budding of the first flowers, and the lengthened hours of daylight. Thus there was a portion to each season of the year a week of thanksgiving for the gifts of nature with which God has so generously enriched the world:

 

  1. In spring, during the week after Ash Wednesday, to give thanks for the rebirth of nature and for the gift of light.
  2. In summer, within the octave of Pentecost, to give thanks for the wheat crop.
  3. In autumn, beginning on the Wednesday immediately after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14), to give thanks for the grape harvest.
  4. In winter, within the week following the Feast of St. Lucy (December 13), during the third week of Advent, to give thanks for the olive crop.

 On ember days we thank God four times a year for all the gifts of nature, especially for those used by the Church in her sacraments and sacramentals. We also thank Him for the sacraments, administered to us under the external signs of these gifts of nature.

Since the late 5th century, the Ember Saturdays were also the preferred dates for ordinations.  So during these times the Church had a threefold focus: (1) sanctifying each new season by turning to God through prayer, fasting and almsgiving; (2) giving thanks to God for the various harvests of each season; and (3) praying for the newly ordained and for future vocations to the priesthood and religious life. 

 

Father Norfolk and Bishop Swain

Posted in Catholic Culture, Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, Lent, Liturgical Renewal, Prayer/Spiritual Life, The Catholic Home, The Sacred Liturgy, Vocations | No Comments »

Complete Text of Msgr. Marini’s Conference of January 6th – INTRODUCTION to the SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Msgr. Guido Marini

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY

(Editor’s note: Section 3 — on the direction the Celebrant faces during the Liturgy of the Eucharist–  is in bold for your convenience.   Please take note of its relevance.)

Vatican City, January 6, 2010

A Conference for the Year of the Priest

by Msgr. Guido Marini,

Pontifical Master of Liturgical Ceremonies

I propose to focus on some topics connected to the spirit of the liturgy and reflect on them with you; indeed, I intend to broach a subject which would require me to say much. Not only because it is a demanding and complex task to talk about the spirit of the liturgy, but also because many important works treating this subject have already been written by authors of unquestionably high caliber in theology and the liturgy. I’m thinking of two people in particular among the many: Romano Guardini and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

One the other hand, it is now all the more necessary to speak about the spirit of the liturgy, especially for us members of the sacred priesthood. Moreover, there is an urgent need to reaffirm the “authentic” spirit of the liturgy, such as it is present in the uninterrupted tradition of the Church, and attested, in continuity with the past, in the most recent Magisterial teachings: starting from the second Vatican council up to the present pontificate. I purposefully used the word continuity, a word very dear to our present Holy Father. He has made it the only authoritative criterion whereby one can correctly interpret the life of the Church, and more specifically, the conciliar documents, including all the proposed reforms contained in them. How could it be any different? Can one truly speak of a Church of the past and a Church of the future as if some historical break in the body of the Church had occurred? Could anyone say that the Bride of Christ had lived without the assistance of the Holy Spirit in a particular period of the past, so that its memory should be erased, purposefully forgotten?

Nevertheless at times it seems that some individuals are truly partisan to a way of thinking that is justly and properly defined as an ideology, or rather a preconceived notion applied to the history of the Church which has nothing to do with the true faith.

An example of the fruit produced by that misleading ideology is the recurrent distinction between the preconciliar and the post conciliar Church. Such a manner of speaking can be legitimate, but only on condition that two Churches are not understood by it: one, the pre Conciliar Church, that has nothing more to say or to give because it has been surpassed, and a second, the post conciliar church, a new reality born from the Council and, by its presumed spirit, not in continuity with its past. This manner of speaking and more so of thinking must not be our own. Apart from being incorrect, it is already superseded and outdated, perhaps understandable from a historical point of view, but nonetheless connected to a season in the church’s life by now concluded.

Does what we have discussed so far with respect to “continuity” have anything to do with the topic we have been asked to treat in this lecture? Yes, absolutely. The authentic spirit of the liturgy does not abide when it is not approached with serenity, leaving aside all polemics with respect to the recent or remote past. The liturgy cannot and must not be an opportunity for conflict between those who find good only in that which came before us, and those who, on the contrary, almost always find wrong in what came before. The only disposition which permits us to attain the authentic spirit of the liturgy, with joy and true spiritual relish, is to regard both the present and the past liturgy of the Church as one patrimony in continuous development. A spirit, accordingly, which we must receive from the Church and is not a fruit of our own making. A spirit, I add, which leads to what is essential in the liturgy, or, more precisely, to prayer inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, in whom Christ continues to become present for us today, to burst forth into our lives. Truly, the spirit of the liturgy is the liturgy of the Holy Spirit.

I will not pretend to plumb the depths of the proposed subject matter, nor to treat all the different aspects necessary for a panoramic and comprehensive understanding of the question. I will limit myself by discussing only a few elements essential to the liturgy, specifically with reference to the celebration of the Eucharist, such as the Church proposes them, and in the manner I have learned to deepen my knowledge of them these past two years in service to our Holy Father, Benedict XVI. He is an authentic master of the spirit of the liturgy, whether by his teaching, or by the example he gives in the celebration of the sacred rites.

If, during the course of these reflections on the essence of the liturgy, I will find myself taking note of some behaviours that I do not consider in complete harmony with the authentic spirit of the liturgy, I will do so only as a small contribution to making this spirit stand out all the more in all its beauty and truth.

1. The Sacred Liturgy, God’s great gift to the Church.

We are all well aware how the second Vatican Council dedicated the entirety of its first document to the liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium. It was labeled as the Constitution on the sacred liturgy.

I wish to underline the term sacred in its application to the liturgy, because of its importance. As a matter of fact, the council Fathers intended in this way to reinforce the sacred character of the liturgy.

What, then, do we mean by the sacred liturgy? The East would in this case speak of the divine dimension in the Liturgy, or, to be more precise, of that dimension which is not left to the arbitrary will of man, because it is a gift which comes from on high. It refers, in other words, to the mystery of salvation in Christ, entrusted to the Church in order to make it available in every moment and in every place by means of the objective nature of the liturgical and sacramental rites. This is a reality surpassing us, which is to be received as gift, and which must be allowed to transform us. Indeed, the second Vatican Council affirms: “…every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others…” (Sacrosanctum concilium, n.7)

From this perspective it is not difficult to realise how far distant some modes of conduct are from the authentic spirit of the liturgy. In fact, some individuals have managed to upset the liturgy of the church in various ways under the pretext of a wrongly devised creativity. This was done on the grounds of adapting to the local situation and the needs of the community, thus appropriating the right to remove from, add to, or modify the liturgical rite in pursuit of subjective and emotional ends. For this, we priests are largely responsible.

For this reason, already back in 2001, the former Cardinal Ratzinger asserted: “There is need of, at the very least, of a new liturgical awareness that might put a stop to the tendency to treat the liturgy as if it were an object open to manipulation. We have reached the point where liturgical groups stitch together the Sunday liturgy on their own authority. The result is certainly the imaginative product of a group of able and skilled individuals. But in this way the space where one may encounter the “totally other” is reduced, in which the holy offers Himself as gift; what I come upon is only the skill of a group of people. It is then that we realise that we are looking for something else. It is too little, and at the same time, something different. The most important thing today is to acquire anew a respect for the liturgy, and an awareness that it is not open to manipulation. To learn once again to recognise in its nature a living creation that grows and has been given as gift, through which we participate in the heavenly liturgy. To renounce seeking in it our own self-realisation in order to see a gift instead. This, I believe, is of primary importance: to overcome the temptation of a despotic behaviour, which conceives the liturgy as an object, the property of man, and to re-awaken the interior sense of the holy.” (from ‘God and the World’; translation from the Italian)

To affirm, therefore, that the liturgy is sacred presupposes the fact that the liturgy does not exist subject to the sporadic modifications and arbitrary inventions of one individual or group. The liturgy is not a closed circle in which we decide to meet, perhaps to encourage one another, to feel we are the protagonists of some feast. The liturgy is God’s summons to his people to be in His presence; it is the advent of God among us; it is God encountering us in this world.

A certain adaptation to particular local situations is foreseen and rightly so. The Missal itself indicates where adaptations may be made in some of its sections, yet only in these and not arbitrarily in others. The reason for this is important and it is good to reassert it: the liturgy is a gift which precedes us, a precious treasure which has been delivered by the age-old prayer of the Church, the place in which the faith has found its form in time and its expression in prayer. It is not made available to us in order to be subjected to our personal interpretation; rather, the liturgy is made available so as to be fully at the disposal of all, yesterday just as today and also tomorrow. “Our time, too,” wrote Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “calls for a renewed awareness and appreciation of liturgical norms as a reflection of, and a witness to, the one universal Church made present in every celebration of the Eucharist.” (n. 52)

In the brilliant Encyclical Mediator Dei, which is so often quoted in the constitution on the sacred Liturgy, Pope Pius XII defines the liturgy as “…the public worship… the worship rendered by the Mystical Body of Christ in the entirety of its Head and members.” (n. 20) As if to say, among other things, that in the liturgy, the Church “officially” identifies herself in the mystery of her union with Christ as spouse, and where she “officially” reveals herself. What casual folly it is indeed, to claim for ourselves the right to change in a subjective way the holy signs which time has sifted, through which the Church speaks about herself, her identity and her faith!

The people of God has a right that can never be ignored, in virtue of which, all must be allowed to approach what is not merely the poor fruit of human effort, but the work of God, and precisely because it is God’s work, a saving font of new life.

I wish to prolong my reflection a moment longer on this point, which, I can testify, is very dear to the Holy Father, by sharing with you a passage from Sacramentum Caritatis, the Apostolic Exhortation of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, written after the Synod on the Holy Eucharist. “Emphasising the importance of the ars celebrandi,” the Holy Father writes, “also leads to an appreciation of the value of the liturgical norms… The eucharistic celebration is enhanced when priests and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical texts and norms… Perhaps we take it for granted that our ecclesial communities already know and appreciate these resources, but this is not always the case. These texts contain riches which have preserved and expressed the faith and experience of the People of God over its two-thousand-year history.” (n. 40)

2. The orientation of liturgical prayer.

Over and above the changes which have characterised, during the course of time, the architecture of churches and the places where the liturgy takes place, one conviction has always remained clear within the Christian community, almost down to the present day. I am referring to praying facing east, a tradition which goes back to the origins of Christianity.

What is understood by “praying facing east”? It refers to the orientation of the praying heart towards Christ, from whom comes salvation, and to whom it is directed as in the beginning so at the end of history. The sun rises in the east, and the sun is a symbol of Christ, the light rising in the Orient. The messianic passage in the Benedictus canticle comes readily to mind: “Through the tender mercy of our God; * whereby the Orient from on high hath visited us”

Very reliable and recent studies have by now proven effectively that, in every age of its past, the Christian community has found the way to express even in the external and visible liturgical sign, this fundamental orientation for the life of faith. This is why we find churches built in such a way that the apse was turned to the east. When such an orientation of the sacred space was no longer possible, the Church had recourse to the Crucifix placed upon the altar, on which everyone could focus. In the same vein many apses were decorated with resplendent representations of the Lord. All were invited to contemplate these images during the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy.

Without recourse to a detailed historical analysis of the development of Christian art, we would like to reaffirm that prayer facing east, more specifically, facing the Lord, is a characteristic expression of the authentic spirit of the liturgy. It is according to this sense that we are invited to turn our hearts to the Lord during the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy, as the introductory dialogue to the Preface well reminds us. Sursum corda “Lift up your hearts,” exhorts the priest, and all respond: Habemus ad Dominum “We lift them up unto the Lord.” Now if such an orientation must always be adopted interiorly by the entire Christian community when it gathers in prayer, it should be possible to find this orientation expressed externally by means of signs as well. The external sign, moreover, cannot but be true, in such a way that through it the correct spiritual attitude is rendered visible.

Hence the reason for the proposal made by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, and presently reaffirmed during the course of his pontificate, to place the Crucifix on the center of the altar, in order that all, during the celebration of the liturgy, may concretely face and look upon Lord, in such a way as to orient also their prayer and hearts. Let us listen to the words of his Holiness, Benedict XVI, directly, who in the preface to the first book of his Complete Works, dedicated to the liturgy, writes the following: “The idea that the priest and people should stare at one another during prayer was born only in modern Christianity, and is completely alien to the ancient Church. The priest and people most certainly do not pray one to the other, but to the one Lord. Therefore, they stare in the same direction during prayer: either towards the east as a cosmic symbol of the Lord who comes, or, where this is not possible, towards the image of Christ in the apse, towards a crucifix, or simply towards the heavens, as our Lord Himself did in his priestly prayer the night before His Passion (John 17.1) In the meantime the proposal made by me at the end of the chapter treating this question in my work ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’ is fortunately becoming more and more common: rather than proceeding with further transformations, simply to place the crucifix at the center of the altar, which both priest and the faithful can face and be lead in this way towards the Lord, whom everyone addresses in prayer together.” (trans. from the Italian.)

Let it not be said, moreover, that the image of our Lord crucified obstructs the sight of the faithful from that of the priest, for they are not to look to the celebrant at that point in the liturgy! They are to turn their gaze towards the Lord! In like manner, the presider of the celebration should also be able to turn towards the Lord. The crucifix does not obstruct our view; rather it expands our horizon to see the world of God; the crucifix brings us to meditate on the mystery; it introduces us to the heavens from where the only light capable of making sense of life on this earth comes. Our sight, in truth, would be blinded and obstructed were our eyes to remain fixed on those things that display only man and his works.

In this way one can come to understand why it is still possible today to celebrate the holy Mass upon the old altars, when the particular architectural and artistic features of our churches would advise it. Also in this, the Holy Father gives us an example when he celebrates the holy Eucharist at the ancient altar of the Sistine Chapel on the feast of the Baptism of our Lord.

In our time, the expression “celebrating facing the people” has entered our common vocabulary. If one’s intention in using this expression is to describe the location of the priest, who, due to the fact that today he often finds himself facing the congregation because of the placement of the altar, in this case such an expression is acceptable. Yet such an expression would be categorically unacceptable the moment it comes to express a theological proposition. Theologically speaking, the holy Mass, as a matter of fact, is always addressed to God through Christ our Lord, and it would be a grievous error to imagine that the principal orientation of the sacrificial action is the community. Such an orientation, therefore, of turning towards the Lord must animate the interior participation of each individual during the liturgy. It is likewise equally important that this orientation be quite visible in the liturgical sign as well.

3. Adoration and union with God.

Adoration is the recognition, filled with wonder, we could even say ecstatic, (because it makes us come out of ourselves and our small world) the recognition of the infinite might of God, of His incomprehensible majesty, and of His love without limit which he offers us absolutely gratuitously, of His omnipotent and provident Lordship. Consequently, adoration leads to the reunification of man and creation with God, to the abandonment of the state of separation, of apparent autonomy, to loss of self, which is, moreover, the only way of regaining oneself.

Before the ineffable beauty of God’s charity, which takes form in the mystery of the Incarnate Word, who for our sake has died and is risen, and which finds its sacramental manifestation in the liturgy, there is nothing left for us but to be left in adoration. “In the paschal event and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout the centuries,” affirms Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “there is a truly enormous capacity which embraces all of history as the recipient of the grace of the redemption. This amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist.” (n.5)

“My Lord and my God,” we have been taught to say from childhood at the moment of the consecration. In such a way, borrowing the words of the apostle St. Thomas, we are led to adore the Lord, made present and living in the species of the holy Eucharist, uniting ourselves to Him, and recognising Him as our all. From there it becomes possible to resume our daily way, having found the correct order of life, the fundamental criterion whereby to live and to die.

Here is the reason why everything in the liturgical act, through the nobility, the beauty, and the harmony of the exterior sign, must be condusive to adoration, to union with God: this includes the music, the singing, the periods of silence, the manner of proclaiming the Word of the Lord, and the manner of praying, the gestures employed, the liturgical vestments and the sacred vessels and other furnishings, as well as the sacred edifice in its entirety. It is under this perspective that the decision of his Holiness, Benedict XVI, is to be taken into consideration, who, starting from the feast of Corpus Christi last year, has begun to distribute holy Communion to the kneeling faithful directly on the tongue. By the example of this action, the Holy Father invites us to render visible the proper attitude of adoration before the greatness of the mystery of the Eucharistic presence of our Lord. An attitude of adoration which must be fostered all the more when approaching the most holy Eucharist in the other forms permitted today.

I would like to cite once more another passage from the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis: “During the early phases of the reform, the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church’s experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy. As Saint Augustine put it: ‘nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando – no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.’ In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church’s supreme act of adoration. Receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy.” (n.66)

I think that, among others, the following passage from the text I just read should not go unnoticed: “[The Eucharistic celebration] is itself the Church’s supreme act of adoration.” Thanks to the holy Eucharist, his Holiness, Benedict XVI, asserts once more: “The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realised in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God’s presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing in his body and blood.” (Deus Caritas est, n.13) For this reason, everything in the liturgy, and more specifically in the Eucharistic liturgy, must lead to adoration, everything in the unfolding of the rite must help one enter into the Church’s adoration of her Lord.

To consider the liturgy as locus for adoration, for union with God, does not mean to loose sight of the communal dimension in the liturgical celebration, even less to forget the imperative of charity toward one’s neighbour. On the contrary, only through a renewal of the adoration of God in Christ, which takes form in the liturgical act, will an authentic fraternal communion and a new story of charity and love arise, depending on that ability to wonder and act heroically, which only the grace of God can give to our poor hearts. The lives of the saints remind and teach us this. “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians.” (Deus caritas est, n. 14)

4. Active Participation.

It was really the saints who have celebrated and lived the liturgical act by participating actively. Holiness, as the result of their lives, is the most beautiful testimony of a participation truthfully active in the liturgy of the Church.

Rightly, then, and by divine providence did the second Vatican Council insist so much on the necessity of promoting an authentic participation on the part of the faithful during the celebration of the holy mysteries, at the same time when it reminded the Church of the universal call to holiness. This authoritative direction from the council has been confirmed and proposed again and again by so many successive documents of the magisterium down to the present day.

Nevertheless, there has not always been a correct understanding of the concept of “active participation”, according to how the Church teaches it and exhorts the faithful to live it. To be sure, there is active participation when, during the course of the liturgical celebration, one fulfills his proper service; there is active participation too when one has a better comprehension of God’s word when it is heard or of the prayers when they are said; there is also active participation when one unites his own voice to that of the others in song….All this, however, would not signify a participation truthfully active if it did not lead to adoration of the mystery of salvation in Christ Jesus, who for our sake died and is risen. This is because only he who adores the mystery, welcoming it into his life, demonstrates that he has comprehended what is being celebrated, and so is truly participating in the grace of the liturgical act.

As confirmation and support for what has just been asserted, let us listen once again to the words of a passage by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, from his fundamental study “The Spirit of the Liturgy”: “What does this active participation come down to? What does it mean that we have to do? Unfortunately the word was very quickly misunderstood to mean something external, entailing a need for general activity, as if as many people as possible, as often as possible, should be visibly engaged in action. However, the word ‘part-icipation’ refers to a principal action in which everyone has a ‘part’…By the actio of the liturgy the sources mean the Eucharistic prayer. The real liturgical action, the true liturgical act, is the oratio….This oratio—the Eucharistic Prayer, the “Canon”—is really more than speech; it is actio in the highest sense of the word.” (pp. 171-2) Christ is made present in all of his salvific work, and for this reason the human actio becomes secondary and makes room for the divine actio, to God’s work.

Thus the true action which is carried out in the liturgy is the action of God Himself, his saving work in Christ, in which we participate. This is, among other things, the true novelty of the Christian liturgy with respect to every other act of worship: God Himself acts and accomplishes that which is essential, whilst man is called to open himself to the activity of God, in order to be left transformed. Consequently, the essential aspect of active participation is to overcome the difference between God’s act and our own, that we might become one with Christ. This is why, that I might stress what has been said up to now, it is not possible to participate without adoration. Let us listen to another passage from Sacrosanctum Concilium: “The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God’s word and be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.” (n. 48)

Compared to this, everything else is secondary. I am referring in particular to external actions, granted they be important and necessary, and foreseen above all during the Liturgy of the Word. I mention the external actions because, should they become the essential preoccupation and the liturgy is reduced to a generic act, in that case the authentic spirit of the liturgy has been misunderstood. It follows that an authentic education in the liturgy cannot consist simply in learning and practicing exterior actions, but in an introduction to the essential action, which is God’s own, the paschal mystery of Christ, whom we must allow to meet us, to involve us, to transform us. Let not the mere execution of external gestures be confused with the correct involvement of our bodies in the liturgical act. Without taking anything away from the meaning and importance of the external action which accompanies the interior act, the Liturgy demands a lot more from the human body. It requires, in fact, its total and renewed effort in the daily actions of this life. This is what the Holy Father, Benedict XVI calls “Eucharistic coherence”. Properly speaking, it is the timely and faithful exercise of such a coherence or consistency which is the most authentic expression of participation, even bodily, in the liturgical act, the salvific action of Christ.

I wish to discuss this point further. Are we truly certain that the promotion of an active participation consists in rendering everything to the greatest extent possible immediately comprehensible? May it not be the case that entering into God’s mystery might be facilitated and, sometimes, even better accompanied by that which touches principally the reasons of the heart? Is it not often the case that a disproportionate amount of space is given over to empty and trite speech, forgetting that both dialogue and silence belong in the liturgy, congregational singing and choral music, images, symbols, gestures? Do not, perhaps, also the Latin language, Gregorian chant, and sacred polyphony belong to this manifold language which conducts us to the center of the mystery?

5. Sacred or liturgical music.

There is no doubt that a discussion, in order to introduce itself authentically into the spirit of the liturgy, cannot pass over sacred or liturgical music in silence.

I will limit myself to a brief reflection in way of orienting the discussion. One might wonder why the Church by means of its documents, more or less recent, insists in indicating a certain type of music and singing as particularly consonant with the liturgical celebration. Already at the time of the Council of Trent the Church intervened in the cultural conflict developing at that time, reestablishing the norm whereby music conforming to the sacred text was of primary importance, limiting the use of instruments and pointing to a clear distinction between profane and sacred music. Sacred music, moreover, must never be understood as a purely subjective expression. It is anchored to the biblical or traditional texts which are to be sung during the course of the celebration. More recently, Pope Saint Pius X intervened in an analogous way, seeking to remove operatic singing from the liturgy and selecting Gregorian chant and polyphony from the time of the Catholic reformation as the standard for liturgical music, to be distinguished from religious music in general. The second Vatican Council did naught but reaffirm the same standard, so too the more recent magisterial documents.

Why does the Church insist on proposing certain forms as characteristic of sacred and liturgical music which make them distinct from all other forms of music? Why, also, do Gregorian chant and the classical sacred polyphony turn out to be the forms to be imitated, in light of which liturgical and even popular music should continue to be produced today?

The answer to these questions lies precisely in what we have sought to assert with regard to the spirit of the liturgy. It is properly those forms of music, in their holiness, their goodness, and their universality, which translate in notes, melodies and singing the authentic liturgical spirit: by leading to adoration of the mystery celebrated, by favouring an authentic and integral participation, by helping the listener to capture the sacred and thereby the essential primacy of God acting in Christ, and finally by permitting a musical development that is anchored in the life of the Church and the contemplation of its mystery.

Allow me to quote the then Cardinal Ratzinger one last time: “Gandhi highlights three vital spaces in the cosmos, and demonstrates how each one of them communicates even its own mode of being. Fish live in the sea and are silent. Terrestrial animals cry out, but the birds, whose vital space is the heavens, sing. Silence is proper to the sea, crying out to the earth, and singing to the heavens. Man, however, participates in all three: he bares within him the depth of the sea, the weight of the earth, and the height of the heavens; this is why all three modes of being belong to him: silence, crying out, and song. Today…we see that, devoid of transcendence, all that is left to man is to cry out, because he wishes to be only earth and seeks to turn into earth even the heavens and the depth of the sea. The true liturgy, the liturgy of the communion of saints, restores to him the fullness of his being. It teaches him anew how to be silent and how to sing, opening to him the profundity of the sea and teaching him how to fly, the nature of an angel; elevating his heart, it makes that song resonate in him once again which had in a way fallen asleep. In fact, we can even say that the true liturgy is recognisable especially when it frees us from the common way of living, and restores to us depth and height, silence and song. The true liturgy is recognisable by the fact that it is cosmic, not custom made for a group. It sings with the angels. It remains silent with the profound depth of the universe in waiting. And in this way it redeems the world.” (trans. from the Italian.)

At this point I would like to conclude the discussion. For some years now, several voices have been heard within Church circles talking about the necessity of a new liturgical renewal. Of a movement, in some ways analogous to the one which formed the basis for the reform promoted by the second Vatican Council, capable of operating a reform of the reform, or rather, one more step ahead in understanding the authentic spirit of the liturgy and of its celebration; its goal would be to carry on that providential reform of the liturgy that the conciliar Fathers had launched but has not always, in its practical implementation, found a timely and happy fulfillment.

There is no doubt that in this new liturgical renewal it is we priests who are to recover a decisive role. With the help of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of all priests, may this further development of the reform also be the fruit of our sincere love for the liturgy, in fidelity to the Church and the Holy Father.

Msgr. Guido Marini

Pontifical Master of Liturgical Ceremonies

Posted in AD ORIENTEM: Turning Towards the Lord, Liturgical Renewal, New Springtime of the Church, Papal Messages and Documents, Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer/Spiritual Life, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

DOM PROSPER GUÉRANGER: The 40 Days of Christmastide

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

From THE LITURGICAL YEAR

By the Servant of God, DOM PROSPER GUÉRANGER (April 4, 1805 – January 30, 1875), ABBOT OF SOLESMES 

CHAPTER THE FIRST
THE HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS

We apply the name of Christmas to the forty days which begin with the Nativity of our Lord, December 25, and end with the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, February 2. It is a period which forms a distinct portion of the Liturgical Year, as distinct, by its own special spirit, from every other, as are Advent, Lent, Easter, or Pentecost. One same Mystery is celebrated and kept in view during the whole forty days. Neither the Feasts of the Saints, which so abound during this Season; nor the time of Septuagesima, with its mournful Purple, which often begins before Christmastide is over, seem able to distract our Holy Mother the Church from the immense joy of which she received the good tidings from the Angels [St Luke ii 10] on that glorious Night for which the world had been longing four thousand years. The Faithful will remember that the Liturgy commemorates this long expectation by the four penitential weeks of Advent.

The custom of celebrating the Solemnity of our Savior’s Nativity by a feast or commemoration of forty days’ duration is founded on the holy Gospel itself; for it tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after spending forty days in the contemplation of the Divine Fruit of her glorious Maternity, went to the Temple, there to fulfil, in most perfect humility, the ceremonies which the Law demanded of the daughters of Israel, when they became mothers.

The Feast of Mary’s Purification is, therefore, part of that of Jesus’ Birth; and the custom of keeping this holy and glorious period of forty days as one continued Festival has every appearance of being a very ancient one, at least in the Roman Church. And firstly, with regard to our Savior’s Birth on December 25, we have St John Chrysostom telling us, in his Homily for this Feast, that the Western Churches had, from the very commencement of Christianity, kept it on this day. He is not satisfied with merely mentioning the tradition; he undertakes to show that it is well founded, inasmuch as the Church of Rome had every means of knowing the true day of our Saviour’s Birth, since the acts of the Enrolment, taken in Judea by command of Augustus, were kept in the public archives of Rome. The holy Doctor adduces a second argument, which he founds upon the Gospel of St Luke, and he reasons thus: we know from the sacred Scriptures that it must have been in the fast of the seventh month [Lev. xxiii 24 and following verses. The seventh month (or Tisri) corresponded to the end of our September and beginning of our October. -Tr.] that the Priest Zachary had the vision in the Temple; after which Elizabeth, his wife, conceived St John the Baptist: hence it follows that the Blessed Virgin Mary having, as the Evangelist St Luke relates, received the Angel Gabriel’s visit, and conceived the Saviour of the world in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that is to say, in March, the Birth of Jesus must have taken place in the month of December.

But it was not till the fourth century that the Churches of the East began to keep the Feast of our Saviour’s Birth in the month of December. Up to that period they had kept it at one time on the sixth of January, thus uniting it, under the generic term of Epiphany, with the Manifestation of our Savior made to the Magi, and in them to the Gentiles; at another time, as Clement of Alexandria tells us, they kept it on the 25th of the month Pachon (May 15), or on the 25th of the month Pharmuth (April 20). St John Chrysostom, in the Homily we have just cited, which he gave in 386, tells us that the Roman custom of celebrating the Birth of our Savior on December 25 had then only been observed ten years in the Church of Antioch. It is probable that this change had been introduced in obedience to the wishes of the Apostolic See, wishes which received additional weight by the edict of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, which appeared towards the close of the fourth century, and decreed that the Nativity and Epiphany of our Lord should be made two distinct Festivals. The only Church that has maintained the custom of celebrating the two mysteries on January 6 is that of Armenia; owing, no doubt, to the circumstance of that country not being under the authority of the Emperors; as also because it was withdrawn at an early period from the influence of Rome by schism and heresy.

The Feast of our Lady’s Purification, with which the forty days of Christmas close, is, in the Latin Church, of very great antiquity; so ancient, indeed, as to preclude the possibility of our fixing the date of its institution. According to the unanimous opinion of Liturgists, it is the most ancient of all the Feasts of the Holy Mother of God; and as her Purification is related in the Gospel itself, they rightly infer that its anniversary was solemnized at the very commencement of Christianity. Of course, this is only to be understood of the Roman Church; for as regards the Oriental Church, we find that this Feast was not definitely fixed to February 2 until the reign of the Emperor Justinian, in the sixth century. It is true that the Eastern Christians had previously to that time a sort of commemoration of this Mystery, but it was far from being a universal custom, and it was kept a few days after the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity, and not on the day itself of Mary’s going up to the Temple.

But what is the characteristic of Christmas in the Latin Liturgy? It is twofold: it is joy, which the whole Church feels at the coming of the divine Word in the Flesh; and it is admiration of that glorious Virgin, who was made the Mother of God. There is scarcely a prayer, or a rite, in the Liturgy of this glad Season, which does not imply these two grand Mysteries: an Infant-God, and a Virgin-Mother.

For example, on all Sundays and Feasts which are not Doubles, the Church, throughout these forty days, makes a commemoration of the fruitful virginity [The Collect, Deus qui salutis aeternae beatae Mariae Virginiate fecunda humano generi, etc.] of the Mother of God, by three special Prayers in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She begs the suffrage of Mary by proclaiming her quality of Mother of God and her inviolate purity [V. Post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti. R. Dei Genitrix, intercede pro nobis.], which remained in her even after she had given birth to her Son. And again the magnificent Anthem, Alma Redemptoris Mater, composed by the Monk Herman Contractus, continues, up to the very day of the Purification, to be the termination of each Canonical Hour. It is by such manifestations of her love and veneration that the Church, honoring the Son in the Mother, testifies her holy joy during this season of the Liturgical Year, which we call Christmas.

Our readers are aware that, when Easter Sunday falls at its latest – that is, in April – the Ecclesiastical Calendar counts as many as six Sundays after the Epiphany. Christmastide (that is, the forty days between Christmas Day and the Purification) includes sometimes four out of these six Sundays; frequently only two; and sometimes only one, as in the case when Easter comes so early as to necessitate keeping Septuagesima, and even Sexagesima Sunday, in January. Still, nothing is changed, as we have already said, in the ritual observances of this joyous season, excepting only that on those two Sundays, the fore-runners of Lent, the Vestments are purple, and the Gloria in excelsis is omitted.

Although our holy Mother the Church honors with especial devotion the Mystery of the Divine Infancy during the whole season of Christmas; yet, she is obliged to introduce into the Liturgy of this same season passages from the holy Gospels which seem premature, inasmuch as they relate to the active life of Jesus. This is owing to there being less than six months allotted by the Calendar for the celebration of the entire work of our Redemption: in other words, Christmas and Easter are so near each other, even when Easter is as late as it can be, that Mysteries must of necessity be crowded into the interval; and this entails anticipation. And yet the Liturgy never loses sight of the Divine Babe and his incomparable Mother, and never tires in their praises, during the whole period from the Nativity to the day when Mary comes to the Temple to present her Jesus.

The Greeks, too, make frequent commemorations of the Maternity of Mary in their Offices of this Season: but they have a special veneration for the twelve days between Christmas Day and the Epiphany, which, in their Liturgy, are called the Dodecameron. During this time they observe no days of Abstinence from flesh-meat; and the Emperors of the East had, out of respect for the great Mystery, decreed that no servile work should be done, and that the Courts of Law should be closed, until after January 6.

From this outline of the history of the holy season, we can understand what is the characteristic of this second portion of the Liturgical Year, which we call Christmas, and which has ever been a season most dear to the Christian world. What are the Mysteries embodied in its Liturgy will be shown in the following chapter.

Posted in Christmastide, Liturgical Renewal, Prayer/Spiritual Life, The Catholic Home, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

DAMIAN THOMPSON: What if we just said, get stuffed?

Friday, January 15th, 2010
DAMIAN THOMPSON

What if we just said: get stuffed?

by Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson is Blogs Editor of the Telegraph Media Group.
Elderly liberals in the United States, horrified by the return of solemnity to Catholic worship, are mounting a campaign against the new English translation of the Mass, entitled What If We Just Said Wait. The campaign and petition have been endorsed by the supersmug National Catholic Reporter, which really tells you all you need to know.

Here’s my suggestion. What If We Just Said Get Stuffed, You Finger-Wagging Liberals Who Wreck The Mass Every Sunday By Boring The Pants Off Us With Your Politicised Bidding Prayers, Dreary Folk Antiphons And Other Self-Aggrandising Stunts.

Or, if you’d like to express yourself more temperately, sign this petition, entitled: “We’ve Waited Long Enough”. It reads:

We believe that the newly approved English translation of the 2002 Missale Romanum needs to be implemented as soon as possible.

We believe that the Church in English-speaking nations has waited far too long for an accurate, faithful translation of the original Latin.

We believe that the current translation currently in use in English-speaking nations is overdue to be replaced, as it was developed using the method of dynamic translation, a method rejected by the Vatican in the document Liturgiam Authenticam.

We stand united with the English-speaking bishops’ conferences in their approval of the new translation.

We oppose any efforts to continue to delay this new translation.

If you agree with these statements – and the Priest of Salem, your blogging pastor, certainly does, you add your name by going here:  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/enoughwaiting/

Link to Damian Thompson’s article:  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100022346/what-if-we-just-said-get-stuffed/

Link to Damian Thompson’s posts:  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/

Posted in Liturgical Renewal, New Springtime of the Church, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

Father Aidan Nichols, OP: Eucharistic Theology and the Rite of Mass

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Eucharistic Theology and the Rite of Mass

Father Aidan Nichols, OP

From August 24-28, 2009, the Latin Mass Society of Great Britain sponsored a training conference on celebrating the Mass in the Usus Antiquior for priests at All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney, Herts. During this conference, Father Nichols delivered the following lecture which stressed the plurality of rites in the Church and then discussed the strengths of the Rite of St Pius V and the contribution it can make to Pope Benedict’s project to restore a more authentic liturgical life. [Reprinted from Mass of Ages, the quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society of Great Britain, number 162/Nov. 2009; for more information about The Latin Mass Society, go to www.latin-mass-society.org]

Introduction 

From December 1576 to April 1577 the students at Douai studied the (to them) unfamiliar Roman rite under the direction of Dr Laurence Webbe, who had come from Rome to teach it. George Godsalf, ordained on 20 December 1576, must have been the first English priest to say Mass according to the reformed Missal. If Douai used the Solemn Mass, or the students were old enough to have assisted at such a Mass in Mary Tudor’s reign, they may have regretted the disappearance of the three. five or seven deacons and as many sub-deacons, the two or more thurifers, the three cross-bearers, the fan of rich materials held over the celebrant’s head by a deacon during the Canon, and doubtless other things I don’t know about. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Or is it? The difference between the Use of Sarum, to which English students at Douai had hitherto been accustomed, and the newly promulgated Rite of Pius V was certainly less than that between the Rite of Pius V, even with such changes as affected it over the next four hundred years, and the reformed Missal of 1970. Still, it is well to be reminded that the Usus Antiquior or, as I prefer to say, on the analogy of Novus Ordo, the Antiquus Ordo, was itself once novus even if it is closely related to late mediaeval precedents, especially the Missal of the Franciscans and the Roman Curia.

Why is it well to be so reminded? For two reasons. The first is that, shocking as the radicalism of the reformers of the post Vatican II Concilium was, we cannot in all honesty call the history of the Western Liturgy a seamless garment, without rupture of any kind. And secondly, to preserve a sense of perspective in these matters, we need to recognize that, by and large, the plurality of Eucharistic rites in the Church is, in the words of Sellars and Yeatman [cf. 1066 and All That], a “Good Thing”. Such plurality is, on the whole, a good thing because it serves the better manifestation of Catholic truth.

Benefit of a plurality of rites

Why do I say that? Where public worship is concerned, not everything able to throw light on the mystery of the Mass can be said in words or executed in ritual equally comprehensively by everyone everywhere at one and the same time. In Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson has Fr Percy Franklin, the future Pope Sylvester III, describe the abolition of all the non-Latin rites in the Church as a form of ecclesial consolidation in the face of a widespread apostasy that turns out to be the prelude to the coming of Antichrist. The circumstances were, to say the least, unusual. But Benson doesn’t give the impression he realizes how much poorer the worshipping life of the Church would be if she were deprived of, for instance, the Byzantine Liturgy. By ‘poorer’, I don’t just mean aesthetically poorer, but poorer in her grasp of the mystery she celebrates in the Holy Eucharist.

To take one seemingly small example: the rite of the Zeon, where a little warm water is added to the consecrated chalice, reminds us that the Eucharistic Lord the faithful will receive in Communion is the risen and glorified Lord whose blood is warm with superabundant life. That point, thus made in ritual, is not unimportant. Some Catholic Traditionalists, who view the Mass, rightly, as the re-presentation of Calvary through the symbolism of immolation provided by the separate consecration of the bread/Body and wine/Blood, don’t seem to have taken on board that the Mass would not be the Mass without the Resurrection. In The Mysteries of Christianity, the late nineteenth century German Catholic theologian, Matthias Joseph Scheeben, wrote, contrastingly:

The glorious immortality of Christ’s Body after its Resurrection, far from being an impediment to the continuation of his Sacrifice, is the very condition without which the Sacrifice, once consummated, could not avail as a Sacrifice that is to endure for all eternity.

Or again, speaking of learning from another Liturgy, what about the merits of the Byzantine formula for the administering of Communion? It runs, “The servant of God N., receives the precious and holy Body and Blood of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, for the remission of his sins and life everlasting.” We might think that the Byzantines, like the Latin Church of the Middle Ages, had good reason to amplify the somewhat bald patristic formula, “The Body of Christ”, “The Blood of Christ”, to which the post-Conciliar reformers, in a rush to the head of what Pius XII in ‘Mediator Dei’ called “archeologism”, were keen to return us.

Testimony to Eucharistic faith

There is (this at any rate is my claim) in the best sense of the word, a ‘conspiracy’ among the various Liturgies, a conspiratio, a concerted action of the Holy Spirit, to give us a testimony as adequate as any testimony can be, this side of Heaven, to what the Eucharist is and does.

When we hear the phrase “the Church’s Eucharistic doctrine”, we’re liable, if we are orthodox, to call to mind first the body of conciliar and papal teaching which has responded to various crises in the history of this sacrament. One thinks of the early mediaeval controversies about the Real Presence which lie behind Lateran IV’s teaching on the “wonderful conversion” of bread and wine into the Lord’s Body and Blood, reiterated, in the face of early Protestantism, in Session 13 of the Council of Trent, or the same Council’s doctrine of the Euucharistic Sacrifice, in Session 22, which clarified Catholic teaching over against the Reformers, or Pope Paul VI’s 1965 letter ‘Mysterium Fidei’, drawing attention to the weaknesses of theories of the Eucharistic change emanating largely from the Netherlands.

And yet the Word of God in transmission tells us about the Eucharistic Mystery chiefly through the actual celebration of that Mystery in the worship of the Church where the Scriptures are actualized and the contribution of the Fathers is integrated. This is the ‘theological place’ that the sixteenth century Dominican, Melchior Cano, supposedly the first person to write a treatise on theological method, called “praxis Ecclesiae”, the “practice of the Church”. Magisterial documents, though essential markers for our faith, cannot take the place of the witness given to the doctrine of the Eucharist by the Liturgies themselves. And by “the Liturgies” I mean all the historic Liturgies which have been celebrated in peace and union with the Catholic Church, whose own apostolically given guardian of canonical unity is the See of Rome.

Is the Novus Ordo included?

So you see, perhaps, the direction in which I’m heading. I certainly wouldn’t want to rule out the possibility that the Novus Ordo can play a role in this ‘conspiracy’, can offer something to enrich the Eucharistic sensibility of the Catholica. We know that the Second and Fourth Eucharistic Prayers in the Missal of Paul VI are themselves examples of historic borrowing, one from the long forgotten early Roman book later known to scholars as the Egyptian Church Order and the other from the Syrian-Byzantine Anaphora of St Basil. The Third, however, though innovatory, is nonetheless a deeply satisfying text whose section beginning with the words “Respice, quaesumus, in oblationem Ecclesiae tuae” is, I believe, a better condensed statement of the Mass as both sacrifice of the Church and sacrifice of Christ than is anyone such section in the Roman Canon. What a pity the itchy fingers of Roman bureaucrats didn’t stop with the four forms the Great Prayer took in 1970, but couldn’t resist adding further Eucharistic Prayers, the inspiration of which is a good deal more debatable.

Today, however, at this gathering, we have not come to praise or even blame the Novus Ordo. We have come to acclaim the Antiquus Ordo in the sense of the Rite of St Pius V. So I shall devote the rest of this talk to that with, however, occasional continuing glances at the East. And at least one feature of the Usus Antiquior I’ll be drawing attention to is only, to my mind, distinctive of it because we have let things slip in the celebration of the Usus Recentior, to our loss.

The Mass of St Pius V: the Sacrifice

As I wrote in a recent article in The Catholic Herald (3 July 2009), the single most obvious reason we have, in terms of Eucharistic doctrine, for looking to the Rite of St Pius V, is the liturgical expression there of the Mass as Sacrifice. Assuming we are used to praying the Roman Canon as the First Eucharistic Prayer of the revised Missal and don’t cold-shoulder it as too complex for modem congregations or too different from its fellows, then the most striking textual difference between the Mass of St Pius V and the Mass of Paul VI will be the Offertory prayers of the former with their reiterated concern with the Sacrifice being offered or about to be offered.

Though disliked by people with tidy Germanic minds, the anticipation of the Anaphora, the Prayer of Oblation, in the preparation and presentation of the Gifts is a frequent feature of historic Liturgy. It is even more pronounced in the Byzantine rite, where the opening ceremonies of preparation include the piercing with a lance-shaped knife of the bread set aside for the Eucharist, as a reminder of the lance that pierced the Savior’s side. Furthermore, in that Liturgy, as the dedicated bread and wine are transferred to the altar at the Great Entrance the choir sings, “Let us who here mystically represent the Cherubim in singing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity, now lay aside every earthly care so that we may welcome the King of the universe who comes escorted by invisible armies of angels”, even though that “King” only “comes” in the sense that the dedicated gifts are now brought in so that they may be offered in the Holy Sacrifice, there to be converted into His real Presence and received as the fruit of His Sacrifice. To the worshipping mind of a Byzantine Christian they are, however already images of the Lord’s Body and Blood, and proleptically, the King does come with them, since he will come in them at the consecration. Liturgical time is not just ordinary time – which is one of the arguments of Dr Catherine Pickstock of Emmanuel College, Cambridge in her defense of the of the older Roman rite in After Writing: the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy.

So, at the Pian Offertory, which is much fuller than the one I personally am familiar with in the Dominican Use, the celebrant prays that the Father may accept this “immaculatam hostiam”, (“unblemished sacrificial offering”). He calls the wine offered “calicem salutaris”, (the “saving chalice”). In what might be termed the ‘epiclesis of the offertory’ he asks the sanctifying Spirit (“Veni sanctificator”) to come and bless the sacrificial gifts, “prepared for the glory of thy holy name”. And in the concluding prayer, “Suscipe sancta Trinitas”, he entreats the triune Lord to bring it about that “hanc oblationenem” (“this offering”) may bring honor to the Mother of God and the saints as well as salvation to ourselves.

At the risk of sounding like Msgr. Ronald Knox addressing schoolgirls in The Mass in Slow Motion, it’s as though the Church can’t wait to get to the Prayer of Oblation, and above all, to the Consecration, the moment when her gifts, which represent herself, will be transformed into Christ’s Gift which does not simply represent Him but embodies Him in His Sacrifice for her. So it’s the Bride impatient to get to the Nuptials on the Cross, to the Paschal Mystery, the thought of which is so fascinating that it draws to itself by anticipation what is in a preliminary way being done. The loss of these prayers undermines the way we should habituate ourselves to inhabit Eucharistic time, and, as I say, it also weakens the sense of the Mass as Sacrifice.

I add in parenthesis that common orientation of priest and people is, to put it mildly, highly congruent with the sacrifice pervaded attitude of the Antiquus Ordo, even though Mass facing or, at side altars, half-facing, the people was not, historically speaking, entirely unknown. Among the Catholic Liturgies, common orientation is normal. As one interpreter of the Ethiopian Liturgy (a lecturer in the major seminary of the Eparchy of Adigrat), has written:

Facing the East means that the main actor at the celebration is Christ the High Priest and that the life we receive is the Trinitarian life… In the ‘anamnesis’ of the Anaphora of the Apostles [one of the Ethiopian Eucharistic Prayers] the priest, representing the entire congregation, says: ‘We thank you Lord because you made us worthy of the privilege of standing before you and offering you this priestly service’. It is logical, therefore, that the one who receives faces the one who gives; the one who asks faces the one asked.

I give the theme of the Sacrifice pride of place in what we can learn from the Rite of St Pius V because the entire content of Catholic Eucharistic theology is best surveyed from the vantage-point of the Mass as Sacrifice. Holy Communion, for instance, is best presented not simply as just any personal encounter with our Lord in the sacrament but a meeting with Him there as the slain and glorified Lamb who died for me and has opened a new and living way into the presence of the Father, into the holy of holies. Of course, we can bring all our aspirations, concerns, anxieties to Him in the moment of Holy Communion but these thoughts should always be related to that center, which also explains why thanksgiving after Communion is desirable, and what it is we can give thanks for, weekly or even daily. I envy the Welsh for the way their language, or so I understand, calls the Mass “Yr Offeren” (“The Oblation”).

The Mass of Pius V: the ‘Apologies’

Another point to which I would draw attention, and is especially relevant to priests, is the role of the so-called ‘Apologies’ in the Rite of St. Pius V. The ‘Apologies’, I gather, is the name liturgical historians give to the semi-secret prayers, added when the Roman rite went north of the Alps into the Frankish kingdom, in which the priest expresses his own unworthiness and that, most likely, of his congregation when it comes to the celebration of these rites. Although three such “Apologies” have survived the recent liturgical reform – before Communion, where there is a choice of two, and at the ablutions where there is one – they are far more persistent in the older rite, notably in the prayers at the foot of the altar; at the moment of going up to the altar in the prayer “Aufer a nobis”; again, when bowing to the altar and kissing it after that prayer is said; in the offertory prayers, and in the combined duo of prayers before the priest’s Communion and the further prayer, “Corpus tuum”, omitted from the Novus Ordo, at the ablutions. Granted the danger of over-familiarity with this sacrament which some of us are obliged to celebrate daily, and all of us are recommended to celebrate daily, and the ever-present possibility, therefore, of banalization and trivialization, I think we should find these prayers helpful, indeed salutary.

To say as much might seem to give vent to a purely pragmatic or, at best, pastoral, consideration, rather than one that has much to do with dogmatic theology. But the ‘Apologies’ seek to bring home to us our real supernatural situation at the Eucharistic Liturgy. They do so by emphasizing that the contrast of sin and grace can never be expressed too acutely. In the Ethiopian Rite, the reply of the people to the deacon’s invitation to exchange the kiss of peace – possibly, in our modern liturgical experience in the West, the most ‘horizontal’ or even secular moment we know in church – is: “0 Christ our God, make us worthy to greet one another with a holy kiss, and to partake without condemnation of your holy, immortal, and heavenly Gift …. ” That is an equivalent to the priestly ‘Apologies’ in the Usus Antiquior. In the kiss as, even more so, in Holy Communion, we have to beware making do with being human, all too human, rather than seeing everything in the perspective of Redemption. It is, of course, because the modern Western kiss is experienced as an exit from this perspective, and, so, a disincentive to preparation for Holy Communion, that a recent Synod of Bishops asked Pope Benedict to consider moving it from the position it has had at Rome for the last fifteen hundred years: in the mediaeval rites, the Rite of St Pius V, and the Novus Ordo.

The problem with the kiss is, however, its choreography not its location. The beauty of the traditional Roman location is it allows it to become apparent that the peace radiates out from the Presence on the altar, something especially clear in the Dominican Use where the celebrant kisses the chalice before declaring the peace, thus showing from where the peace comes. The twelfth century theologian, Peter of Troyes, says that the fruit of the “true, proper and sacramental” body of Christ in the Eucharist is the “caro mystica”, (the “mystical flesh”), of a Church rendered one social body by this sacrament which has it in its power to create supernatural peace and concord.

The Mass of St Pius V: reverence

The third most obvious thing that strikes me about the Mass of St Pius V is how opportune its expressions of reverence are for the doctrine of the Real Presence. If we were looking for an historic Liturgy which is strong on the theological theme of the Eucharist as foundation of the Church’s communion, or the doctrinal motif of the Eucharist as foretaste of the Age to Come, we might not look in this direction. We might prefer to look east instead. The Liturgy Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, whose practical provisions are concerned exclusively with the Mass of the Roman rite, has a theoretical preamble which speaks of the Eucharist in all the Liturgies of the Church, and perhaps this is why ‘Sacrosanctum Concilium’ was stronger on the eschatological dimension of worship than had been ‘Mediator Dei’. But for an apprehension of the Presence, as well as of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, it is to the Mass of St Pius V that I should turn.

I am not thinking only of the consistently heightened language in which the oblata are spoken of, even, as we saw, during the Offertory rite. It is also a matter of a vocabulary of gesture. The multiple signs of the Cross over Host and Chalice, whether, before the consecration, hallowing them or, after it, indicating their holiness (if made with dignity and not in the way that led Victorian visitors to Italian churches to think the priest had a problem with blue bottles), are a lesson in themselves. The same could be said about the repeated genuflections and, likewise, the rubrics concerning the care to be taken about the particles of the Host (which we should observe without, however, falling into scrupulosity in such matters). These gestures of reverence punctuating the Canon, and, especially, accompanying the words of consecration, “built”, as Dom Cassian Folsom has put it, “a protective wall around this sacred moment of the Mass and in that way reinforced Catholic Eucharistic theology”. It was anthropologically naive to think their removal would have no effect at all on popular or even clerical attitudes.

That concerns the making of the sacrament. But then there is also the question of its reception. The mode of receiving Communion in this rite is a magnificent expression of our Eucharistic theology, especially if the houseling cloths are used simultaneously to cover the hands and to indicate that this is sacred food which is approaching. The altar is a tomb for the dead Christ and a throne for the risen Savior but it is also a table of which communion rails are the extension.

We can surely learn from the older Mass how to have a more reverential reception in the reformed rite. If kneeling for Communion is not possible, then we should introduce the prior gesture of obeisance called for by the official documents. If Communion on the tongue is not possible, we should explain to people that, when, in the ancient Church, Communion was received on the hand, it was always in the right hand, the hand of dignity, which was treated as a kind of Communion paten from which the host was transferred directly into the mouth, something that can most easily, as well as fittingly, be done if at the same time one makes what Fortescue and O’Connell call “a moderate bow”. That would be learning from the spirit of the Antiquus Ordo though not its letter, but at least it would be better than nothing.

I should like to know by what means in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century the chalice was administered in this rite to the faithful over large areas of central Europe. It is good theology to say that, while nothing is added to perfection of sacramental effect for the communicant when the chalice is offered, something is gained in terms of the perfection of the sign. The situations envisaged for the administration of the chalice in ‘Sacrosanctum Concilium’, such as the Mass of profession of a monastic making solemn vows or the Mass following baptism of a catechumen, could presumably be accommodated easily enough in the Mass of St Pius V. It may not be widely known that from 1564 onwards the Pores allowed various metropolitans in the Holy Roman Empire to license the administration of the chalice to all the faithful. That continued in some places for as long as sixty years, so obviously as a ritual act it took place within the Mass of St Pius V. Patently, that is not something required by the rite, but neither can it be described as altogether alien to it, historically speaking. The minister at the Solemn Mass would be, presumably, the deacon, and otherwise the celebrant. The equivalent at the Novus Ordo would be administration by priest, deacon or a properly commissioned acolyte, suitably vested. Granted that the whole Christ is received sub specie panis, it’s not clear to me how the case for extraordinary ministers of the chalice can adequately be made.

I hope these possibly rather scrappy and dislocated ruminations may be of some use along the lines of Pope Benedict’s desire for a recovery of a more authentic liturgical life by the simultaneous exploitation (in the best sense of the word) of the varied liturgical riches of the Church. We can do something for the ordinary parish Masses by learning from the spirit of the older rite, though until we have a more adequate reform, integrating the best of the pre-modem West as well as, no doubt, more of that sporadic borrowing from the East which has been a feature of the liturgical history of Western Catholicism, we are stymied in doing as much as we might wish.

Posted in AD ORIENTEM: Turning Towards the Lord, Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, Liturgical Renewal, New Springtime of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer/Spiritual Life, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

Prayer sheets for family Epiphany blessing of the home

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

The Home Blessing for the Feast of the Epiphany can be found in PDF format by clicking here: Home Blessing for the Feast of the Epiphany

The blessed chalk and holy water is available in church.

This family blessing may be conducted up until Candlemas (February 2), the ancient end of the Christmas liturgical cycle.

Posted in Catholic Culture, Christmastide, Feast Days and Devotions, Liturgical Renewal, Prayer/Spiritual Life, The Catholic Home, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

Pope Benedict celebrates Mass ad orientem in Pauline Chapel

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

From The New Liturgical Movement:

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/12/pope-celebrates-ad-orientem-in-pauline.html

VATICAN-POPE-VESPERSPhotographs are available on the above link to the New Liturgical Movement…

Today, the Holy Father celebrated Mass with the members of the International Theological Commission, which has its yearly assembly in these days. The Mass was offered in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, which had been re-inaugurated in July after an extensive restoration work which included a repositioning of the altar so that Mass could be celebrated both versus populum and versus Deum/ad orientem liturgicum.

Today, Pope Benedict availed himself of this new possibility and celebrated Mass ad orientem. This is, as far as I am aware, the first time the Holy Father has publicly celebrated Mass in the traditional posture at a freestanding altar which allows for either form of celebration.

Pope Benedict thereby sends an important signal, underlining that this liturgical orientation is acceptable – and even encouraged – not only at altars which are fixed to the wall or to a reredos, and which therefore do not allow for a different the other manner of celebration, but at any altar where this is physically possible.

Posted in AD ORIENTEM: Turning Towards the Lord, Liturgical Renewal, Pope Benedict XVI, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

Nov. 21: Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady

Saturday, November 21st, 2009
Presentation of Our Lady by Titian

Presentation of Our Lady by Titian

This morning, the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Missa Cantata in the Usus Antiquior was sung at 10:00 am at St. Mary Church, Salem, SD.  Organ music used included works by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) and J. S. Bach (1685-1750) and vocal music by Msgr. Lorenzo Perosi (1872-1956) and Orlando de Lassus (c. 1532-1594).  The music for the Ordinary was Missa “In Simplicitate” by Jean Langlais (1907-1991).

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Giotto

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Giotto

 

The Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

By the Rev. Father Matthew R. Mauriello – Priest of the Diocese Bridgeport, Connecticut

Many of the celebrations in honor of Mary are based in historical fact. The Sacred Scriptures tell of her acceptance of God’s invitation to be the mother of the Savior at the Annunciation. We know of her maternity and of her faithfulness to her son, Jesus, even standing at the side of his cross.

The Scriptures tells us nothing of Mary’s hidden life. The inspired Word of God gives us no word about her Presentation in the Temple, the feast which we celebrate each year on November 21st.  However, we do have the testimonies of tradition which are based on accounts which come to us from apostolic times. That which is known about the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple is found in the Apocrypha, principally in chapter seven of the Protoevangelium of James, which has been dated by historians prior to the year 200 AD.

This book gives us a detailed account in which Mary’s father, Joachim, tells Anna his wife that he wishes to bring their child to the Temple of the Lord. Anna responds that they should wait until the child is three years old lest she yearn for her parents. When the day arrived, the undefiled daughters of the Hebrews were invited to accompany Mary with their lamps burning to the Temple. There the priest received her, blessed her, and kissed her in welcome. He proclaimed, “The Lord has magnified thy name in all generations. In thee, the Lord will manifest His redemption to the sons of Israel.” Mary was placed on the third step of the Temple and there danced with joy and all the house of Israel loved her. It was there that she was nurtured and her parents returned, glorifying the Almighty.  Even in her childhood, Mary was completely dedicated to God.  It is to this apocryphal account that we owe the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady.

Historians tell us that the Emperor Justinian built a splendid church dedicated to Mary in the Temple area in Jerusalem. It was dedicated on November 21, 543 but was destroyed by the Persians within a century. Many of the early church Fathers such as St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (+730) and St. John Damascene, his contemporary, preached magnificent homilies on this feast referring to Mary as that special plant or flower which was being nurtured for better things.” She was planted in the House of God, nourished by the Holy Spirit and kept her body and soul spotless to receive God in her bosom. He Who is all-holy rests among the holy.”

We know that in the Byzantine Church this feast is considered one of the twelve great feasts of the liturgical year, called the Dodecaorton. Scholars believe that Mary’s Presentation in the Temple is considered a major feast for the Eastern churches celebrating the same values that the Western church celebrates in the feast of the Immaculate Conception.  It appears that this feast was not celebrated in Rome at the time of Pope St. Sergius (+701) who established four other principle feasts dedicated to Mary. By the ninth century it is celebrated in the monasteries of southern Italy which had been influenced by the traditions of the Byzantine churches. By the fourteenth century it had spread to England and it is recorded that it was celebrated in Avignon, France in 1373. Its acceptance is considered very slow and it was not until the year 1472 that Pope Sixtus IV extended its celebration to the universal Church.

Posted in Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, Feast Days and Devotions, Liturgical Renewal, Parish Celebrations, Prayer/Spiritual Life, The Blessed Virgin Mary, The Sacred Liturgy | No Comments »

« Older Entries