In the effervescent post thread on the Mandatum (footwashing) in the context of a wedding liturgy, the topic of liturgical or local “custom” became a matter of high debate. Aaron Sanders, coming down on the more restrictive side of the question, argued (excerpted from comment #37):
Only a community validly introduces custom, and then only if it is a certain sort of community, the type capable of receiving a law; while canonists may differ as to just which communities fall under that heading, it certainly excludes the possibility of a single cleric introducing a “custom” on his own say so (“I’ve got an idea of how to improve the liturgy so everyone has to follow my lead because I run this show”), and it also excludes individual families, which depend upon the existence of particular physical persons as opposed to some juridical organization or category (so “all 45 of my cousins agree this is a good idea” also doesn’t fly). Short of a whole parish coming together and expressing a real sort of approval for such an innovative practice, we would need at least some identifiable parish organization to collectively desire some modification of the liturgy (e.g., altar guild members will all employ this practice at their weddings).
Fr Ron Krisman, in comment #39, nuanced this important distinction:
There aren’t any procedures in canon law for making new customs. What ultimately establishes a custom [in canon law] is the passage of time, a minimum of thirty years of observing a practice.
No one calls together a parish town hall meeting and announces, “We’re going to take a vote today to introduce a new liturgical custom in our parish.” Rather, the introduction of a custom begins when a practice beyond the law or even contrary to it is initiated and no legitimate lawgiver puts a stop to it. But this still is not a custom until at least 30 years have elapsed. For a custom contrary to the law that means that folks will be ACTING AGAINST THE LAW for a minimum of thirty years. And our canonical tradition recognizes that folks can do that!
So, yes, even though SC 22.3 and other postconciliar liturgical documents enunciate the exceedingly important principle that “no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority,” the Church has a longstanding canonical tradition which says, “Yes, he or she can.”
They’re both right. This important tension stands – liturgical authorities commonly prescribe firm boundaries, such as the everlasting prohibition against kneeling on Sundays at Nicaea also mentioned in the comment thread, and yet a system simultaneously exists that clearly expects those boundaries will be transgressed, and makes provision for it. It might not suit our standards of neatness, but it’s been this way since the beginning of the church (probably much more so before the invention of the printing press: editio typica is a modern phenomenon). There are a few interesting concepts in ritual studies that help us interpret this enduring tension. Maybe they will contribute to our understanding of contemporary wedding rites.
- Ritual law is inherently partial. This is obvious: the rite as written in the books clearly cannot contain absolutely everything that must or can happen in the ritual. To attempt reductio ad absurdum, the Rite of Matrimony does not specify what the groom should wear to the ceremony, but certainly he must wear something, and there are many choices that will be dismissed immediately as impossible due to custom.
- Custom remains invisible, unless there is an observer who is aware of or more comfortable with another custom. That’s just how custom works. So most of the “filling out” of the partial directives of ritual law happens invisibly, on the basis of the community’s shared consensus, and they are unaware of this consensus, which makes the ritual law seem more complete than it is. Another example: the Roman rite of marriage says “the assembly stands” before the procession begins, and that the bride and groom process last. However, in most of the United States, an adaptation in which the bride processes after the groom and the assembly stands only for this final part of the procession would not raise eyebrows (except among professional liturgists) because it fits with local custom.
- Most of liturgical adaptation is unintentional. The bride drops the ring as she attempts to put it on the groom’s finger with a shaking hand. She bends down, pushing the skirt aside, and picks up the ring, then tries to get up without stepping on the hem. The groom reaches down to help her up. She takes his hand, stands, and finally puts the ring on his finger. None of this was in the rubrics, and no one is at all perturbed (except maybe the embarrassed bride). Such things simply happen in human rituals, and demand on-the-spot improvisation. This improvisation is usually forgotten, unless it strikes the assembly as very meaningful. These errors, if they are frequent enough, make it into liturgical analysis, where someone like Thomas Aquinas reflects on which speech errors make the liturgy invalid. (Thomas eventually decided that as long as it’s understood what the words were supposed to mean, the liturgy is valid; he doesn’t delve into who must understand! Throughout the treatise on the sacraments, he continues to look at performance errors and variation.) The liturgical analyst tries to determine (after the fact) what accidental adaptations should be guarded against, and which ones can fit into the system.
- “The liturgy,” even the eucharistic liturgy, does not have clear boundaries. The eucharistic liturgy in the Middle Ages, for example, kept accruing extra actions and texts, especially at its beginning. Did the liturgy begin (as we might assume today) with the procession? With the vesting of the minister? With morning prayer before the eucharistic rite? Vigils? The stational procession to the church of the day? The eucharistic liturgy of the day before whose fermentum was left on the altar? All of these answers are assumed by different contexts and texts. The permeability of liturgical and ordinary time was part of what made the medieval liturgy so rich and culturally fruitful. Liturgy’s boundaries are a result of interpretation – often so that authorities can assert their control.
- Liturgical “transfer” is looser than liturgical import. Ritual actions that already exist within one liturgical rite are more easily transferred to another (like the Credo was originally brought into the Roman eucharistic liturgy from baptism) than they are imported from outside. So it makes sense that a mandatum might be less criticized (even/especially by “us liturgical snobs”) than a unity candle (though the latter is, alas, more an example of local custom). There would also be less ritual boundaries, all other things being equal, to the reception of such a rite. Which brings me to the last point:
- “Local community” is another poorly-defined term (as Aaron Sanders agrees in a later comment). In a real organic development, it is unlikely to be something formal such as a parish council that decrees a “new local custom.” Ritual is generally modified by modeling, not decree, so the formalization of a mandatum custom would come about because it had been requested and requested, and many people had seen it done, and there seemed to be precedent for it, and one’s bishop hadn’t ruled it out. The thirty-year canonical requirement is basically the time (formalized by the church) for a custom to become invisible and expected and thus part of known culture (see 2).
How do these bear on the wedding mandatum? I expect here we have a community who has done footwashing in a number of ritual (sometimes liturgical) contexts, not merely at Holy Thursday, but at retreats and in other (possibly ecumenical) contexts. (I recently spoke to a group of about 50 undergraduates and almost all of them had participated in a footwashing, about 30 each at a Holy Thursday liturgy and at a retreat or youth meeting.) Transferring the ritual to the context of a wedding (which in itself varies more than a regular Sunday Eucharist) did not worry those planning the rite (a complex team already, no doubt); indeed, odds are good, since several people in the comment thread had seen this done multiple times, the team had themselves also seen it done. In other words, from their perspective, it wasn’t an innovation but a custom (not yet a universal or canonical one). We have here a local-custom-in-the-making, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be suppressed long before it reaches the canonical status of custom. If it is suppressed, it will be because the community and its authorities think it’s of limited use (or it just is forgotten, but that seems unlikely in this case since the practice is already established in another area of the Roman Rite). If it’s received, it will be because it seems to be valuable enough to become part of the tradition. Either way, liturgical law will stand undisturbed. It’s a good example of how liturgical law and actual practice exist in tension.
Another interesting factor, especially with weddings, is how the media plays in to our perception of what is and what is not “local culture,” “universal norm,” and “tradition,” but I’m leaving that one alone for now. Feel free to weigh in in the comments.
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