The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions; they should be within the people’s powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much explanation. (Sacrosanctum Concilium 34)
The liturgical reform of Vatican II
Only one year after the opening of the Second Vatican Council (1962), the order was given for a fundamental reform of the liturgy: Neither pompous nor banal, moderately and appropriately scaled back, speaking for itself, it was again to become: “adapted to the power of comprehension of the faithful” (fidelium captui accommodati). But who were, who are “the faithful” who would no longer only passively attend the rites, but now understand them and actively participate in them and perform them themselves? To whom were the ritual events given for personal appropriation? Who judges what “the” (always already differentiated) faithful are capable of grasping, in order to draw consequences for “adapted” forms of liturgical celebration?
Ritual-communicative participation requires a common basis. For this, the conditions have to be examined anew, and there is equally a duty on the part of all those involved: On the part of the church authorities, the reformed ritual requires responsibility for a pastoral care that is conducive to the “apprehending power of the faithful,” however this is measured. With coherent rites carried out in the mother tongue, the faithful would “easily understand” the rites, prayers, and signs (SC 59). At the same time, they should “be instructed” to understand the mystery of faith well (SC 48) and, for their part, come “well-disposed” and “with proper dispositions” (SC 11; 61). The liturgical instruction of God’s people (including clergy) was recognized as indispensable for a ritual competence in “fully conscious, and active participation” (SC 14; 19 et seq.). And: “adaptation” takes into account circumstances – the general capacity as well as special needs (for example, children) or other individual, extraordinary needs – without prescribing them.
The consequences of the clerical restoration
Quite a few priests motivated by the Council set new standards of liturgical participation with their congregations, and many so-called “laity” took their theological education into their own hands. But as soon as the liturgical reform initially unfolded its formative power, church and society began to change rapidly. Clerical restorationism in a dwindling church, noticeable from the 1980s on, radically redefined the parameters of worship. Meanwhile, there was a turning away from the parish – “structurally reformed” and now doomed to die – toward pastoral care at occasional services and toward a “diaconal” liturgy for spiritual seekers who do not have close ties to the church.
This situation requires pastoral effort. It greatly limits liturgical-theological claims we might wish to make. In fact, people with very infrequent experience of celebration notice and perceive differently than a presumably homogeneous churched populace who, if not ritually competent, was at least accustomed to the ritual.
The once optimistic but not consistently pursued educational goal was adjusted downward, readjusted to the capacities of its old and new addressees – and similarities were found. Much of what “distant” people do not know was also not accessible to, and withheld from churched “lay” people for the longest time. What either group is given to grasp or not grasp is decided not by them, but by the responsible authorities. Three areas are particularly affected by this: the scripture readings, sensual symbolism, and liturgical singing.
The pastoral unreasonableness of the Readings
In spite of the assertion “the Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the Body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s Word and of Christ’s Body” (DV 21), the reading of the Bible was denied to the people believing in Christ for centuries. What was given to them – mostly the same, almost always only from the New Testament – was suitable to nourish them just enough, but hardly to give them a real taste for it.
Only the new order of the readings has indeed provided “richer fare … for the faithful at the table of God’s Word” (SC 51). And in recent times the Eucharistic emergency caused by the lack of ordinations has led to the introduction of special celebrations of the Word of God. (No real virtue has yet been made of necessity, as long as these celebrations have to serve as a compromise and (with Communion) as a supposed “substitute for Mass,” but such celebrations, solidly prepared by trained women and men, are now very much appreciated.) In an average Sunday Eucharist, on the other hand, the Old Testament reading and the psalm misunderstood as an “interlude” are still “shaky candidates” of liturgical planning. This is hastily justified by their alleged pastoral unreasonableness – too much, too long, too difficult … or as in the General Introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours to avoid “certain psychological difficulties” (General Introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours 131) with, as J.B. Metz puts it, “a God who is always inappropriate.”
The restriction of the ritual and vocal richness
Covid-19 has put an end to the communion under both kinds (bread and wine) which was gradually granted to “the faithful” since the last Council, before it could enter into the ritual memory. It has also reduced to a minimum other elementary bodily experiences such as singing, touching each other, movement, etc.
Liturgical singing has not been given the care called for by Vatican II (SC 121), and the spiritually and theologically rich song repertoire from Gregorian chant to quality contemporary church music lies fallow. One hears complaints about what is supposedly too old, too foreign, with too many stanzas… It remains unnoticed that in singing the language of faith is learned – in words “which one can never realize alone, which one dares to approach only together with others” (Huub Ooosterhuis).
Not challenging the faithful
The deepening of all celebrants in the liturgy, which was the aim of the liturgical reform, could bear fruit only to a limited extent, and time seems to have passed it by. Today’s efforts to make liturgical celebrations more attractive almost always count on a minimal facility of comprehension on the part of the participants as the lowest common denominator. Too seldom do they lead to the “treasures of the Bible” (SC 51) opened by the Council, to the “treasure of sacred music” (SC 114) or to the sharing of the chalice “whenever it may seem appropriate to the priest to whom, as its own shepherd, a community has been entrusted” (General Instruction of the Roman Mass 283) – a welcome expansion of the “intended opportunities” (General Instruction of the Roman Mass 85) for the “lay chalice.” But in this there is still a confusion of the celebrating subjects of the liturgy with objects of pastoral care still.
Up to now, Catholics have hardly ever been granted the opportunity to explore their own liturgical-theological capacity, which is as underestimated as it is underchallenged. Sixty years after the opening of the Council, it would be time to get serious about the fact that the baptized are not to go “to church” on Sundays, but rather, to gather and appear before God in order to be the agents of the liturgy, which “is their right and duty by reason of their baptism” (SC 14), and to grasp the reality of divine self-communication: in the writings of both Testaments, in the songs of countless generations to whom they owe their faith, and at the table of the Lord who does not scare them off but meets them with an open heart…
God thinks big of humans – isn’t it high time we do the same?
Please leave a reply.