An Apostolic Exhortation in Critical Reflection
Welcomed with anticipation, the Apostolic Exhortation Desiderio Desideravi by Pope Francis delivers less and different than its address to the “people of God” promises. A critical analysis shows: The overdue liturgical formation of all “dear sisters and brothers” is not the focus, but rather the cultivation of an “educated” spirituality and ars celebrandi of the clergy, who still have the actual mediating role in the liturgy. Thus the understanding of symbols, which is recommended for the mediation of the divine service to all those celebrating, only appears to be truly relevant in connection with the actions of the priest. Sixty years after Sacrosanctum Concilium, this document is disappointing for “lay people”.
A papal letter “on the liturgical formation of the people of God” is gratifying and not an everyday occurrence. It recalls the declared desire of the Council Fathers for a richer liturgical and biblical formation and education. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium promulgated on December 4, 1963 intended to help regain the participatio actuosa of the whole people of God. So has Desiderio desideravi[1] achieved a late breakthrough after 60 years? It is clear that in a postmodern society, pious convention and habit alone no longer form a sustainable faith. But can reflective theological education makes a decisive contribution to being able to recognize, understand and carry out the lex orandi as the “summit; at the same time the font” (SC 10) of ecclesial life?
Background and occasion
This letter (and two earlier ones addressed to different recipients) was Rome’s initial reaction to “abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides”[2] . In retrospect it must be read in light of Summorum Pontificum.
With his Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in 2007, Benedict XVI largely re-authorized the so-called “Tridentine Mass” (in its 1962 version) as a “forma extraordinaria”; years later, its implementing provisions followed in the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae (2011).
The motu proprio Traditionis custodes issued by Francis on June 29, 2022 revoked this permissive authorization. As Francis explained in an accompanying letter “to the bishops of the whole world” (2021), the supporters of the “Extraordinary Rite” continue to dispute the legitimacy of the liturgical reform in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, even rejecting the Council itself “with unfounded and untenable assertions that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’.” Pope Francis stated that “the modification of the permission granted by my Predecessors”[3] is therefore primarily justified ecclesiologically out of concern for “the unity of an ecclesial body”.
In the same letter, Francis is “saddened” and condemns with Benedict XVI the fact that “in many places the prescriptions of the new Missal are not observed in celebration, but indeed come to be interpreted as an authorization for or even a requirement of creativity, which leads to almost unbearable distortions.”[4] This criticism applies to what the Pope considers to be a misunderstanding of the participatio actuosa of the laity. The letter Desiderio desideravi is therefore addressed to all “my dear sisters and brothers” in order to speak to their consciences.
Subject matter and language
The title of this letter (Lk 22,15), which only deals with the celebration of the Mass under the term “liturgy,” is explained against the background of this dispute about the rite and ecclesiology of the Mass.[5] The incarnationally based understanding of symbolic action set out in Sacrosanctum concilium is, of course, of fundamental importance for all liturgical celebrations.
Francis begins in his usual manner, not doctrinally, but modestly: he wants to “offer some prompts or cues for reflections” (1) in order “to rediscover the beauty of the truth” (21.62) of the Christian celebration, which leads to wonder. This is probably intended to counter the accusation of the supporters of the Extraordinary Rite that the current liturgy has been robbed of its mystery. In fact, the Pope notes, if the reform had removed “that vague ‘sense of mystery’, then more than a cause for accusations, it is to its credit. […] But if the astonishment is of the right kind, then there is no risk that the otherness of God’s presence will not be perceived, even within the closeness that the Incarnation intends.” (25)
Despite his modesty, the Pope does not refrain from a summary condemnation of some “distorted forms of Christianity” (17)[6] in his further exhortations, nor from his obvious cultural criticism of the West, nor from a concluding exuberant, subjective consideration of priestly spirituality.
Incarnation as the basis of symbolic action
The theological recourse to Genesis 2:23 (“Finally, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”) is important for what follows: For the ecclesiological understanding of the Mystical Body of Christ and the empowerment of the “Christ-Church” (15). To act as the subject of the liturgy is derived from the liturgy as well as the “symbol of our body” (44), which is rooted in “confidence about creation”, namely “that things – the sacraments ‘are made’ of things – come from God” (46). In view of the “fact” (noted by Francis) “that value cannot be given to the body starting only from the body itself”, the aim must be “to grasp the symbolic value of the body and of every creature.” (44)
Unfortunately, “the symbolic language of the Liturgy [is] almost inaccessible to the modern mentality” (44). It is doubtful if the generalized loss of “the capacity to engage with symbolic action” is true (27). Later the Pope quotes the condescending statement of Romano Guardini[7]: The modern person “has become illiterate, no longer able to read symbols; it is almost as if their existence is not even suspected.” (44) However, everyday observation shows that people are able to deal with symbols permanently and sensitively. Perhaps liturgical symbols are incomprehensible because they no longer have a sensual quality, having often shrunk beyond recognition? Perhaps this explains why today merely symbolic is understood to be synonymous with not real?
The primary liturgical place of learning remains the liturgy itself, as “one final observation about seminaries” makes clear: “In addition to a program of studies, they must also offer the possibility of experiencing a celebration that is not only exemplary from a ritual point of view, but also authentic and alive” leading to “a true communion with God.”(39) The fact that this should also apply to the congregations remains unmentioned, although such an “encounter” (8, 10, 11, 12) does not remain fleeting, but rather “transforms” those celebrating and “conforms” them to Christ (21, 41, 52, 65): “This existential engagement happens — in continuity with and consistent with the method of Incarnation — in a sacramental way. The Liturgy is done with things that are the exact opposite of spiritual abstractions: bread, wine, oil, water, fragrances, fire, ashes, rock, fabrics, colours, body, words, sounds, silences, gestures, space, movement, action, order, time, light.” (42)
Education, upbringing and Ars celebrandi
Dealing in “an adequate way” (45) with the circumstances we find ourselves in today now requires – the long neglected, now sorely missed – liturgical education in two senses: a faith formed through knowledge and experience. It is “necessary” to disseminate learned, academic knowledge among the faithful “in an accessible way” (35) – to which many, at least in German-speaking countries, have long since found their own ways – in order to “grow in a knowledge of the theological sense of the Liturgy … to comprehend the euchological texts, the ritual dynamics, and their anthropological significance” (35). Why the ability to read symbols in particular should basically be “not a matter of mental knowledge, but a living experience” (45) remains unclear. Liturgical experience (which is more than intimate but fleeting emotion) is not opposed to (liturgical) theological knowledge, but is based on it.
Formation and “education” through the liturgy is particularly close to Francis’ heart. Again in Guardini’s assertive language this means “discipline, through giving up weak sentimentality; through serious work, carried out in obedience to the Church” (50). Nevertheless, the passage about the hard-won sign of the cross seems a little bit sentimental: “We can easily imagine the gesture of a larger hand taking the little hand of a child and accompanying it slowly in tracing across the body for the first time the sign of our salvation … And then the hand of the child is left alone, … with help ready nearby if need be” (47). Regardless of this, decades after the liturgical reform, Francis is still “inclined to think of it [i.e., the art of celebration] only in regards to ordained ministers carrying out the service of presiding. But in fact this is an attitude that all the baptized are called to live” (51). What a neglect of the people of God.
Incidentally, is it a coincidence that in the “gestures and words that belong to the assembly” (51), it is precisely silence (52) and kneeling (53) that are explained in most detail? A reminiscence of the “listening church”, which had to be submissive not only to God but also to the clergy (endowed with teaching authority)?
(Very) traditional priesthood
In contrast to the gestures of the assembly, “all the gestures and words of the one presiding” – as an ordained minister “himself one of the types of the presence of the Lord” – have “a ‘sacramental weight’” (57) when he exercises his ministry “with the fear of Peter, aware of being a sinner (cf. Lk 5:1-11), with the powerful humility of the suffering servant (cf. Is 42 ff.), with the desire to be ‘eaten by the people’” (59). But it is not easy to recognize humility in such a rapturous self-understanding which plunges the priest “in the furnace of God’s love.” The priest is to be “overpowered by the desire for communion that the Lord has toward each person … as if he were placed in the middle between the heart of Jesus’ burning heart of love, and the heart of each of the faithful, which is the object of the Lord’s love” (57). In the middle between? This might be exactly what has become a problem.
The other explanations of the priestly existence “under the gaze of Mary” and “in the womb of Mary, Virgin made Church” (58, 59) are also disconcerting.
Much more serious is the misjudgment of the liturgical anamnesis (in the Eucharistic Prayers) in terms of liturgical theology: The presider is neither to “remember before the Father [recordar al Padre] the offering of his Son in the Last Supper” nor to “recount the Last Supper to the Father” (60). After all, the Church commemorates God’s saving action in Christ and asks the Spirit of God to grant participation in it. Therefore, priestly formation “by the action of the celebration” (60) and the willingness to offer oneself is not a privilege of the priest, but of the celebrating assembly, which learns to offer themselves, as Paul says, “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”. (Rom 12:1)[8]
Conclusion
The Apostolic letter, which was received with great enthusiasm in circles interested in liturgy, only partially lives up to its promise. The Pope’s most important concerns are not new, but they can be divided into two clear topics: 1) Due to the Incarnation, bodily-symbolic action remains the privileged access given by God to an encounter with Him in the liturgy; and 2) Liturgical formation occurs both through theological knowledge and ritually formed through the celebration itself. However, where the text emphasizes the supposedly clerical proprium of mediation between heaven and earth, the problematic older patterns and theologies of the liturgy are retained. Although “the people” are capable of symbolism and are not liturgically illiterate, their part in the liturgical process ultimately remains irrelevant even today. In addition, papal cultural pessimism (especially towards the Western world) lacks the perception of its own share in the lamented status quo, which has not been overcome by neo-Scholasticism. It is therefore doubtful that this letter will reach all its addressees. Which is only to be regretted with half a heart.
[1] Desiderio desideravi. Apostolic Exhortation on the Liturgical Formation of the People of God (29.6.2022): Announcements of the Apostolic See 234.
[2] Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the bishops of the world on the presentation of the Motu proprio Traditionis Custodes on the use of the Roman liturgy before the reform of 1970 (16.7.2021).
[3] As early as 1988, in the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, John Paul II had confirmed a 1984 indult of the Congregation for Divine Worship in this regard (issued in the letter to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences Quattuor abhinc annos: AAS 76) confirmed.
[4] As annot. 3 Francis quotes Benedict XVI at this point, Epistula ad Episcopos Catholicae Ecclesiae Ritus Romani (7.7.2007): AAS 99s, 796.
[5] Since “all sacraments and sacramentals derive their power from the Paschal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection” (SC 61), the understanding of liturgical formation should also be understood in a correspondingly broad sense.
[6] Those “-isms” already rejected, such as Gnosticism, spiritualism, materialism, individualism, subjectivism, semi-Pelagianism, rubricism, aestheticism, culturalism, functionalism, personalism, protagonism, mysticism
[7] Romano Guardini ( 1968) is an important Catholic philosopher of religion and theologian of the 20th century. He is considered a formative inspirer of the liturgical movement.
[8] Cf. SC 48: ” 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.” Seemingly compatible with the “spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1-2) and “sacrifice of praise to God” (Heb 13:15), a clerical interpretation of the acting subjects and the object of their offering has admittedly entered here.
First published in German: Heiliger Dienst 77 (2023) 1-7.