{"id":57827,"date":"2021-10-07T17:53:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T22:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=57827"},"modified":"2021-10-13T15:09:01","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T20:09:01","slug":"the-study-of-the-liturgy-as-an-ecclesial-service-for-a-renewed-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/07\/the-study-of-the-liturgy-as-an-ecclesial-service-for-a-renewed-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"The study of the liturgy as an ecclesial service \u00a0for a renewed spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note<\/em>: This inaugural address at the beginning of the academic year was delivered by Archbishop Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, on October 4, 2021 at Sant\u2019 Anselmo in Rome, an influential center of liturgical scholarship and renewal. It is reprinted in English at <\/em>Pray Tell with the prefect\u2019s permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy\u201d (Sacrosanctum Concilium <\/em>n. 8)<\/u><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>I stand before you today, not simply as the Prefect of Divine Worship & Discipline of the Sacraments, but also as a bishop of 20 years, half of which as the bishop with responsibility for a diocese, as a priest of 46 years and as a Catholic who, as a young man, straddled the pre and post Vatican II eras. I am above all a disciple of Christ just like all of you, who serves the Lord. It is solely based on these credentials that I dare to address you.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, I would like to be a source of encouragement to you at the beginning of this new academic year. First of all, because the studies that you undertake are vitally important for the life and health of the Church. I mention the health of the Church because we have need for people who are well prepared and balanced, who love the Church as she is!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Secondly, I want you to be true men and women of the Church who sentire cum Ecclesia <\/em>and not to be waylaid by ecclesiastical ideologies or by your own preferences, or novel ideas or a desire to mould the Church in your image, but by what the Church is calling you to be today \u2013 her missionaries in a new age with a clear task in hand. As a prerequisite, I recommend to you to be attentive to the long and fascinating history of the 150 years of the liturgical movement prior to the Second Vatican Council, and to the choices made there by the Council Fathers and the reasons for those choices, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In the words of Pope Francis, \u201cPope saint Paul VI himself, a year before his death, said to the Cardinals gathered in Consistory: \u201cThe time has now come to definitively leave aside divisive elements, which are equally pernicious in both senses, and to apply fully, in accordance with the correct criteria that inspired it, the reform approved by Us in the application of the wishes of the Council\u201d.1<\/sup>\u00a0Pope Francis continues,<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is still work to be done in this direction, in particular by rediscovering the reasons for the decisions taken with regard to the liturgical reform, by overcoming unfounded and superficial readings, a partial reception, and practices that disfigure it [\u2026] After this magisterium, after this long journey, We can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible.\u201d2<\/sup>\u00a0Be men and women, scholars and masters of your various scientific endeavours, yes, but above all faithful disciples who build up the Church and are not the cause of its fragmentation. Saint John Henry Newman offers us a wise caution when he wrote: \u201cWe can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.\u201d3<\/sup><\/p>\n

Thirdly, I want to encourage you to profit personally at a deep spiritual level through all that you learn here in this great Institution. It is that personal experience coram Christo <\/em>that will give life to all you study, reflect upon and do and will prepare you for the future. Pope Saint Paul VI recalled this imperative when he outlined the first steps of the liturgical reform: \u201cIt is good that it be perceived as the very authority of the Church to wish, to promote, to ignite this new manner of prayer, thus greatly increasing her spiritual mission […]; and we must not hesitate to first become disciples then supporters of the school of prayer, which is about to begin.\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n

An important influence for me personally has been through my involvement, during the past 20 years, in the various translations of the Missale Romanum editio typica tertia<\/em>. It has become for me a journey of immense discovery and personal renewal, which continues to this day. It unlocked for me the vast treasures contained in the prayers and texts of the Roman Rite which are deeply saturated with the theological traditions of our faith and which have been handed on to us with such great care by the Church in the Latin language and which are now available in the vernacular.<\/span><\/p>\n

What this exercise brought to light, in a way that I had not fully appreciated previously, was that these prayers, these texts, were not simply the creation of a fine mind or a single pen, but came from God\u2019s own hand through the rich biblical and patristic patrimony that we find there, together with the profound teaching of the Church\u2019s understanding of herself as found in the Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen Gentium<\/em>. This patrimony connects us with the Church\u2019s faith as expressed throughout the ages and which is pertinent for our time and mission. As we know, the Missale Romanum <\/em>of Pope Saint Paul VI is the richest Missal that the Church has ever produced together \"\"<\/a><\/sup>with its Missale Romanum Lectionarium<\/em>. It is always important to note that the Roman Missal comes in four volumes.5<\/sup><\/p>\n

Almost sixty years on from the Second Vatican Council, it can rightly be said that the vision contained not only in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium<\/em>, but also in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum<\/em>, has now become more evident in the Church\u2019s prayer and in her consciousness, through a new awakening of the Sacred Scriptures in the Roman Rite. What an enrichment this is for the Church! It was rightly said of Saint Bernard of Clairveaux that he knew the scriptures so well that he spoke biblically. To know the prayers of the Missal is to begin to learn how to pray scripturally, which is such a precious gift to God\u2019s faithful people, which brings with it the seeds of renewal.<\/p>\n

The translation of these texts, therefore, is of immense importance. Of course, when it comes to translation there are many theories and controversies. If waylaid by that, it can be a battlefield of contrasting and opposing opinions. Even the most inexpert of protagonists have their opinions and can be highly vocal and self-opinionated. The old adage of being able to negotiate with terrorists but not with liturgists can take on an all too real an aspect, but we should be consoled by Saint Paul\u2019s Second Letter to Timothy where he writes:<\/p>\n

Remind them of this, and charge them before the Lord to avoid disputing about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present <\/em>yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.<\/em>6<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The Roman Missal is not the creation of a single person nor is it born of one particular source or preferential option. It is the faith of the Church, which constantly needs to be underlined; it encapsulates this in the rightful \u2018handling <\/em>[of] the word of truth\u2019<\/em>, as noted by Saint Paul.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar put it this way:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo liturgy designed by men could be \u201cworthy of the subject of their homage of God at whose throne the heavenly choirs prostrate themselves with covered faces, having cast off their crowns and ornaments before offering adoration. The attempt to return to him who \u201ccreated all according to his will\u201d the honour that all creatures received must, a priori, compel to its knees an earthly community of sinners. \u2018Domine, non sum dignus<\/em>!\u2019 If such a community, meeting for praise and worship, should have anything else in mind than adoration and self- oblation \u2013 for example, self-development or any other project in which they place themselves thematically in context next to the Lord who is to be worshipped \u2013 then they na\u00efvely deceive themselves. This topic can be touched only with fear and trembling.\u201d7<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Cardinal Basil Hume OSB., Archbishop of Westminster, wrote at the publication of a joint statement by the Episcopal Conferences of the British Isles on the Eucharist, entitled \u201cOne Bread, One Body\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do Catholics believe about the Eucharist? When, in distributing Holy Communion, the priest says to me ‘The Body of Christ’, I answer ‘Amen’ My ‘Amen’ expresses not only my faith\u00a0in the Body of Christ which is the Eucharist but also my faith in the Body of Christ which is the Church. The Eucharist and the Church are inseparably bound together.\u201d8<\/sup><\/p>\n

In other words, it is in the Eucharist that we find the genetic code of the Church.<\/p>\n

Amongst the many facets that constitute Catholic liturgy there are two dimensions of which we should never lose sight as they describe the very nature of the Church. The first of course is that, as Catholics, we are, here and now, united to every other Catholic throughout the world, and through our local bishop, we are united to the Pope, the Successor of Saint Peter. This connection marks and guarantees our belonging, without which we are alone, outside the community founded by Christ and built on the Apostle Peter. So, it is never a matter of this or that community or group alone; when we celebrate the liturgy we are bound together in the Body of Christ and bring all our brothers and sisters to the Altar through the prayer which is essentially Christ\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But, there is also another important dimension to our liturgy. In the Church we are also united to all the people of faith who ever lived and believed, and all the Catholics who will ever live and \"\"<\/a>believe in the future. We might speak of the synchronic \u00a0dimension of liturgy as uniting the whole Church around the world, and of the diachronic dimension as running through time into eternity. Following the first vernacular publications of the Missale Romanum after 1970, many thought that insufficient attention had been paid to this diachronic dimension. The new translations, I believe, correct this and improve the translated texts. The work of translating is challenging; remaining faithful to the original text and expressing it in the receiving language needs great care and biblical, patristic and theological insight and delicacy. We have to keep always in mind what St Paul said to the Church in Corinth, \u201cI received from the Lord what I in turn passed on to you.\u201d9<\/sup>\u00a0<\/em>He was speaking to a Church that was troubled by liturgical discord.<\/p>\n

Whenever we assemble for the celebration of the Eucharist, we are not simply gathering as this community from this particular place, but we stand at the crossroads of all life and on the very threshold where time intersects with eternity \u2013 our gathering is greater than what the eye can see. We are entering into the mystery of Christ who, because of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery, makes possible the flow or the \u2018passage of time\u2019 to enter into the \u2018always of eternity\u2019 and to be lifted up and transformed. Saint Irenaeus says: \u201cHe took up humanity into himself, the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehensible being made comprehensible.\u201d10<\/sup><\/p>\n

The Graduale Romanum <\/em>of 1973 gives the Introit for the Common of the Dedication of a Church as Terribilis est locus iste.<\/em>11 <\/sup>It indicates that this particular chant is most appropriate when the celebration of the Mass takes place in the church itself.12<\/sup>\u00a0This highly evocative text is from Genesis 28 (17,22):<\/p>\n

\u201cTerribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est, et porta coeli: et vocabitur aula Dei.\u201d13<\/sup><\/p>\n

This is not simply an allusion to a building or a place as the gate of heaven<\/em>, it is also the living stones, the Church. At the same time, the liturgy which is celebrated within a building or place by a particular community, is described as a \u201cforetaste of that heavenly liturgy.\u201d The liturgy is the privileged place where two worlds meet. This theological notion about the nature of our liturgical celebration – an intuition of the Council Fathers expressed in Sacrosanctum Conc<\/em>ilium – is so evident that it was also included in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” as a description of the liturgy itself. There, we read:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. With all the warriors of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, until he, our life, shall appear and we too will appear with him in glory.\u201d14<\/sup><\/p>\n

At a later stage, the idea is taken up again with no less force, where we\u00a0read:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the offering of Christ are united not only the members still here on earth, but also those already in the glory of heaven. In communion with and commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the Church offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the Eucharist the Church is as it were at the foot of the cross with Mary, united with the offering and intercession of Christ.\u201d15<\/sup><\/p>\n

There is no lack of clarity in the expression of this important idea, which is an unambiguous challenge to any \u2018mono-dimensional\u2019 view of liturgy, which amounts to a considerable misunderstanding of what is taking place when we gather to worship as envisaged by the Second Vatican Council.<\/p>\n

Many liturgical misunderstandings of the past and present can be traced to a failure to acknowledge this characteristic, which clearly should be evident in all Catholic liturgy.<\/p>\n

The reform of the liturgy as captured in the Missale Romanum is and remains our guide for\"\"<\/a> understanding and implementing a correct appreciation of the liturgy. The \u201cCatechism of the Catholic Church\u201d can help us. Paragraphs 1179-1186 take up the theme of \u201cWhere is the Liturgy Celebrated?\u201d and draws our attention to parallel truths indicating that liturgy is celebrated both on earth and in heaven. Furthermore, it emphasizes that when we celebrate the Liturgy, we are made present to the mystery and the mystery is made present to us. In this way, the liturgy draws together the two distinct levels of reality: heaven and<\/u> earth become heaven on<\/u> earth. As the words of the Preface for the Dedication of a Church has it:<\/p>\n

\u201cHic veri Templi adumbratur mysterium, et caelestis Ierusalem praenotatur imago.\u201d16<\/sup><\/p>\n

Again, it is the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that helps us to synthesise these dimensions:<\/p>\n

\u201c[Liturgy is] both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek [Cfr. Hebr. 13, 14].\u201d17<\/sup><\/p>\n