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Are We Reforming the Liturgy?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
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The period since the promulgation of the Constitution on the Liturgy has seen, in this country as in every other, a considerable number of alterations in the ceremonies of the mass, the most obvious of which has been the introduction of English. These changes have been received with a mixture of enthusiastic approval, quiet acceptance and strongly expressed antipathy. But the time is overdue when we should have stopped asking: ‘Are the changes going well?’ and should have begun to ask: ‘Are we reforming the liturgy?’.
It is the purpose of this essay to suggest that, whereas the nature of liturgical reform and the radical principles that must be kept in mind in working towards the goal have been clearly stated in various documents promulgated by the Vatican Council, they have not yet been sufficiently received into the general consciousness, with the result that there is still a danger that we shall fail to achieve the task set us by the Council. This failure would not consist simply in nonachievement. Now that the whole question of reforming the liturgy has been explicitly raised in the minds of all church-going catholics, misconceptions concerning the goal and the radical principles of reform will, in turn, give rise to false ideas about the nature of the liturgy and, indeed, of the church herself. Once fundamental mistakes are made, it is too late to say: ‘Let’s start again; we will forget the past two years’. History moves one way, and takes an inexorable toll of wrong decisions.
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- Copyright © 1966 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Mentalitas eorum qui concipiunt novam instaurationem tanquam meram mutationem rubricarum et nondum plene intelligunt totam indolem Missae ut celebrationem communitariam mutatam esse (Cf Notitiae 7–8. p. 223).
2 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (cc), art I.
3 cc 1
4 cc 26.
5 Constitution on the Liturgy (CL) 10.
6 cc 26.
7 Cf Decree on Ecumenism art 6.
8 Paul VI: Opening discourse to the Fourth Session of the Council
9 From the ‘Directives Pratiques’ of the French Episcopal Liturgical Commission on the lay‐out of churches (20th July 1965) Cf Notes Pastorales Liturgiques Oct 1965, p. 42.
10 Davis, Charles Liturgy and Doctrine Sheed & Ward, p. 50Google Scholar.
11 Interview in La Croix 24th Oct 1965.
12 … une réforme liturgique ne consiste pas à modifier des choses, mais à changer des personnes, car le principal obstacle à la vie liturgique n'est point dans les rubriques inadaptées, il est dans la mentalité des Chrétiens qui ne savent plus prier selon le rythme de ľEglise (Francois Morlot, in La Maison‐Dieu 78, p. 7).
13 CL II. It follows from this (a point we shall return to later) that the preparation of priests must, to some extent, anticipate any changes, for ‘… it would be futile to entertain any hopes of realizing this (full, conscious and active participation) unless the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy’ (CL 14).
14 … la liturgie ne suffit pas pour preparer à la liturgie. II y faut une catéchése doctrinale et spirituelle qui, ordonnée a la liturgie, en demeure distincte (A. M. Roguet, in La Maison‐Dieu 77, p 28, commenting on article 9 of the Constitution).
15 L ‘historien constate que c’est un bien grand changement qui intervient apres des siècles peut‐être trop longs de fixité Et ľhistorien constate qu ‘en dehors de ľEglise catholique, ce changement s'appellerait une révolution. Pour les séminaristes, une révotion a beaucoup ďattraits; pour les historiens c ‘est un peu différent. En histoire, une révolution signifie généralement pas mal de destructions et beaucoup de morts; c’est‐à‐dire des gens qui ne survivent pas à la révolution (P. M. Gy, in La Maison‐Dieu 80, p.223).
16 … jamais la réforme ne devra apparaitre comme une rupture avec le passé… Celaest très important du point de vue pastoral. II est indispensable que le passage entre le passé et ľavenir se fasse sans heurt pour le peuple chrétien … Cela est non moins important du point de vue de la nature mème de la liturgie. Celle‐ci est vie, et la vie ne se propage pas ďordinaire par mutations brusques (P. Jounel, commenting in La Maison‐Dieu 77, p 48., on article 23 of the Constitution, from which the quotation in the text is an extract).
17 cc I.
18 Karl Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments (Quaestiones Disputatae 9), p. 18.
19 Rahner op cit, p 22.
20 CL 7(Cf Fr Roguet's commentary on this article, in La Maison‐Dieu 77, pp 25–7.)
21 CL 33.
22 V. J. Matthews, What's the Attraction! p 13, author's stress.
23 He continues: ‘Once the doctrine of the Mass as a real and true sacrifice … is realized … it is clear why it does not matter whether the actual words which the celebrant says can be heard or not’(loc tit).
24 op cit p 12.
25 In case the word ‘right’ seems rather strong, cf CL 14: 'Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people… is their right and duty by reason of their baptism'.
26 … communis quidem oratio est quae per ministros Ecclesiae in persona totius fidelis populi Deo offertur; et ideo oportet, quod talis oratio innotescat toti populo, pro quo offertur; quod non posset nisi esset vocalis: et ideo rationabiliter institutum est, ut ministri Ecclesiae hujusmodi orationes etiam alta voce pronuntiet, ut ad notitiam omnium possint pervenire (Summa Theologica IIa IIae 83. 12).
27 CL 112 describes the place of music in the liturgy as being that of a ‘munus ministeriale’. To find the significance of this phrase, so far as the sung texts are concerned, one has only to refer to a number of frequently ignored texts of the ordinary magisterium. So, for example, Urban VIII in 1643: ‘Music is at the service of Holy Scripture, not Scripture at the service of music’ (quoted by J. Gelineau, in his commentary on article 112 in La Maison‐Dieu 77, pp 198). Or Benedict XIV, in his encyclical Annus qui (1749): 'If it is true, as we are informed, that figured music presents itself to the listening assembly as an object of pleasure because of the learned way in which the music is composed; if what the people relish in it is primarily the play of rhythm, the melody, the sweetness of the voices, and if most of the time the words themselves cannot be clearly heard; if all this is so, then in future it must be the other way round. The very opposite policy must henceforth prevail in the Church ‘s singing. The very first concern must be to ensure that the words can be clearly heard without any difficulty’ (quoted by J. Gelineau, in Voices and Instruments in Christian Worship, p 147).
28 Charles A. Lewis, The Silent Recitation of the Canon of the Mass; quoted by F. McManus in Worship 1962, p 660. For a fuller discussion, and bibliography, cf J. A. Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia Vol III, pp 9–10 (in the French edition), and N. M. Denis‐Boulet, in L'Eglise en Prière Desclée 1961, pp 384‐5.
29 Sperandum est quod regula maneat ut normaliter submissa voce dicatur a celebrante; non parvi momenti videtur populum christianum formare etiam in habitu contemplationis et meditationis. Praeterea quando pars reservatur soli sacerdoti inculcatur populo doctrina de munere sacerdotali. Munus populo, notio ‘sacerdotii omnium fidelium’, bene et satis clare nunc apparent in liturgia Verbi et alibi (Notitiae 7–8, p 224).
30 This is not to suggest that liturgical prayer should be any less personal, less deep, less prayerful, than contemplation. On this whole question, of the papers of the Angers Congress of 1962 (published as La Maison‐Dieu 72–73), especially those by the Bishop of Coutances: ‘Peut‐on prier dans la célébration liturgique?’, and Père Gelineau: ‘Les rythmes de la prière du Chrétien’.
31 CL 12.
32 Jungmann (op cit III, p 10) records a tenth‐century document in which this idea is formally stated (of PL 105, 1326c).
33 This particular defence of the silent canon is only intelligible against the background of that tragic decline, in the Carolingian Empire, of an understanding of the mass as the celebration of the community, which Jungmann traces in detail (op cit I, pp 114ff). With the absence of a sense of the christian assembly, with the loss of any sense of the mass as the act of thanksgiving of the christian people, with the stress on the ‘descent of the divine’, there grew up a new disciplina arcani, which tried to shield die ‘holy mysteries’ not, this time, from the pagan world, but from the people of God themselves. To this end, infrequent communion, a low tone of voice, and an unintelligible language, were seen as positive advantages. ‘Le prêtre seul peut entrer dans ce sanctuaire, tandis que le peuple, comme jadis lors du sacrifice de Zacharie, se tient dehors, attend et prie’ (Jungmann op cit III, p 115). It was this mentality that was so shocked by the phrase ‘qui tibi offerunt’ in the canon that it added the phrase ‘vel pro quibus tibi offerimus’. The conception of priesthood that is at work here is certainly one that stressed the difference between the role of the priest and that of the laity, but at what a cost!
34 CL 26
35 oc 11.
36 cL 48.
37 The Changing Church Sheed & Ward, pp 78–9.
38 Cf Brian Wicker Culture and Liturgy Sheed & Ward.
39 CL I.
40 Instruction Ad Exsequendam Sept 1964, pars 5, 8.
41 Cf Mediator Dei 1947, par 116 (in CTS trs). Musica Sacra 1958, art 118. CL 45. Instruction Ad Exsequendam para 47. Some recent documents of the French national episcopal liturgical commission are models of what such a commission can do. For details, of Motes Pastorales Liturgiques 53, 56, 58. It goes without saying that documents alone are insufficient: but they are a beginning.
42 Il est certes nécessaire et urgent de rendre les textes plus compréhensibles, les gestes plus parlants, les assemblées plus priantes et communitaires, mais toute réforme liturgique resterait inopérante si elle nétait pas orientée par le désir de nourrir la foi, de la partager. Le renouveau liturgique débouche sur le dialogue: dialogue de ľhomme avec Dieu, dialogue fraternel des hommes entre eux, dialogue de ceux qui croient avec ceux qui cherchent. Le dialogue des chrétiens dans la communauté eucharistique est ďautant plus vrai qu ‘il est éclairé par le souci de partager le pain avec ceux qui ont faim(‘La Liturgie dans une Eglise en état de Mission’, in La Maison‐Dieu, 79 p 26).
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