Liturgy is “source” insofar as it is genuinely sacramental, i.e., a sign system that effectively causes what it signifies. was a watershed for the Catholic Church and the Christian world. As Fr. General Principles for the Restoration and Promotion of the Sacred Liturgy (5-46) 2.1. The answer to both of these is predominantly No, alas. Collect of the Mass for Tuesday of Easter Week. Here, the liturgical prayer texts that are quoted very easily are traceable to New Testament theology. David – excellent commentary and my experience and observations across multiple parishes (either strong RCIA or minimal RCIA) support your comments. God became human, and is present when the Church prays and sings. Well, admittedly Rita, we’re on some tenuous existential and semantical territory. Guardini entitles two successive chapters of his ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’ as ‘The Playfulness of the Liturgy’ and ‘The Seriousness of the Liturgy’. I’ve noticed over the past twenty years that there is far less of this in weddings and funerals, the points of cultural intersection for the less-churched and the liturgy. Liturgical Press | School of Theology • Seminary | Saint John's Abbey | Comments Policy | Contact Us They presume God is securely ensconced in heaven, not active here on earth. The choice of the expression: “font from which all her power flows” seems to me to be related to the nexus of symbolism surrounding the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. So there is a lot of flexibility in our congregations which is comprised of the so-called drag collection of the parable and that’s the way it was, is and will be, world without end. The liturgy in its turn moves the faithful, filled with “the paschal sacraments,” to be “one in holiness” [26]; it prays that “they may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith” [27]; the renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant between the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire. I would avoid anything like a homily but would use brief commentary introducing the lessons and hymns as a way to feature the depth of lay talent we have in our ... October 10, 2020 Rita Ferrone. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of (people) in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, is achieved in the most efficacious possible way. They want good examples, not more words, more formation, and all. I’ve never had the impression that the “red-n-black meme” was about rationalist formula at the expense of inspiration. Total participation in the liturgy, immersion in the Paschal mystery, is a great deal more demanding than we might care to admit. We need our lives to be woven into the fabric of the lives of others, and to be able to integrate all the joys and woes of each other’s lives into the celebration. If the liturgy is summit and source, its necessity is evident, and steady recourse to it respects its very nature in the life of the Church. Postcommunion for both Masses of Easter Sunday. Trivialization or omitting certain ritual aspects, deprives the celebration of its reference to the underlying mystery. These “people” are quite often the clergy. Most of the novena prayers and intercessory prayers to the saints encourage us to accept whatever God gives us, even if it be different from what we asked for. Nevertheless in my opinion, any consideration of SC 10 requires a consideration of the tendency of a number of Catholics to focus on the consecration as the “high point” of the Mass. This designation indicates its solemnity and authority, as it is intended to be a definitive statement on liturgical practice for the entire Church, which will affect her interior life in a fundamental way. Reflection on the nature and the effects of the liturgy leads to perhaps the best known passage of the Constitution, which has become a genuine theological axiom: "the liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed and the source from which all its power flows" (SC 10). While we are taking each article in turn, it’s good to reflect that this particular one comes after the article dealing with eschatology. It contains opinion, interpretation, and personal musings. At root is the problem of integrating a sense of wonder at the divine (transcendence) with the realisation that we are being drawn into it, that it is happening within us (immanence). They get enough blame from bosses, coworkers, and others in our culture of complaint society. It is, in fact, complete nonsense.”. Marianne L. Trouve, 47-83. The majority of those presiding, as well as those “attending”, still view the liturgy as a source for individual devotional graces. @Charles Culbreth – comment #24: The concept of us holding each other’s hands along the road that we tread together, of being concerned about the salvation of other’s souls before our own, is one that has not yet been taken on board by many. CSL here proposes an alternative vision of the necessity of the celebration — one that springs from its nature rather than from its context or from governance. 10. Joncas’s excellent translation that the id (“it”) in the above phrase likely refers to culmen, “summit”, in the previous sentence. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made (daughters and) sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper. Events still dominate people’s calendars: Christmas, birthdays, weddings and, for the younger generation, ‘gigs’. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise @John Ainslie – comment #4: ); it prays that “they may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith” (Collect of the Mass for Tuesday of Easter Week. This attitude is by no means exclusive to EF adherents. @Todd Flowerday – comment #16: Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium (4 December 1963). Eye contact should be there for the celebrating community, but first to God.”. Its this interior preference that makes ritual, in the ancient sense, problematic. A symptom of the failure to adequately internalize this teaching is visible in the widespread incomprehension of why Mass attendance is necessary. The implicit echoes of Pius X here (or Pius XII in art. We should be telling them they are good prayerful Catholic Christians . It is true of course that people do ‘celebrate’ things. Searching for the cosmic as if it is far off runs counter to the nature of liturgy presented here, as where God comes to meet us. Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. What we really need is more inspiration, and less rationalist formula. The purpose of preaching faith and conversion to non-believers is so that they may enter the community of the faithful through faith and Baptism; church membership, in turn, is oriented toward praising God ecclesially (which may be a reference to the Liturgy of the Hours, and the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals other than the Eucharist) and celebrating the Eucharist (using the categories of the 1958 Instruction, with external, internal and sacramental participation). If ‘celebrating the liturgy’ – a predominantly post-Vatican II term – cannot be reinvested with meaning, then we have a real problem. Importance of Religion: 58% of American say religion is very important, Fact 9. Like the early monks they often use scripture, psalms, and what ever prayers they know. Unfortunately, the manner of many celebrations belies the title. Your email address will not be published. Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest. Change ). 1. C. Eugene Morris, a priest of the St. Louis archdiocese. He had a profound influence on Vatican II as peritus to Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro (Bologna) and inspired the magisterial History of Vatican II edited by Giuseppe Alberigo, founder of the Institute for Religious Studies in Bologna, the ‘Bologna School’. Of this there are no more examples in our current culture. 7) ought not to obscure the more interesting fact that the authors of CSL did not make them explicit (! Plus a dollop of compassion. The Eucharist, for example, is a meal but a cultic and sacrificial meal not intended to satisfy our physical hunger. ( Log Out /  I appreciate Alan Griffith’s thoughtful comments, and would like to respond to the one above. Posted by Joe at 15:58. Again, from Paul Collins: “This re-interpretation first really surfaced in the early 1990s. What we get sometimes instead is the red-n-black meme. Part of the “language event” of the Council is that it inspired and called people to anticipation of the future — with the important role of the Spirit in continuing to lead the Church into God’s future. This isn’t about magic or manipulation of the supernatural as I see it. Liturgy is “summit” insofar as other ecclesial actions are ordered to it, as was intimated in article 9. Paul if what you say is true, basically it is about control and evidently God doesn’t control any of us or how we worship whether communal or privately, EF or OF, Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox. Many churches are full of collections of individual “I”s who have still not grasped (a) that liturgy is a communal activity, not an occasion for topping up on individual grace, and, following on from that, (b) that liturgy is a place where you go to give something at least as much as, if not rather more than, to get something. This has now become the ‘accepted dogma’ in Vatican and hierarchical circles. My sense is that Guardini was onto something, which neither ‘meaningful’ nor’orthodox’ liturgies can ameliorate. IMO, the Triduum becomes the parish liturgical highpoint which continues to live in the parish; is consistently invoked almost every week-end; has RCIA members involved throughout the Easter Season and beyond; and can significantly impact how the parish and its communal liturgy sees itself. Still, if we define God primarily as away, we should not be surprised if we end up with a liturgy that does not find God near to us. Papal addresses accessed online The difference between magic and the supernatural is that magic is something we control and use, for our purposes. This teaching has not been communicated and a genuinely liturgical spirituality mostly does not animate our congregations. @David Philippart – comment #21: Re-Reading Sacrosanctum Concilium: Article 35. Again, the problem is not the people or even their understanding. Your email address will not be published. Put another way, we need to care about each other more, within the liturgy not just outside it. 10. That’s why Jesus demands a repentance of those who receive this good news. Awareness, Wisdom, Will: A “Culture of Care”–in Liturgy, Pray Tell: An open forum on faith in South Texas. 10 Nevertheless the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For heaven’s sake, the Old Testament offers numerous instances when God spurns ritual offerings, sacrifices, etc. The question posed (rhetorically) by Guardini was about whether ‘modern’ man could inhabit a ritual culture which would act as a symbolic enactment of human dwelling in the universe. The celebration facing the people suggests in the first place the local community and puts less focus on God. The result: the Council was forced to compromise on several important issues and we are still working through the consequences of those compromises. I’m not saying that the communion and/or intercessory factors of our theology of saints is tantamount to ritual “making the world go round,” but its implications of “crossing some sort of cosmological veil” need to be taken into consideration. If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. (The English editor of the History is Joseph Komonchak of the Catholic University in Washington, D.C.). Christians gathered for a sacred meal which they understood as somehow enacting/replicating/modelling/making possible their life both as a commonwealth and, equally important, as being lived out in the light of a dynamic divine framework whose structure had been determined by God from all eternity. Or second, we actively petition within the tradtion, humbly accept the outcome, but acknowledge that outcome which is otherwise inexplicable to natural causality is an act of recognition, acknowledgment and thanks to God for such graces. So I don’t see such rituals as “manipulating” divine power, as magic seeks to do, but rather humbly praying for what we desire, with the understanding that God’s in charge. The ritual, on the other hand, is not utilitarian, but it’s goal is itself. However worship comes in at the bottom of the list. If modern science has helped us to see that neither we, nor anything we do ritually, can make the world go ’round, perhaps it is good for our humility. If we accept your premise that we are merely relegated to observer status as regards accepting God’s role in a perceived miracle, I’m still somewhat ill at ease from two two perspectives. Mr Griffiths echoes this divide with comments like “no cosmic or supra personal…element” as if the personal is not cosmic. It is about not reducing our liturgy to a sort of “God (as we thought of Him) is dead, but we now know we’re His hands, voice and collective heart.” No wonder many do not see much connection between their daily Christian lives and the weekend worship. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. This constitution sets out the reform of the Liturgy, the liturgical books, and the very life of the Church. I suppose that what I’m saying amounts to a presumption that God created homo sapiens (in this context, what a lovely term) in order to BE in relationship, before conception, in this life and in the next; which also in our best analysis is an amazing and total act of love. Here is the text, my commentary, my questions, and questions from discussion on Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 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