On Bended Knee

Benedict XVI's Reform

The Liturgy between Innovation and Tradition
Bux, Nicola (2012-05-09).  

Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

I wish to thank Ignatius Press for the timely publication in English of this new book by Nicola Bux, well known for his stance in promotion of the ideas of the Holy Father concerning the repair of the liturgical breach. "Timely" is the right word not because there is anything particularly new in the book, which might throw the advantage in "battle" to either reform group whether it be to those favoring restoration of the Roman Rite and subsequent organic growth within the tradition going back to St. Gregory the Great or be it to the reform of the reform people. Bux honestly and rightly makes his case for rallying to the standard of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. He speaks clearly and convincingly of his understanding of the Pope's will that the usus antiquior find more general use everywhere (in every parish?) of the Catholic Church, thus enabling it to be that mirror to aid the reform of the reformed liturgy.

Bux touches masterfully upon the unquestionable merits of the Mass of the Ages when it comes to fulfilling that which is liturgy's role in the heart of the Church. He argues certain points better than I have seen in the dozen or more books on the topic, which I've had occasion to read and reflect upon over the last few years. Well done! And, yes, timely, Ignatius Press! Thank you!

I find myself particularly sensitive to and in agreement with his arguments, quoting the Pope, concerning kneeling as a posture for both liturgy and prayer (not to limit discussion to the reception of Holy Communion):

"If the Christian liturgy is not before all else the public and integral worship, the adoration, of God, the Apocalypse cannot be the typikon, the normative book. From where else would the various liturgical books have drawn their cogent force? What the liturgy affirms and asks to be observed is a divine law, not a human one: 'The Christian liturgy is a cosmic liturgy precisely because it bends the knee before the crucified and exalted Lord. Here is the center of authentic culture—the culture of truth. The humble gesture by which we fall at the feet of the Lord inserts us into the true path of the life of the cosmos.' We have chosen this gesture from among all others; it is the most important one, the one that sums up the spirit of the liturgy." (Bux, [Kindle Locations 1345-1350]. Ignatius Press.)


At various points in the book, Bux addresses the importance of recovering a common focus for worship, especially for the action of preparing the gifts and for the Eucharistic Prayer, facing Liturgical East, ad Orientem, toward Christ lifted up on the Cross. From my experience of this last year in Ukraine with the Byzantine Tradition this call becomes ever more urgent and central to what is required for a genuine healing of the rupture provoked by post-Conciliar experimentation in the area of liturgy. Priests and Bishops need to reconsider their attachment to the face-to-face innovation of the last 40 plus years.

"Looking upon the Cross: Until the Council, all Christians of the East and the West, including priests, prayed toward the apse, which, at least until the sixteenth century, faced east. In Western churches, as in those of the East, prominent in the apse were the cross, a painting of one of the Christian mysteries or the saint for whom the church was named, and the altar with the tabernacle. The priest and the faithful did not doubt that in praying they both needed to face the same direction. The priest turned to the faithful only for exhortations, readings, and the homily. All Christians celebrated in this way from the first centuries." (Bux, [Kindle Locations 1362-1367]. Ignatius Press.)


I leave it to the reader to discover the other treasures which this book provides, especially concerning the placement of the Tabernacle. Happy reading!

Pushing the Music Agenda

"In encouraging the participation of the entire congregation in the music of the liturgy, there is an important principle: “singing means singing the Mass, not just singing during Mass.” The participation of the people is all the more authentic when they are singing the central and essential parts of the liturgy. This applies particularly to the Ordinary of the Mass, for two principal reasons. First of all, the people’s parts of the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) are generally liturgical actions in and of themselves, and not the accompaniment of another action."
Mahrt, William Peter (2012-01-16). The Musical Shape of the Liturgy (Kindle Locations 4304-4309).  . Kindle Edition.

In Mahrt's book, The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, which I consider to be one of the bright moments of the liturgical reform/restoration discussion (cf. Mutual Enrichment ), the author makes an important distinction between music in our tradition intended to accompany actions (like processions) and music which is in and of itself an action. Without being too bullish or intimidating about it for us poor priests who die a thousand deaths every time we think about solo singing ourselves in church, Mahrt makes the point that the apex of Latin Rite liturgy is indeed the Solemn Sung Mass. That for background to contextualize the above quote!

In the light of the publication of the 2nd Una Voce discussion paper on the 1962 Missal, Liturgical Piety and Participation , I think it is very important to point out that our "assisting" at Mass, our "active participation" is a reasoned sort of thing which goes far beyond some kind of "doing". Chant Cafe (Jeffrey Tucker) had recently invited analysis of an article published by Fr. Peter Schineller, SJ, in America Magazine about the Jesuit's revisiting the EF and not being able to find his way back to that way of worshipping. Some of what appears in Father's article is a defense of the OF parish status quo relative to active participation and it strikes me as un-reflective or emotive defensiveness and no more. His wanting to go and see is little more than a literary contrivance setting the stage for the statement of an a priori rejection of our lived liturgical patrimony as expressed in the EF.

As I say, apart from my own fear of "flying" (unaccompanied solo singing), I think that what Mahrt advocates as a Sunday Worship Music Program would be far less demanding and more enriching for priest and people than the usual parish hymnody. Just as for most people the "And with your spirit" hurdle proved imaginary or contrived, so I think that moving people from hymn singing to doing what Mahrt rightly states to be the congregation's parts ( Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei ) and working on a choir or schola for the Mass propers (Introit, Gradual, Communion) might shock any honest man or woman into discovering that all of a sudden they are getting more out of Mass because they are into the flow of it as it was always meant to be.

I think that some people really ought to read Mahrt's book and find the wherewithal for "jumping the music hurdle"... And with your spirit!

Personal and Communal Conversion for Evangelization

 RORATE CAELI calls attention to a powerful address given by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in France and reported in English translation in full by Paix Liturgique. It is entitled The Extraordinary Form and the New Evangelization .  I really think people should read the full text, but here is the concluding part of the talk, which to say that I find it thought provoking is an understatement:

"The five wounds of the Church’s liturgical body I have mentioned are crying out for healing. They represent a rupture that one may compare to the exile in Avignon. The situation of so sharp a break in an expression of the Church’s life is far from unimportant—back then the absence of the popes from Rome, today the visible break between the liturgy before and after the Council. This situation indeed cries out for healing.

For this reason we need new saints today, one or several Saint Catherines of Sienna. We need the “vox populi fidelis” demanding the suppression of this liturgical rupture. The tragedy in all of this is that, today as back in the time of the Avignon exile, a great majority of the clergy, especially in its higher ranks, is content with this rupture.

Before we can expect efficacious and lasting fruits from the new evangelization, a process of conversion must get under way within the Church. How can we call others to convert while, among those doing the calling, no convincing conversion towards God has yet occurred, internally or externally? The sacrifice of the Mass, the sacrifice of adoration of Christ, the greatest mystery of the Faith, the most sublime act of adoration is celebrated in a closed circle where people are looking at each other.

What is missing is “conversio ad Dominum.” It is necessary, even externally and physically. Since in the liturgy Christ is treated as though he were not God, and he is not given clear exterior signs of the adoration that is due to God alone because the faithful receive Holy Communion standing and, to boot, take it into their hands like any other food, grasping it with their fingers and placing it into their mouths themselves. There is here a sort of Eucharistic Arianism or Semi-Arianism.

One of the necessary conditions for a fruitful new evangelization would be the witness of the entire Church in the public liturgical worship. It would have to observe at least these two aspects of Divine Worship:

1) Let the Holy Mass be celebrated the world over, even in the ordinary form, in an internal and therefore necessarily also external “conversio ad Dominum”.
2) Let the faithful bend the knee before Christ at the time of Holy Communion, as Saint Paul demands when he mentions the name and person of Christ (see Phil 2:10), and let them receive Him with the greatest love and the greatest respect possible, as befits Him as true God.

Thank God, Benedict XVI has taken two concrete measures to begin the process of a return from the liturgical Avignon exile, to wit the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and the reintroduction of the traditional Communion rite.

There still is need for many prayers and perhaps for a new Saint Catherine of Sienna for the other steps to be taken to heal the five wounds on the Church’s liturgical and mystical body and for God to be venerated in the liturgy with that love, that respect, that sense of the sublime that have always been the hallmark of the Church and of her teaching, especially in the Council of Trent, Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei, Vatican II in its Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium and Pope Benedict XVI in his theology of the liturgy, in his liturgical magisterium, and in the Motu Proprio mentioned above.

No one can evangelize unless he has first adored, or better yet unless he adores constantly and gives God, Christ the Eucharist, true priority in his way of celebrating and in all of his life. Indeed, to quote Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: “It is in the treatment of the liturgy that the fate of the Faith and of the Church is decided.”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider,
Réunicatho, 15 January 2012
  

In a way, life is easier for me here in Ukraine because Holy Communion is normally distributed by intinction and hence on the tongue. I had the privilege of distributing Holy Communion in the Latin Cathedral of Lviv on 1 February, for the opening of the jubilee celebration for the 600th anniversary of the translation of the episcopal see from Halych to Lviv. In the front part of the Cathedral where there are no pews, everyone kneels where they are for Communion and the priest comes around.

When Bishop Schneider speaks of "conversio ad Dominum" as a prerequisite for the new evangelization and links the physical turning "ad Orientem" to the change of heart, suggesting that linear worship focused on the Lord is apiece with such a conversion, he offers us a worthy insight and a challenge.

What renders the firmness and determination of the  Bishop most credible for me is his paralleling it to the Avignon exile of the Papacy and the intervention of St. Catherine of Siena to return the Pope to Rome. As then, so now, the decision to return will be made on high... and with much fear and trembling. We dare not repeat the violence of the 1970's which brought this rupture to be.

OREMUS AD INVICEM