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!

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

 

Ears open and attentive

 

The verse of the Responsorial Psalm for this 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, with its proper psalmody, really inspired me to hope this morning. It is not only faith which comes through hearing. The marvelous interplay of ears and heart, by the grace of God, can indeed melt the frozen, warm the chill. VENI, SANCTE SPIRITUS!

My review of PART II of the Dobszay book on the restoration and renewal of the Roman Rite left me a bit pensive and wondering whether I didn't owe someone something more than a judgment in terms of the merit of his project on the future of Catholic Worship labelled: "PROJECT ON HOLD!" I would not discount Dobszay's work, so shouldn't I offer a suggestion or scenario for its employ? As only fools rush in where angels dare not tread... I should probably leave well enough alone. We are talking about more than just the difficulty of imposing again, as was done in 1970, on the average man or woman in the pews, without appreciation of what is at stake. We're talking about the tip of an iceberg involving a whole array of questions, theological, ecclesiological and even moral. The ongoing commentary and analysis of the state of affairs in efforts toward a rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the SSPX (see latest installment over at RORATE CAELI), at least as I am able to follow it and despite its complexity and the fact that it is also very much emotionally charged, leaves me nonetheless wanting to contribute to untying the Gordian knot and especially now as I am filled with sentiment inspired by the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity just behind us for another year. The SSPX issue is an important piece on the puzzle table of how to go about restoring and renewing the Roman Rite. Liturgical renewal figures centrally in what we are calling the new evangelization.

I disagree with those who claim that when it is all said and done one can characterize "Roman" wariness vis-a-vis the SSPX as an unwillingness "to lose face" in seeking reconciliation and going on with our common history. If that were all there is to the matter, then I'd say, let's pray and study and work hard in the upcoming "Year of Faith" and then come back and look at the matter in November 2013, hoping and praying that we as a Church will be graced truly during this coming year with ears and heart open and ready. What makes this situation different from the old and glorious school fights which pitted the Jesuits against the Dominicans (to give but one example) in titanic battles where despite the heated tone nobody wished to deny anything to the other side except perhaps a sufficiency of understanding of the fullness possessed by the other or a lack of vision on the part of the opponent? These school fights simmered and even boiled on the back-burner and were not always resolved. Why can't we reestablish full communion and be about the fisticuffs in good old Catholic fashion? Not everyone applauded the results of Vatican I, but at some point certain people turned their backs on us forever and others made peace. Why and in what sense is our present dilemma any different?

I think my question is fair, but I'd be a fool if I thought I had an answer to it. I'd be like one of Job's so-called friends, who jumped to conclusions excluding the possibility that it was the Lord Who was there to teach His chosen people another way to understand personal justice and God's favor. Maybe indeed we still have not spent enough time sitting there on the ground and praying with the friend in our midst there upon the dung heap? "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."

Summorum Pontificum speaks about "mutual enrichment" as something willed for the two expressions or forms of the Roman Rite. Each day, as more young people of good will get involved, I see new and creative ways found to reintroduce the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite into the life of the Church and especially at the level of parish. What will the outcome of this process of exposure and hopefully enrichment be? Are we apt to see a universal and grassroots movement to pick up the thread and proceed from where we left off in 1962? Will history lead us to a workshop where those responsible sit around and plan our liturgical future with Dobszay's book as an instruction manual or a road-map in hand? I seriously doubt it. Optimal liturgy can only be the keystone of the marvelous edifice of the recovery of the faith. That involves renewed Christian family life and children learning their prayers at home. That involves a more general and profound knowledge of basic catechism.

As I say, I'm terribly hopeful about a positive outcome to the struggle to recover our continuity with a liturgical tradition we never intended to jettison and this for the sake of the proclamation of the Gospel, for the sake of the praise in spirit and in truth of His Holy Name. Although I truly always have been put off by the most strident and mindless manifestations of "new liturgy", I can't say how I was able to overcome my association with the trendy perception that Mass "across the altar" was preferable. To a certain extent this was a gradual process worked out in my own life as a priestly celebrant. My longing for worship ad Orientem whenever and wherever possible seems to be the fruit of "melting the frozen, warming the chill, guiding steps which had gone astray". The Lord's Voice goes forth; His Word will bear fruit in due season.

"If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."

The Prayerful Soul

Since reading an article entitled "New-New Translation, Same Rotten Fruits: A Personal Experience" posted by Adfero (see Rorate Caeli), which saddened me, I've been left a bit pensive, not wondering so much about finding or proposing a way out of "the dilemma" as looking at the overall health of the "patient". More so in the past, talking with priests and people about the "funeral culture" today in the Caribbean, but also today and generally I wonder what can be done to inspire generous and even heroic efforts in petition and intercession for those who precede us in death (leaving judgment to God and canonization to His Church).

The kind of ignorance, bad theology, liturgical abuse, and more which desolates not only Adfero is ultimately a faith issue. Let me share a couple reminiscences!

• As a very small boy in elementary school (before 1960), I can remember that we were able to assist from the back loft of the parish church at the funeral of a boy (8th grade or early high school) who had died after a short illness. He was already too big for the Missa de Angelis, but as it was thought that this good boy had wanted to become a priest, he was buried in one of Father's old cassocks, with his altar boy surplice. We were given to understand the honor as Father had often carried on sick calls the pix with the Blessed Sacrament in the breast pocket of that cassock. I am convinced that the sobriety of the whole occasion was conducive to opening the hearts of us children to the mysteries of life and death, of our longing for the heavenly kingdom, and the sublimity of priestly ministry, especially in terms of those vital ministrations offered through the sacraments to those at death's door. We all prayed very hard for that boy. The simplicity and the familiarity of the Requiem Mass and its chant (I always found the Dies Irae a challenge to sing, but appreciated it all the same) opened a window on time and eternity, enabling us to gently face death and hope for forgiveness and life forever with Jesus, Mary and all the saints, even as children.

• Early in my stay in Rwanda (1986?), in the absence of the nuncio, I was asked to preside at the funeral Mass in French of an Italian business man (already buried at home in Italy), whose friends and employees were so numerous they half filled the cathedral in Kigali. I don't remember a word of the French chaplain's homily, which the Rwandan workers probably did not understand, but I remember their spirit of recollection and how obviously they prayed for the repose of the soul of their former boss. These people, like we children maybe thirty years prior, understood something of life and death; two continents, two generations, two very different worlds and reasons to pray, two very different liturgical experiences, but we both knew Who is the Author of Life and to Whom we all must return.

The crisis of catechesis, which has afflicted much of the Church for two full generations, is central to the malaise of which loosie-goosie liturgy is no more than symptomatic. We live in a world where we must hope that children will bring the faith home to their parents. We live in a world, a Catholic world, in need of renewal and reform.

A bishop friend recounted to me the experience of having inherited a diocese in total disarray. He was working, long-term, on promoting good priestly vocations and proper formation for his future priests; he was hoping that many of the older priests would accept his offer of early retirement (to get them out of the picture).

As believing people, we pray hard for the conversion of sinners; we pray hard for the souls in Purgatory, that they would soon be freed to see the Lord face to face, despite the times on earth they had sought to escape His loving glance.

People who have read me know I am convinced that the New Missal in English is a great thing, offering us, when coupled with truly sacred music and a return to faithful celebration according to the prescribed rubrics, the possibility of good space for encountering the only One Who is or can be the Lord of my life. Beyond that, I hope my carpenter is working on the new altar for my chapel and that very soon I will be able, as I was in Trinidad, to daily celebrate the preparation of the gifts and Eucharistic Prayer at Mass turned toward the Lord together with my chapel community, ad Orientem. My frequent encounters now here in Ukraine with the Byzantine Catholic Community at Liturgy, confirm me in the belief that a tradition far more than Roman needs to be restored and cultivated in the Catholic Church. Sursum corda! Habemus ad Dominum!

Back in the Fold

In Ukraine I find myself far from that part of the world, and from the parish and the excitement of the first experiences with the new English translation of the Roman Missal. I have to content myself long-distance with comments in the blogosphere and candid reactions from friends at home and elsewhere in the English speaking world. Among the tidbits which have come my way, I was a bit taken off guard by a comment from an Italian priest friend who said very simply that the new English reminds him of the Italian Missal in the sense that both demand attention and application if a priest is going to pray them properly for the people. My spontaneous thought was: Looks like we're back in the fold with the greater Church around the world. Despite glitches, it is obviously a smaller but significant blessing that this old Simeon has lived long enough to see. Deo gratias!

My prayers continue for all who strive in the area of sacred music. Long term and not discounting initial hurdles and objections to abandoning much of a parish's repertoire of songs in an attempt to set forth the genuine tradition of the Western Church (read: Latin Church), I am convinced that in the area of music, sacred music, the English-speaking world is called to provide the leadership in the work of recovering plain chant and more, both in Latin and in the vernacular. I'm exposed to music in a lot of different languages and most of it involves translations of the English speaking world's hymnody or popular church music. The Western Church's vernacular music repertoire in the average community everywhere in the world is really quite limited. If you taught people or even a scola just a couple basic chant melodies and turned them loose on the propers for Mass, you'd end up with exponentially more variety (if that's what you want) than comes forth from those few hymns everybody knows and that just with verses 1 and 2, which are as far as we go. As I say, all involved in church music and pastors who have responsibility for encouraging restoration and development according to the mind of the Church are definitely in my daily prayers.

On the issue of worship ad Orientem, I'd ask your continued prayers for my carpenter who has begun preparing the new altar for my chapel. I can't wait. The other day I finally met with the priest who designed the chapel and we have agreed on the modifications which need to be made. I may have strong-armed him a bit, but the sisters were there to console him after our meeting and to assure him that the additions and changes were really going to make Father's work even more beautiful. Don't ask me to go into liturgical art consulting!

In this regard, the experience of these months of celebrating across the altar have confirmed my belief that we are dealing with a fad and not any kind of liturgical development. Both ways of preparing the gifts and praying the Eucharistic Prayer are possible in the Church today, but the great tradition and, I am thoroughly and profoundly convinced, the better way is ad Orientem. 

Not from my own experience (which I explained back in Island Envoy), but from listening and observing, I can see however that the change to ad Orientem where that is possible without a huge financial outlay is really a terribly high hurdle to clear. What was done overnight and in haste two generations ago (moving in a table or quickly fabricating something of TV or movie set quality) looms terribly large and immovable for most priests today when it comes to reversing a trend. What can I say? The Extraordinary Form of the liturgy today teaches eloquently and should have its impact on the Ordinary Form. Beyond the Missal and decorous music, a key component is studying and accurately celebrating the Mass according to the rubrics but doing so if and whenever possible ad Orientem. 

No doubt the difference from 2 generations back in time is that Father back then could act capriciously and few dared call him to account. I can only hope and pray that for our day and time genuine leadership among priests and bishops in this regard will find the way.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Ad Orientem

Bishop speaks well about orientation of worship. He does so in the context of the Extraordinary Form. He speaks of worship ad Orientem as perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Extraordinary Form. Well done, Bishop!

Personally, I think we owe to our people a concerted effort to orient the Ordinary Form whenever possible. I'm waiting on the priest who originally did my chapel here in Kyiv in hopes very soon of making the small modifications to permit the orientation of this sacred space.

Not circular, but linear and focused on the Dawn from on High, Oriens, to Whom we owe our thanks and praise: many other things will fall into place once we get our focus right. We pray for each other and we live in hope.

SURSUM CORDA! HABEMUS AD DOMINUM!

Adieu! Reform of the Reform!

"The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite", by Laszlo Dobszay (T&T Clark, New York, 2010)

I just finished Part I of this magnificent book by a man whose earlier book I had shied away from because of the use of the words "Bugnini-Liturgy" in the title. I am so glad I put out big money (caveat!) for this book and look forward to reading Part II as my post-vacation or traveling schedule permits.

Part I of the Dobszay book does many things in a truly scholarly but eminently readable way. He sings the praises of Summorum Pontificum and offers great insights into what the Holy Father might intend or what we could hope for from a mutual enrichment (short term) from the coexistence of the two forms of the Roman rite. In no uncertain terms he explains his reasons for declaring the Novus Ordo (especially the Liturgy of Hours) to be, in the words of our present Holy Father, a devastation (cf. preface to Gamber book from 1992). As the title of his book indicates, Dobszay proposes a return to the 1962 Missal as a point of departure for a (long term) reform of the Roman Rite as willed by the Fathers of the II Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium and somehow subverted by the post-concliar committees. The author sees the way of Summorum Pontificum, two forms (ordinary and extraordinary) existing peacefully next to each other, as this way to finding ourselves and promoting the development of the Rite. For the time being, he sees no alternative for the majority of Catholics to an abuse-free and well celebrated Novus Ordo.

There is nothing too heady or cerebral about Dobszay's proposal. He understands and articulates well why turning back the clock to 1962 and abandoning the Novus Ordo altogether would be a grave error. At the same time he disavows the reform of the reform movement, arguing most convincingly that the gap created in 1970 and the years following cannot be bridged; the rupture is less that than a complete abandonment of the Roman tradition. To my mind he has undoubtedly made the case for returning to the firm foundation of the liturgy of the ages.

... Am I going to shred my liturgical reflections over at Island Envoy ? I don't think I have to. Granted, mine are not the fine tuned insights of Laszlo Dobszay but we share the way forward in terms of encouraging not only the best possible celebration of the Novus Ordo but also in terms of a suggestion he makes for opting whenever possible in the celebration for the option closest to the tradition. Decorum or sobriety, chant, and most dear to me preparing gifts and praying the Eucharistic Prayer ad Orientem.

The introduction of the new English translation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal is at the door. Please, Lord, that it will be received well! Please, Lord, that a generous application of Summorum Pontificum will hasten the day when the thread can be picked up and the tradition be organically set forth!

Prayer as Linear

The Exception to the Rule

In a recent contribution by Fr. Thomas Kocik to a debate which (it would seem) pits theology against posture/orientation in liturgy NLM - Form and Function Discussion I am a bit at a loss to understand why anyone could have the impression that anything orthodox or right-thinking in our theology of the Eucharist would militate against returning to worship, according to the existing rubrics just as it has always been possible, ad Orientem. I cannot help but see praying the Eucharistic prayer with everyone facing toward the Lord as anything less than an essential component (please, sooner rather than later) to any serious effort at healing the rupture or loss of continuity within the tradition.

I remember years ago going with a group to visit the church in Rome named Santo Stefano in Rotondo. Why exactly we went and as I group I do not know because there wasn't much to see as the floor inside the church had been taken up and there were archeological digs going on everywhere inside. I say this so as to make it clear that I did not experience liturgy in this ancient round church with the altar in the center. My suspicion would be that the "in the round" part of the name of the church pointed to the anomaly of it all. This building was an exception to the rule. The tradition leaves us for the most part with linear houses of prayer and even those little baroque jewels elsewhere in Rome with hardly a straight wall or column inside are no exception in terms of the arrangement of the altar (even the Pantheon as a Christian house of prayer is no exception) not in the middle but to one side.

I think it is a mistaken tactic to argue in favor of ad Orientem on the basis of the ascendency of the sacrificial character of the Mass over the table/feeding, meal/banquet... communion notion. Would it not be better just to say that our whole tradition of prayer and adoration is linear? The sobriety of our transcendent faith keeps us from hopping ecstatically or as if in a trance around some campfire. The reason that monastic choirs face each other probably has more to do with the one big book shared by all and turned from side to side in days back before the printing press than it does with anything else. 

Our Canon, our prayer is addressed to the Lord and we kneel or stand before Him, facing Him.... together.

(Label this one an opinion piece, please.)