Monastic Worship Forum Newsletter A Quarterly Publication for Members of the Monastic Worship Forum

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1 Monastic Worship Forum Newsletter A Quarterly Publication for Members of the Monastic Worship Forum Volume 4, Number 2 Winter 2014 In mid-june The Monastic Worship Forum gathered at Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, SD for the 2013 conference: The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: A Living Liturgical Heritage. Sister Anita Louise Lowe, O.S.B. director of liturgy for the Sisters of St. Benedict of Ferdinand, Indiana, gave us a historical review of events and documents that led up to Vatican II and the Constitution on the liturgy. Later Ms. Rita Ferrone spoke about various aspects of the document that have become elements of our daily worship and guided us through some of the developments since 1963 with some practical points to take back to our communities. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: A Living Liturgical Heritage Rita Ferrone Rita Ferrone has her Master of Divinity from Yale University. She is a writer, speaker, and educator who has worked in the field of liturgy, parish, diocesan, and national settings. She teaches in the Archdiocese of New York Catechetical Leadership Program, and in a summer seminar at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. She is currently a guest research professor in liturgy at the Julius-Maximillians Universität, Würzburg. She lives in Mount Vernon, New York. timely to open the Constitution again, and revisit this as part of our living heritage. Vatican II introduced what is arguably the most far-reaching liturgical reform in the history of the Catholic Church. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the first document of the Council and a landmark in our understanding and articulation of what the Liturgy is and does, continues to animate a lively conversation in our times. On this fiftieth anniversary of the Council, it is True Reform In speaking of the liturgical reform the question of how we view change comes quickly to the fore. Did the reforms usher in too much change? Or were they too cautious and limited? Should we be seeking to rediscover the pre-vatican II liturgical forms? Or is Vatican II passé and it s time to plan for Vatican III? The phenomenon of change at Vatican II was complex. We may consider it through three different analogies: A house that undergoes a renovation, a person who undergoes a conversion, and a thought- 1

2 world that undergoes a paradigm shift. A home that is remodeled may be greeted at one and the same time as new and yet old. A good renovation makes a house fit to live in today, yet retains what is treasured from the era in which it was originally built. A person who undergoes a conversion has but one life, yet that life becomes new because that person has changed. She is no longer at ease with what she used to do, and how she did it. She responds to new images of God, neighbor, and self. imaginative leap forward into a new pattern. This pattern organizes our thoughts about reality. Ordinary science then fills in and works out its implications. Such a pattern Kuhn called a paradigm, and the imaginative leap forward a paradigm shift. Kuhn s discussion, based in the history of science, has been applied to social constructs and the theory of knowledge as well. The Church at Vatican II, I would suggest, is a church which underwent a conversion. Something happened when the fathers of the Council gathered, something which hardly anyone expected. They discovered in their time together that they were indeed ready to give birth to new images of God, neighbor and self, and to renew the Church. Thomas Kuhn s classic of the late 1960s, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, challenged the accepted view that the history of science consists of a gradual accumulation of knowledge and insight. Rather, at long intervals, there is an 2 A paradigm shift is precipitated by a collision with facts that cannot be explained by the old paradigm. A paradigm shift is not a minor re-tailoring, but rather a broad shift which affects our perception of many details within the whole. What did the Church run into which the old paradigm could not adequately explain? For answers, we must look to history. Human history was indeed at a new moment when the Council convened. Modernity was here to stay. It was necessary to grapple with historical consciousness, with all of its serious and vexing questions. And as empires fell, as colonialism waned, and as peoples sought self-determination around the globe, the Church was faced with the implicit question at Vatican II: What kind of a Church are we going to be? Will we be the fortress, which so much in the Church s history during the long nineteenth century had conspired to build? Or would we be

3 bridge builders? Would we have imperial Catholicism? Or would we have something else? The reform of the liturgy was essential to realizing this new paradigm. Thus, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which calls for a reform and renewal of the Mass, the Hours, and all the sacraments is not an optional add-on, but undertaken precisely as an expression of the nature of the Church. The Council fathers opted for that something else, and in so doing produced a paradigm shift. Through a combination of ressourcement and aggiornamento they reaffirmed the Christian story as a compelling vision in our time, one which would propel the Church into the future. The Shape of the New Paradigm What were some characteristics of the new paradigm put forward by the Council? The Church as a pilgrim people as opposed to a perfect society Communio or koinonia, rather than visible structure as the most essential feature Universal call to holiness, embracing all the baptized Positive relationships with the outside world, realized through ecumenism, dialogue, and cooperation Centrality of the Word of God to theology and the life of the faithful 3 In my book, Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Paulist Press, 2007), I identified seven essential themes of the Constitution. Here are the five that give us the what of the new paradigm in liturgy: Paschal Mystery Summit and Source Full, Conscious, Active Participation Inculturation Renewed Ecclesiology Centering on the Eucharist The other two: renewal of the books, art, music, and artifacts of the liturgy, and liturgical education and formation, represent the how of the liturgical reform. It s necessary also to remember that many developments which people rightly associate

4 with the reforms of Vatican II, actually took place after the Council and came about only gradually. For example: Fully Vernacular Liturgy Communion under Both Forms on Sundays Altars Facing the People Communion in the Hand New texts, New Eucharistic Prayers Three Year Lectionary These can be understood as significant manifestations of the reform s intentions, yet some of these concrete decisions which were made after the Council have also been challenged by critics of the reform. The liturgical reform also brings along with it the necessity of developing a liturgical spirituality suited to the rites we now have, and reflective of their spirit. Three dimensions of a liturgical spirituality that flows from the liturgical reform suggest themselves: The Godwardness of the Community celebrating as an assembly The Inwardness of our Prayer united to the liturgical action The Outwardness of our Call to be light and salt for the world [In our time together, we reflected on how we live each of these dimensions personally, and how our ministry helps others to live one or another of these dimensions.] Living into the Reform: Developing Our Liturgical Spirituality The adoption of a new paradigm requires more than a simple re-tailoring of the details of how the liturgy is celebrated. As the first instruction on the right implementation of the Constitution (Inter oecumenici, 5) stated so admirably, the purpose of the reform was not simply to produce new rites and texts, but to foster the living of the paschal mystery. This is its most precious heritage. 4 Part II: Exploring Particular Themes of the Constitution In the second portion of our time together, we turned to three of the central themes of the Constitution and considered them in greater detail: active participation, the liturgy as summit and source, and the paschal mystery.

5 Active Participation The very well-known Article 7 of the Constitution, details the fourfold presence of Christ in the liturgy. In light of Christ s presence among us, we might ask, how are we present to one another? Does the quality of our active participation in this communal event not derive some of its strength from the quality of our communal life outside the liturgy? Active participation is often conceived as taking a part in the songs, prayers, gestures and postures of the liturgy, and also inward prayer and heartfelt assent. At the same time, we are challenged to enter the symbolic world of our rites, and fully inhabit them with our lives outside the liturgy. Participation therefore also suggests that: Those who share the bread of life have shared their bread with the hungry Those who share the cup of life have drunk from the common cup of life in community Furthermore, a proper understanding of participation invites us to engage with the celebration as a work of sanctification for the whole world in which we ourselves 5 have an active role, both personally and communally. The gift of ourselves (joys, sorrows, discipleship) is placed on the altar with the bread and wine We stand together communally, as the Body of Christ, offering the whole world to God Summit and Source The ringing words of the Constitution, describing the liturgy as the summit toward which all the activity of the Church is directed and at the same time the font from which all her power flows likewise prove challenging for faithful living today. Too often, the liturgy finds us having something of a struggle to fit it into busy lives, of which it does not quite appear to be either the summit or the source. A further diagnosis reveals that the very way in which we experience time can be

6 constrictive of the liturgy s intentions. Much depends on being there in an unhurried manner in order for the riches of the experience to become available to us. When we do succeed in putting ourselves there, and cultivate a sort of patient attention to our experience, a mystagogy can unfold that leads to remembrance and anticipation. What would it look like if we were to truly experience the liturgy as summit and source? Sunday Mass would be the high point of our week. We would look forward to it, savor it later, share our experience of it with others, and discover to our joy that it shapes our imagination and deepens our living relationship with Jesus Christ. Paschal Mystery The key theological principle of the whole liturgical reform has been the Paschal Mystery: the death, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus Christ, in which we share. The recovery of the center of the liturgical year in the reform of Holy Week and Easter, as well as through the introduction of the rites of the catechumenate culminating at Easter has done much to help us appreciate the centrality of the Paschal Mystery. The dynamic character of this mystery also invites us to experience the whole life of faith as a participation in this mystery which the liturgy then lifts up in sign and symbol. The paschal mystery is the touchstone of our own journey and story. Any time we pour ourselves out in selfgiving love, dying for the sake of new life, the paschal mystery lives in us. Charles Rohrbacher: The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet) Liturgical Press by permission of the artist. The call to discipleship is a paschal calling. Like the story of the prophet Jonah, it contains episodes of reluctance and refusal. Yet in Jonah s final obedience to his call, following his adventure in the belly of the whale, we might see ourselves. As the baptized we rise out of the waters of the font in order to be the persons we are called to be, and to undertake the mission to which we are sent. The liturgy, as it was reformed at the Council, brings themes of the Pascha into new prominence. Not merely a shrine to worship the Divine Presence, the liturgy is a crucible in which we ourselves are changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. CONCLUSION Today, fifty years after the Council, much has been accomplished in understanding and implementing the new paradigm which the Council offered through the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Yet it continues to present us with new and vigorous 6

7 challenges, as it invites us to deeper understanding of the mysteries we celebrate. So much has changed in fifty years, yet much remains the same. The Council was prophetic in placing the reform of the liturgy at the forefront of its work. That work continues. How we celebrate and live the liturgy will continue to shape our identity in important ways. And finally, today no less than when the Council first convened, we are faced with the question: What sort of Church are we going to be? The Monastic Worship Forum Newsletter is published quarterly. It is edited by Rev. Dunstan Moorse, O.S.B., St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN who also oversees production and distribution. Copies are sent electronically to member communities and friends of the Monastic Worship Forum. Information is available from Rev. Dunstan Moorse, O.S.B., Monastic Worship Forum, St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN (320) Monastic Worship Forum. Watch for news regarding the 2015 MWF Conference which will be hosted by Immaculate Conception Monastery of Ferdinand, Indiana. As the conference title is prepared and announced please assist the editor with preparation suggestions for this newsletter. 7

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