RESTORING BEAUTY IN THE LITURGY
Rev. Scott A. Haynes, S.J.C.
The Canons Regular of St. John Cantius
Copyright © 2007. Biretta Books, Ltd. Chicago. All Rights Reserved.
Jesus Christ has chosen the Church for his Bride. In nuptial love, the Bride of Christ
looks into the eyes of the Bridegroom and calls out: “Splendor and majesty are in his
presence; power and beauty are in his sanctuary.”1
The Wedding Feast of the Lamb described in the Book of Revelation actually
describes the Sacred Liturgy of the Church.2 In the climax of her heavenly worship,
the Bride reflects the image of the Bridegroom – the image of the Word-Made-Flesh,
who is Beauty-Incarnate.
For the world, the maxim, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,”3 is a subjective
statement. For the Bride of Christ, this is a concrete reality of the Incarnation!
Sadly in our own times, the banal and vulgar have invaded our sanctuaries, following
“a misguided sense of creativity.”4 Nothing, therefore, is more important today than
the restoration of the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy, the restoration of the sacred.
Hans Urs von Balthasar, the 20th century's most notable writer on the theology of
beauty, said: "We can be sure that whoever sneers at Beauty's name…can no longer
pray and soon will no longer be able to love."5
In order celebrate the Sacred Liturgy with due reverence and beauty, the Church must
be able to “distinguish between the sacred and the profane.”6 When false types of
“inculturation” pollute liturgical worship we must be mindful that “all is not valid; all is not licit; all is not good.”7 The secular, the cheap, the inferior and the inartistic “are not meant to cross the threshold of God’s temple.”8
In order to “restore the sacred” we must, first and foremost, contemplate the beauty
of Christ in the Sacred Liturgy – “a sacred action surpassing all others.”9 This begins with external fidelity to the rubrics, but leads to internal union with Christ, for “those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”10 The spiritual beauty of the 1 Ps 96:6. 2 Rev. 1:10-13; 4:4-8; 5:14; 11:16; 14:3; 19:4. 3 Anon. Greece. 3rd Century B.C. 4 Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 52. 5 Preface to The Glory of the Lord. 6 Ez 44:23. 7 Address of Pope Paul VI to the Italian Society of St. Cecilia, Rome, April 15, 1971, Sacred Music, Vol. 98, No. 2 (Summer 1971), p. 3-5. 8 Ibid. 9 Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7. 10 Jn 4:24.
Sacred Liturgy transforms the lives of Catholics. Indeed, “the encounter with the
beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way
opens our eyes.”11 This spiritual beauty forms the Christ-like heart in moral beauty.
And when the spiritual beauty of the Sacred Liturgy has transformed a soul, man can
then create things of beauty, such as art, architecture, poetry, and music.
This manmade beauty, formed by the beauty of Christ in the Sacred Liturgy, imitates
the creative genius of God who gave this world an inherent natural beauty. When the
beautiful and radiant face of Christ our Savior becomes the center of sacred worship,
all creation longs to cry out with the psalmist: “every work that He does is full of
splendor and beauty.”12
If the beauty of Holy Mass does not, in essence, rely upon the splendid beauty of
iconography, ornate vestments, Gregorian chant or Baroque architecture, why then
has the Church invested so much of its patrimony in fostering these sacred arts? God
has placed a legitimate desire in the human soul to create beautiful things because he
wants man to share in his masterpiece of creation, a creation that is good and
beautiful.
Beauty in the Liturgy results from order. This is why the Liturgy, by its very nature,
demands order, and so Liturgy cannot exist without rubrics or ceremony. Beauty
shines through the gestures of the Sacred Liturgy. Thus, the external acts of worship,
such as making the Sign of the Cross, genuflecting, kneeling and bowing, become
ways to internalize reverence and beauty in our human lives.
“Every liturgical gesture, being a gesture of Christ, is called to express beauty.”13
And so the transcendent beauty of the Liturgy permeates the hearts of men, and forms us to have proper relationships, not only with God, but also with our neighbor, and
therefore empowers us to transform human culture. This is the genuine meaning of
“inculturation.” If we Catholics want the inherent beauty of the liturgy to convert the “culture of death,” we must permit the Sacred Liturgy to form us by its spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ.
This means that, in humility, we must, renounce any desire to make the Liturgy
conform to changing whims. Consequently, let us renounce unauthorized
innovations, rubrical improvisation, banality, and misguided-creativity.
11 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Message to Communion and Liberation, August 2002, Rimini, Italy, made available May 2, 2005, www.zenit.org.
Hence, "…the Old Rite becomes a living treasure of the Church and also should
provide a standard of worship, of mystery, and of catechesis toward which the
celebrations of the Novus Ordo must move. In other words, the Tridentine Mass is the
missing link. And unless it be re-discovered in all its faithful truth and beauty, the Novus Ordo will not respond to the organic growth and change that has characterized the liturgy from its beginning."14
12 Ps. 111:3. 13 Liturgy and Beauty, by Most Rev. Piero Marini, Titular Archbishop of Martirano, Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations. March 15, 2006. www.vatican.va.edu 14 Rev. Michael John Zielinski O.S.B. Oliv., Vice-President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church and of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.
www.pecosmonastery.org.
6 comments:
Amen and Alleluia.
Father, suppose the Vatican came to you and wanted your consultation about replacing the Novus Ordo/Bugnini Order of the Mass for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Missal (just the Order... they would keep the rest of the Roman Missal). Would you advise them to implement the 1965 Order, the 1962 Order (even though it "violates" Sacrosanctum Concilium), or start over by fabricating a new Order?
Fr, do you have some kind of schizoid personality or love-hate relationship as regards the EF? You seem so ambivalent.
Bret, I think that at this juncture in Church history, we can't keep yanking people around and say that what once was acceptable is no longer. Usually this is applied to the EF Mass and its traditions, but it can also be applied to the post-Vatican II changes as envisioned by Vatican II, not its spirit of rupture.
So I would be very careful in terms of any reform of the reform and allow some options for it.
Option A: The Roman Missal that we currently have with all its Lectionary, rubrics and General Instruction.
Option B: The Roman Missal that we currently have with its Lectionary but with the 1962 Order of Mass and rubrics except for the following:
Where the readings are read,
The use of additional Eucharistic Prayers, but when the Roman Canon is used, the rubrics from 1962.
I would recommend that the Roman Calendar be changed to accord with what the Anglican Ordinariate has.
The EF Mass would stay the same an extraordinary.
Why is it assumed that a bigger lectionary is automatically better? I posit that a smaller, more well-curated lectionary with only the most memorable and pastorally applicable readings is better than the ginormous lectionary we currently have (which curiously leaves out some of the EF's stronger reading selections...).
Just as not every piece in a fine art museum is as valuable or beautiful, not every single part of the Bible is of equal value. It is clear that the Acts of the Apostles is of infinitely more value than, say, Obadiah. Lots of Biblical selections are pretty boring. Yes, all of Scripture is equally divinely inspired, but not all of Scripture is of equal value as concerns the liturgy, methinks.
'Option A: The Roman Missal that we currently have with all its Lectionary, rubrics and General Instruction.'
But Father, the Novus Ordo is the problem, because it has so few rubrics, and vague ones, at that. It is a chameleon Mass that can be suited to fit the presising priest's whim, be it a Tridentine style Mass, like you are attempting, or a casual, human centered, protestantesque service that most typical American parishes have. YOu offer an Option A and an Option B, I guarantee you 99% of priests and parishes will continue with option A, ie, the Novus Ordo poorly celebrated as it currenty is in the vast majority of Churches.
If it were up to me, I'd advise the Ordinary Form take the 1965 Order, along with the revised Calendar you suggested. But this would be only a transitional thing. Over the course of a generation, a shift would slowly be assimilated where "Extraordinary Form" would mean the 1962 Missal in full Latin, as it is now, while "Ordinary Form" would mean the 1962 Missal in a Latin-Vernacular blend.
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