How can the Collapse of the Liturgy be reversed?

[JimR-OCDS]

Vatican II may not have operated out of a vacuum and yes, there was an attempt to make to make the Church more “relevant” to modern man, but I have actually heard these opening words interpreted as the Church wanting to get “modern man” to understand the riches the Church has to offer. Whatever way the opening words are interpreted, I still don’t recall a call for a wholesale liturgical reform.

Then you didn’t read or understand the document.

Jim

 

[japhy]

Vatican II didn’t operate out of a vacuum. There were definite needs and litugical reform was one of them.

Where does the document mention “the very ‘collapse’ of the TLM of the time as a vehicle for worship”? Read the introduction to SC again and see what the Council said about their contemporary liturgy.

Liturgical reform != wholesale replacement of the liturgy. The Council never once said that the TLM had “collapsed as a vehicle for worship”. They were celebrating Mass with the TLM during the Council!

 

[Rickwood]

I think we can have this conversation without “bashing” the OF. I think the OF, even done correctly and in Latin (or a pristine translation), has some shortcomings (i.e. problems, ambiguities, difficulties, etc.) that the EF does not have. But I also think the EF is in need of positive reform.

I sure as heck hope so. In years past I would read these forums and people would just spam perfectly good threads with the anti-OF, pro-EF claptrap. Thankfully they created a special forum just for those people.

 

[maggiemay2u]

Vatican II didn’t operate out of a vacuum. There were definite needs and litugical reform was one of them…
Jim

Back in my undergrad days, I thought one of the best things to come out of V2 was the introduction of the vernacular. English didn’t take away from the reverence, it just brought us into the celebration. For the record, I love both TLM and NO.

Then came the curve balls. The vernacular came to mean bi-lingual and multi-lingual. Not just for special occasions (the Assumption last year had four languages plus dancing girls) but on a fairly regular basis. Parents reared their children to believe it was fine to giggle and laugh, applauding gave way to cheering for almost any reason (the fiesta is coming!) and so on.

I speak two other languages in addition to English, unfortunately neither is Korean or Tagalog. I have made my way to a few other continents and have yet to see, other than a Mass in Germany on a military base, the routine use of numerous languages.

When folks get upset about NO, I believe these are the kinds of things they’re talking about. At least with Latin, we were all on the same page (literally, in the St. Joseph Missal)

I’ve said before, the form of the Mass is not important to me, what is vital is a return to the sanctity of the edifice and reverence for the Eucharist housed therein.

 

[EasterJoy]

Cardinal Ratzinger, now our Holy Father, wrote in 1998 “I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy”. So the pope sees the collapse of the liturgy as a fact.

My question is simple: how can this collapse of the liturgy be reversed?

—boldface mine: EasterJoy

Pope Benedict XVI wrote the following in the introduction of Sacramentum Caritatis
(his apostolic exhortation given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 22 February, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, in the year 2007):

"The development of the eucharistic rite
3. If we consider the bimillenary history of God’s Church, guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can gratefully admire the orderly development of the ritual forms in which we commemorate the event of our salvation. From the varied forms of the early centuries, still resplendent in the rites of the Ancient Churches of the East, up to the spread of the Roman rite; from the clear indications of the Council of Trent and the Missal of Saint Pius V to the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council: in every age of the Church’s history the eucharistic celebration, as the source and summit of her life and mission, shines forth in the liturgical rite in all its richness and variety. The Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, held from 2-23 October 2005 in the Vatican, gratefully acknowledged the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this rich history.** In a particular way, the Synod Fathers acknowledged and reaffirmed the beneficial influence on the Church’s life of the liturgical renewal which began with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council **(5). The Synod of Bishops was able to evaluate the reception of the renewal in the years following the Council. There were many expressions of appreciation. **The difficulties and even the occasional abuses which were noted, it was affirmed, cannot overshadow the benefits and the validity of the liturgical renewal, whose riches are yet to be fully explored. **Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities.(6)

If you want the answer to the OP’s question, you won’t do better than to read Sacramentum Caritatis. It gives lots more to think about and written better than we could ever hope to…why re-invent the wheel?

 

[Joannm]

Thank you for posting this. It shows how some folks are simply proof texting and many things can be taken out of context.

 

[benedictgal]

Pope Benedict XVI wrote the following in the introduction of Sacramentum Caritatis
(his apostolic exhortation given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 22 February, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, in the year 2007):

"The development of the eucharistic rite
3. If we consider the bimillenary history of God’s Church, guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can gratefully admire the orderly development of the ritual forms in which we commemorate the event of our salvation. From the varied forms of the early centuries, still resplendent in the rites of the Ancient Churches of the East, up to the spread of the Roman rite; from the clear indications of the Council of Trent and the Missal of Saint Pius V to the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council: in every age of the Church’s history the eucharistic celebration, as the source and summit of her life and mission, shines forth in the liturgical rite in all its richness and variety. The Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, held from 2-23 October 2005 in the Vatican, gratefully acknowledged the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this rich history.** In a particular way, the Synod Fathers acknowledged and reaffirmed the beneficial influence on the Church’s life of the liturgical renewal which began with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council **(5). The Synod of Bishops was able to evaluate the reception of the renewal in the years following the Council. There were many expressions of appreciation. **The difficulties and even the occasional abuses which were noted, it was affirmed, cannot overshadow the benefits and the validity of the liturgical renewal, whose riches are yet to be fully explored. **Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities.(6)

If you want the answer to the OP’s question, you won’t do better than to read Sacramentum Caritatis. It gives lots more to think about and written better than we could ever hope to…why re-invent the wheel?

Actually, the quote from the OP comes from the same hand who wrote Sacramentum Caritatis. Therefore, Pope Benedict answered the question he posed as Cardinal Ratzinger.

 

[EasterJoy]

Actually, the quote from the OP comes from the same hand who wrote Sacramentum Caritatis. Therefore, Pope Benedict answered the question he posed as Cardinal Ratzinger.

Sacramentum Caritatis is a beautiful answer, every word and citation worth reading. I think our Holy Father would say that it only begins to treat the question. Since it centers on “the source and summit of the Christian life”, it is worth a lifetime of prayerful consideration and toil.

 

[pnewton]

Having never attended a “collapsed liturgy” and not having access to the original quote, can someone who has read this book specify what the Cardinal was referring to when he used this term? Was there anything specific in the context that we can use to understand it?

 

[japhy]

Thank you for posting this. It shows how some folks are simply proof texting and many things can be taken out of context.

Out of curiosity, who were you replying to? What, specifically, was posting? This was kind of ambiguous…

 

[Joannm]

Out of curiosity, who were you replying to? What, specifically, was posting? This was kind of ambiguous…

I was responding to post 164

 

[japhy]

Pope Benedict XVI wrote the following in the introduction of Sacramentum Caritatis (his apostolic exhortation given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 22 February, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, in the year 2007):3. If we consider the bimillenary history of God’s Church, guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can gratefully admire the orderly development of the ritual forms in which we commemorate the event of our salvation. From the varied forms of the early centuries, still resplendent in the rites of the Ancient Churches of the East, up to the spread of the Roman rite; from the clear indications of the Council of Trent and the Missal of Saint Pius V to the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council: in every age of the Church’s history the eucharistic celebration, as the source and summit of her life and mission, shines forth in the liturgical rite in all its richness and variety. The Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, held from 2-23 October 2005 in the Vatican, gratefully acknowledged the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this rich history. In a particular way, the Synod Fathers acknowledged and reaffirmed the beneficial influence on the Church’s life of the liturgical renewal which began with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. The Synod of Bishops was able to evaluate the reception of the renewal in the years following the Council. There were many expressions of appreciation. The difficulties and even the occasional abuses which were noted, it was affirmed, cannot overshadow the benefits and the validity of the liturgical renewal, whose riches are yet to be fully explored. Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities.

To be exact, Pope Benedict here mentions “the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council”, not necessary the liturgical reform we got. He distinguishes the appraisal of the Synod Bishops from his own; and again, he mentions “the changes which the Council called for” (which “need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development”) and not specifically those changes which came after the Council’s constitution.

The quote from Ratzinger on the collapse of the liturgy comes from La Mia Vita, which is also published under the name of Aus meinem Leben (German) and Milestones (English). This article has an extended excerpt from the book:"I was dismayed by the banning of the old Missal seeing that a similar thing had never happened in the entire history of the liturgy…

"The promulgation of the banning of the Missal that had been developed in the course of centuries, starting from the time of the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, has brought with it a break in the history of the liturgy whose consequences could be tragic… The old structure was broken to pieces and another was constructed admittedly with material of which the old structure had been made and using also the preceding models…

"But the fact that [the liturgy] was presented as a new structure, set up against what had been formed in the course of history and was now prohibited, and that the liturgy was made to appear in some ways no longer as a living process but as a product of specialized knowledge and juridical competence, has brought with it some extremely serious damages for us.

"In this way, in fact, the impression has arisen that the liturgy is ‘made,’ that it is not something that exists before us, something ‘given,’ but that it depends on our decisions. It follows as a consequence that this decision-making capacity is not recognized only in specialists or in a central authority, but that, in the final analysis, each ‘community’ wants to give itself its own liturgy. But when the liturgy is something each one makes by himself, then it no longer gives us what is its true quality: encounter with the mystery which is not our product but our origin and the wellspring of our life…

"I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us.

“But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?”
In the English translation, this quote is actually: “I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy…” (p. 148). I’ll write another post quoting it in its context…

Please do me a favor: don’t get this or any other Liturgy & Sacraments thread locked or deleted!

 

[japhy]

NOTE TO MODERATOR: If this post quotes too much from the book, let me know and I will pare it down substantially.

The quote from Ratzinger on the collapse of the liturgy comes from La Mia Vita, which is also published under the name of Aus meinem Leben (German) and Milestones (English). … In the English translation, this quote is actually: “I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy…” (p. 148).

Here is the context:
Milestones:

The previous missal had been created by Pius V in 1570 in connection with the Council of Trent; and so it was quite normal that, after four hundred years and a new council, a new pope would present us with a new missal. But the historical truth of the matter is different. [p. 174] Pius V had simply ordered a reworking of the Missale Romanum then being used, which is the normal thing as history develops over the course of centuries. Many of his successor had likewise reworked this missal again, but without ever setting one missal against another. It was a continual process of growth and purification in which continuity was never destroyed. There is no such thing as a “Missal of Pius V”, created by Pius V himself. There is only the reworking done by Pius V as one phase in a long history of growth. The new feature that came to the fore after the Council of Trent was of a different nature. The irruption of the Reformation had above all taken the concrete form of liturgical “reforms”. It was not just a matter of there being a Catholic Church and a Protestant Church alongside one another. THe split in the CHurch occurred almost imperceptibly and found its most visible and historically most incisive manifestation in the changes of the liturgy. These changes, in turn, took very different forms at the local level, so that here, too, one frequently could not ascertain the boundary between what was still Catholic and what was no longer Catholic.

In this confusing situation, which had become possible by the failure to produce unified liturgical legislation and by the existing liturgical pluralism inherited from the Middle Ages, the pope decided that now the Missale Romanum – the missal of the city of Rome – was to be introduced as reliably Catholic in every place that could not demonstrate its liturgy to be at least two hundred years old. Wherever the existing liturgy was that old, it could be preserved because its Catholic character would then be assured. In this case we cannot speak of the prohibition of a previous missal that had formerly been approved as valid. The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of [p. 148] the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the [Second Vatican - *japhy

] Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth, thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer a living development but the product of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused us enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something “made”, not something given in advance but something lying within our own power of decision. From this it also follows that we are not to recognize the scholars and the central authority alone as decision makers, but that in the end each and every “community” must provide itself with its own liturgy. When liturgy is self-made, however, then it can no longer give us what its proper gift should be: the encounter with the mystery that is not our own product but rather our origin and the source of our life. A renewal of liturgical awareness, a liturgical reconciliation that again recognizes the unity of the history of the liturgy and that understands Vatican II, not as a breach, but as a stage of development: these things are urgently needed for the life of the Church. I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to [p. 149] be conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not he speaks to us and hears us. But when the community of faith, the worldwide unity of the Church and her history, and the mystery of the living Christ are no longer visible in the liturgy, where else, then, is the Church to become visible in her spiritual essence? Then the community is celebrating only itself, an activity that is utterly fruitless. And, because the ecclesial community cannot have its origin from itself but emerges as a unity only from the Lord, through faith, such circumstances will inexorably result in a disintegration into sectarian parties of all kinds – partisan opposition within a Church tearing herself apart. This is why we need a new Liturgical Movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council.
Do we now see the context of Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement in 1997?

Please do me a favor: don’t get this or any other Liturgy & Sacraments thread locked or deleted!

 

[pnewton]

NOTE TO MODERATOR: If this post quotes too much from the book, let me know and I will pare it down substantially.

Here is the context:

Do we now see the context of Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement in 1997?

Thank you. That makes so much more sense, now that it is placed in context.

 

[japhy]

Do we now see the context of Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement in 1997?

Allow me to share how I understand the “disintegration of the liturgy” that Ratzinger wrote about.

There is no such thing as a “Missal of Pius V”, created by Pius V himself. There is only the reworking done by Pius V as one phase in a long history of growth.

In other words, the Roman liturgy has been revised and reformed throughout its history. The “Tridentine” Rite is a misnomer because it implies the liturgy was created at Trent. The “Pian Missal” is also a misnomer if it implies Pius V created the Missal. He merely revised it, as his predecessors had done and as later Popes would do. It was part of the organic development of the Roman Rite. (This Rite was substantially codified by Pope St. Gregory the Great, which is why it has recently been called the “Gregorian Rite.”)

The new feature that came to the fore after the Council of Trent was of a different nature. … In this case we cannot speak of the prohibition of a previous missal that had formerly been approved as valid.

Here he’s saying how, at the time of the Tridentine liturgical reform, there was a need to make sure other liturgical traditions were truly Catholic (because of the recent danger of the Protestant revolution and its liturgical “reforms”). This prohibition, though, cannot be compared with what happened in the 1960’s:

The prohibition of … a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries … introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the [Second Vatican] Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before…

Here is quite straight-forward: the prohibition of the “Missal of Pope John XXIII”, following the promulgation of the “Missal of Pope Paul VI”, was “a breach [in] the history of the liturgy” and it had “tragic” consequences. He does not deny the sensibility of a liturgical reform – a large-scale one, even – which the Council ordered, but his problem is with the post-Conciliar actions of reform.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment…

The previous liturgy “was demolished” and a new one “was built”; it didn’t grow from the old one, it was re-manufactured from old parts. Now, he doesn’t deny that there was “real improvement and enrichment” in this newly-devised liturgy, but at what cost and in what manner? Surely he thinks a historically-consonant liturgical reform (according to the precepts of Vatican II) could have produced just as improved and enriched a liturgy without the “breach” and other problems.

… but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth, thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer a living development but the product of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused us enormous harm.

Again, he calls the reformed liturgy a “new construction” in contrast to the older liturgy which was “grown historically”.

For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something “made”, not something given in advance but something lying within our own power of decision. From this it also follows … that in the end each and every “community” must provide itself with its own liturgy.

The result of the liturgical reforms was that liturgy appeared to be an invention of ours: we have power over and shape the liturgy, instead of the other way around. Because of this, each community creates its own liturgy. Ratzinger, I think, sees this phenomenon as distinct from the liturgical rites of various religious orders (like the Dominican Rite, for example) that existed at the time of the Council of Trent; it seems instead like each parish (or diocese) has its own way of “mastering” the liturgy… and even in an individual parish, there are “sects” who have their own liturgies, like LifeTeen and the Neocatechumenal Way, to name a couple.

A renewal of liturgical awareness, a liturgical reconciliation that again recognizes the unity of the history of the liturgy and that understands Vatican II, not as a breach, but as a stage of development: these things are urgently needed for the life of the Church. I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to [p. 149] be conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not he speaks to us and hears us.

The “disintegration of the liturgy”, then, is this splintering and redefining and constant re-owning and re-making of the liturgy by… anybody. The liturgy loses its own identity and becomes merely a temporal reflection of our temporal identities. The liturgy no longer becomes a mark of unity. It becomes, instead, a blank slate for us to draw on as we will. It becomes our self-expression instead of the expression of the Divine to which we must cling!

Instead of letting the liturgy grow as it had historically, we looked at it and said “we can do better” and went to work manufacturing a “better” liturgy; the problem was, we made it for us in our limitations.

Then the community is celebrating only itself, an activity that is utterly fruitless. And, because the ecclesial community cannot have its origin from itself but emerges as a unity only from the Lord, through faith, such circumstances will inexorably result in a disintegration into sectarian parties of all kinds – partisan opposition within a Church tearing herself apart. This is why we need a new Liturgical Movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council.

Ratzinger points out the liturgy seems to be becoming more and more about the local community to the point that “the community [celebrates] only itself”, which is “utterly fruitless”. And, sure enough, there was a “disintegration into sectarian parties”: the liturgy, which should be the source and summit of our Christian life, becomes a battleground that pits Catholic against Catholic!

So then, Ratzinger believes the liturgical reforms we experienced after the Council do not reflect the Council’s “real heritage”.

Anyone else care to share their thoughts upon reading the excerpt?

Please do me a favor: don’t get this or any other Liturgy & Sacraments thread locked or deleted!

 

[japhy]

Was it something I said?

 

[AMDGtoo]

Was it something I said?

Don’t think so. Maybe we are all reflecting.

BTW, as to each community celebrating it’s own “flavor” of liturgy (instead of the unity from Rome), attendance at various nearby parishes (often with degreed and even payed Liturgical Directors in charge) seems to have “showcased” that for me.

 

[PacoG]

No way.

All Popes are the Vicars of Jesus Christ here on Earth. Semantics aside they are not “Peter.”

You justification was just a very kind comment by the Ecumenical Patriarch. It holds absolutely no authority – even if it would have been said by the Pope and not the Ecumenical Patriarch.

The papal installation mass is the Mass for the Inauguration to the PETRINE Ministry. The Pope has always been referred to Peter on Earth.

I’ve watched your posts all over this board, Rickwood. Your really need to educate yourself.

 

[Rickwood]

The papal installation mass is the Mass for the Inauguration to the PETRINE Ministry. The Pope has always been referred to Peter on Earth.

I’ve watched your posts all over this board, Rickwood. Your really need to educate yourself.

I would suggest you take your own advice.

The Pope has always been referred to as the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

 

[James0235]

Using my own parish I will take a guess. I think the great majority get involved with the liturgy (either planning or as a EMHC, reader, server, etc.) because they want to be seen and recognized.

And in some cases they want POWER…

That is something I never considered.

Personally, I would like to get more involved with the Liturgy without being seen or recognized.

James