M
maurin
Guest
From “The Spirit of the Liturgy,” by His Holiness, pp 22-23:
In the Old Testament there is a series of very impressive testimonies to the truth that the liturgy is not a matter of “what you please.” Nowhere is this more dramatically evident than in the narrative of the golden calf… The cult conducted by the high priest Aaron is not meant to serve any of the false gods of the heathen. The apostasy ismore subtle. There is no obvious turning away from God to the false gods. Outwardly, the people remain completely attached to the same God. They want to glorify the God who led Israel out of Ehypt and believe that they may very properly represent his mysterious power in the image of a bull calf. Evrything seems to be in order. Presumably even the ritual is in complete conformity to the rubrics. And yet it is a falling awayfrom the worship of God to idolatry. This apostasy, which outwardly is scarcely perceptible, has two causes. First, there is a violation of the prohibition of images. The people cannot cope with the invisible, remote, and mysterious God. They want to bgring him down into their own world, into what they can see and understand.* Worship is no longer going up to God, but drawing God down into one’s own world. He must be there when he is needed, and he must be the kind of God that is needed. * Man is using God, and in reality, even if it is not outwardly discernible, he is placing himself above God. *This gives us a clue to the second point. The worship of the golden calf * is a self generated cult. When Moses stays away for too long, and God himself becomes inaccessible, the people just fetch him back. Worship becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation. Instead of being worship of God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself: eating, drinking, and making merry…The narrative of the golden calf is a warning about any kind of self-initiated and self-seeking worship. Ultimately, it is no longer concerned with God but with giving oneself a nice little alternative world, manufactured from one’s own resoruces. Then liturgy really does become pointless, just fooling around…"
In the Old Testament there is a series of very impressive testimonies to the truth that the liturgy is not a matter of “what you please.” Nowhere is this more dramatically evident than in the narrative of the golden calf… The cult conducted by the high priest Aaron is not meant to serve any of the false gods of the heathen. The apostasy ismore subtle. There is no obvious turning away from God to the false gods. Outwardly, the people remain completely attached to the same God. They want to glorify the God who led Israel out of Ehypt and believe that they may very properly represent his mysterious power in the image of a bull calf. Evrything seems to be in order. Presumably even the ritual is in complete conformity to the rubrics. And yet it is a falling awayfrom the worship of God to idolatry. This apostasy, which outwardly is scarcely perceptible, has two causes. First, there is a violation of the prohibition of images. The people cannot cope with the invisible, remote, and mysterious God. They want to bgring him down into their own world, into what they can see and understand.* Worship is no longer going up to God, but drawing God down into one’s own world. He must be there when he is needed, and he must be the kind of God that is needed. * Man is using God, and in reality, even if it is not outwardly discernible, he is placing himself above God. *This gives us a clue to the second point. The worship of the golden calf * is a self generated cult. When Moses stays away for too long, and God himself becomes inaccessible, the people just fetch him back. Worship becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation. Instead of being worship of God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself: eating, drinking, and making merry…The narrative of the golden calf is a warning about any kind of self-initiated and self-seeking worship. Ultimately, it is no longer concerned with God but with giving oneself a nice little alternative world, manufactured from one’s own resoruces. Then liturgy really does become pointless, just fooling around…"