The briefing paper of the Prefect of the Dicastery of Divine Worship, prepared for the Consistory of Cardinals and published last week, has drawn much criticism, and rightly. It is at best risible. Yet this is truly no laughing matter. Indeed, given its status, it necessitates serious critical analysis.
However, His Eminence did get one fact absolutely right when he wrote that “the application of the Reform suffered and continues to suffer from a lack of formation” (n. 8). For, when rightly insisting that “in the restoration and promotion of the Sacred Liturgy the full and actual participation [actuosa participatio] by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit,” the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy went on to insist that “it would be futile to entertain any hopes of realising [actuosa participatio] unless the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy, and undertake to give instruction about it. A prime need, therefore, is that attention be directed, first of all, to the liturgical formation of the clergy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 14; emphasis added).
That is to say that a liturgical reform, whether in continuity or not with the received liturgical tradition, and let us be clear, the Council Fathers were calling for a development of the liturgy in continuity, not the radical rupture we received, would collapse, as would a house built on sand, if the work of laying the necessary solid foundations through extensive liturgical formation was not attended to first and foremost.
This is not ‘traditionalist’ revisionism; this is what the world’s bishops gathered at the Second Vatican Council itself asserted. They were aware that any hope of realising the reform they envisaged, that is, the actual participation in the Sacred Liturgy, moderately reformed, was utterly futile if liturgical formation was not attended to first and foremost.
More than sixty years later, we have the spectacle of the current Prefect of the relevant Dicastery blithely asserting that the reform in fact promulgated “suffered and continues to suffer” from the lack of this one thing regarded as essential. He did not say that the liturgical reform had been unsuccessful or pointless, but his admission certainly permits an examination of the question, as does the acknowledgement of this same lack in the 2022 Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi.
Serious statistical studies indicate that in the West most Catholics do not even attempt to participate in the liturgy, that is, they simply do not go to Mass. There are, surely, many reasons for that, but the reality is that the new product marketed as the ultimate panacea, specially crafted so that ‘modern man’ could participate fully and fruitfully, namely the modern liturgy, has simply not filled the pews. Something needs to be done. Six decades are a long time for a building to be without the necessary foundations.
His Eminence at least recognises the “urgency of addressing” the matter. He proposes “seminars to ‘bring to life the kind of formation of the faithful and ministry of pastors that will have their summit and source in the liturgy’” (n. 8). With all due respect to the Cardinal Prefect and his drafters, seminars are not the answer. Even if clergy can be ordered to be present and some lay men and women can be enticed to attend, they will do little more than talk about the liturgy. That may do some good, but in truth liturgical formation comes about by living the liturgy, not by talking about it. The “spirit and power of the liturgy” that Sacrosanctum Concilium insisted must be imbued in the clergy first and foremost cannot be imparted by the imposition of a vaccination regime. No, we come to live, and to live from, the Sacred Liturgy by osmosis, not by inoculation.
In studying this question at Sacra Liturgia 2013 in Rome, I recalled the beautiful appreciation of this reality written by Cardinal Ratzinger, describing his becoming captivated by the liturgy as a youth and his gradual awakening to its reality occasioned by the gift of bilingual missals as he grew older:
“Every new step into the Liturgy was a great event for me. Each new book I was given was something precious to me, and I could not dream of anything more beautiful. It was a riveting adventure to move by degrees into the mysterious world of the Liturgy which was being enacted before us and for us there on the altar. It was becoming more and more clear to me that here I was encountering a reality that no one had simply thought up, a reality that no official authority or great individual had created.
This mysterious fabric of texts and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history. Every century had left its mark upon it. Not everything was logical. Things sometimes got complicated and it was not always easy to find one’s way. But precisely this is what made the whole edifice wonderful, like one’s own home.
Naturally, the child I then was did not grasp every aspect of this, but I started down the road of the Liturgy, and this became a continuous process of growth into a grand reality transcending all particular individuals and generations, a reality that became an occasion for me of ever-new amazement and discovery. The inexhaustible reality of the Catholic liturgy has accompanied me through all phases of life, and so I shall have to speak of it time and time again.” (Milestones: Memoirs 1927–1977, pp. 19–20)
This boy opened and willingly entered a small gate into the Church’s richly laden orchard of the Sacred Liturgy. As a priest, bishop, and pope, his eyes, widened with excitement and delight at the first discovery of these riches, never narrowed and never tired of the process of becoming more thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy. This discovery introduced him to Christ Himself, alive and at work in His Church through her sacred rites. When we have entered into such a relationship, how can we possibly tire?
This, then, is the spirit and power of the liturgy in which we must be formed: a spirit which makes demands of us, certainly, and which requires our conformity to established, sometimes seemingly antiquated, paths and practices; a spirit whose disciplines and language I must learn and to which I must humbly submit; yet a spirit whose paths lead to the joyful discovery and celebration of Christ alive and working in His Church, and which nourishes us at the very source of all that we need to persevere in our daily Christian life and mission; a spirit which gives us a foretaste of, and an appetite for, the eternal, and which shapes us and sustains us here on earth until we are called to share together in the unending joy of the heavenly liturgy.
This is a spirit more easily ‘caught’ than ‘taught’, by living it and not by being lectured about it, caught by hands joined in a way only used for prayer, by knees bent in adoration, by voices raised in the discipline of the Church’s chant, through the body bowed profoundly, by signs of the cross made, in ashes accepted on our foreheads, through water sprinkled on us, and in so many other ways.
This is a spirit which every altar server once imbibed imperceptibly when, after perhaps arriving in youthful haste, he put on his surplice before Mass and then assisted the priest vesting, witnessing silent prayers that humbled the priest and daily recalled to him, a mere man, his high calling. All this took place in a sacristy enveloped in a silence which could be interrupted only in case of urgency. This silence, present also in our churches before the Sacred Liturgy, radiated the fact that we were about to engage in sacred acts. It bridged our own haste, filtered our many distractions, and enabled us to enter more fully and more fruitfully into the liturgical act.
Such practices are sometimes regarded today as relics of a bygone age. The bodily gestures we use, our odd use of holy water or ashes, the putting on of a surplice, the praying of vesting prayers: none of these are commanded by Divine Law, nor is maintaining a reverential silence. But they are cherished and tested means to a more-than-worthy end. These, and so many other little customs, little sacramentals that incarnate our love of God, serve as small but powerful steps in initial and ongoing liturgical formation, and it is thus that they achieve their importance. They bespeak, radiate, and protect the spirit of the liturgy and, by conforming us to and immersing us in the action of Christ in and through His sacred rites, they facilitate the power of the Sacred Liturgy, the power of Christ Himself, working more efficaciously in our lives and thereby in our world.
Hence, I would respectfully suggest to His Eminence, and to their Eminences for whom his briefing paper was produced, that instead of planning and budgeting for seminars, however consoling such a palliative endeavour may be, the urgent work of liturgical formation would be better served by investing in the rich and reverent celebration of the liturgical rites. It is they which form us.
The Cardinal Prefect’s briefing paper seemed largely to forget the pontificate of the boy described above, but it yielded two significant documents that did, and could still, contribute much to the liturgical formation that is so desperately required. The first, the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (22 February 2007), is an excellent starting point for the rediscovery of the spirit and power of the liturgy, most particularly its insistence on the “ars celebrandi”, “the fruit of faithful adherence to the liturgical norms in all their richness” (n. 38). This is not rigid rubricism or cancerous minimalism. It is loving, generous fidelity. And, as many priests can attest, it works in both newer rites as well as the older ones.
The second document is, of course, Summorum Pontificum (7 July 2007), which underlined the perennial good for the Church of the older liturgical rites. It is certainly possible to celebrate any rite parsimoniously and, yes, the usus antiquior has just as much need of the ars celebrandi as does the usus recentior. But the older rites are unedited by the ideologies of those responsible for the production of the newer ones after the Council. (Compare the prayers for Lent in both missals and you will see the difference, and the lack of formation in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving present in the modern ones.) That is to say that, when celebrated as well as is possible, the older rites have much more to give. The formation they impart is all the richer.
This is perhaps why Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the possibility of “mutual enrichment” when writing about Summorum Pontificum (Letter, 7 July 2007), to the fruits of which both clergy and laity can attest. It also partially explains the phenomenon he noted in observing that “it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.” People simply get more out of something in which there is more available.
This phenomenon underlines a little-understood reality. The architects of the new liturgy themselves had decades of liturgical formation in the usus antiquior. Father Bugnini and Pope Paul VI celebrated the older rites for the greater part of their lives. With such formation, they had sufficient foundation to envisage simplified rites that would sufficiently nourish and form people. What they did not see, however, is that in their turn the newer rites, because of their ‘thinning down’, to put it politely, would not impart the necessary formation to imbue future generations with the spirit and power of the liturgy. Hence His Eminence’s “urgency” today.
We cannot turn the clock back and undo the damage of the past sixty years, but we can seek to be like the wise scribe trained for the Kingdom of Heaven who knows when to bring forth “out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt 13:52). Hence, if we want to form people in the spirit and power of the liturgy, we will foster the ars celebrandi in each and every liturgical rite we celebrate. And we will allow the older liturgical rites the freedom once again to form, attract, and sustain those who wish to drink of their riches. We shall also allow mutual enrichment to occur. This, and not seminars, is what is utterly imperative if the liturgical reform is not to prove to be futile.
Romano Guardini wrote a good deal about liturgical formation, but of all that he wrote his little book Sacred Signs is the most pre-eminently powerful. His reflection on the simple and oft-repeated gesture of making the sign of the cross strikes me as capturing the essence of the spirit of the liturgy:
“When we cross ourselves, let it be with a real sign of the cross. Instead of a small, cramped gesture that gives no notion of its meaning, let us make a large, unhurried sign, from forehead to breast, from shoulder to shoulder, consciously feeling how it includes the whole of us, our thoughts, our attitudes, our body and soul, every part of us at once, how it consecrates and sanctifies us.
It does so because it is the Sign of the universe and the sign of our redemption. On the cross Christ redeemed mankind. By the cross he sanctifies man to the last shred and fibre of his being. We make the sign of the cross before we pray to collect and compose ourselves and to fix our minds and hearts and wills upon God. We make it when we finish praying in order that we may hold fast the gift we have received from God. In temptations we sign ourselves to be strengthened; in dangers, to be protected. The cross is signed upon us in blessings in order that the fulness of God's life may flow into the soul and fructify and sanctify us wholly.
Think of these things when you make the sign of the cross. It is the holiest of all signs. Make a large cross, taking time, thinking what you do. Let it take in your whole being, body, soul, mind, will, thoughts, feelings, your doing and not-doing, and by signing it with the cross strengthen and consecrate the whole in the strength of Christ, in the name of the triune God.”
This is the spirit of the liturgy, without which all reforms shall indeed be futile. This is the spirit that we must so urgently recapture today. This is the spirit from which all our liturgical celebrations must live and form each one of us.
Dom Alcuin Reid is the Prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignoles, France, www.monasterebrignoles.org and a liturgical scholar of international renown.
His principal work ‘The Organic Development of the Liturgy’ (Ignatius, 2005) carries a preface by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
This article draws upon his paper “Thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the Liturgy”—Sacrosanctum Concilium and Liturgical Formation, presented at the International Sacra Liturgia Conference held in Rome in 2013 and published in
Sacred Liturgy: the Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church (Ignatius, 2014)
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