L I T U R G Y Vol ume 6, Number 3 I December 1972 EDITOR Is PAGE 1 ABOUT OUR OFFICE AND THE 11 11 A 3 A LETTER FROM CARDI NAL DUBOIS TABERA 11 LITURGY MEETI NG OF THE Cl aude CANADIAN REGION, SEPTEMBER PERRON 13 Vi ncent 6 MAIDfN THE LECTIONARY OF THE OFFICE : A SOURCE OF HOLINESS AND Henry ASHWORTH PRAYING THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS Chrysogonus WADDELL HYMNS AND HYMN MAKI NG Mother THOMAS MORE [LEDGE OF GOD 61 75 93 .LITURGY Bulletin serves to share with others whatever thoughts and experiences may contribute towards the development of a living urgy for religious communities today. Manuscripts should be forwarded to: Fr. Chrysogonus Gethsemani Abbey Trappist, Kentucky 40073(U.S.A.) Material for the next issue (March or April, 1973)should be received by early March, 1973. N M d 2
was to support the congregational singing, was al.nost as lethargic as the congregation. The substance of the celebration was, of course, the same as alweys -the Mystery of Christ, who was present and acting.But I can't sey that the texts sung and the music itself helped render the reality of Christ's presence and action nore
Liturgy Meeting of the Canadian Region 15 Various levels cf creativity: choice of texts; co-ordination; adaptation; creation properly so-called. B- As regards the rommunity : considerations of personnel; according to various rhythms; as regards the "celebrating cxmnun.ity" • C- Technieal aspects: "making prayer" before the celebration; during; after . D- Distribution and use of new creations. WITH A VIEW TO THE CELEBRATION The notion of celebration is closely bound up with an event or a son. And that in fact is what we do in liturgy :we celebrate Christ, the all-over Mystery of Christ revealed in time. Whether the celebration is daily, or expressed with great poverty of means, and with great simplicity - this has no bearing on the basic meaning of celebration. It is always Christ who is celebrated. But let that celebration at certain manents tain to an expression that seems more ample, exaggerated, where we can even have the impression that the artificial surpasses the real -then we a::me nearer to what a feast can be. Every celebration recalls an event that is past as regards the present; but it also makes present the liturgy 's today, and projects us forward.'Ihe elements we use to a::mnerrorate, to make us more aware hCM deep that event is at present, and to project us into a "lived" tanorrow, will constitute the difference that exists between and everyday celebration and a festive
Values of Eucharistic ConceZebration 29 nothing but a dangerous way of conceiving the notion of sacerdotal ministry. For, after all, as long as the President of the Eucharistic table was still among us, what was for h:ira the need of sacramental representatives of his priesthood, of ministerial mediations of his visible presence? Inasmuch as a priest would like "to do just as at the Last Supper" he would do better to participate in the Eucharist in a non-structured manner, without performing any specific ritual function. He would thereby contribute to bringing out the fact that the one and only High Priest, the true Master of the banquet, is Chr.l.st and he alone, in the exercise of his invisible presidency through the visible sacraxrental mediation of one of his ministers. But the recent struction on the Cult of the Eucharistic Mystery" does not favor offhand that fo:rm of participation.5 Let us also point out an altogether pragmatic justification which has doubtedly been brought forth alnost everywhere in our monastic circles, where reflection is certainly in honor, but always remains tiresorre. What a wonderful opportunity to do away with "private .Masses", that ananaly of monastic life where everything is in ccmron (Indeed!), where the Divine fice was concelebraterl while the sign par excellence of unity was broken up into a succession of Masses at full gallop, or, still worse, into a ty of Masses read individually! Such a preoccupation, legitimate in itself, is not yet a determining factor.6 As long as the right to individual tion is retained, we cannot easily see in it an aberrant or deviating logical reality. Let us take notice however of a definite evolution in the official documents which seem more and Il'Ore clearly to foster concelebration, even as an habitual practice, a fact which emerges logically fran article 27 of the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy. ? Even though the preoccupation of doing <:May with individual Masses irrplies a legitimate concern for the rnunion of all in charity, it theo- Of-
efficaciously on the sacramental level, 39 Eucharistic concelebration must little by little rrodi.fy the sacerdotal awareness, by bringing it to set aside without any wervation all tenptation of insularism. (Man is not an island!} It is the good of the ensemble that must be sought, the ensemble being understood both as the diocese to which one belongs as well as the universal Church within whan the diocese is integrated. It might be necessary at this point to
46 42 . K. Rahner , L'ogmatipe de la conce'le'bration , QLP 36 (1955) , pp. 127-133. On the reactions provoked by the position taken by the author , cf . J. Gavan, Op.cit. pp . 72-l09. Sic P. Tihon , art. cit..,, pp. 600-601; but see r:iecree of the Holy Of fice of May 23, 1957 , AAS t. XLIX, 370 ; cf.QLP 38 (1957) , p. 228. Sic A. Kassing , Konzelebration tmd Eucharistsche Ganeinde, Wort und heit 20 (1965) , pp.234-237.
Dublin 1956. 6 Conghaile and 6 R.l.ordain, R{ na uHuile, Dublin 1964/66. Una N.:C O:jrun, Danta De, Baila Atha Cliath 1927. Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Maynooth 1911, 1914.
seek; not really enough even to seek God. Rather, one has to seek God t r u 1 y. And hCJAT does a man seek God t r u 1 y? As my Father Master used to say, "A man seeks God truly by seeking him where God has most :i;:erfectly revealed himself, that is to say, in Christ Jesus.
we are to shape up a concrete expression of the Mystery of Christ -an pression of prayer and praise in which the pure worship of God and the fication of the oormrunity and of each individual within the cxmnunity are linked together in an indissoluble admirdbi le commercium . We shall be
tellT\S -doesn 't particularly help us to enter into the swing of a rather fonnal, structured type of liturgy. In past centuries there was a tendency to accept a rather "classical" view of life and of the universe. It was. taken as axiana.tic that there was some kind lof
Just one example -and a ver:y wonderful one -taken fra:n a quite recent masterpiece of monastic spirituality. In one section of her Li fe of the tle Saint Plaaid , Mother Genevieve Gallois describes what the Divine Office is for Little Placid: Little Placid found hilllself established in his true situation before God. The liturgy put on his lips words he would never otherwise have dared to say. His word fashioned his thought, and his thought fashioned his being. So the liturgy fell over him like a mold; and when it had transfonned him, it rose up
quarters. Many Christians in parishes and in religious comnunities feel the need of preying (often enough in a rather infonnal, loosely structured context) in smallish groups -that is to say, groups small enough to ensure the possibility of all the participants being able to relate to each other as persons. (This is the so-called "primary group" of the socialogists.) Such a setting provides a context of openness and spontaneity such as many find helpful, and such as is difficult to
Pr'aying the Liturgy of the Hours 91 realized in other circumstances: either in the context of small groups, or in our own personal life of prayer in solitude. 3- Finally, we need a strong sense of salvation history, such as will give unity and coherence to everything which goes to make up our :rronastic life. Chrysogonus WADDELL Gethsemani