At this time of the year a lot of liturgical “dialogue” takes place in rectories and sacristies, sometimes even in liturgy planning groups. Liturgically creative types often get excited at the prospect of doing something new (is the liturgy as given inadequate?) Liturgically formed types (who are interested in praying the liturgy, not re-creating it) often have to resort to the “negative” statement that what their creative sisters and brothers have proposed “is not allowed”.
“Where is it forbidden?” is the retort. If the liturgical books have not forbidden seven white-clad virgins dancing in thanksgiving around the baptismal font on Easter night in thanksgiving, how can it be inappropriate? Or so the manipulative logic of the liturgical bully goes.
Well, the liturgical books don’t forbid seven naked prostitutes from doing so either. But that is not the point. The point is that the liturgical books do not envisage or provide for it, or for a host of other creative proposals.
| "You WILL dance around that font on Saturday night." |
To put it very clearly: if the liturgical books (including the host of options the modern ones contain) don’t envisage it, it is forbidden. Try that in response to the creative bullies at your next liturgy committee meeting or sacristy confrontation and you will see them confounded. You see, they don’t understand that the liturgy is given by the Church for us to celebrate. Period. They think they can improve on it and change its details or leave some of them out.
Well, no. If it is not envisaged, it is forbidden. That’s worth remembering, especially at this time of the year.
Bravo! Another excellent post. I suddenly feel less alone in the world...er...my rectory.
ReplyDeleteFr. C. Ryder
Most of the "creative" celebrants I've known have managed to make big improvements in re-interpreting the liturgical regulations, GIRM or rubrics. Yet, I'm inclined to think most celebrants who attempt to "improve" the liturgy probably end up making themselves look and sound ridiculous by ruining a perfectly beautiful rite, or by substituting wording for the official text.
ReplyDeleteI've seen some priests dancing around the Church lifting high the Book of the Gospels with concelebrants holding candles and tripping the life fantastic right behind the principle celebrant. Frankly, I still think Fred Astaire looked better.
ReplyDeleteIf the clergy had simply gone in procession with their candles for this solemn reading of the day's gospel and stood around the ambo, which was decorated with more candles, it would have been much more effective.
Please, enough of the prancing 8 and 10 year old Vestal Virgins going up to the altar or joining a procession with their bowls of incense, doing I guess what you could call their "Dance of the Seven Veils". Next we'll see children dressed as King Herod and Salome carrying what is suppose to be John the Baptist's head on a platter.
I wish one J. Ratzinger would keep this in mind, particularly during the Offertory of the "Ordinary Form" as he sometimes seems to add things which are not envisaged by that Missal (lovely as they are).
ReplyDeleteInteresting, interesting. . . yes, one could make this argument from within an Anglo-Saxon understanding of law, which is proscriptive. For better or for worse, however, we're dealing with norms that were framed within the context of Greco-Roman legal interpretation, the basic principle of which is prescription. You must do what is normed, and must not do that which is forbidden. What is neither prescribed nor proscribed is not necessarily de facto excluded. Were that it were otherwise, but the track-record of rulings from the SRC and CDWDS bears out the application in the Greco-Roman legal context.
ReplyDelete"liturgy planning groups" ::shudder::
ReplyDeleteIf it's not in bright red type in the Missal, Pontifical Ceremonial, or in the Ritual, please spare the laity. Thank you.
Phony Mahony's "Religious Education Conference" Masses are a prime example of what can and will go wrong if progressive litnicks get their hands on anything more than a May Crowning.
Most of the "creative" celebrants I've known have managed to make big improvements in re-interpreting the liturgical regulations, GIRM or rubrics. Yet, I'm inclined to think most celebrants who attempt to "improve" the liturgy probably end up making themselves look and sound ridiculous by ruining a perfectly beautiful rite, or by substituting wording for the official text.
ReplyDelete------------------------------------------------
I too have known a number of priests, usually the creative ones were professional liturgists from Benedictine abbeys, who did manage to improve upon the regs. The rank amateurs and those celebrants with little talent in singing or redrafting prayers usually do make a big mess.
Let's not forget most liturgies, if you go back far enough, are largely collections of para-liturgical practices which arose from local custom. Spanish Holy Week rites have no official recognition by the Church, but they've been tolerated for centuries. Most Spaniards-- and this is true in much of Europe--prefer their own para-liturgical practices to the official services authorized by the Church and are printed in the GIRM or "Caeremoniale Episcoporum".
The French, for example, have been making up things as they went along for centuries. Anyone who thinks this practice is limited to the post Vatican II liturgy is sadly mistaken. Priests have been redoing the liturgy since the time of the apostles. The canon itself has a history of being freely composed at the whim of the celebrant. Uniform Mass rites were unheard of for centuries. Bishops simply approved of practices that had already risen locally.
The Mass is what the Church says it is at any given time. That isn't about to change. No matter what the authorities and professional liturgists think or say.
Ben said...
ReplyDeleteI wish one J. Ratzinger would keep this in mind, particularly during the Offertory of the "Ordinary Form" as he sometimes seems to add things which are not envisaged by that Missal (lovely as they are).
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Why? The pope's the boss and he decides what's legit and what isn't. By the way, he usually whispers the prayer which accompanies the incensing of the altar taken from the Tridentine rite. It should be restored for all masses with the celebranting chanting it (as some do).
This is a good example of liturgical "creativity" at it's best. The pope is using his "creativity" to enhance a venerable rite using very traditional means taken from the vast treasury of western liturgical practices.
I hope he uses and permits the use of similar prayers from the Byzantine and other eastern liturgies which are even finer prayers for offering incense. The Copts and East Syrians have some magnificent prayers for burning incense the Latin church should be using too. No pun intended, but it would "spice" things up a bit.
Better to rely on formulae we already have in that rich treasury than having to rely on some amateur "Father Creative" to make up his own prayers.
Isn't this just legal positivism? Clearly the force of custom and tradition has weight here. I mean things like the incense prayers, the signs of the cross in the Canon. Perhaps even the prayers at the foot of the altar.
ReplyDeleteSorry but as the canonists and theologians come to examine Summorum Pontificum they are discovering that it is:
ReplyDelete(a) CANONICALLY INVALID, being predicated on the false idea that Paul VI did not abrogate the Tridentine rite, and
(b) THEOLOGICALLY UNORTHODOX since the lex credendi it inaugurates is on many points in contradiction to that of the Second Vatican Council, e.g. in the Good Friday prayers for "heretics and schismatics" and in the general abolition of the ideas of Vatican II that Ratzinger has taken an irrational dislike to.
I'd suggest the most orthodox thing bishops could do would be to ignore the motu proprio and hope it becomes a dead letter.
Anon., I know whence the old man's mutterings come and agree about the desirability of their restoration. Nonetheless, I am repulsed as all sensible Catholics ought to be at your papolatrism that "he's the boss and he decides what is legit and what isn't." Indeed, the HF is the Servant of the Servants of God and Bl. Peter was placed over the Apostles to confirm his brethren and assure that the tradition was passed on--not to invent or fabricate rites or rules out of whole cloth. You may benefit from the writings of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on this matter. If he wants to restore those mutterings, I am all for it! But currently he is adding to the rite in the manner quite a laudably decried by our dear host. Let him legislate and--like us--obey the law of which he is Supreme Lawgiver and Judge.
ReplyDelete"I'd suggest the most orthodox thing bishops could do would be to ignore the motu proprio and hope it becomes a dead letter."
ReplyDeleteBut Juventutem London, most bishops have indeed ignored "Summorum Pontificum". When Benedict has left the scene, his successor will continue to lavish praise upon it ,I have no doubt, but it will be permitted to gather dust within the Vatican archives. It will go down in history as a failed effort to quell the demands of arch traddies trying to impose the 1962 rite on the whole Church. Bishops have successfully fought the idea of imposing the 1962 rite and they'll continue to do so.
Benedict should close the book on the Latin church's liturgical civil war once and for all by publishing his own missal containing a revised Mass rite to replace the missals of Pius V and Paul VI. Incorporating features of both missals and borrowing heavily from all eastern and western liturgical traditions, but leaving enough room for the diocesan bishop to incorporate local practices.