|
CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 35 (3) Instruction which is more explicitly liturgical should also be given in a variety of ways; if necessary, short directives to be spoken by the priest or proper minister should be provided within the rites themselves. But they should occur only at the more suitable moments, and be in prescribed or similar words. 35 (4) Bible services should be encouraged, especially on the vigils of the more solemn feasts, on some weekdays in Advent and Lent, and on Sundays and feast days. They are particularly to be commended in places where no priest is available; when this is so, a deacon or some other person authorized by the bishop should preside over the celebration. The insertion here of para. 35(3) is puzzling for several reasons. I do not own a copy of the official Acta of Vatican II, the record of the actual give-and-take of discussions on the floor of the Council. (Seriously, my house is not large enough to store these archives.) Para. 35(3) breaks the logical flow of this section, the celebration of the Word in sacramental worship. “Instruction which is more explicitly liturgical” can refer to everything from doctrinal explanation of Confirmation to the proper way of extending one’s hands to receive the Eucharist. In looking over the Roman Missal, there are several terse liturgical instructions written into the text, such as “Let us call to mind our sins” or “Let us offer each other the sign of peace” or “Go forth, the Mass is ended.” Since the Mass of Pope Paul VI was not completed until seven years after para. 35(3) was written, I have to guess that the Council fathers did not want the sacraments to be a “talking head experiences,” at the expense of the words that truly mattered, i.e., the Sacred Scripture; thus, the purpose of section 3. Para. 35(4) was the first liturgical change introduced to my seminary. On a winter’s evening in 1964 or 1965 we were released from our evening study period early so that the seminary’s spiritual director could conduct a “Bible Service” in our chapel. The idea of a free-standing service centered upon the Bible was an initial effort to implement the Council’s directive on reestablishing celebration of the Word. The event we attended in seminary was the reading of several Biblical texts with accompanying psalms (sung), possibly a homily or reflection, and closing prayers. Looking back, I think the appearance of Bible Vigils in the 1960’s came about in an age where Catholics and Protestants sought to pray together in an ecumenical spirit. There are many reasons why we no longer hear the term Bible Service or Bible Vigil very much. In the first instance, we do conduct such services of the Word under another name. For example, the Liturgical Hours, such as Morning Prayer, Vespers, Compline, etc. are Bible services with the praying of Psalms and an assigned Scripture text for each celebration. The Liturgy of the Hours is available in app form from several vendors, many listed at Catholic APPtitude, some free. Secondly, as Pope Benedict XVI observes in Sacramentum Caritatis (2007), nearly all the sacraments are Bible services and can be celebrated as free-standing services of the Word. Benedict raises this point in an instruction on eucharistic discipline, expressing concern that at many Catholic weddings there are large numbers of participants who are not free to receive the Eucharist for any number of reasons. He recommends the use of a Bible Service without holy communion to allow for the fullest possible participation. The celebration of a full nuptial Mass is not a requirement for the sacramental validity of the marriage vows. Another instance where Bible services are common is Christian burial, particularly in the evening prior to the funeral in the funeral home chapel or parish church. My years of experience, though, have taught me that Catholic families much prefer the recitation of the rosary, which is in its own way a Scripture service. The rosary has long been called “the poor man’s bible.” Para. 35(4) recommends free-standing Bible services on the vigils of solemn feasts, some weekdays in Advent and Lent, and Sundays (though after Sacrosanctum Concilium was written, it was common for dioceses to receive indults for the ever-popular Saturday night vigil Mass.) It goes on to address a reality that was not yet acute in Europe and the United States, the “priest-less parish,” recommending a “deacon or some other person authorized by the bishop should preside over the celebration [of the Word.]” My guess is that the Sunday observance in the absence of the priest is the most common Bible Service in the United States. Dioceses like Boise, Idaho, have very clear directives for such services. The Eucharist is imported by the visiting deacon or lay person from the closest regional church, and reception of communion takes place immediately after the Liturgy of the Word. If the shortage of clergy becomes more acute (Pittsburgh is consolidating its 180-some parishes to less than 50) the Sunday worship around the Bible may become a frequent staple of more Americans. In Thursday’s Catechism post, I cited from para. 103 that the Church “never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body.” The Mass is arranged around the two-fold presence of God in the world: Word and Sacrament. For generations, parishes have long emphasized the Eucharist as Christ’s only presence. It is common for parishes to hold perpetual adoration or Holy Hour. It is rare to see a church bulletin with a scheduled service of the Word or a Vespers service. I am not a prophet, but the imbalance of devotional sentiment here coincides with a decline in the availability of priests to offer the Eucharist. The authors of para. 35(4) had some inkling of this dilemma, albeit a dim sense of what the future may hold. We can be grateful for at least that.
0 Comments
CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 Paragraph 35 (2) Because the sermon is part of the liturgical service, the best place for it is to be indicated even in the rubrics, as far as the nature of the rite will allow; the ministry of preaching is to be fulfilled with exactitude and fidelity. The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God's wonderful works in the history of salvation, the mystery of Christ, ever made present and active within us, especially in the celebration of the liturgy. I will let the bishops of the United States, in their own words, describe the state of preaching in the United States in their document “Preaching the Mystery of Faith: The Sunday Homily.” (2012) “We are also aware that in survey after survey over the past years, the People of God have called for more powerful and inspiring preaching. A steady diet of tepid or poorly prepared homilies is often cited as a cause for discouragement on the part of laity and even leading some to turn away from the Church.” (Link to USCCB full document.) There are few instructions from the Council that continue to languish over time as Paragraph 35. Para 35(2) is clear on several points, including the mandate that the place of the sermon be indicated in the ritual books—i.e., the reformed manual books as legal documents of the Church instruct that there must be a sermon, something that was not a given in 1963. Para 35(2) goes on to say that the ministry of preaching is to be “fulfilled with exactitude and fidelity.” The mention of fidelity is critical—everyone ordained to orders is expected to understand that preaching will be his life’s work, and no one can slough it off. Even after the Council I worked with many priests over the years who told me in so many words that preaching was a distant second to consecrating the host and the wine at Mass. Para. 35(2) goes on to define what preaching is. Rather surprisingly, there was not a universal understanding of the term “preaching” in the Catholic Church, not in Vatican II’s day and for much of the Church’s history. In the decade before the Council, one of the most popular prime time television shows was “Life Is Worth Living,” featuring a weekly 30-minute sermon by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen of the Archdiocese of New York. It is hard to believe that a Catholic bishop and a blackboard posed a serious challenge in the national TV ratings to the king of television in the 1950’s, Milton Berle. “Uncle Miltie,” as Berle was called, used to joke that his time-slot opposition was “Uncle Fulty.” Sheen won an Emmy for his program, and in his acceptance speech he acknowledged his writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I have a link here to one of Sheen’s programs [now owned by EWTN], and it is a mixture of devotion, instruction, anecdote, morality, humor, and personal charisma. His appeal went far beyond the Catholic audiences, and he converted many famous people through his private instructions. To be honest, no Catholic figure has used the medium of television more effectively than Bishop Sheen, some fifty-plus years ago, nor has anyone engaged the “world” more effectively and graciously than Uncle Fulty. If you were to ask a Catholic in 1954 for an example of preaching, Bishop Sheen would most likely be cited. Catholics in their home parishes recognized that Sheen’s approach to preaching was of a different genre than home-cooked fare. As fellow blogger Monsignor Charles Pope (a fortuitous name for a cleric) put it, “Most of the sermons I grew up with could be summarized in two sentences: 1. “Jesus is challenging us to do better today.” 2. “Let us try to do better and now please stand for the creed.” Msgr. Pope was speaking of the Sheen era, but truth be told, much of 2017’s preaching sounds very similar. In 2016 Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, in an excellent summary of the preaching dilemma in The Jurist, begins with a historical survey of the various understandings of the homily. Originally “a simple, extraneous address” to admonish worshippers to “imitate the good example” of the Scriptures just read, by the third century the homily became more expository or instructional in nature. St. Augustine in the fifth century combined exposition with pastoral sensitivity. He preached twice a day in his cathedral, believing his homilies should “explain, make holy, and convert.” After five centuries of the Dark Ages, local bishops tended to pass the responsibility of preaching to the emerging religious orders, notably the Franciscans and the Dominicans, whose initials O.P. stand for Order of Preachers. With the rise of the universities and the writings of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, liturgical preaching became “rather mechanical and overly speculative.” The preaching orders took their mission outside the churches and into the streets. Gregory notes that Franciscan preaching, for example, tended to the moralistic and was somewhat disconnected from the Scripture. Luther and those who followed him returned to the early expository method of preaching to explain the Bible. John Calvin, for example, “preached his way through all the books of the Bible in a most comprehensive way.” The Catholic response—the Council of Trent (1545-1563) --established seminaries and courses in preaching the Bible. With notable exceptions (St. Charles Borromeo, d. 1584), reform of priestly training and Biblical teaching was slow. It is interesting that the new Jesuit Order, which held that preaching needed to touch the emotions and effect conversions, was looked upon with suspicion from the generally staid Church establishment. Gregory quotes today’s Café passage from Sacrosanctum Concilium. The Council document says of the homily that it need “draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God's wonderful works in the history of salvation, the mystery of Christ, ever made present and active within us, especially in the celebration of the liturgy.” SC brings together several traditions of preaching: its Biblical source and its joyful announcement of Christ alive and among us. I will pick up more of Archbishop Gregory’s themes next weekend, but it must be already clear that preachers fulfilling the mandate of Para. 35 must be extraordinarily gifted, internally holy, smart, artisan, and in Gregory’s words, “in touch with their congregations so that they know their needs and can thereby more effectively preach a word that a particular congregation needs to hear…” CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 35. That the intimate connection between words and rites may be apparent in the liturgy: 1) In sacred celebrations, there is to be more reading from holy scripture, and it is to be more varied and suitable. Paragraph 35 is lengthy, divided into four parts in its discussion of Sacred Scripture and the Liturgy. Consequently, I will break the treatment into four parts over the next several weeks. Para. 35 (1) is one of the most significant reforms of Catholic worship, and of Catholic life in general, to come forth from the Council. The relationship of the Church and the Bible is highly complex, and a short look at recent history will show just how revolutionary this text really is. Going back to the Middle Ages and an age when there were few books and few people who could read or write, access to the full corpus of revealed scripture was limited. The same limitations applied to the writings of Church fathers on the Scriptures, such as those of St. Augustine. A typical Christian would know only those texts proclaimed in Church during Mass, where they would be exposed to 50 to 100 Gospel texts year after year. Old Testament excerpts such as the two creation accounts, Noah’s Ark, the Exodus, and the kingship of David were staples of catechetics, and the Psalms were sung in monasteries and in the Mass itself. But the writings of the prophets were generally unknown except for texts thought to predict the coming of the Messiah, in the understanding of the time. Not for nothing was the rosary referred to as “the poor man’s Bible” for its inclusion of the fifteen Biblical mysteries. There were, throughout the Middle Ages, a number of Catholic thinkers and innovators who realized that the Scriptures needed greater exposure in Christian life. In 1209 Francis of Assisi led his first handful of brothers to the court of Pope Innocent III for his blessing upon the group and its rule, which Francis drew directly from Gospel quotes calling for radical renunciation of self in the form of poverty, chastity, and obedience. (This was a shrewd tactic on Francis’ part, as the Italian landscape was peppered with loose, unfocused fraternities of brothers and sisters seeking a life of penance and attracting the concern of the early inquisitors.] Innocent originally demurred, citing in so many words that living the Gospel in its pure form was an impossibility. He advised Francis to adopt the more institutional Augustinian Rule, but later gave permission for Francis to pursue his Gospel way of life. I am jumping ahead here about three centuries to the Renaissance and the Reformation. In the final chapter of his comprehensive Medieval Christianity (2015), a chapter entitled “Piety and Its Problems,” Kevin Madigan describes a period of chaos, peopled by those frantically working to avoid hell, and those who were growing despondent that salvation could be achieved at all. Martin Luther, who suffered from both extremes, came to personal awareness of redemption by his intense study of the Bible, notably St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which Luther understood to mean that we are saved by personal faith in God. In Luther’s preaching and writing, Roman Catholicism came in for much criticism for its emphases on practices and beliefs which Luther could not trace to the Bible, most immediately the sale of salvation through indulgences. The Catholic response, the Council of Trent (1545-1563), responded that the Bible can only be authoritatively interpreted by the Church itself in its teaching authority guided by the Holy Spirit. Given that the printing press had made wholesale distribution of the Bible a given, the Church found it necessary to declare cautions on its use, having seen the power of Luther’s commentaries. By 1800, Protestant scholars were examining the Bible closely with new methodology, most specifically Ressourcement, a term meaning “return to the sources.” Bible study became an interdisciplinary project, incorporating insights from theology to archaeology. In 1943 Pope Pius XII issued Divino Afflante Spiritu, which permitted Catholic scholars to utilize the modern methodologies of Biblical research to produce better translations for the faithful at large. Between 1941 and 1970 the Confraternity of Catholic Doctrine (CCD) Bible, a reworked Catholic translation of St. Jerome’s fifth century Latin Vulgate translation, came into popular use in the U.S., and was approved for liturgical use until the NAB and the NABRE translations were approved by the U.S. bishops (1970 and later.) Para. 35 dictates several reforms in the usage of the bible in sacramental worship. First, the Council calls for “more reading.” One can interpret this phrase in multiple ways. “More” may refer to “more intelligible” proclamation of Scripture in the Liturgy, specifically in the language of the participating faithful. “More” also refers to volume; the 1970 Mass of Paul VI contains three distinct readings in liturgy of Sundays and feasts. Prior to 1970 the Missal contained only two readings, a portion of a Pauline epistle and a Gospel segment; these assigned readings were repeated every year. The new Mass includes a selection from the Hebrew Scripture as well as the New Testament letters and the Gospels, rotated on a three-year cycle and arranged around an annual proclamation of a synoptic evangelist—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Another reading of “more” and perhaps the most important is the growth in the relationship of every single believer and the Word of God. I am old enough to remember when the Bible was, in popular Catholic usage, a Protestant book, from the world of Billy Graham and tent revivals. Catholics read the lives of the saints and other devotionals, but the idea of daily Bible reading in the home as preparation for Sunday Mass or personal meditation and prayer was not common, Pius XII’s encouragements notwithstanding. By incorporating liturgical reading of Scripture with personal study and prayer creates the potential of a unity of understanding that was absent in Luther’s day. The term “suitability” in para. 35(1) is probably a reference to the need for careful coordination between liturgical texts for Mass and the Church’s calendar of Incarnation and Redemption. A very good example of this kind of coordination is the selection of Gospel readings of St. John proclaimed on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of Lent. The narratives of the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus bring home the passage to conversion and new life, not just for the catechumens but for the entire parish family’s observance of Lent and progression to the Triduum. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 32. The liturgy makes distinctions between persons according to their liturgical function and sacred Orders, and there are liturgical laws providing for due honors to be given to civil authorities. Apart from these instances, no special honors are to be paid in the liturgy to any private persons or classes of persons, whether in the ceremonies or by external display. Given that this is “hurricane weekend” in these parts, I was a bit relieved to see that Paragraph 32 did not require too much heavy lifting. The text is probably heavily influenced by European circumstances of many centuries where powerful princes, burghers, and other dignitaries enjoyed places of honor in the sanctuary or some other prominent place. Para. 32 emphasizes that the only demonstration of “rank” in worship involves the official ministers of the Mass performing their appropriate functions. The Catholic Church has established policies for the occasions when there might be pressure to honor or acknowledge dignitaries in fields of endeavor outside of the church. What immediately comes to mind are the weddings and particularly the funerals of heads of state, etc. The Church has an official guide about heads of state attending Mass, but I have searched fruitlessly this AM for the document. However, the official Church guide on funerals in general gives us an idea of how to best utilize the rites of Christian Death in unusual circumstances. For example, over the past few decades at funeral Masses it is not uncommon after the distribution of the Eucharist to see pastors allow one or more eulogies on behalf of the deceased to be addressed to those in attendance. The Church officially discourages this, but not for the reason you think. All the prayers and readings of a funeral Mass have the theological purpose of assisting the deceased on the journey to see God. Catholics hold that everyone has sinned, so not even the best of us goes straight to heaven. All human need intercessory prayers, or “prayers for the souls in Purgatory.” Have you ever noticed how eulogists (and the general Catholic public, for that matter) talk about their beloved dead as already in heaven? Eulogists undue the entire thrust of the Mass. And I want my prayers when I’m dead!!! That said, the Church does recognize the value and the appropriateness of eulogies, and it applies these guidelines for their presentation. “A brief eulogy may take place in this order of preference: after the vigil service [the evening before]; at a reception following the Funeral Mass; before the Funeral Mass begins; following the prayers of committal at the cemetery; prior to the final commendation and farewell…. For those involved in civic organizations and those with additional affiliations, patriotic or fraternal services may also be conducted following the burial rite.” Again, the purpose of these guidelines is the integrity of the purpose of the Liturgy, which invokes the saving power of Christ for forgive the sins of the deceased and prepare for the full vision of God, the beatific vision. Another facet of Church life is prominence at the liturgy in terms of congregational seating. Pews are a recent innovation to Catholic life. Although introduced into churches in the middle ages, permanent pews were actually more of a Protestant innovation after the Reformation. There was a bit of symbolic polemic here. Given the Protestant emphasis upon preaching, the evolution to large and artistic wooden pews was spurred by the need to sit for long periods of time during sermons. Families of prominence donated elegant pews—for their own use, of course—in what we would call today the “first few rows.” Catholics, on the other hand, whose worship included the Eucharistic Prayer, the Our Father, and the distribution of the Eucharist, did not require complex seating arrangements, and went with a simpler “bench.” I found a taste of pew polemics from the English writer Lytton Strachey in 1918, commenting upon high church Protestantism and Catholic egalitarianism: "Manning had been removing the high pews from the church in Brighton, and putting in open benches in their place. Everyone knew what that meant; everyone knew that the high pew was one of the bulwarks of Protestantism, and that an open bench had upon it the taint of Rome." (No one turns a phrase like that anymore.) Further down Sacrosanctum Concilium there is a directive that the celebrations of sacraments be marked by noble simplicity, and that directive raises the question of one of Catholicism’s ostentatious and superfluous external displays at liturgical celebrations, the various Catholic orders of knights, including the most prominent, the Knights of Columbus. If you are not familiar with the K of C, it was founded in the late 1800’s as a Catholic service organization for men, and its special appeal was its mission to sell life insurance to working men who were shut out of mainstream policies in Protestant America. You might have seen the news stories a few weeks ago about the change in the international uniform of the Knights, with a fair number of the brotherhood about the change. The old ceremonial garb was and is a remarkable sight. And, unfortunately, Catholics attempting to follow liturgies of First Communion, Corpus Christi, and other solemn events have had their lines of vision obstructed by the Knights, so they know very well what the old garb looks like. It seems so strange in 2017 to describe an event in 1956—particularly one so bizarre by today’s standards—but at my sister’s first communion, the Knights placed themselves, standing, in front of the congregation (kneeling), and at the moment of the Consecration, withdrew long metal swords from their equally metal holsters, held them high in the air, and saluted the consecrated host. We have Knights in my parish, but they are a low-key men’s club-service organization who do not intrude into the “noble simplicity.” However, in Catholic “blog-world,” I do come across complaints about the Knights creating obstacles at First Communion Masses. One mother, whose child was making her first communion at her parish Mass, reported that when her 4-year-old son saw them come forward in full attire, he yelled out, “O boy, pirates!” I searched YouTube to see if I could find a clip of a First Communion Mass, but I had to settle for this, which I quickly dubbed the “all chiefs and no Indians” Mass. Para. 32 might not have had armed fraternal organizations in mind at the time of composition, but if the shoe fits…. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 31. The revision of the liturgical books must carefully attend to the provision of rubrics also for the people's parts. Those of you who have followed this Saturday stream on Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Vatican II declaration on the Sacred Liturgy, for thirty weeks now have probably come to notice that the authors of SC are capable of some inspiring and magnificent literary offerings in the process of mapping out future directives for the Church. Paragraph 31 is not one of those moments. Given that the previous paragraphs have emphasized the multiple ministerial roles in the Mass and the importance of congregational participation in word and action, one would naturally expect that the “liturgical books” would incorporate these directives, and that para. 31 states the obvious. However, in its stark housekeeping mode, para. 31 introduces us to a major challenge which began in the 1960’s and continues to this day. Remember that in 1963, the year of SC’s promulgation, the only “liturgical book” of worship familiar to most Catholics—cleric and lay alike—would have been the Latin missal upon the altar—though each sacrament had its own official Latin rite book. The contents of the Latin Roman would have been foreign to a typical worshipper, though the “altar boy prayers” in Latin were actually the responses of the entire congregation. In reviewing Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei (1947) it is clear that the pope wished for greater spoken participation by those attending Mass. He wrote: “Therefore, they are to be praised who, with the idea of getting the Christian people to take part more easily and more fruitfully in the Mass, strive to make them familiar with the ‘Roman Missal,’ so that the faithful, united with the priest, may pray together in the very words and sentiments of the Church…when, for instance, the whole congregation, in accordance with the rules of the liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both….” (para 105, Mediator Dei) For whatever reasons, Pius’ wish did not become universal practice in the fifteen years between Mediator Dei and Vatican II. For want of more thorough analysis, I would say that throughout my youth the Tridentine Mass was celebrated in an atmosphere of “prayerful passivity.” Some Catholics—myself included—followed the Mass in an English translation, the “daily Missal.” (This was evidently more common in Europe.) But I can recall no effort on the part of my parish to put anything in our hands that might focus upon the Latin words or assist participation in the Latin rite. Para. 31 seems to address two challenges at the same time: preparing a new ritual of the Mass and other sacraments in which congregational participation is essential, and then, by inference, providing the necessary resources to the faithful to fully exercise their roles in the Mass. Although the post-Council liturgical texts originated in Latin, bishops in each region of the world received permission to commission translations of the sacramental rites. Translations into English for the United States since the Council have been produced by ICEL or the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. Again, this is my own impression, but the changes in the rites of the Mass were released piecemeal from the 1963 promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium to the final product of Pope Paul’s Missal, the Novus Ordo (new order). This elongated process created havoc for publishers attempting to provide provisional texts for clergy and particularly for the laity, who needed significant textual support for the first time in order to participate. And, in this process, the ideal of a unifying missal or common prayer book for the Mass for the faithful was lost, as publishers, at first from sheer editorial necessity and later from economics, began the practice of mass marketing “throw-away products.” By far the best example is the seasonal missalette. Merriam-Webster estimates that the term “missalette” entered the English language in 1973. Slightly smaller than a comic book but materially of the same quality, the missalette contained about two months’ worth of Sunday readings and the ritual of the Mass itself with its various options (e.g., Eucharistic Prayers, Acclamations, etc.) The missalette was a tribute to American ingenuity and pragmatism. It was also an “anti-sacramental,” collecting the Word of God and the texts of the Eucharistic feast in a disposable format more suitable for the adventures of Superman or Spiderman. Moreover, the disposable worship aid begat “disposable music.” In my own parish, where the lyrics of hymns and psalms are displayed on twin-jumbotrons, the median date of copyright for our music selections on any given Sunday is 2010 or later. Much of church music is produced in-house by the same companies that market the throw-away (or, nowadays, recycled) missalettes. It is cheaper than paying royalties for the traditional Catholic hymnody or for the few genuinely excellent English musical works produced after the Council. The downside of this approach is the flooding of parishes with mediocre to poor music (theologically and artistically) and eliminating the possibility of establishing a common Catholic anthology of song that can be passed from generation to generation. (Catechists, reflect upon this.) We will see in later sections of Sacrosanctum Concilium that the Council had much to say about the artistic standards of sacramental celebration. But to the question of para. 31, does SC make a definitive statement about the need and type of liturgical books designed for the faithful? There are two things to keep in mind about this question. The first is that SC was composed as a statement of principles; Church fathers assumed that such questions would be worked out in a guided period of experimentation, research, and implementation. In practice, such questions as the ways and means of assisting the faithful to participate would be determined by the appropriate Vatican offices in communion with national conferences of bishops. The second point, often forgotten, is that in 1963 the Council overall had no clear idea of what a renewed Mass rite would look like. For example, in para. 54, we read: “Steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them” (par. 54). Although we take for granted the use of the vernacular, the Council speaks of “extended use of the mother tongue.” It would be perfectly natural to assume that the voting bishops envisioned a form of the Tridentine Mass to which major adaptations would be made. My guess is that the Council envisioned such practical questions as liturgical aids, if it considered them at all, as matters for future consideration when the new form of the Mass had taken shape. The Council had set forth its guiding principles for worship in 1963 and then moved on to other matters. In the years that followed, the tendency toward temporal texts like the missalette accelerated in the United States, though liturgical experts never endorsed the idea. It is possible to buy a leather-bound Missal today, and I see them in use occasionally in my church. Liturgical academic publications debate the appropriateness of their use; purists argue that the book comes between the participant and the sacramental action/sign. This is particularly an issue where the proclamation of Scripture is involved. On the other hand, the argument is made that we learn better through multiple senses, and SC is clear about the teaching element of sacraments. As more people prepare for Sunday Mass during the week at home, and this country is still groping around for liturgical music of permanence and elegance, the idea of a personal missal for Mass of Paul VI is not as far-fetched as it may seem. |
LITURGY
December 2024
|
RSS Feed