www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Fr. Taft on Liturgical Renewal

"But was it relevant? As a person who grew up in 70's and 80's I don't think those who thought they were relevant were relevant at all. They were stuck in the 60s and tried and continue to try and perpetuate it. Thankfully, I grew up in a Benedictine parish staffed with old timers and was spared all but the Glory & Praise hymnal and even that was relegated to the one guitar Mass."

I'm not sure what your point is. I would take it one step farther and posit the same can be said in the context of any who would wish to revise worship to "update" or "modernize", whether text, rubrics, etc. in any tradition, including our own. Perhaps we see it again in our own context of the New Liturgy, in fact.

I would also surmise many, if not most, who grew up RC in the 1970s possibly did not have the same parochial experience you did. I did not, nor were there any more than a couple of parishes at that time in my diocese that would correlate with what you describe.

My point stands, that the gross innovations in general did not work, the attempts at modernization and "making it relevant" did not work, even though they were heavily marketed as such, and those dioceses and religious orders now enjoying the greatest growth are those that would be generally considered "traditional" or "conservative".


I don't disagree. My point was not any one in support of the SSPX, which perhaps you missed; it was that the demographic makeup of the adherents was not just disgruntled Novus Ordo Catholics but also was increasingly being composed of new converts. They had no background and if anything should have fit into what you describe regarding other considerations (Mass in vernacular, etc.) which I agree may have been positive steps; however - they did not and chose the TLM when given the choice. I will also say (happily) that many of these families I knew have since been reconciled through the Indult or the FSSP, but most still attend the 1962 Mass. We also do not have the benefit of knowing what would have happened had an English translation of the 1962 Mass with full congregational participation been allowed.

One cannot deny the success in general that traditional orders have enjoyed; dioceses and orders with waiting lists for the seminary can also be demonstrated. Like it or not most probably Pope Benedict will allow greater freedom for the 1962 Missal.

Freedom of consicence is also important; anyone within the Latin tradition can now in many dioceses can freely choose between the 1962 (FSSP or indult), a conservative Pauline Mass, or the other extreme and still be perfectly in communion. Were all of the reforms successful, there would be no need or demand for the 1962 Mass. That is most certainly not the case.

Which makes me think the BCC should allow the use of the older Liturgikon if people want it. Modernizing the liturgy and so on I may not agree with, but I understand why it's being done. Forcing such changes on people who don't want them, I don't get.

This is very good. The Roman Catholic Church tried to be relevant in the 60s, 70s, 80s and the 90s. It didn't work. So why are we copying the things they tried that failed? I don't want to be disrespectful but I think the proponents of these revisions are stuck somewhere in 1970s Roman Catholicism. Liturgical relativism never works.

I do think that there are other ways of being "relevant" than those adopted by some Roman Catholic parishes in the post-Vatican II era.

Sometimes when I am reading these posts, I am reminded of an ongoing discussion at my work. Since I am relatively new (I have been here 4 years), I still have lots of enthusiasm and ideas about how to improve the way we do things here. Inevitably whenever I suggest a new way of doing things, a certain person who has been working here for over 25 years says, "Oh we tried that N. years ago -- and it didn't work." It is then that I respond, "First, sometimes the reason things did not work in the past is because they were not tried correctly. Second, that was then -- this is now."

One more note: as a trained historian, I am always a little alarmed when people draw simple hard-and-fast conclusions from past events. The past is always extremely complex -- it is very hard to say: "This didn't work because of this ..." History seldom fits into neat little patterns of cause and effect. As I always tell my students, "History never proves anything. People use history to prove something." So I find the arguments over what worked and what did not work and why it did or did not work to be unhelpful. In this, I agree with the posts which have asserted that history should not be used to advance arguments either for or against liturgical reform. The job of the historian is to debunk the myths about the past (Fr Taft is actually quite good at this). But historians should never be relied upon to predict the future!

So ...

If you are in favor of the new translation, you will find a way to interpret the past few decades as being positive and indicative of the fact that the Holy Spirit works through His Body in the world as the Church strives to be faithful to its calling. (After all, the fastest growing body of Christians in the world is the post-Vatican II Catholic Church. We are now at about 1 billion; by 2025 many scholars estimate its numbers to be 1.5 billion with most of the growth occuring in non-English speaking countries. A very strong argument can be made that the amazing growth of the Church in Africa and Asia would not be occuring had Vatican II not instituted the reforms it did.)

If you are opposed to the new translation, you will advance a much more negative assessment and seek to draw another conclusion.

The point I am trying to make is that you end up with you started -- all you have done is put the pieces of the history puzzle together to match your preconceived box top! History can only truly be done (my opinion) in a non-partisan context.

Certainly good points. History should hopefully be educational; that includes liturgy. One should also be vigilant against a dismissive attitude of the past or overt romanticism in order to justify a polemic position.



Strong, yes. Strictly because of the reforms? I am not sure of that at all. A ripe evangelical environment, to be sure. What the reforms meant, is again one of those historical questions that can be debated with good arguments either way. There are two or more sides to every historical or sociological coin. One comes to mind. The very first diocese to invite Archbishop Lefebvre to start a seminary was - Dakar, Senegal. Certainly Cardinals Arinze and Gantin both have been critical of past liturgical innovation.

Regardless of where one stands on the Latin liturgy reform vs. tradition, Latin vs. English, Old Rite vs. Nikonian, or even the Ruthenian New Liturgy vs. the 1964, one thing I think is absolutely key: that is to provide the means for a Christian to have freedom of conscience to practice forms of liturgy as they are led by the Spirit in communion with Rome. If that takes one to the New Liturgy, make it available. If that takes one to the 1964 Liturgikon and the Ordo from Rome, make it available. Let the texts stand on their own voluntarily; if one is better or desired it will become apparent.

I should also add, being a country boy who rode some "bad'uns", after the same horse kicks me more than twice in the same place, I develop a respect for the animal, and tend to take that history to mind.

Although I am a city-boy, I have been kicked as well and hope to have learned my lesson!

I would just add that both extremes in this debate can kick just as hard and probably in the same place

But aren't you making a judgment here as a "true" historian that all judgments are just preconceived "box tops?" Isn't that what Fr. Taft is saying in his article, but that he is an "objective" bserver who is above these preconceived ideas? He wwrites:



I've simply been saying that the original Creed has not been given to us because anthropos has been left out. I know for a fact that I have displeased some. I have asked why that is--"What's driving that traumatic change?" I have pointed to some valid possibilities.

Let's be concrete about the number of "Catholics" in the world. In the United States, or in Missouri for that matter, Catholics are, by all accounts, a great number. Yet we have private executions (abortion and now embryonic stem cell research (proposed now in New Mexico by a Catholic Governor) by the thousands. Remember, it was a Catholic, Justice Brennan who was the brains behind Justice Blackman's Roe v. Wade.

I am reminded of a story about the then Cardinal Ratzinger who was asked about the state of the Church. He said it was fine, just a lot smaller than people thought.

There are several good points here.

1. The reason some of our parishes are not vibrant is because we have not tried taking the liturgy correctly. We are inventing new ways before even following the instructions for the way we have inherited!

2. We are trying new ways that have been shown not to work. Three of our four dioceses have had some of the revisions for different lengths of time. They have not enlivened the parishes that use them. They have only caused people to leave.

So, can you enlighten me here? I'm in a diocese that has had revisions in the DL for quite some time (over 10 years). The third antiphon has been restored, a few litanies that we didn't take before are now taken, and the anaphora and some of the private prayers of the priest are said aloud. From what I've seen that's substance of the new DL as well, I'm not talking about translation here, just additions. What is the issue you have with that? Why have these additions caused people to leave? Is the mass too long now? Make me understand please, because I really don't.

Thanks! John K

John,

Visit a parish that does the **full** Divine Liturgy and you will understand. It's available at selected parishes until the ban goes into affect on June 29th.

Some (not all) of the things you list are a step forward for some parishes. There is no need to ban the official liturgy in order to add them. Or to bring down parishes that take much more.

Blessed Theodore

Theodore,

Do you know how many parishes do more than the promulgated liturgy? Do we know for sure that those parishes will be banned from taking it all?

I know of no parishes in Passaic that take the full liturgy and for some of the parishes I've been to, this will be a step up. I'm not trying to be difficult, but it's done and we have to work with it now. I honestly have the feeling that many parishes will continue on as they are now, with a less complete liturgy or a more complete liturgy.

John,

Bishop Andrew outlawed the official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy ten years ago. When he was in Parma he outlawed it there. The official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy has been under assault by our bishops for almost our whole time in the United States. He has actually disciplined priests who have taken the full Liturgy.

Harrisburg was the big holdout in Passaic until Father Shear died.

There are a small number of parishes elsewhere in the country. I�m not going to provide a list because I don�t want the bishops disciplining those priests for following Rome�s directives. But if they use the Revised Liturgicon they will not be able to take the full Liturgy because the Revised Liturgicon leaves out a lot.

Don�t give up on your Church. It�s not a done deal if we unite and appeal to Rome. The Ruthenian Liturgy is worth fighting for.

Blessed Theodore

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I believe (and indeed try to practice pastorally) that "Liturgical Renewal" has to be totally comprehensive in scope. Liturgy should be the engine that powers a total and radical renewal of the Eastern Churches. This means rediscovering and implementing for our times a "culture of liturgy" or a "liturgical ethos." A "new translation" of the Divine Liturgy is only one, tiny, tiny, facet of what should be a many faceted diamond of renewal. Part of the reaction to the "new translation" is that the new translation is not set in any context of total renewal. It is like being told to put a new coat of paint on a car that is rusting and needs serious mechanical repairs. While the paint in itself can be beautiful, it would make more sense if the new coat of paint were part of a plan to overhaul the car. (NOTE: my comment here is a call to renewal and NOT a comment on the "new translation" itself.)

By a "culture of liturgy" I basically mean a return to a Sacramental worldview. This involves teaching and preaching things like the concept of the domestic church, the theology of the body, and what I call 'releasing the inner dynamism of the liturgy.' This has nothing to do with "modernizing" or conversely, being intransient or "going back in time."

Liturgy is "so ancient yet so new" (Augustine.) This time of the New Evangelization is a time to look at old things but in new ways. Here are just a few small concrete ideas of what I mean by rediscovering a liturgical ethos:

1. The Heaven on Earth presentation done in the Eparchy of Parma gave us the historical and theological "why" behind our Liturgy. Much of what we know as our Liturgy today are remnants that were at one time much more dramatic and dynamic actions such as the Enarxis: the actual physical process of 'gathering' the community on the way to Church in which the Psalms were sung.
The greater the Feastday the more Psalms were needed because more people were being gathered. It is understandable that over time a dynamic element will naturally become modified. However, this does not mean that the inner dynamic element has to be lost. In fact it should be rediscovered time and again. So, here is what I suggest and what I do in my parish:

The physical is wedded to the spiritual (this is eastern spirituality and theology of the body.) Make the physical environment in our churches such that movement, and gesture can be liberated to carry the dynamic that our liturgy originally had. I have open areas in my church in which actual processions, actual 'gathering' or 'entrances' can take place rather than the minimalistic, 'apologetic' processions that have become
"our way." In these open areas in our parish our children usually congregate during liturgy. (Yes, children at my parish actually CHOOSE to stand ALL through Liturgy except when they sit on the floor at my feet during the homily.)During the processions what happens is that the entourage of priest, deacon and altar servers during the Great Entrance and the Small Entrance actually press by the children (and adults.) In fact, the children actually have to move out of the way. My vestsments sometimes even brush past the children giving them a thrilling sense of integration and closeness to someone and something in which they are in awe. After having had that moment of intimacy in the Liturgy the children (and the adults) then experience the other half of the ingenious integration of our litugy: the awesome entourage returns back into the mysterious area of the Church structure "beyond the veil" the icon screen, (beyond the "wardrobe" into "Narnia.")

What is happening in this one simple example is that the children and the adults are experiencing the absolute fundamental reality of God and of life: that God is immanent and transcendant at the same time. The mysterious God who is so
"ineffable, indescribable," etc. is at the same time totally with us and the spiritual journey is lived in that tension and rhythm. By simply "loosening" up during our liturgy and with the proper design of the worship space a much more dynamic, engaging and indeed impressionable experience of liturgy is possible.
"Loosening" up the physical structure is simply being more honest to the inner dynamism of our liturgy. In essence, it is stripping our liturgy of the secularisms and Protestantisms that have been allowed to become the norm to point that we think they are "our way."

We have installed icon stands custom built for the height of children. Our children are taught to enter into church and go NOT to a horse stall, (sorry, I meant 'pew') but rather to the icon and reverence this icon. Of course our church layout provides the space in which the children can do this. AND you should see the lip marks we have to clean off of these children's icons after Liturgy on Sunday! The children love to love Jesus. And yet "our way" has restricted them from doing this! Why not renew this? In fact we have a bit of a Montessori school approach to our children at Liturgy. As the children kiss
"their" icon and as they stand in church one of our E.C.F.teaches whispers in the ears of the children pointing out and explaining some things during the liturgy. This connects their experience of liturgy with their E.C.F. classes. Children want to be integrated into the liturgy and allowing this to happen is just one way of 'releasing the inner dynamism" of the liturgy. I know that there are parishes who do other such things as well that integrate children. Of course this does not mean that we introduce things foreign into our liturgy to make it more "appealing" to the youth. Rather, we take our youth on a journey vertically into a more authentic experience of their liturgy.

In addition to what actually happens during the Liturgy, the Heaven on Earth presentation pointed out that the Divine Liturgy actually begins on Saturday evening. It was suggested that Saturday evenings, rather than being "party night" as secularim mandates, should be in every household a time to put on our liturgical "game face." This in fact is how I was raised.
Saturday evenings meant Sunday had begun (sunset) and it was time to begin our gradual (and therefore more accurately human) entry into what will climax in the Eucharist the next morning. On Sunday mornings there was no TV or radio allowed in our home. The very process of 'going to church' actually becomes part of the REAL beginning of the Divine Liturgy. In a Liturgical culture or ethos, our experience of liturgy begins long before, "Blessed is the Kingdom..." Furthermore, our experience of liturgy continues on long after the dismissal. Liturgy should be the standard for our lives and it should impact life and culure rather than simply being "fit into" our predominantly secular lives. Liturgy is how we look at all of life: how we interact with the environment, our human sexuality, marriage, family, friendship, eating habits, health, and even global politics! AND even finances and stewardship!! How much preaching and "mandating" do we hear in our Church in these areas? Yet THIS is Litugy. Not just translations and rubrics

WHAAAT!!? Now wait a minute!! What does money have to do with how we translate "Theotokos" or how many antiphons we are going to take? Money, or rather a sense of stewardship has everything to do with these and all liturgical issues. We are struggling financially in our Metropolia because our financial "ethos" is not "Liturgical" enough! Finances is not a place that many want to go. But, if we really want to be more financially secure in our Church we simply MUST go there and in fact "disturb" everything, reconfigure our sense of stewardship toward a more Biblical and "Liturgical" view. I GUARANTEE we will sit financially must prettier with a Liturgical sense of stewardship. How I wish our Church would 'mandate'a return to a more liturcial sense of stewardship! If we can do it for a translation why not for stewardship?

The Liturgical ethos is the vision that Adam had before original sin. This goes far, far beyond the translation of a single Greek word or a whether we are taking this litany or that antiphon. These things have their significance but it seems to me that it is like fighting over the color choice of the car when the discussion should be how are we going to overhaul or rejuvenate the engine and body of the car?

A Second example: My suggestion is to take the Heaven on Earth presentation as a standard to help fuel the engine of renewal, the engine being liturgy. If we were ALL shown in the Heaven on Earth presentation what was proper about our particular worship, why couldn't our Metropolia 'mandate,' (just as the new translation has been mandated)that THE liturgical schedule at EVERY parish in the Metropolia will look like this: Vespers on Saturday evening, Matins on Sunday morning and then ONE Liturgy following Matins? NO Saturday night "Mass!!" This community dividing, anti-eucharistic, anti-eastern theology, homage to spiritual complacency must stop in our Churches.(In all honesty, how many of our church buildings really are not able to fit their entire parish population inside at one Liturgy?)

The theology of one liturgy on Sunday was taught in the Heaven on Earth presentation. This would also get EVERY parish praying OUR liturgical life properly. Now I can hear all of the groans and the "Oh, no, you can't do that. That would not be practical." But this is PRECISELY where the rubber meets the road of any hope for real renewal. We must challenge our fears and complacencey and our exaltation of the "practical" and move beyond the excuses for mediocrity. Renewal means we must take the risks to actually pray according to the way that SAINTS designed our worship to be. We need to pray in churches that are designed according to the way SAINTS prescribed which is a magnificant integration of liturgical text, gesture, action, theology, rhythm, music and art. Liturgical renewal means moving beyond the (secular and Protestant) compartmentalization of worship and return to an integrated liturgical culture that is the true genius of the eastern "lung" of the Church. A new translation ONLY is a compartmentalization which is why there will be resistance to it. My hope and prayer for our Hierarchs and for all of us who are concerned about our Church is that the rediscovery of the rest of the "diamond" will be mandated along with the mandating of the one single facet of a "new translation."

I believe that the question that our Church needs to ask itself during what I also believe is this time of a Judgement Day is this: With a "new translation" only, are we just playing around and tinkering with what seemed like a 'safe' path for renewal in our Church? Or are we really serious about the mission of our Church in the world today and willing to, as I keep saying, "raze it to the ground" but ONLY in order to rebuild it according to its glorious and authentic self? Some might say, as does our present Pope, "If we are worshipping correctly everything else will go correctly." This is absolutely true but ONLY because worship means so much more than Greek-to-English translations. As our liturgical theologians remind us: Liturgy is life. Life is liturgy. Let's "mandate" a real renewal of life and liturgy.

--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB., MA.