The affinities between the Pope’s own theological vision and the tradition Anglo-Catholics represent is at its most obvious in his high view of the sacred Liturgy. In counter-distinction to a much publicized thesis of Liberationist exegesis, Pope Benedict holds that in the Exodus from Egypt the Israelites were freed from slavery not so as to construct an ideal society but in order freely to worship in accordance with the divine command.[37] While, to be sure, that divine command extended to all aspects of living, worship was central and paramount, for worship implies right alignment with God leading to union with God and ultimately to the vision of God, itself the goal of all divine involvement in human history. What impedes such union, and therefore such vision, is not only human creatureliness but also, and more especially, human sin. Hence the goal of worship cannot be attained without the coming of the Mediator who in his death and resurrection opens a new and living way into the divine presence. Pope Benedict describes the Liturgy as the continuation of the Paschal Mystery; it is the High Priestly work of the Redeemer, an essentially sacred reality which joins heaven to earth. In his richly rewarding study, The Spirit of the Liturgy, he points out how it is a mistake to say that the Redemption has already taken place in so complete a sense that Christians no longer need sacred time and sacred space: in other words, that the Liturgy can perfectly well make do with commonplace ordinary forms. His argument goes like this: in the age of the New Testament while we are, as compared with the Old Testament, not in the time of mere shadows, nor are we as yet in the period of vision, when the full reality will be disclosed.[38] We are, rather, in the time of the image, and this has considerable implications for ritual. Most notably, it provides the charter for the role of beauty in the Liturgy, for the aim of liturgical beauty is to arouse in us a longing for full vision. It must be, he insists, a beauty tutored by the Paschal mystery. It should not be a beauty that is sensuous in a Dionysian way, for that would be incompatible with the Cross, yet it is ordered to glory, since this is required by the Resurrection.[39] Owing to his adherence to these weighty principles in theological aesthetics, the Pope is aghast, in a manner Anglo-Catholics generally would appreciate, at the present state of much liturgical practice in the West. The Liturgy has been invaded by politicization, as in milieux affected by Liberation Theology; it has suffered banalisation in populist environments where the mantra has it that modern popular culture just has to be followed; and in less ideologically freighted parish practice its manner of expression has been simplified in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to ensure instant intelligibility such that much of its richness has been lost.
Read it all.
Aidan Nichols: The Ordinariates, the Pope, and the Liturgy (Part II)
The affinities between the Pope’s own theological vision and the tradition Anglo-Catholics represent is at its most obvious in his high view of the sacred Liturgy. In counter-distinction to a much publicized thesis of Liberationist exegesis, Pope Benedict holds that in the Exodus from Egypt the Israelites were freed from slavery not so as to construct an ideal society but in order freely to worship in accordance with the divine command.[37] While, to be sure, that divine command extended to all aspects of living, worship was central and paramount, for worship implies right alignment with God leading to union with God and ultimately to the vision of God, itself the goal of all divine involvement in human history. What impedes such union, and therefore such vision, is not only human creatureliness but also, and more especially, human sin. Hence the goal of worship cannot be attained without the coming of the Mediator who in his death and resurrection opens a new and living way into the divine presence. Pope Benedict describes the Liturgy as the continuation of the Paschal Mystery; it is the High Priestly work of the Redeemer, an essentially sacred reality which joins heaven to earth. In his richly rewarding study, The Spirit of the Liturgy, he points out how it is a mistake to say that the Redemption has already taken place in so complete a sense that Christians no longer need sacred time and sacred space: in other words, that the Liturgy can perfectly well make do with commonplace ordinary forms. His argument goes like this: in the age of the New Testament while we are, as compared with the Old Testament, not in the time of mere shadows, nor are we as yet in the period of vision, when the full reality will be disclosed.[38] We are, rather, in the time of the image, and this has considerable implications for ritual. Most notably, it provides the charter for the role of beauty in the Liturgy, for the aim of liturgical beauty is to arouse in us a longing for full vision. It must be, he insists, a beauty tutored by the Paschal mystery. It should not be a beauty that is sensuous in a Dionysian way, for that would be incompatible with the Cross, yet it is ordered to glory, since this is required by the Resurrection.[39] Owing to his adherence to these weighty principles in theological aesthetics, the Pope is aghast, in a manner Anglo-Catholics generally would appreciate, at the present state of much liturgical practice in the West. The Liturgy has been invaded by politicization, as in milieux affected by Liberation Theology; it has suffered banalisation in populist environments where the mantra has it that modern popular culture just has to be followed; and in less ideologically freighted parish practice its manner of expression has been simplified in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to ensure instant intelligibility such that much of its richness has been lost.
Read it all.