Is the liturgy man-made?

[The Historian]

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I'd be careful how you tread there.  I've heard several EF sermons on how the EF liturgy comes in some way through God (it was actually a compelling argument), and other theologians, Scott Hanh in particular comes to mind, argues that a good part of the liturgical actions (they're writing about the OF) come from biblical sources. I think if we want to continue this conversation, it would be best to move it over to the debate board - it really doesn't belong to vocations, imho.

In another thread I made the statement that the liturgy is a man-made ritual (and thus can be criticised and reviewed).  Truthfinder responded with the above post.  I think it's an interesting point to discuss.

I still maintain that the liturgy is indeed a man-made ritual.  I don't think that can be contested.  Using the Extraordinary Form as an example, much of the liturgy is sourced from Biblical and Early Church traditions.  But it is all arranged by men.  The Pian breviary reforms are a good example.  The Psalms, of course, are Scriptural.  But the Psalm schema of Saint Pius X was an arbitrary invention which broke with the millennium-long traditional Psalter still employed by the Benedictines.  The post-55 Holy Week reforms are another example of the man-made nature of liturgical ritual.  A committee of men literally sat down and chopped and added to the Holy Week liturgy.  It was done in such a rushed manner that the liturgies there are a mess.  Passages of the Gospel were omitted from the Holy Week liturgies because they ran out of space to have them printed.

That's not even touching on the Ordinary Form, which has an entire Eucharistic Canon invented by a committee of men.  So whilst the liturgy is sourced in Scripture, employs much Scripture, and in the case of the Extraordinary Form and Divine Liturgies, descends from Patristic sources, the rituals are still a product of man.

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Edited April 21, 2015 by The Historian

[Era Might]

This is like asking whether a person's life is man-made. Yes and no. The whole is other than the sum of the parts. I'm reading the Upanisads, which largely deals with Hindu sacrifices/rituals thousands of years ago, and they had complex and esoteric explanations for the meanings of their rituals and how they related to the cosmos. Rituals develop in a context, sometimes known, sometimes unknown, and that context is both preserved and reshaped as time goes on. The context of Christian ritual did not begin with Christianity, as you note it has sources pre-dating Christianity, especially Jewish, but also Greek, Roman, etc. The modern liturgy in the West is an interesting case, but even that did not spring of its own, it also has antecedents, ritual, cultural, historical, philosophical, linguistic, etc. I don't think one can even say the modern liturgy is "man-made" except in a very narrow sense, because the men who put it together were all shaped by much they had no part in. What is this mysterious process of history? I'm not sure...fate, destiny, providence...the Holy Spirit? It can take many names.

[Era Might]

Just to add: You say that the liturgy can be "criticized and reviewed," but then you are entering into philosophy, not religion or ritual. The basis of ritual/religion, I think, to receive and witness, not to criticize and review. Even in making ritual changes, any true religious approach is not to make cuts as though the ritual were a text, but maybe to hem the garments would be a better analogy. What happens when a ritual no longer reflects the actual world in which it exists? I think it probably becomes a dead thing, a marginalized thing, a private thing, not a living, public thing (which I imagine was the thought process in changing it so drastically in modern times).

[Nihil Obstat]

Usually Truthfinder is right. She is very smart.

[The Historian]

Usually Truthfinder is right. She is very smart.

​That I do not doubt.  I just think it's an interesting point of discussion (and I'm not signalling her out for a fight!).

[truthfinder]

Nihil, I was hoping you'd get in here and say something to enlighten us all, but I'll take your compliment nonetheless.  I'm sure you've read/heard something on the subject. I'm in no mood for a fight; but I'm glad you put up the post in the Debate table, The Historian, because one, it was getting far from a vocation discussion, and two, more people will see it here.  

[Nihil Obstat]

I just wrote the last final of the semester yesterday, so the burnout has set in for at least the next couple days. I may be in a position to respond after that.

[truthfinder]

I just wrote the last final of the semester yesterday, so the burnout has set in for at least the next couple days. I may be in a position to respond after that.

Congrats on that! At the rate I'm going, I'm out of commission on big questions like this until mid-May. 

[MarysLittleFlower]

This is a good question... I mean I don't think the liturgy is something that was just made up. Also the Holy Spirit participates in the life and actions of the Church. Some little bits might change over time and be improved but perhaps more in the actions then in the words of the liturgy... The new translation however was to improve translation to be more faithful to the Latin. But overall and especially the prayers from the Bible, and the Consecration, have a divine origin. What I mean by tiny things are things that don't affect the substance of the liturgy and are merely practical. Since with the NO more substantial parts of the liturgy were changed (though not general structure and the Bible readings) I guess with the new translation the Church tried to normalize things that could be improved in translation etc. But this sort of major 'editing' is not needed in the Traditional Latin Mass since it didn't go through such abrupt changes. I would say that its not just something that was made up... And the structure of the liturgy is roughly the same in all rites...

[veritasluxmea]

Yeah I'm going to go (partly) with Era on this one... it's a yes and no answer. Liturgy is the (formal) space where God both reaches out to man and man reaches back, so it going to be revealed by God as Scott Hahn discusses, and at the same time it will be reviewed and changed by man as TH pointed out, and it will shift and look different at times (as I'm sure anyone who's lived through the later half of the century knows). That's life with humanity, for better or worse. 

[Credo in Deum]

Exodus I feel would show that Liturgy is made by God in where He asks man to cooperate with Him.  Exodus is beautiful in that it shows God wants His Liturgy celebrated in a specific way which shows He is a personal God with likes and dislikes which shows the importance of the Liturgy.  In Exodus you see man worship as God wants to be worshiped.  A sentiment which I feel has been lost nowadays where people just want to worship God in the manner that is pleasing to them. 

 

Edit: Pope Benedict XVI' comments in this article I feel touch on this topic.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-benedict-the-liturgy-is-celebrated-for-god-and-not-for-ourselves

 

 

Edited April 22, 2015 by Credo in Deum

[Ark]

Depends which liturgy you refer to. The Bugnini liturgy is certainly man-made. 

[veritasluxmea]

Liturgical dancing is an example of something man-made in the liturgy. 

[Nihil Obstat]

Ok. Here goes. In my opinion it is most correct to say that Liturgy is primary received, both from God and from Tradition, i.e. our fathers in the faith. Parts of our Liturgies were commanded by Christ when he said "do this in memory of Me", and when He instructed His disciples after His resurrection, but before His ascension. He revealed to them all the Truths of the Faith, some of which certainly was how to worship Him. Beyond that, of course the Magisterium is the custodian and guardian of the Faith, the steward of what God has given us. In that sense the Pope and bishops have authority primarily to transmit faithfully what they receive. And they have authority to make good and necessary corrections, when they are truly needed. For instance the addition of new feast days, the occasional adaptation of rubrics, etc. But these changes which are proper to them are always at the service of the Liturgy as a whole, which is received, not created. If some changes are made which do truly prove to be good and necessary, and those changes are passed down over subsequent generations, then they organically form part of that received Tradition, in much the same way that the Fathers of the faith speak authoritatively when they speak unanimously.

 

I am quite sure that in one of my books is an explanation of the Liturgy as being received, organically, from God (and from Tradition). I cannot find that quotation right now, but I will keep looking. For now, here is an excerpt from Banished Heart by Geoffrey Hull, contained in chapter 2.

 

Holy Tradition is bipartite: its rational element consists of the Magisterium (the authoritative teaching the the bishops) and Holy Scripture, while its liturgical element is the principal channel of the divine grace communicated to men. But in this dichotomy the law of prayer has, as already noted, has a chronological primacy over the law of belief; it both founds and transcends it. The liturgy, then, is not something arbitrarily devised by theologians but theologia prima, the ontological condition of theology.

The German Benedictine liturgist Dom Odo Casel once argued that

"the truth of the faith is made accessible not simply in a unique way through the liturgical celebration of the faith of the Church. Rather the liturgical expression of the self-understanding of the Church, while not rendering other modes of expression superfluous, is clearly superior from all points of view. The liturgical traditions are not simply one among many sources of knowledge of faith, but the source an central witness of the life of faith and so of all theology."

Dr. Varghese Pathikulangara, a Catholic scholar of the Syro-Malabarese rite, states that "theology is a search for words and concepts adequate to, and expressive of, the living experience, i.e. the liturgy of the Church. In a similar vein, Massey Shepherd, an American liturgist, writes that "Worship is the experiential foundation of theological reflection", and that the "practice of worship is the source of rubrical and canonical legislation". The ministry of clergy and laity, moreover, "is exhibited most clearly in liturgical assemblies."

Dom Aidan Kavanagh amplifies this basic definition by stating that "what emerges most directly from an assembly's liturgical act is not a new species of theology among others. It is theologia itself." the sacred liturgy, he continues,

"is not some thing separate from the Church, but simply the Church caught in the act of being most overtly itself as it stands faithfully in the presence of the One who is both object and source of the faith. The liturgical assembly's stance in faith is vertiginous, on the edge of chaos. Only grace and favour enable it to stand there; only grace and promise brought it there; only grace and a rigorous divine charity permit the assembly, like Moses, to come away from such an encounter, and even then it is with wounds which are as deep as they are salutary. Here is where "something vastly mysterious" transpires in the Church as it engages in worship worthy of Creation and congruent with the human City within which it abides as witness to God in Christ. As Leo the GReat said, those things which were conspicuous in the life of our Redeemer here pass over into the sacraments, into the worship of the Church..."

For Eastern Christians the sacred liturgy is, in the words of Fr. Pathikulangara, "the epiphany of the Church's faith", "the transfiguring experience of the Mystery of the Church", and "the locus classicus of all theological synthesis". It is the liturgy, moreover, that

"makes the Church what she is and s the fulfillment of her very nature, of her cosmic and eschatological calling. Liturgy for an Oriental is not merely a matter of a few externals and prayers or the sharing of a few ideas; it is the sublime expression of the living traditions of his Church. It sums up his whole Christian life and inspires it. Liturgy is the epiphany of heaven on earth, the passage of the Church from this world into heaven. It is the most perfect expression of the Church."

[Catlick]

Depends which liturgy you refer to. The Bugnini liturgy is certainly man-made. 

​*Protestant-made