Is the liturgy man-made?

[Nihil Obstat]

Shameful as it is, it is well established that Annibale Bugnini was a Freemason.

[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."

​One of the main theses of that book, Banished Heart, is that in some sense the recent liturgical crisis had its roots in the Jesuit counter-reformation. Basically, in opposing Luther's errors, one of which denied the legitimate authority of the pope, the Jesuits instead emphasized, and sometimes over-emphasized the pope's power and the nature of obedience to him. In some cases this over-emphasis led to an elevation of papal authority over the authority of Tradition, making the pope the arbiter of Tradition rather than its steward. Of course that way of looking at it is quite backwards.

Their emphasis of papal authority against Luther was certainly a vital aspect of the counter-reformation. But its excesses set the stage for issues much later on.

[Ark]

Communion in the hand, dropping the Offertory, inserting a Jewish grace before meals, the celebrant praying facing the people, are all innovations without precedent in the Roman rite. 

[PhuturePriest]

For anyone interested in the differences between the Liturgies, I highly recommend this stellar talk:

 

[Ark]

Roman rite? What Roman rite?

 

[truthfinder]

I think it would be more productive to talk about liturgy in its approved forms and go from there.  Any discussion of the aberrations and abuses by the likes of Cardinal Mahony does not get to the core of the question.  We know abuses are man-made.  

[Ark]

Bugnini's liturgy is man-made. His intentions behind the alterations were worldly and man-centered.

[Ark]

Gaudiem et spes, Chapter 12, is the core of the problem.

[truthfinder]

This was posted today on NLM: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/04/reforming-canon-of-mass-some.html#.VTwDByFViko

It's a summary of posts by Fr. Hunwicke, and I found it rather interesting.  I was skimming through it with this post in mind.  

[truthfinder]

Sorry, got threads mixed up.  

Edited April 25, 2015 by truthfinder

[Ark]

This was posted today on NLM: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/04/reforming-canon-of-mass-some.html#.VTwDByFViko

It's a summary of posts by Fr. Hunwicke, and I found it rather interesting.  I was skimming through it with this post in mind.  

Great article! The part on whether the novus ordo and  Traditional Latin Mass are the same or different rites was particularly fascinating:

Quote:

"This inevitably leads to the question, addressed in the fourth article, of whether the addition of new Eucharistic prayers (or ‘anaphoras’, if you prefer) makes the Novus Ordo a different Rite from the classic Roman Rite, which never had any Canon other than that found in the ancient Roman sacramentaries and the Missal of St Pius V. He begins by pointing out that various scholars, not all of them conservatives, have held the position that they are essentially different rites.

"Fr Joseph Gelineau, described by Bugnini himself as “one of the great masters of the international liturgical world”, a liturgical radical who wholeheartedly applauded what happened after Vatican II, did not make (the) claim (that they are the same rite). He wrote “We must say it plainly: the Roman rite as we knew it exists no more. It has gone. … Fr Aidan Nichols points out that ‘the Rite of Paul VI contains more features of Oriental provenance than the Roman Rite has ever known historically, and notably in the new anaphoras, for these are central to the definition of any eucharistic style.’ ”

"He further notes that the presence of so many features imported from other rites led the Anglican scholar Dr G. G. Willis to define the modern Roman Rite as a “hybrid”. Fr Zuhlsdorf has stated a similar position on various occasions, that the identity of the two Forms, Ordinary and Extraordinary, as one Rite, is essentially a legal fiction: a good and useful legal fiction, to be sure, but a legal fiction nonetheless. (In a future article, I plan to offer some considerations of my own on this matter.) In any case, Fr Hunwicke declares that it is a cause worth taking seriously, to restore the Roman Rite to use by using exclusively the Roman Canon. The GIRM itself has pointed to this by saying, in each edition it has been through, that “This Prayer may be always used” (Editio tertia para 365. ‘semper adhiberi potest’); a comment it makes about none of the other anaphoras.

"He is also very careful to state, in clear and very red letters at the end of the fourth article, that the status of the Novus Ordo as a different Rite does make it any way invalid.

"The ecumenical implications of this question should not be lost on anybody, for if a formal Epiclesis is indeed essential to the Eucharistic Consecration, the unavoidable conclusion is that the Roman Rite has always been invalid.