Jeg leser nå Dom Alcuin Reids bok «The Organic Development of the Liturgy» – egentlig for første gang, siden jeg bare har lest noen deler av den tidligere. Jeg skal ta beskrivelsen av den amerikanske presten Martin Hellriegel (1890-1981) som eksempel på den liturgiske bevegelsens styrker og svakheter. REid finner mange svært postitive ting i denne prestens liturgiske arbeid, og mener vel at (bare) misforståelsen om at messefeiring ‘versus populum’ er misforstått.
Dessuten skriver Reid at den liturgiske bevegelsen gjorde en sterk liberal vending rett etter Vatikankonsilet, noe som først til mange av bevegelsens tidligere ledere ble svært skuffet. Hellriegels skuffelse er beskrevet i slutten av dette innlegget. Sitatene under er fra s 116-119 i Reids bok.
… Hellriegel introduced the dialogue Mass, «prepared the sisters to celebrate fully the solemn seasons of the church year», and placed particular emphasis … on making the daily holy sacrifice, especially the Sunday high Mass, the greatest experience of all». He also introduced the offertory procession.
Hellriegel helped the community of sisters to see itself in the light of the Church’s Tradition. The postulants and novices were carefully trained to find their spiritual life grounded in the Sacred Liturgy … The life of the religious was seen to be the flowering of the baptismal life and its growth always was in keeping with the life of the church.»
The agenda for liturgical reform he set himself as pastor at the 1940 Liturgical Week is impressive:
(1) We must do away with all slovenliness and routine. Sancta sancte, God’s things must be done in Gods way!
(2) Back, therefore, to a holier and worthier celebration of the Christlife-carrying and the Christ-life-imparting mysteries, the Holy Sacrifice, the sacraments and the sacramentals.
(3) Back to the Sunday High Mass, 52 times a year. It is the ideal way of celebrating the Lords death, particularly on the Lords day.
(4) Back to an active participation by every member of the parish in the prayers and the chants of the Church.
(5) Back to a more earnest preparation and a more joyful announcement of the living word of God. Back to the «homily» patterned after the homilies of the Fathers.
(6) Back to the Sunday and feastday Vespers….
(7) Back to a fitting celebration of the patronal feast….
(8) Back to our cassock and surplice for the administration of the sacraments to the sick. The time has come for the «embryo» of a stole put over the civilian coat to make room for vestments that are a «worthy frame around Gods picture».
(9) Back to Advent, Lent, and ember days cleansed from lottos, bingos and buncos.
(10) In short: Back to a sentire cum Ecclesia for the purpose of restoring true Catholic parochial life in the cell of Christ’s Mystical Body, the parish.
A year later he could present a no less impressive list of nineteen liturgical achievements (including the versus populum celebration of the Holy Thursday Mass) in his first year as pastor.
Reid skryter altså av Hellriegels arbeid:
… His work witnesses to the sound aims of the Liturgical Movement and to their successful practical application.»‘ The reforms he promoted were pastoral, albeit in one instance mistaken.` His work as a liturgical pastor remains exemplary.
Men kritiserer ham for å ha introdusert messefeiring ‘versus populum’:
On celebrating Mass versus populum («facing the people»). The mistaken assumption behind this practice is seen when, at a demonstration of Low Mass at the 1951 Liturgical Week, Hellriegel explained, «The altar has been set up here facing you, so as to enable all to follow the rite without difficulty, as well as to promote a better sense of participation. A similar arrangement … exists in Rome in Saint Peter’s Basilica, as well as in other great churches of the world; and this was the arrangement that obtained throughout many centuries of the Church’s history».
Reid tar også med det man vet om Hellriegels reagerer på 60-tallets liturgiske forandringer:
In the preface to the 1995 edition of The Recovery of the Sacred, p. 9, J. Hitchcock reported, not without significance, that «the Liturgical Movement … turned sharply leftward immediately after the Council, so that some of its pioneers, such as Msgr. Martin B. Hellriegel, … were quickly estranged from the Movement they had labored so long to bring to fruition.» Hitchcock adds: «Before Msgr. Hellriegel died in 1981, the author had several candid conversations with him in which America’s greatest pastoral liturgist expressed his deep disappointment at the post-conciliar developments.» In a letter to the author dated 15 November 1997, Hitchcock explained: «I can testify to my own experience. I knew Msgr. Hellriegel – not intimately – beginning about 1955 and lasting until his death in 1981, when he was 91. Especially between about 1970 and his death I would talk with him once or twice a year. He was never bitter or angry about liturgical change, but he was what I would call melancholy. He would say sadly things like, ‘this is not what we had. in mind when we advocated liturgical reform.’ He was fairly scathing about balloons, secular readings at Mass, and other such abuses. He also thought the idea of ‘participation’ had been skewed in a bad way. For him, participation meant prayerful, knowledgeable entry by the laity into the inner meaning of the Liturgy as it was being celebrated. He favored congregational responses and singing, offertory processions, etc. But he disliked informality, ‘spontaneity,’ overly intrusive priests, etc. He had always taken a somewhat neutral position towards the vernacular. He was not opposed to it, nor did he think it was crucial to authentic reform…. He did on a number of occasions specifically tell me that he was very disappointed in the way in which the ‘reform’ had gone.»
Visst är det en underbar bok fader! Jag tyckte mycket om den. En viktig lärdom av boken, vill jag minnas, är också att reformerna av breviaret varit problematiska, för att säga det försiktigt…