Biskop Elliot om pave Benedikts syn på liturgien – 4

I fjerde (og nest siste) utdrag fra biskop Elliots foredrag om pave Benedikts syn på liturgien tra jeg med det han sier om at «skjønnheten i messen viser Guds herlighet»:

(The Pope) calls us by his word and example to set aside the banal. To use what is beautiful, be it old or new: the best vessels, fine vestments, good design and architecture, gracious ceremonial, excellent music. This is not mere aestheticism because is derived from the God who is beautiful, the Lord of the Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist, sacrifice and sacrament, shapes liturgy and evokes human creativity in art and music. ….

Therefore, as cardinal and later as Pope, he affirms that Catholic worship should reflect the cosmic order and harmony of the divine Logos, creation stamped with reflections of the Triune God. St Augustine’s understanding of God as beautiful is a major influence here, for he is deeply attached to the great Doctor of the West.

By contrast, as anyone can see, a feature of the hermeneutic of discontinuity or rupture is a tendency towards ugliness, or at least promoting a modernist aesthetic, often dull, cold or minimalist – ugly churches, vestments, vessels etc, and all bereft of mystery. But the God we worship and praise is beautiful, to be worshipped in the beauty of holiness, worshipped “in spirit and in truth”. That is why Catholic liturgy in all its forms, simple or solemn, Eastern or Western, captures something of the glory of God.

However the Divine Liturgy is always the Great Prayer of Christ in his Church, human prayer in time taken up into Christ’s eternal prayer. Therefore the Holy Father’s offers us not just a richer theology of liturgy but a spirituality of liturgy. His spiritual vision of worship inspires and animates what is already being called “the new liturgical movement”.

Les hele foredraget her.

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