Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth om liturgien – del 1

Jeg nevnte for et par dager siden at Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth holdt et foredrag kalt: «The Reform of the Roman Rite». Han begynner dette foredraget med å sitere fra et budskap pave Benedikt kom med til den nylig avholdte Eukaristiske konferansen i Dublin, Irland:

«The Congress also occurs at a time when the Church throughout the world is preparing to celebrate the Year of Faith to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council, an event which launched the most extensive renewal of the Roman Rite ever known. Based upon a deepening appreciation of the sources of the liturgy, the Council promoted the full and active participation of the faithful in the Eucharistic sacrifice. At our distance today from the Council Fathers’ expressed desires regarding liturgical renewal, and in the light of the universal Church’s experience in the intervening period, it is clear that a great deal has been achieved; but it is equally clear that there have been many misunderstandings and irregularities. The renewal of external forms, desired by the Council Fathers, was intended to make it easier to enter into the inner depth of the mystery. Its true purpose was to lead people to a personal encounter with the Lord, present in the Eucharist, and thus with the living God, so that through this contact with Christ’s love, the love of his brothers and sisters for one another might also grow. Yet not infrequently, the revision of liturgical forms has remained at an external level, and «active participation» has been confused with external activity. Hence much still remains to be done on the path of real liturgical renewal.»

Etter å ha sitert dette, kommenterer Msgr Wadsworth flere ting i pavens budskap, og begynner slik (ved å spørre om liturgiomveltningene virkelig bygget på en korrekt forståelse av liturgihostoien):

1. “the Second Vatican Council, an event which launched the most extensive renewal of the Roman Rite ever known”

Very few people could have foreseen the wholesale revision of the liturgy which would come in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and certainly few could foresee that the unifying experience of a Latin liturgy would become entirely alien to most Catholics born in the last third of the twentieth century. The unchangeable nature of this characteristic of the Liturgy was a view largely shared by Blessed John Henry Newman, … …

The factors which fed into the liturgical reform after the Council were complex and in some ways, not entirely contemporary. I think we must admit that until relatively recently there has been very little scholarship that is able to accurately identify the sources of the liturgical reform. In some cases, the scholarly opinions upon which some decisions were based does not stand the test of time. We must hope that scholarly commentary which unravels some of the mystery surrounding the making of the new liturgy becomes more readily available in the near future.

Whether or not we have any scholarly insight, many of us have lived in the Church through this period and have thereby accumulated a vast reservoir of experiences which for good or ill shape our perceptions in relation to the liturgy and guide our expectations when we consider what we would hope to find when we come to worship God in the liturgy. While there is a sort of commonality to these observations across a wide spectrum of liturgical preference, it goes without saying that whether something is considered desirable or not will largely depend on your view of what the liturgy is meant to achieve. I have come to the view that there is little agreement in this important matter and many people proceed on what is essentially a privatized view of something which is by definition common property.

Om man vil, kan man under høre pave Benedikts budskap til den Eukaristiske konferansen i Dublin, som Msgr Wadsworth siterer utdrag fra.

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