Dom Lambert Beauduin – viktig i den liturgiske bevegelsen

Nothing in his spirituality was liturgically-oriented. Since his mind had not been initiated into an understanding and appreciation of the liturgy, it is no wonder that even as a priest and with all his priestly formation, he failed to draw nourishment from the liturgical prayer of the Church.

It says something about the strength of the liturgical life at Mont César that someone of this description should after four years at the monastery emerge as the principal inspiration for the furtherance of the Liturgical Movement.

We are making tremendous efforts to gather together into our parish centres little groups of faithful souls, so as to win them to a truly Christian life and lead them to a corporate Communion; and yet, in every village, we have already got a centre for the entire Christian people – the church, which is chock full of sacred mysteries and sources of grace, where Sunday after Sunday all the people assemble to renew themselves in spirit, where there is the priest whose vocation it is to instruct, to bless and to offer sacrifice, where the patron saints are at hand, where feasts and fasts, festivities and funerals are held, where the community finds its centre, and a marvellously rich liturgy is already available for these purposes. Why do we go on making little or no use of all this while exhausting ourselves with labours in other directions?

Beauduin suggested that the faithful should be furnished with translations of the Missal and that they should be encouraged to take part in the Divine Office. The programme of action formulated by the Malines conference adopted Beauduin’s suggestions. Four points are mentioned: Translations of the Missal, promotion of liturgical functions rather than extra-liturgical devotions, the encouragement of the plainsong revival, and, finally, all parish church choirs should be offered an annual retreat to some centre of liturgical life.

Beauduin’s argument proceeded in three stages:

He first developed a lesson in fundamental liturgy; then, in contrast, he outlined popular Christian piety which was quite divorced from the public liturgy; he finally proposed methods for a renewal, arguing that active participation in the liturgy, which is the true source of piety, can be achieved by understanding the liturgical text.

The phrase ‘active participation’ as employed by Beauduin merits some closer attention. La Piété de l’Eglise (1914) sets out the fundamentals of Beauduin’s liturgical theology: “his Liturgical Movement was underpinned by a theology of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, and a theology of priesthood of the laity with a right to active participation in the liturgy.”

Whilst Beauduin would have been cautious to use the phrase “a right to active participation,” it is undoubtedly true that he vests it with a wider meaning than its originator, Pius X. This phrase from Pius’s Motu Proprio ‘Tra le sollecitudini’ (22nd November 1903) was interpreted and expounded by Beauduin and his interpretation gained wide acceptance. Pius X “enunciated the famous principle … but how many understood what this principle meant and how much it entailed? To make this clear was the great work of Dom Lambert’s life.” It has been noted earlier that Pius appears to mean little more with the phrase than that the faithful should understand the text and participate by singing limited parts of the chant. This is supported by Quitslund who nonetheless goes on to speculate that Beauduin’s use of the phrase would not necessarily have met with Pius’s disapproval: “It is highly questionable that Pius X really envisaged all Beauduin did with that now famous phrase, but his explanation certainly was not contrary to the principles for which the great and saintly pontiff stood.”

A means to achieve a more active participation was a school of liturgical formation for the clergy. Beauduin was hoping that through such a school the parochial clergy might be familiarised with his principles of liturgical revival and be enabled “to lead the laity into a more active and intelligent participation in the sacred mysteries.” Such a school did not come about, however, as his arch-abbot did not share his enthusiasm.

Like Guéranger, Beauduin stressed the importance of not allowing feasts and saints’ days to dominate at the expense of a season’s distinctive character. Thus he “tried in 1910-1911, but without success, to persuade the Belgian bishops to insist that the temporal cycle be celebrated at least on Sundays.” He was more successful in achieving one of his other aims, namely to make Holy Communion the natural high point of the faithful at Mass. Pius had, as already observed, urged that Holy Communion should be distributed at every Mass. Beauduin suggested that frequent reception should be made easier by reducing the eucharistic fast to two or three hours, and developed the theme of the importance of the reception by the faithful at Mass.

Interestingly, he does not, as one might have expected, approach the matter from the perspective of emphasising the meal, or koinonia, aspect of the Mass. The Liturgical Movement has sometimes been blamed for weakening the sacrificial aspect of the Mass, but this is precisely the angle from which Beauduin starts when arguing for frequent reception. At the heart of sacrificial thinking is the destruction of the victim. The faithful therefore share more fully in the sacrificial act when communicating. Beauduin was of the opinion that “whatever loss the Liturgy suffers among Christian people is also a loss of the notion of sacrifice, and consequently of Christian renunciation.”

The missal needs to be opened up to those for whom it is a closed book in order that they may rediscover the eucharistic sacrifice in which they should offer themselves. At the same time, Beauduin is eager to shift the focus from an individualistic to a more communal attitude to worship. The individual’s seeing and adoring, should be replaced by adoring and receiving as the community takes part in the sacrificial act. Srawley comments:

Dom Beauduin, like Herwegen in his later pamphlets, criticizes the excessive individualism which regards religion as merely a matter between God and the individual, and, like all supporters of the movement, emphasizes the communal and collective side of Christian public worship.

Beauduin also resembles Guéranger in another respect: his loyal submission to, and interest in, the Roman Rite as it was rather than as it might have been. Beauduin sought liturgical renewal, not reformation. He did not purport to return to more ancient rites and usages, nor did he favour new experiments: