desember 2015

Jeg har, som jeg skrev i går, begynt å lese Matthew Leverings bok Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist. Her skriver Levering om sakramental/eukaristisk realisme eller idealisme, og starter med å undersøke hvordan Det nye testamente og den første kristne liturgien bygger på jødenes forståelse og tempeltjeneste. Det er tydelig at levering selv har mer tro på en liturgisk realisme heller enn en idealisme; slik omtaler og siterer han den jødiske teologen Wyschogrod, som skrev slik på 90-tallet:

For Wyschogrod, to conceive of a communion with God outside such sacrifice is to fall into rationalism. He writes: “Above all, sacrifice is not an idea, but an act. Prayer and repentance are ideas. They are contemplative actions, of the heart rather than the body. For this reason, rationalists of all times have been delighted by the termination of the sacrifices. For them, the “service of the heart” is self-evidently more appropriate for communication between man and their rational God than the bloodbaths of a Temple-slaughterhouse.”

It follows that the communion, from our side, is only real if sacrificial. Sacrificial worship affirms that communal sacrifice is the only posture in which we can, as creatures, truly enter into communion with God. Wyschogrod states: “Enlightened religion recoils with horror from the thought of sacrifice, preferring a spotless house of worship filled with organ music and exquisitely polite behavior. …”

Non-sacrificial communion involves neither the human being’s true (completely dependent) self, nor God’s presence transforming and embracing the full human being.

Jeg begynner nå å lese boka Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist, skrevet av professor Matthew Levering og utgitt i 2005. Starten på bok virker lovende; Levering viser når og hvordan også katolske teologer (Luther hadde allerede gjort det) begynte å hevde at eukaristien hadde lite med offer å gjøre. (Det er ett av temaene jeg gjerne vil finne mer ut om disse studiemånedene.) På amazon.co.uk omtales boka bl.a. slik:

This book explores the character of the Eucharist as communion in and through sacrifice. Drawing on Jewish reflection upon the Aqedah (the near–sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham in Genesis), as well as on other critical analyses of sacrifice in Scripture, the book shows that communion is not possible without the reconciliation attained by sacrificial self–giving love. Following the insights of St Thomas Aquinas, the author argues that all aspects of Eucharistic theology, including metaphysical doctrines such as transubstantiation, depend upon recognizing that communion cannot be separated from its sacrificial context.

The book will stimulate discussion because of its controversial critique of the dominant paradigm for Eucharistic theology, its reclamation of St Thomas Aquinas s theology of the Eucharist, and its response to Pope John Paul II s Ecclesia de Eucharistia. …

Jon D. Levenson points out that Israel, marked by desire to be in communion with the all-holy God, recognizes that such communion is possible only, after sin, through sacrificial offering.

Jeg leste i dag tidlig en artikkel skrevet av P. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., som tar opp dette temaet. Der skriver forfatteren bl.a.:

… For some 1600 years previously, the Roman rite knew only one Eucharistic Prayer: the Roman canon.

In the average parish today, Eucharistic Prayer II is the one most frequently used, even on Sunday. Eucharistic Prayer III is also used quite often, especially on Sundays and feast days. The fourth Eucharistic prayer is hardly ever used; in part because it is long, in part because in some places in the U.S. it has been unofficially banned because of its frequent use of the word «man». The first Eucharistic Prayer, the Roman canon, which had been used exclusively in the Roman rite for well over a millennium and a half, nowadays is used almost never. As an Italian liturgical scholar puts it: «its use today is so minimal as to be statistically irrelevant».

This is a radical change in the Roman liturgy. Why aren’t more people aware of the enormity of this change? Perhaps since the canon used to be said silently, its contents and merits were known to priests, to be sure, but not to most of the laity. Hence when the Eucharistic Prayer began to be said aloud in the vernacular, with four to choose from — and the Roman canon chosen rarely, if ever — the average layman did not realize that 1600 years of tradition had suddenly vanished like a lost civilization, leaving few traces behind, and those of interest only to archaeologists and tourists.

What happened? Why did it happen? How should we respond to the new situation? These questions are the subject matter of this essay.

Til spørsmålet om hvorfor dette skjedde, skriver han bl.a.:

1. Advances in liturgical studies

The first reason is quite straightforward. Decades of scholarly research in the area of the anaphora, both eastern and western, had resulted in a considerable corpus of primary texts and a corresponding body of secondary literature. …

2. Dissatisfaction with the Roman Canon and architectural functionalism

A second reason for the change from one Eucharistic Prayer to many was dissatisfaction, on the part of some liturgical scholars, with the Roman canon. I would like to argue that there is a connection between this dissatisfaction and 20th-century architectural functionalism.

The man who best illustrates this theory is Cipriano Vagaggini. In Vagaggini’s book on the Roman canon, prepared for Study Group 10 of the Consilium (the group responsible for implementing the Council’s reform), the basic argument in favor of change is that the Roman canon is marred by serious defects of structure and theology. Vagaggini summarizes his argument in these words: «The defects are undeniable and of no small importance. The present Roman canon sins in a number of ways against those requirements of good liturgical composition and sound liturgical sense that were emphasized by the Second Vatican Council.»

The structural defects show themselves in the disorderliness of the Canon, according to Vagaggini. It gives the impression of an agglomeration of features with no apparent unity, there is a lack of logical connection of ideas, and the various prayers of intercession are arranged in an unsatisfactory way. …

Not only is the Roman Canon marred by structural defects, according to Vagaggini, but there are a number of theological defects as well. The most grievous of these theological problems is the number and disorder of epicletic-type prayers in the canon and the lack of a theology of the part played by the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist.

Liturgical historian Josef Jungmann counters this critique of Vagaggini’s by pointing out that Vagaggini is a systematic theologian who wanted to impose a certain preconceived theological structure on the Eucharistic Prayer. Since Vagaggini had a particularly keen interest in the pneumatological dimension of the liturgy, his new Eucharistic Prayers (III and IV) give a decided emphasis to the Holy Spirit.

Jungmann refers to Vagaggini’s famous book, Il senso teologico della liturgia to reinforce his argument. What we have here, says Jungmann, is the personal theology of the author, not the universal theology of the Church. …

Verken Jungmann eller Bouyer (jeg har nettopp lest dem begge) er enige i at det er noen strukturelle eller innholdsmessige problemer med første eukaristiske bønn – tvert imot, Bouyer har ikke annet enn godt å si om den. Og P. Folsom er nok en forsiktig mann, for det eneste han foreslår at man skal gjøre med denne situasjonen, er som prester å bruke første eukaristiske bønn oftere.

Jeg leste i dag ferdig Boyers bok EUCHARIST, der han tydelig skriver hvordan eukaristien best bør forstås; som en ihukommelse og takksigelse for Mirabilia Dei, Guds store frelseshandlinger. Det blir feil (skriver han) å fokusere på takken for den hellige kommunion (den kommer mer som et resultat av vår takksigelse for Guds store gjerninger og Kristi tilstedeværelse) og heller ikke på fellesskapsmåltidet (som også er et resultat av det samme). Helt på slutten av boka skriver han mye godt om den (nye, han skrev boka i 1968) tredje eukaristiske bønn (som er bygget på den galliske/spanske tradisjonen, men den andre eukaristiske bønn har han lite godt å si om; den er bygget på Hippolyts bønn, som (sier han) helt sikkert ikke har noe med den gamle romerske liturgien å gjøre. Forhåpentligvis vil jeg kunne klare å samle meg til å skrive litt mer om denne boka.

Jeg leste også i dag et intervju med Dr. Keith Lemna: Rev. Louis Bouyer: A Theological Giant – Dr. Lemna har studert Boyers bøker svært grundig, og i intervjuet sier han bl.a.:

Who was Fr. Louis Bouyer?

Dr. Lemna: Louis Bouyer was a priest of the Oratory, a convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism, which he had served as a minister, an eminent liturgiologist and historian of spirituality, an influential scholar of Newman (whose studies of Newman helped to pave the way for Newman’s eventual beatification), and, perhaps most importantly of all, one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the twentieth century.

What were some of Fr. Bouyer’s significant contributions in the realm of Catholic theology?

Dr. Lemna: Fr. Bouyer is known most of all as a scholar of liturgy and spirituality, and it is in these areas that his work has exercised its most overt impact on the course of Catholic theology as a whole. In the area of liturgy, Bouyer, himself drawing on the work of Dom Odo Casel, is the figure who is most responsible for the emphasis that has been placed in recent decades on the theme of the «Paschal Mystery» as central for understanding the mystery of the faith, and he, as much or more than anyone, oriented sacramental theologians to a focus on the liturgical event as the basis for theological reflection on the nature and meaning of the sacraments.

What were some of his key works?

Dr. Lemna: … Similarly important is his book on the Eucharist, Eucharistie, one of three seminal studies of Christian liturgy done in the twentieth century (along with Josef A. Jungmann’s The Mass of the Roman Rite, and Dom Gregory Dix’s The Shape of the Liturgy). In this book, Bouyer explores the theology and historical development of the Church’s Eucharistic prayer. He argues for the importance of developing a theology of the Eucharist based on attention to the act of the liturgy, rather than a theology about the Eucharist that takes its starting point in abstract metaphysical concepts that are then applied to the reality of the Eucharist. He shows the roots of the Christian Eucharist in Jewish Temple and synagogue practices, going beyond Casel’s thesis that the Church had borrowed its liturgical forms from the Greco-Roman mystery cults.

What influence did his work have on the Second Vatican Council?

Dr. Lemna: It is difficult to assess the precise influence that Bouyer’s work had on the council. By the time that the council had convened, many of Bouyer’s ideas had become common currency among some of the theologians who were present at the council, even if they were not influenced by Bouyer. Bouyer was a theological expert relied upon by the Church in the period surrounding the council, and he was greatly trusted by Paul VI, who appointed him to the first International Theological Commission after the council and who had wanted to name him a cardinal. Bouyer refused the offer, arguing that it would cause too much trouble for the Holy See. He had been engaged in fierce polemics with the later generation of liturgists in France, and his reputation had suffered as a result. …

What are some aspects of Fr. Bouyer’s work that are deserving of more study and consideration?

Dr. Lemna: … I think that the biggest obstacle to furthering his thought is that Bouyer wrote in a very polemical style at times, in a way that was off-putting to both «traditionalist» and «progressivist» camps in theology. But the old battles that fueled those polemics are largely a thing of the past by now, and most of the participants in those battles are dead. Bouyer could be equally sharp toward neo-Thomists, Rahnerians, and toward theologians influenced to a great extent by liberal Protestantism. …. Despite his penchant for polemics, his overall vision of the unity of Catholic doctrine, of the connection between theology and Christian life, and his unrivalled sense of the central importance of sacred liturgy for theology and for the existence of the Church stands out over and beyond all of the heated disputes. Cardinal Lustiger had said that Bouyer was perceived as «untimely» and «unwelcome» to the «very generations» to whom he was «providentially sent.» But perhaps in our time we can begin to see more clearly precisely how lucid and comprehensive—and, one might even say, «forward-looking»—was Bouyer’s vision of Catholic theology. …