Liturgi

Jeg må reservere meg – 2

Liturgi, TLM /

Jeg skrev også for bare noen timer siden et innlegg kalt: «Bør liturgireformen reformeres – eller gis opp?» Det innlegget var i stor grad høyttenkning fra min side; jeg har ikke konkludert på dette punktet, og det er heller ikke slik at jeg uttrykker at det bare er én løsning på liturgiproblemene – det er tvert imot slik at det bør være mange tilnærmingsmåter og strategier for å fremme en bedre liturgi i Kirken.

Men det tidligere innlegget uttrykker synspunkter, og viser til en begynnende bevegelse/ forandring blant prester og teologer som i flere år har arbeidet med liturgispørsmål, og som inntil nå bare har snakket om en «reform at liturgireformen», der man tar utgangspunkt i messen fra 1969 og forsøker å forbedre den, mest ved at man velger alternativer innenfor denne messen som gjør den mest mulig verdig.

Innlegget uttrykker at man nå (og jeg merker det selv, etter å ha feiret den gamle messen regelmessig i snart fire år) like gjerne kan ta utgangspunkt i messen fra 1962 (og hele den tradisjonelle liturgien, til alle sakramenter osv.) når man vurderer hvordan messen og de andre sakramentene best kan feires. Samtidig vet vi at mange/ de fleste ikke klar for en slik måte å tenke på ennå, og det ligger ingen ønske om å tvinge noen til å tenke som oss. (Men det hadde vært fint om det kraftige presset mot å bruke Kirkens gamle ritualer – som det jo nå er fullt tillatt å bruke – snart kunne opphøre.)

Bør liturgireformen reformeres – eller gis opp?

Liturgi, TLM /

På NLM-bloggen er det et svært interessant innlegg om den såkalte «reform of the reform» bevegelsen. En person – som bare kaller seg ‘a sinner’, får i kommentarene Fr. Thomas Kocik til å forandre mening, og egentlig gå med på at reformbegrepet (fra 1996) kanskje ikke er så fruktbart å bruke lenger. ‘A sinner’ oppsummerer debatten slik:

I think «reform of the reform» became «dressing up Novus Ordos» by default because, well, there wasn’t much else people could actually DO (while remaining obedient). Trads, of course, weren’t as concerned about obedience in some cases, but while the whole «indult» system remained in place, I think that version of RofR emerged as sort of «the best we could hope for.» Summorum Pontificum changed all this though, and in some ways makes the RotR idea obsolete, as there is no longer any need to «start with the Novus Ordo».

Jomfru Marias smerter – dagen etter Korsets opphøyelse

Liturgi /

Dagen etter festen for Korsets opphøyelse passer det å minnes jomfru Marias smerter da hun stod ved korset. I den tradisjonelle kalenderen kalles dagen: Septem Dolorum Beatae Mariae Virginis – II. classis- Det er alså en ganske stor festdag, mens det i den nye kalenderen er en (mindre) minnesdag. Til Matutin i dag leser vi i den gamle kalenderens lesning 4, 5 og 6:

From the Sermons of St Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux. «On the twelve stars.»

4
The Martyrdom of the Virgin is set before us, not only in the prophecy of Simeon, but also in the story itself of the Lord’s Passion. The holy old man said of the Child Jesus, Luke ii. 34, Behold, this Child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; yea, said he unto Mary, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also Even so, O Blessed Mother! The sword did indeed pierce through thy soul! for nought could pierce the Body of thy Son, nor pierce thy soul likewise. Yea, and when this Jesus of thine had given up the ghost, and the bloody spear could torture Him no more, thy soul winced as it pierced His dead Side His Own Soul might leave Him, but thine could not.

5
The sword of sorrow pierced through thy soul, so that we may truly call thee more than martyr, in whom the love, that made thee suffer along with thy Son, wrung thy heart more bitterly than any pang of bodily pain could do. Did not that word of His indeed pierce through thy soul, sharper than any two-edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, Heb. iv. 12, Woman, behold thy son! John xix. 26. O what a change to thee! Thou art given John for Jesus, the servant for his Lord, the disciple for his Master, the son of Zebedee for the Son of God, a mere man for Very God. O how keenly must the hearing of those words have pierced through thy most loving soul, when even our hearts, stony, iron, as they are, are wrung at the memory thereof only!

6
Marvel not, my brethren, that Mary should be called a Martyr in spirit. He indeed may marvel who remembereth not what Paul saith, naming the greater sins of the Gentiles, that they were without natural affection, Rom. i. 31. Far other were the bowels of Mary, and far other may those of her servants be! But some man perchance will say Did she not know that He was to die? Yea, without doubt, she knew it. Did she not hope that He was soon to rise again? Yea, she most faithfully hoped it. And did she still mourn because He was crucified? Yea, bitterly. But who art thou, my brother, or whence hast thou such wisdom, to marvel less that the Son of Mary suffered than that Mary suffered with Him? He could die in the Body, and could not she die with Him in her heart? His was the deed of that Love, greater than which hath no man, John xv. 13; her’s, of a love, like to which hath no man, save He.

En diakon forteller hvordan den tradisjonelle messen har forandret ham

Liturgi, TLM /

En katolsk permanent diakon i minnesota, USA forteller hvordan det har forandret ham en hel del å delta i den tradisjonelle latinske messen – prester (og ministranter) kan fortelle lignende ting:

… “I never thought that I would be working in liturgy, especially the Traditional Latin Mass,” Deacon Peters said. When he was in formation, he was doing social work and thought his ministry might involve that. He says he didn’t even know what the old rite was.

He said the whole thing began with the Duluth Men’s Schola. (Full disclosure: This writer is the founder and director of the schola, which will be singing Sept. 14.) Then Father Eric Hastings, who will celebrate the Sept. 14 Mass, began to offer the simplest version of the Traditional Latin Mass, a “low Mass,” and there were no servers, so Deacon Peters learned how to serve.

From there, things began to develop slowly. The next step was doing the more complicated sung version of the Traditional Latin Mass, a “missa cantata,” culminating in a heavily attended missa cantata last year featuring a polyphony choir. (This year the choir will be singing William Byrd’s “Mass for Four Voices.”)

From there, the next step was a solemn high Mass, which is vastly more complex — and a vastly more demanding liturgy for a deacon. Deacon Peters said all along it was something meant to be guided by the Holy Spirit and carried out peacefully.

“There are no agendas, there were no expectations, it was just people who loved liturgy and wanted to be faithful to what the Holy Father was asking of us,” he said. …

Deacon Peters freely admits that his work with the traditional liturgy has changed him as a deacon. “I’m a different deacon than I was before,” he said. He said he is more prayerful and reverent in how he approaches the sacrifice of the Mass, in whichever form it’s celebrated, a sentiment he has also heard from altar servers. …

(Tips fra Father Z.)

Folket både bør og skal synge messens ordinarium

Liturgi /

Jeg leser vider i doktoravhandlingen fra USA om katolsk kirkemusikk – som jeg skrev om her. Forfatteren forklarer hvorfor pave Piux’s motu proprio om kirkemusikk ikke ble lyttet til (i USA). Bl.a. brydde prestene seg ikke om musikk, og visste ingen ting om (kirke)musikk. Og mange steder brukte man bare amatørmusikere, som ofte bare kunne klare det vanligste og mest banale. Med også i de større menighetene i byene, med dyktige musikere, brydde man seg ikke om pavens ønsker; der øvde man bare inn flotte konsertmesser (slik at folk ikke fikk synge ordinarieleddene (som de burde)), mens proprieleddene (som koret skulle ha sunget) ble ignorert (fra s 241-43):

The glaring anomaly was that musicians – generally the ones with the most training – simply allowed choirs continually to usurp the role of the people, outlined by Pius X himself, in singing the Ordinary. Without doubt this non-compliance on the part of parish musicians was a key to the non-reception of TLS. It was the practice of the time, both in Europe and the US (albeit one often condemned), to publish programs of Mass music in the various newspapers and journals, and one can readily see in these the continued focus of choirs on providing polyphonic versions of the mass ordinaries, to the exclusion of Gregorian settings (not to say the congregation), and little attention to Gregorian propers. Pius X is said to have commented dryly on seeing just such a printed program:

«At that moment the Holy Father stood up and fingered through a pile of papers on his desk,
until he found a newspaper clipping which he pulled out and showed to me, with the remark that it was from Canada. It was a list of musical works performed in different churches of Montreal on Easter. There were pieces for orchestra, Masses in all the keys, with solos and duets composed with the virtuosity of the theatre carried over into the church. Pointing with each finger to these programs, Pius X said with an ironic smile: ‘Do they do this kind of music in Paris, too?’ All I could say was, ‘Alas, Holy Father, alas!’” (In Ehmann, “Church Music,” p. 210)

Even at conventions for “liturgical music,” the music chosen for demonstration is remarkable for its lack of attention to congregational singing. In Orate Fratres a priest warns that “Variety in music at Mass must come from the singing of the proper by the trained liturgical choir; and the choir must not be allowed to usurp the parts of the ordinary which belong to the people,” . . . [T]hese parts belong to the people ordinarily, and . . . there is no hope for better participation at Mass until they are given back to them.” and as late as 1945 Rev. H.A. Reinhold is still pleading in the pages of The Catholic Choirmaster “to give the people a part in what rightfully belongs to them – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and all the Responses.

Sadly, the practice of choirs usurping the Ordinary is abetted both by clergy and publishers. And in a further twisting of TLS, “so often we find that, while the choir monopolizes the congregational parts, it neglects to sing its own parts”: the Propers, especially the Gregorian originals, were ignored. In his landmark 1933 letter in America, “Shall the People Sing at Mass?,” Fr. John LaFarge remarks:

«As for our more exquisite gatherings, if one quarter of the energy that the choirs put into preparing elaborate musical settings for the Common of the Mass (which the people themselves are supposed to sing) were expended on learning the figured setting of the Proper, we should have perfect achievement.»

Men kanskje messens proprium oftest bør synges på morsmålet?

Liturgi /

I våre tradisjonelle latinske søndagsmesser i Oslo synges alltid messens proprium på latin med de foreskrevne gregorianske melodier, og slik bør det være – selv om det også om nødvendig er tillatt å synge disse tekstene på latin til enklere melodier. Men i andre messer, mer vanlige menighetsmesser, mener flere at dette vil være mindre passende.

Jeffrey Tucker og László Dobszay (i artikkelen jeg nevnte tidligere i dag) mener (faktisk) også det; slik skriver Tucker:

However, he (Dobszay) was also nearly alone, for many years, in being an advocate of sung vernacular propers in the ordinary form.

For years, I couldn’t understand his thinking here. Why vernacular? Well, Dobszay saw that there was a step missing in the achievement of the ideal if we expect to take a leap from the prevailing practice of pop songs with random text to Latin chant from the Graduale Romanum. That step was to sing the Mass texts in the vernacular according to a chant-based idiom drawn from our long musical tradition.

He turns out to be incredibly correct on this point. In fact, he was the true inspiration behind the Simple English Propers, book that has permitted regular parishes to start singing chant for the first time. This book and so many others are part of his legacy that he left in this world. In fact, I would even suggest that the new translation of the Roman Missal that is implemented this Advent owes much to his influence.

Just this week, I had a conversation with a dedicated Church musician who had converted to the chant cause and implemented sung propers in Latin in her parish. This approach was making gains in Mass after Mass for two solid years. Then one day the pastor came to her and said: “I’m not really sure that the introit you are singing really serves its purpose. I think the people are afraid of the Latin, regard the schola as somewhat separate from everything else, and I fear that this approach is alienating people.”

She was stunned and of course bristled. But what the pastor says goes, as we all know. Tragically, progress stopped. Now the parish is back to singing English hymns that are not part of the Mass proper. They are just hymn selections chosen the same week from a check list of possible pieces to sing. The choir was no longer singing the liturgy; it was singing something else.

So what went wrong? … it is crucial to consider that the pastor’s objection was not to Mass propers but rather to Latin. …

I kommentarene til dette innlegget finner jeg også to spesielt interessante synspunkter:

… Does it have to be plainchant? Why not set the propers to the more standard Psalm fare available? Something like Psallite but with a closer adherence to the text. For some of us even plainchant is a big step for a parish to accept. If the primary goal is to use the propers, maybe a baby step is first needed. Then down the road, when the parish hears propers set to plainchant, the transition will be easier. …

… I had a priest friend who was a peritus at the Council. HIs understanding of the liturgical reforms was that the Ordinary was to remain in Latin with the people to learn to sing, in Latin, the parts proper to them but eventually the orations and propers would be in the vernacular. Too bad that didn’t happen that way. We would have been spared a lot of pain …

Messens proprium må alltid brukes – og synges

Liturgi /

Jeffrey A. Tucker skriver mer på nettstedet The Chant Café om noe han har arbeidet med lenge, og som jeg har begynt å tenke mer på de siste månedene; om hva som virkelig hører med i messen:

The more I understand about the topic of Catholic music, the more it seems that music and liturgy they are really inseparable. The mark of a truly mature musician in the Catholic Church is the understanding that it isn’t really about the music after all but rather the integral contribution that music makes to the overall ritual.

A goal of the liturgy reform at Vatican II was to achieve this more fully; the effect has been the opposite: to completely shatter the relationship between the loft and the sanctuary. The main objective today is draw them together again. This is more important than any other personal taste in music or parish political agenda. …

… Here (in László Dobszay) was a severe critic of the structure and rubrics of what is known as the ordinary form today who was by no means an uncritical champion of the older form of Mass. Neither politics nor nostalgia interested Dobszay. He was passionate about the truth above all else. And the two truths that this book drove home were 1) the Roman Rite is intended to be a sung liturgy, and 2) the propers of the Mass are the source text for what is to be sung by the choir.

A reform that he championed was once considered outrageous: he wanted the permission to replace Mass propers with some other text to be completely repealed. The propers must never, under any conditions, be neglected. I’ve come around to this view. So have many, many others. In fact, it is a rather common view now, and one that even finds growing support in each successive translation of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal. …

Syng messens proprium på enkle melodier

Liturgi /

Alle katolske messer har egne inngangsvers, (offertorievers) og kommunionsvers som skal/kan synges (helst) eller sies. Men dette skjer sjelden i vår tid, siden disse i praksis blir erstattet av hymner. I våre søndags-TLMer i Oslo synges alltid alt dette fra Graduale Romanum, men det er ganske krevende for katoren/koret. Men det fins også enklere måter å gjøre dette på; man kan synge den latinske teksten på en enkel salmetone (jeg forstår at dette ble gjort ganske ofte i Norge før 1965) eller på recto tono. I vår tid kan man også synge disse versene på morsmålet, og i forbindelse med den nye engelske oversttelsen av messen, er det gjort mye arbeid med å tonsette disse engelske tekstene på tradisjonelle melodier. Og om dette leste jeg i dag (på the Chant Café):

I wanted to relate to you my experience this morning, directing a small schola of young people singing the Simple English Propers at Mass.

The schola consisted of a treble boy (age 12) and four female trebles (ages 16, 16, 17, and 21). The pastor of the parish recently suggested to me that we do something more for our daily Masses when they are feasts or solemnities. My mind immediately went to the Simple English Propers. Today we gathered at 7:15, rehearsed the propers, a psalm by Aristotle Esguerra, and an Alleluia by Fr. Samuel Weber. With five singers whose experience with plainsong is very limited, we prepared them to a satisfactory level in 25 minutes, and sang Mass at 8AM. It was quite lovely and a welcome switch from four hymns. We closed the Mass singing “Immaculate Mary”.

For those who are looking for a way to get started singing the propers, I can’t recommend SEP enough. I fully expect this little ensemble to improve in their ability to read and sing plainsong, and to be able to sing the propers from the Graduale Romanum for Solemnities, while singing the SEP (Simple English Propers) for Feast Days.

Ressursen Simple English Propers kan man finne HER, og under har jeg tatt med eksempler (fra 23. søndag i kirkeåret):

Inngangsvers

Offertorium

Kommunionsvers

Jomfru Marias fødselsdag – Hl. Augustins preken

Liturgi, TLM /

I de gamle tidebønnene tar man i dag med en preken av den hellige Augustin – i 4., 5. og 6. lesning til Matutin (fra http://divinumofficium.com):

From the Sermons of St Augustin, Bishop of Hippo. 18 th on the Saints.

Dearly beloved brethren, the day for which we have longed, the Feast-day of the Blessed and Worshipful and Alway- Virgin Mary, that day is come. Let our land laugh and sing with merriment, bathed in the glory of this great Virgin’s rising. She is the flower of the fields on which the priceless lily of the valleys hath blossomed. This is she whose delivery changed the nature that we draw from our first parents, and cleansed away their offence. At her that dolorous sentence which was pronounced over Eve ended its course to her it was never said «In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.» Gen. iii. 16. She brought forth a Child, even the Lord, but she brought Him forth, not in sorrow, but in joy.

Eve wept, but Mary laughed. Eve’s womb was big with tears, but Mary’s womb was big with gladness. Eve gave birth to a sinner, but Mary gave birth to the sinless One. The mother of our race brought punishment into the world, but the Mother of our Lord brought salvation into the world. Eve was the foundress of sin, but Mary was the foundress of righteousness. Eve welcomed death, but Mary helped in life. Eve smote, but Mary healed. For Eve’s disobedience, Mary offered obedience and for Eve’s unbelief, Mary offered faith.

Let Mary now make a loud noise upon the organ, and between its quick notes let the rattling of the Mother’s timbrel be heard. Let the gladsome choirs sing with her, and their sweet hymns mingle with the changing music. Hearken to what a song her timbrel will make accompaniment. She saith » My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the lowliness of His hand-maiden, for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed for He That is Mighty hath done to me great things.» The new miracle of Mary’s delivery hath effaced the curse of the frail backslider, and the singing of Mary hath silenced the wailing of Eve.

Å synge messen – ikke å synge i messen

Katolsk, Liturgi /

Jeg fikk i midten av august kjenneskap til en oppgave (phd) om katolsk kirkemusikk, som jeg så langt bare har lest noe av – 200 av over 600 sider, pga. ferie o.a. Den heter «THE MUSICAL PRELUDE TO VATICAN II: PLAINCHANT, PARTICIPATION, AND PIUS X», er skrevet av Walter William Whitehouse, og kan leses her.

Oppgaven er svært grundig og går tiår for tiår gjennom utviklinga på 1800 (det var stadig vanskelig, ja umulig, å få orden på kirkemusikken, selv etter mange problemer og biskopelige bestemmelser), og når oppgaven kommer fram til pave Pis X, leser vi på s169-70:

Pastoral Concern for the Faith of the People

All of the above forces, or “impulses,” were not novel in the twentieth-century Church or new with Pius X, nor certainly was concern for an ardent faith in Catholic believers. What is new with Pius is the pronounced locus of the source of “the true Christian spirit” as within the liturgy itself: more specifically, a direct attribution of Christian spirit to “active participation in the sacred mysteries” as the “first and indispensable source.”

Moreover, this actuosa participatio is realized by virtue of singing, which is the proper role, the historic and recovered role, of the laity during solemn Mass. Thus, the means of active participation is singing, and in Pius’ famous (if apocryphal) phrase, not singing at the Mass, but singing the Mass. This is categorically a major shift, a decisive return to early-Church practices over centuries of musical and liturgical passivity among the Catholic laity.

And further, the means by which the faithful were to participate in the singing of the liturgy was none other than Gregorian Chant: that music which was in unison, did not need accompaniment, was (so it was claimed) easy to learn, and which rendered the texts intelligibly. The role of the people was to sing the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei), and it was these texts which Pius wished all to know and understand; by them they participated in the action of the Mass itself. A lively Christian spirit demanded participation; active participation was accomplished through singing; intelligible and liturgical participation required singing the texts of the Mass; and the accomplishment of all of the above pointed forcefully to the use of Gregorian chant. …

Kardinal Bartolucci hilser pave Benedikt – om kirkemusikk, og den gamle messen

Katolsk, Liturgi /

Jeg leste dette for en ukes tid siden, men poster det ikke før i dag – etter å ha sett kardinalens hilsen på video (nederst). Kardinal Bartolucci falt i unåde (liturgisk sett) på 60-tallet, men føler nå at pave Benedikt er i full gang med å rette oppde gamle feilene. Han sa bl.a. følgend ei sin hilsen:

… In the year after that (I was made) vicemaestro, with Perosi, of the Sistine Chapel Choir. Upon the death of the Maestro, I was named, in ’56, by Pope Pacelli, Pius XII, perpetual director Maestro. Then, the times unfortunately changed. But today, a true a proper reawakening by so many young people, who wish to relive the beauty of the Latin Mass and the greater spiritual fruit derived from it, can be noticed with great satisfaction; this is great, a very great comfort. And it makes us hope for a liturgical future certainly desired by Your Holiness. We thank the Lord, that he may help all those who are working for seriousness in sacred music. I firmly trust that, we the help of God, a true return to the bimillenary tradition of sacred music will take place. …

Hele teksten kan leses hos Rorate Cæli, og i videoen under kan man få engelsk teksting ved å trykke på CC-knappen nederst.

En mindre kameratslig tone i messen

Katolsk, Liturgi /

William Oddie skriver også om den nye engelske oversettelsen av messen; det gikk i praksis fint, skriver han, og så legger han mest vekt på betydningen av at man nå svarer presten «Og med din ånd.»:

Well, the new translation of the Mass is now up and running, and, at least in my parish, its launch seems to have passed off without any awkwardness at all. “And with your spirit” was confidently and (as far as I could see) unanimously declared, as though the congregation had been saying it for years … As in parishes all over the country, a series of sermons on the new translation, and on the Mass itself, also got successfully underway. I wonder how many priests said for the first time that the people’s response in that opening exchange between priest and congregation does not mean “and the same to you, Father”. “And also with you” can’t really mean much more: indeed, it was the perfect example of how the old translation, from the off, consistently reduced (ah, wondrous past tense) theological meaning in the movement from Latin to English.

For det aller meste er han godt fornøyd:

On the whole, I am thrilled by the new translation, which consistently uncovers new theological meaning in the text. That’s why this Sunday I felt I had to be present at a celebration using the new English Rite: this was, after all, an historic event for the Church in this country. In future, I shall probably revert to my practice of attending the Oxford Oratory’s 11am Latin High Mass on Sundays. But most other Masses there are in English: and when I go to Mass during the week, there or at the Oxford University Catholic chaplaincy, Mass will still be in the vernacular. Most of us who prefer Mass in Latin have long ago accepted that most Masses we attend will be in English: so it is wonderful that the new translation is so palpably closer to the Latin – not just in some scholarly sense we would only be aware of if we have made a close comparative study of the new and old translations with the Latin text, but noticeably for anyone, sometimes, dramatically so: it is splendid, for instance that now, instead of confessing “that I have sinned through my own fault” and striking my breast just the once, on Sunday I confessed (striking my breast thrice) “that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”: for, the suppression of that threefold repetition of the “mea culpa” (in response, perhaps, to some mistaken ecumenical sense that there is a protestant dislike of what they are pleased to call “vain repetition”) – that suppression always produced a consciousness, in anyone who went sometimes to the Mass in Latin, of a dreadful and palpable loss of the prayer’s devotional power. But no longer: never again. Alleluia.

Men til slutt skriver han at han gjerne skulle ha sett at man også hadde fått en ny oversettelsen av «Agnus Dei».

I have to say, however, that there was, for me, one disappointment (and though only one, a real and substantial one): that there has been no change in the exceptionally clumsy (and inaccurate) translation of the Agnus Dei. “Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world” isn’t just dreadful because it carries on from the old regime that terrible habit of writing prayers which seem to be informing God that he does this or that, or has this or that characteristic, ….

Barnedåp i eller utenfor messen?

Katolsk, Liturgi /

Av flere grunner har jeg i dag sett en del på hvordan barnedåp skal og kan gjennomføres i en messe, og tenkt på om det er nyttig og godt at man har dåpen i messen. Selv har jeg nesten bare hatt dåp i messen når jeg har feiret messe på avsidesliggende steder – som jeg har gjort en hel del, både da jeg var i Bergen, i Stavanger og (faktisk) også her i Oslo.

Jeg foretrekker å ha barnedåp som en egen seremoni, og oftest døpes bare ett barn om gangen – dette er også praksis de fleste steder i Norge, så langt jeg vet. Og det er også det mest tradisjonelle, for inntil 1970 var det så langt jeg vet ikke tillat å ha dåp i messen. Ved dåp at store barn og av voksne har jeg vanligvis en egen dåpsmesse, siden disse dydøpte også får sin første hellige kommunion samme dag.

I Norge brukes mest praktiske argumenter mot å ha dåp i søndagens høymesse (ved mindre messer er det en hel del lettere å ha dåp); som at kirken allerede er stappfull, at det skjer så mange andre ting i høymessen, at det er vanskelig å integrere dåp i en søndagsmesse på en god måte, at det kan bli veldig lang tid for dåpsbarnet (og for andre små barn) å være i kirken, slik at det derfor kan bli mye uro etc.

På Fr. Z’s blogg ble dette diskutert for et par år siden – SE HER – og kanskje leserne også har synspunkter på dette?

Ny og (mye) bedre engelsk oversettelse av messen nå i bruk

Katolsk, Liturgi /

For about two-thirds of my life, ever since the introduction of the old ICEL translation, I have argued and written that we should have an accurate translation of the Missal for Mass in English. This morning for the first time, I was able to celebrate Mass in English at which we used a decent translation of the Gloria, the Creed, and the Domine non sum dignus. Although I have joined others in looking forward to this development and defending it, nevertheless, I was rather moved to be able to use it fully for the first time. All my priestly life, I have had to celebrate English Mass with a dumbed-down, lame duck translation.

I England begynte man denne søndagen med (store deler av) den nye, korrigerte oversettelsen av messen til Engelsk (jeg irreterer meg selv grønn spesielt over syndsbekjennelsen, Gloria og første eukaristiske bønn i den gamle oversettelsen), og Fr. Finnigan skriver sitatet over, og en del mer om hvordan han opplevde første søndag med en god oversettelse.

«Messen bør alltid synges»

Liturgi /

Jeffrey Tucker fra the ChantCafe.com er tilbake som medarbeider på NLM-bloggen (the New Liturgical Movement), fordi, skriver han:

The more I understand about this entire topic, the more it seems that music and liturgy they are really inseparable; the mark of a truly mature musician in the Catholic Church is the understanding that it isn’t really about the music after all but rather the integral contribution that music makes to the overall ritual.

I sitt første innlegg på NLM-bloggen skriver han likevel mest om avdøde László Dobszay – for mange (i alle fall for meg) mest kjent for de komplette tidebønnene på nettstedet divinumofficium.com. Om Dobszay skriver han bl.a.:

… He was a visionary, a genius, a truly innovative and brilliant thinker who understood the Roman Rite like few other living people. He was a mentor to me through his writings and his drive. He was also a very dear man. … he was always incredibly encouraging, enthusiastic, gentle, helpful, and happy to see that so many people in his last years had taken up his cause.

He must have felt like a lone warrior for all those prior decades. A champion of Dobszay’s work has been Fr. Robert Skeris, who worked to bring Dobszay’s writing to an English audience. When I first read the Skeris-edited book The Bugnini Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform, I was absolutely stunned. It seemed to bring everything together for me. Here was a severe critic of the structure and rubrics of what is known as the ordinary form today who was by no means an uncritical champion of the older form of Mass. Neither politics nor nostalgia interested him.

He was passionate about the truth above all else. And the two truths that this book drove home were 1) the Roman Rite is intended to be a sung liturgy, and 2) the propers of the Mass are the source text for what is to be sung by the choir. A reform that he championed was once considered outrageous: he wanted the permission to replace Mass propers with some other text to be completely repealed. I’ve come around to this view. So have many, many others. In fact, it is a rather common view now, and one that even finds support in the new translation of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal.

Of course he was a master in understanding the Gregorian tradition, and a true champion of the universal language of the Roman ritual. However, he was also nearly alone, for many years, in being an advocate of sung vernacular propers in the ordinary form. For years, I couldn’t understand his thinking here. Why vernacular? Well, Dobszay saw that there was a step missing in the achievement of the ideal if we expect to take a leap from the prevailing practice of pop songs with random text to Latin chant from the Graduale Romanum. That step was to sing the Mass texts in the vernacular according to a chant-based idiom drawn from our long musical tradition.

He turns out to be incredibly correct on this point. In fact, he was the true inspiration behind the Simple English Propers book that has permitted regular parishes to start singing chant for the first time. …

Hvordan følge opp pave Benedikts synspunkter på liturgien?

Katolsk, Liturgi, TLM /

En dr. Peter Kwasniewski, professor i teologi og filosofi ved Wyoming Catholic College i Usa, skriver her begeistret om hvordan liturgien feires der han arbeider:

Pope Benedict XVI is leading the Church out of a forty-year captivity marked by a “hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity” into a new era in which Vatican II can be seen for what it truly is: one among many Councils, in continuity with them, and not opposed to all that had come before.

This is true in a special way of the Sacred Liturgy. Too often in recent decades the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been celebrated in a way that is quite different from, and even opposed to, the way it had been celebrated since time immemorial. The Pope is calling us back to a celebration in keeping with the dignity and mystery of the Eucharistic mystery. He is gently but firmly calling the Church back to continuity with her own Tradition. This is the deepest reason for his motu proprio liberating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite: he wishes to see the two uses or forms exercising a mutual influence, such that lost continuity can be regained over time. It is a long term strategy with many immediate practical consequences. The “reform of the reform” has indeed begun, and the question that each knowledgeable Catholic must ask himself is this: Am I with the Pope and the real Vatican II, or am I de facto against the Pope because I wish to perpetuate a supposed “spirit of Vatican II”?

All over the world, parishes, chapels, and religious communities are adding the Extraordinary Form to their roster of Masses. The Pope’s example is beginning to have effects on the way Mass in the Ordinary Form is celebrated outside of the Vatican, especially in cities and in cathedrals. Plainchant and polyphony, ornate vessels and vestments, the Latin language, incense, and other such once familiar features of liturgy are returning in a way that could never have been foreseen even ten years ago. The seminaries and religious orders that are swelling most rapidly are those that have heartily embraced the Pope’s reforms. …

Les resten av dette innlegget på NLM-bloggen.

Siste søndag med gammel engelsk oversettelse

Liturgi /

I England og Wales innføres den nye engelske oversettelsen av messen allerede 1. september (ellers er det 1. søndag i advent som er dagen). Fr. Ray Blake skriver derfor om gårsdagen:

Evening Mass is finished and it was the last Sunday Mass with old translations, somehow I think we should have had a wake, some act to mark its passing, like the medieval burial of the Alleluia. It isn’t saying farewell to friend, I’m glad we have fished with it.

We have been using the new translations at weekday Masses for little while now, just so Sunday next I am used to them and we have a few people trained to make the new responses, so during the week I am just going to put the loose page of the old Missal Propers out and the little paperback interim Missal.

Maybe I might put the old Missal out somewhere under a black pall. It marks the end of an era, …

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui abundántia pietátis tuæ

Liturgi, TLM /

Father Z. skriver før dagens søndagsmesse – 11. søndag etter pinse i den tradisjonelle kalenderen – at messen alltid handler om hva Kristus gjør for oss. Han skriver så en hel del om dagens kollektbønn:

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui abundántia pietátis tuæ et mérita súpplicum excédis et vota: effúnde super nos misericórdiam tuam; ut dimittas quæ consciéntia métuit, et adjícias quod orátio non præsúmit.

Norsk oversettelse (1961):

Allmektige evige Gud, du som i overfloden av din faderkjærlighet gir dem som ber, langt mer enn de fortjener og ønsker, la din miskunn strømme ut over oss, så du tar bort det som vår samvittighet frykter, og gir det som bønnen ikke våger å be om.

Father Z. bokstavtro oversettelse til engelsk:

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the abundance of Your goodness surpass both the merits and the rayerful vows of suppliants, pour forth Your mercy upon us, so that You set aside those things which our conscience fears, and apply what our prayer dares not.

Til slutt i innlegget skriver han om messen mer generelt:

… St. Augustine (+430) says that Jesus “prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore, let us acknowledge our voice in Him and His in us” (en Ps 85, 1).

Holy Mass is all about what Christ does for us.

Mass is a sacred action in which God is the principal actor. By our baptism we participate actively in His sacred action. Christ is the Head, we the Body. He takes our voices and makes them His own. Our actions become His. We must therefore never usurp the liturgy, change it around to suit our tastes. With Christ’s own authority Holy Church gives us the Mass. She alone provides the proper prayers and rubrics.

When we pray as Holy Church directs, bending our will to hers, our earthly voices ring authentically with the celestial, and ecclesial, voice of the Risen Christ.

Messens hovedstruktur – konklusjon

Liturgi, Teologi /

Jeg konkluderer min grundige presentasjon av dr. Haukes foredrag ved the Fota Liturgical Conference – som jeg aller først skrev om her – med hva han sier spesifikt om noe kardinal Ratzinger har skrevet om messens hovedstruktur:

In a short article of 1971, cited by Ratzinger, Jungmann also shows “that, linguistically speaking, Luther’s use of the word ‘Supper’ [Abendmahl] was a complete innovation. After 1 Corinthians 11:20 the designation of Eucharist as ‘meal’ does not occur again until the sixteenth century, apart from direct quotations of 1 Corinthians 11:20 and references to the satisfaction of hunger (in deliberate contrast to the Eucharist).”

The meaning of “Eucharist” also fits with the meaning of rational verbal sacrifice (oblatio rationabilis), which spiritualizes the category of sacrifice and is well suited “to interpret what is special in Jesus’ sacrifice. For what we have here is death transformed into a word of acceptance and self-surrender.” Ratzinger concludes: “This much should be clear at this stage: if the basic structure of the Mass is not the ‘meal’ but eucharistia, there remains a necessary and fruitful difference between the liturgical (structural) and the dogmatic level; but they are not estranged: each seeks and determines the other. … But the meal symbolism is subordinated to a larger whole and integrated into it.”

Messens hovedstruktur – Jungmann

Liturgi, Teologi /

Fra Dr. Haukes foredrag om messens hovedstruktur (som jeg har nevnt flere ganger, bl.a. her – hele foredraget kan leses her) tar jeg også med noe av det han siterer fra den kjente liturgen Josef Andreas Jungmann. Jungmann er veldig klar på at måltidet aldri var messens hovedpoeng, men heller takksigelsen, eukaristien, frembæringen av offer til Gud:

In 1949 Jungmann published an article dedicated entirely to the “basic structure (Grundgestalt) of the Eucharist. Other writings on this theme followed, especially in 1967, 1970 and 1971. Already in a contribution of 1943 he had shown that in the ancient Jewish banquet, on the occasion of the great feasts, a gesture of offering could be found when the father of the family elevated the chalice. The liturgy of Saint Basil, in the institution narrative, ascribes this gesture to the Last Supper itself, a reference which “very probably” corresponds to the historical reality. “The Lord takes the bread in his holy hands and holds it, showing it as he offers it towards the heavenly Father.” The sacrificial symbolism manifests itself therefore not only in the separation of the holy species, but also in the elevation of the gifts which can be observed already in the offertorium: there the offered gifts “receive that movement towards God … which is ultimately due to the transubstantiated gifts, the body and blood of the Lord.”

The “thanksgiving” is at the same time an “offering-up” which shows itself in the early Middle Ages in the elevation of the chalice before the consecration. Since the 12th century, the elevation is first of all an invitation to adore and to salute the Lord, but it must be taken into account that it originally contained a sacrificial symbolism. “It is also not enough to say that the sacrifice becomes present under the structure of the meal; for even in this case, the Mass would not be the visible sacrifice of which the Council of Trent … and the whole Tradition speaks.”

In his article on the “basic structure of the Mass,” Jungmann stresses “that in all liturgies, without exception, the basic structure of the celebration is formed as a thanksgiving to God, and indeed as a thanksgiving from which the offering springs: we give thanks to you and so we offer to you.” “Everything that expresses the giving, the movement of the gifts towards God” belongs to the exterior gestures which manifest this idea. … In this sense, the whole rite between the Liturgy of the Word and the Communion is clearly referred, also as structure (Gestalt), not merely to the togetherness of a common table, but to the movement towards God which begins in the preparatory part of the Mass and comes to rest in the Communion rite.” This “ritual expression is not the fruit of a late and secondary development, but was impressed already in the primitive Church in the institution of Jesus.”

The great historical study of Jungmann on the Roman Mass, Missarum solemnia, is also important for our topic. Here he presents the earliest names of the Holy Mass. “On the basis of the liturgical texts themselves, Jungmann shows that, even in the most ancient forms, the eucharistia – the prayer of anamnesis in the shape of a thanksgiving – is more prominent than the meal aspect. According to Jungmann, the basic structure, at least from the end of the first century, is not the meal but the eucharistia; even in Ignatius of Antioch this is the term given to the whole action.”

… After the reference to the biblical concepts of “breaking bread” and the “Lord’s banquet,” Jungmann mentions first of all the importance of the title “Eucharist” already in the early post-biblical sources. Immediately after it, however, he reports a whole series of concepts that revolve around the notion of “sacrifice.” We should also mention here the early testimonies of the Didache and of the First Letter of Clement (even if Jungmann himself does not report these sources in his overview). The Didache, a writing from ancient Syria, indicates the Eucharist as “sacrifice” (‘tusia’) and sees in it the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi about the pure offering which must be practiced at any place and at any time (Mal 1:11). Also extremely important is the reference of the First Letter of Clement, in which Pope Clement I in the year 96 addresses the Corinthians. He is dealing with the reinstitution of the presbyters-bishops who had been driven away from their ministry without any valid motive. Their ministry has an apostolic origin. The central task of the presbyters-bishops is the “offering of the gifts” (prosenegkóntas tà dôra).89 After the concept of sacrifice, Jungmann mentions still other names of the Mass, such as “the Holy,” “service (liturgy),” “assembly,” and “Mass.”

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