Jeremia 1,5: «Før jeg formet deg i mors liv, kjente jeg deg, og før du ble født, helliget jeg deg; til profet for folkene satte jeg deg.» En del vers fra Jeremia 1 brukes i dagens matutinlesning (i det gamle breviaret); Døperen Johannes sammenlignes direkte med profeten Jeremia – slik:

Ieremia 1
1 Verba Ieremiæ filii Helciæ, de sacerdotibus qui fuerunt in Anathoth, in terra Beniamin. 2 Quod factum est verbum Domini ad eum in diebus Iosiæ filii Amon, regis Iuda, in tertiodecimo anno regni eius. 3 Et factum est in diebus Ioakim filii Iosiæ, regis Iuda, usque ad consummationem undecimi anni Sedeciæ, filii Iosiæ, regis Iuda, usque ad transmigrationem Ierusalem, in mense quinto. 4 Et factum est verbum Domini ad me, dicens: 5 Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te, et antequam exires de vulva, sanctificavi te, et prophetam in Gentibus dedi te.

Ord av Jeremia, sønn av Hilkia, en av prestene i Anatot i Benjamin-landet. 2 Herrens ord kom til ham på den tid da Josjia, sønn av Amon, var konge i Juda, i det trettende året av hans regjering. 3 Det kom også til ham på den tid da Jojakim, sønn av Josjia, var konge i Juda, og helt til slutten av det ellevte året Sidkia, sønn av Josjia, styrte i Juda, det året da folket i Jerusalem ble bortført i den femte måneden.4 Herrens ord kom til meg, og det lød så: 5 «Før jeg formet deg i mors liv, kjente jeg deg, og før du ble født, helliget jeg deg; til profet for folkene satte jeg deg.»

Les også resten av tekstutdraget (på latin og norsk) fra profeten Jeremia: …

Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te, et antequam exires de vulva, sanctificavi te, et prophetam in Gentibus dedi teLes mer »

Jeg leste nettopp om en bok som nettopp er utgitt: Liturgical Reflections of a Papal Master of Ceremonies by the Rev. Msgr. Guido Marini, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies and Head of the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.

Slik beskrives innholdet i boka:

The topics of the essays include: Holy Communion received on the tongue by kneeling communicants; the Pallium; the Pastoral Staff; placement of the Crucifix at the center of the altar; chanting the gospel in Greek during major Papal liturgies; observance of Silence within the eucharistic liturgy; conservation and use of the Latin language in the Latin Rite; Beauty in liturgy; use of the pontifical Dalmatic and Cardinal Deacons. Each essay, five to seven pages in length, discloses the theological and historical rationale underlying present liturgical practice in the Papal Liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church; that is, the essays serve above all as apologiae for the distinct liturgical practices that have marked the papacy of Benedict XVI. …

Les gjerne den grundige og ganske positive anmeldelsen av boka selv, skrevet av en ganske «moderne» teolog, som bl.a. sier følgende om Msgr. Guido Marini:

The author’s basic theology of liturgical worship is presented in large brushstrokes in the Foreword of the book. Msgr. Marini is clearly committed to the theological vision of Pope Benedict XVI, particularly as manifest in the latter’s writings as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Above all, however, Msgr. Marini’s understanding of the liturgy as divinely-initiated revelatory event is clearly grounded in the logic of the Second Vatican Council and twentieth-century liturgical and sacramental theology; likewise, his sense of the eucharistic sacrifice is dependent on the Council, with its emphasis on the totality of the Paschal Mystery as including the resurrection. In short, his theological presuppositions are thoroughly contemporary.

Les hele anmeldelsen her.

I går holdt Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth et foredrag om liturgisk sang under en konferanse for Church Music Association of America kalt: «The Fundamental Importance of Liturgical Chant in the Roman Missal and Our Celebration of the Eucharistic Mystery», der han prøvde å definere hva slags sang og musikk som virkelig passer i messen.

(Musikk som passer i messen er bibelske tekster utvalgt til hver messe; inngangsvers, offertorievers etc., tradisjonelt på latin og til gregorianske melodier. Men ofte vil dette også fungere ganske godt på morsmålet med melodier lignende de gregorianske. En litt dårligere løsning er å synge tradisjonelle salmer (dvs. hymner) her, og det dårligste (og uakseptable) er å synge lette, moderne tekster på moderne (pop)melodier.) Slik leser vi om dette i foredraget:

… In our Catholic tradition, liturgical chant is first and foremost cantillation, a song which arises from the text, a song which is essentially a heightened proclamation of a verbal message and which takes its emphases from the natural accentuation of the text and finds its melodic rhythm from the cadence which is already within the words.

As it often sings of the glory of God, the wonder of creation, the richness of salvation in Christ, the mystery of the Church and our continual need of God’s mercy and grace, it is often an ecstatic song which has rather more in common with the song of lovers than it does with the song of colleagues; it should have the familiarity of the song of those who are clearly of the same family, or those who are united as fellow citizens of the same territory. It is likewise never a song of violence, protest or dissent and it is overwhelmingly a song which is more about God than it is about us.

So far, I have outlined what I believe to be the characteristics of the liturgical song of the Catholic Church. It is, I would hold, not merely a subjective formulation on my part, but an accurate description of the character and function of liturgical song as inherited by the Church from the People of Israel, in an unbroken tradition and set before the Church by the Magisterium in every age up to and including our own. The challenge I wish to make is to ask if this is how you and most members of the Latin Rite experience liturgical song, and if not, why not?

… I would suggest that at the present time, liturgical song, as I have described it, is only consistently experienced by a relatively small percentage of Latin Rite Catholics, even if it is also true that there are some individuals and communities who do experience it in this way on a regular or even continuous basis. …

I foredraget argumenteres det videre for at denne mangelen på liturgisk sang ikke var noe som startet etter konsilet (noen tradisjonalister tror kanskje det), men:

… I think it is fair to say that a pre-dominantly ‘Low Mass’ culture in which music is essentially an addition to the liturgy rather than intrinsic to it, was already a centuries-old tradition at the time of Vatican II. In this respect, the current enthusiasm for chant, and a growing competence in its performance, particularly in celebrations of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, is not so much the recovery of a recently lost tradition, but rather the realization of the authentic principles of the Liturgical Movement as canonized by Pope St Pius X in his motu proprio of 1903, Tra le sollecitudini, underlining the centrality of Gregorian Chant, guidelines which were largely unimplemented both at the time of the Council and in its wake.

Some sixty years later, the Pastoral Liturgical Movement, as it had become, had largely abandoned the principles which motivated Dom Guéranger and the renewal he initiated, in favor of influences which are more broadly ecumenical and introduce into the Roman Liturgy elements which are more commonly found outside the Catholic Church. Nowhere was this influence more keenly felt than in the realm of liturgical music, for the principle that a repertoire of liturgical chant which had been proper to the Mass, at least in its most solemn celebrations, was largely and almost universally set aside in preference for music which might be most accurately described as ‘non-liturgical’ in character, given its frequent lack of dependence on liturgical or biblical texts and its introduction into our liturgical celebrations of a voice which is in many ways alien to the spirit of the liturgy. …

Les hele foredraget her.

Det inviteres til en interessant liturgikonferanse i Phoenix, Arizona, 3.-4. oktober, som fokuserer en hel del på hva som skjedde med katolsk liturgi de avgjørende årene på 60-tallet. Les om konferansen her, og hele programmet kan leses her (pdf-format). Her er noen av høydepunktene:

3 October
LECTURES
The Historical Development of the Mass from its Origins to Sacrosanctum Concilium – Prof. Dr. H.-J. Feulner,
The Historical Development of the Mass from Sacrosanctum Concilium to the Present – Prof. D. Martis,
The Latin-English Missals of 1964/66 (US) – A. Bieringer,
The Liturgical Renewal and the Ordo Missae (1965) – Rev. Deacon Prof. Dr. H. Hoping

4 October
Minor Lectures
* Church Architec­ture: Understanding “Inter Oecumenici” in the Context of the Liturgical Movement [D. McNamara]
* The Development and Application of English Sacred Language Through the Post-Conciliar Interim Missals [Th. Book]
* Catholic Continuity – How to Make the Church Year a Living Reality [C.F. Phillips]
* The Propers of the Mass: Then and Now [M.D. Kirby, O.S.B., S.T.L., Ph.D.]
*The New Lectionary for Mass: The Church‘s Preparation of the Table of God‘s Word Since the Council [Michael K. Magee]

LECTURE
Liturgy – Continuity or Rupture? Possibilities for Further Liturgical Development and Its Pastoral Relevance – Bishop P. Elliott

Nå som den engelskspråklige verden skal få en ny oversettelse av messen, skriver de mye om liturgiske spørsmål. Her er en artikkel med ganske friske fraspark (som også angår oss i Norge som ikke skal få noen ny oversettelse – den norske er svært mye bedre enn den ensgelske som nå har vært brukt i 40 år):

Five Myths About Worship in the Early Church – by Michael P. Foley

As the forthcoming new translation of the Roman Missal debunks the myth that liturgical language must be so banal that even the muppets on Sesame Street can understand it, it’s a good time to examine five other untruths that have been wreaking havoc on the Church’s worship in recent decades.

1. Mass facing the people. After studying free-standing altars in early churches, liturgists in the 1930s concluded that priests once celebrated Mass “facing the people,” and that it was only under the influence of decadent medieval clericalism that they “turned their backs” to them. This myth was much in the drinking water at the time of Vatican II (1962-1965). Later, some scholars began to reexamine the evidence and found that it did not support their thesis at all, and that in fact there had been an unbroken tradition — both East and West — of priest and congregation celebrating the Eucharist in the same direction: eastward.

Pope Benedict XVI, who endorsed the most recent book refuting the versus populum error, has been trying to make the facts of the case better known. But in the past generation, millions of dollars have been spent destroying exquisite high altars and replacing them with altar-tables, all in conformity to “the practice of the early Church.” Would that this myth were busted earlier.

2. Communion in the hand and under both kinds. Myths about Holy Communion follow a similar pattern. Fifty years ago, the claim that “Communion in the hand” was the universal practice of the early Church was believed by everyone, even by those who didn’t wish to see the practice resuscitated. Now we’re not so sure. What we can say is that some early Christian communities practiced Communion in the hand, but Communion on the tongue may be just as ancient. And when Communion in the hand was practiced, the communicant received from a priest (and only a priest), most likely by putting It in his mouth without his other hand touching it. And in some places, a woman’s hand had to be covered with a white cloth!

We are more certain that the Roman Church once administered Holy Communion under both species (just as the Eastern churches have always done), but we don’t know exactly how. … In other words, Holy Communion was probably not administered in the fast-food manner we have today, with a “grab-and-go” system of multiple efficient lines that move from one station to the other, and the communicant touching the Host or Precious Cup with his own hands. Our current arrangement may have more in common with the Protestant than the patristic. Significantly, Benedict XVI, a careful student of the Church Fathers, no longer administers Communion in the hand. …