A Realistic look back

From Zenit, a little perspective from our holy Fatheron the place of the Vatican II council in the post-modern world.

Pope Surveys Post-Vatican II Trials

Aide Says He Gives Vision of Realism and Humility

VATICAN CITY, JULY 29, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says he had great enthusiasm during the Second Vatican Council, but acknowledges the difficulties the Church has faced since those years.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi recounted the Pope's words during the most recent edition of the Vatican Television program "Octava Dies." The Vatican spokesman was commenting on the Holy Father's question-and-answer session last Tuesday with priests from two dioceses of northern Italy.

Father Lombardi recalled that the Bishop of Rome answered a priest who spoke of living through the Second Vatican Council, the hopes of "changing the world," and the difficulties of the succeeding years.

The Pontiff replied: "I also lived the time of the Council with great enthusiasm; it seemed that the Church and the world had met again. We had hoped a great deal -- but things showed themselves to be more difficult."

Father Lombardi affirmed that the question-and-answer session had a "relaxed climate of reciprocal confidence among those who have dedicated their lives to so many years of pastoral service in a difficult world that is in constant change."

In this context, "the Pope delineates with a few very effective sketches the Church's path of the last decades, profoundly interpreting it in the context of the contemporary world," the Vatican official added.

Real hope

Father Lombardi said Benedict XVI recalled "above all the cultural crisis of the West that exploded in '68, with the fascination for Marxism and the illusion of creating a new world, and the crumbling of the communist regimes in '89: the fall of the ideologies that did not give room to faith but rather to skepticism.

"The Christian proclamation has to come to terms with this context," the Vatican spokesman added. "And the Church faces it with realism and humility without ceding to the triumphalism of those who think that they have found the way to the new world.

"At the bottom of this is the humility of the Crucified, which will always be contrasted by the great powers of the world, but which generates a real hope that is manifested in the creative vitality of the Church: in her communities and her movements, in the new responsibility of the laity, in ecumenical relations, in liturgical and spiritual experiences.

"The Pope of great theological ideas and great cultural wealth is also the one who helps us to live the simultaneously humble and rich condition of the hope of the Church on its way, as he says: 'With our feet on the ground and our eyes turned toward heaven.'"

One Thing Needful, and Two Slight Correctives

Coincidences abound.

I've been starting the last few days to prepare for a class I'm taking this Fall, Theology of the Sacraments. I've been personally involved in liturgical matters for many years, as student, presider, lector, extraordinary minister. However, as I begin some reading, I've started to have a new appreciation for the source and summit of our faith.

Then along comes yesterday's gospel reading... Martha, Mary and the one thing needful. How perfect!

Lk 10,38-42.

"As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary (who) sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me." The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

This gospel reading puts the focus of our worship and our lives where it really belongs... on being with Christ. We need to hear this again and again.

I was taught early on at (Lutheran) seminary that liturgy meant "the work of the people." Liturgical reform was seen by some as if lay folk were storming the Bastille of clergy dominated rites and re-taking their rightful place as the focal point of the Church's public worship.

Liturgy... of the people, by the people, for the people.

For Christians in general and for Catholics in particular that word "liturgy" by the mid 20th century had come to mean the cultic acts of public worship, the pious exercises God's people engage in communally in worship and praise of God.

Pope Pius XII sensed the need to point the Church toward a deeper understanding of liturgy with his encyclical Mediator Dei. There he said that essential liturgy was not just our actions. It is the extension of Christ's saving presence as High Priest into our world. An important message. However, that early 1950's reminder was soon overtaken and swamped by the current events of the Second Vatican Council.

Turn the altars around!
Anoint the lay folk to take over roles previously reserved to clergy!
Make the language spoken intelligible and every-day so the people can "relate!"

Rightfully, the Vatican II Council pointed once again to active, full and conscious participation in the liturgy as one goal among others. Indeed, many of these changes rendered valuable service to a Church in sore need of reform.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we need to turn back the clock. However, I also don't think the Reform can progress much further going forward without a much-needed Reform of the Reform.

The zeal for immedate reform in the wake of Vatican II seems to have obscured the importance of Pius XII's statement. Two other important elements of worship only now, a generation later, can be rediscovered, unpacked and fully appreciated.

Looking again at Pius XII's statement and the ancient sources it seems to me that the word "liturgy" really has two additional and slightly different foci. The word leiturgeia was used most commonly in the ancient world to reflect the work done on behalf of another.... public service, if you will, whether that be civic, political or religious duties. The focus of liturgy rightly belongs on Christ's priestly work and on others, not on us.

One of the "others" we focus on is God Himself. As Pius XII said, true worship is Christ-o-centric. It comes from Christ and remains centered on his salvific work as our great High Priest. The priesthood and accompaning sacramental ministries all turn back toward this one point, the source of all grace and all life who is that greatest of all High Priests. He mounted the altar of the Cross and gave himself for us. This is where we need to aim our worship, and not at the lower (but admirable)goals of "relevance" and "intelligibility."

A counter-balancing facet keeps this turning upward from becoming some sort of inward-turning introspective, convoluted maze, unrelated to the world at large. The "for other-ness" of liturgy also means that the entire assembly is called to worship and serve the living God in order to help bring life to the world.

We're not here in Mass to make ourselves feel good, or be affirmed or even to be "strengthened for service," All of those results may be helpful by-products of our liturgical involvement. We are really there on behalf of another or really LOTS of others... to help make the salvation which Jesus Christ won for us more real in its salvific effects in the world.

We really need both elements of "for-otherness" to make liturgy work right.

The high-priestly work of Christ made present in and for the world. What could be better? What could be more needful?