Writings and talks of a general interest
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THE PRAYER OF THE CHURCH Reflections on the Theology of the Divine Office The Constitution of Vatican II on the liturgy calls the Divine Office 'the
voice o£ the Church' or 'the voice of the Bride addressing the
Bridegroom', thus reiterating under yet another form the traditional
expression, 'the prayer of the Church'. In this brief article
we wish to reflect on this expression, 'the prayer of the Church',
in an attempt to define more accurately: its theological content.
What is it that makes the Divine Office fundamentally ecclesial
? This is what we hope to determine. The problem is, basically,
that of the ecclesial nature of the liturgy in general.
But in view of the sum total of the realities grouped together
under the concept of liturgy, and the great variety of differences
among them, there may be an advantage if we approach the problem
with the help of a concrete case, that of the Divine Office.
Hence, after having stated with precision the problem underlying
the present concept of liturgy in general, and after having rapidly
described various attempts made to define 'liturgy', we shall
deal more particularly with the Divine Office. In order to determine what makes it a 'prayer
of the Church', we shall examine the texts of Vatican II, and
most especially the dogmatic Constitution on the Church. 1. History of the use of the word 'liturgy' and attempts
at definition The profane technical meaning which the word has in classical Greek antiquity
has left no trace in biblical and Christian usage. But even as
early as the Hellenistic period, the word has evolved in the direction
of a technical cultic meaning. And although it cannot be said
that there is any dependence on this pagan cultic sense, the
Septuagint also used the word in a technical cultic sense, above
all for designating the levitical cult, but also under the spiritualizing
influence of prophetical preaching-warship of a more spiritual
sort : prayer, reading of the word of God, etc
[1]
. Following in the same direction, the New Testament designated
Christian worship in general- whether ritual or otherwise- by
the word 'liturgy.' Christian writers subsequently applied the
word to certain specific rites of Christian worship, such as the
Eucharist, baptism, psalmody, as well as to certain ecclesiastical
functions. This usage has remained until our own days that of
the Byzantine Church, but with this restriction, that it is practically
only the Eucharist that enjoys this appellation
[2]
. In the West, a new period in the history of the word
'liturgical' began towards the middle of the 16th century, when,
under the influence of the hellenizing humanists, the historians
who studied eucharistic texts and rites designated as liturgical those
formularies and those rites which they had taken as the subject-matter
of their historical investigations. These men were, among others,
G. Cassander
[3]
, J. Pamelius
[4]
Bona
[5]
. As for Mabillon, he seems to have been the first to make use of the noun
liturgy in the same
sense
[6]
. This usage prevailed, and in the following century, it was
applied not only to the Eucharist, but to all that was comprised
by the Church's worship in general. Just as Mabillon had spoken of
the Gallican liturgy, and D. Giorgi of the liturgy of the Roman
Pontiff
[7]
, people now spoke of 'Roman liturgy', 'oriental liturgies',
etc. In this new use of the word 'liturgy', from which present usage derives,
it was no longer, as in the East and in the ancient Church, the
reality itself of the worship and the cultic celebrations which
was designated, but rather the material ensemble of formulae and
rubrics according to which the worship was celebrated, and which
formed the subject-matter of a new science, the science of
liturgy. What strikes us in this whole process is the rather
haphazard re-grouping of quite different cultic activities under
one and the same concept of liturgy. Is there not a disadvantage
in gathering together in this way, under a common denominator,
realities as diverse as the celebration of the Eucharist, the
consecration of a bishop, the recitation of the breviary, and
the blessing of a bridge.The theologian
must ask himself, then, whether this common denominator really
corresponds to a specific nature possessed in common by all the
realities henceforth called liturgical. And has the distinction
between 'liturgical' and 'non-liturgical' a real basis ? If so, what is that basis ? We ought not, of course, be put off because of
the evolution of theological reflection in the direction o£ a
greater precision in the concepts. Besides, such an evolution
is, in any case, irreversible. There are in the life of the Church,
as in the life of mankind in general, certain realities which
have for a long time been lived before being conceptually perceived
in their individuality and gathered under the same concept together
with other realities of the same nature. Think, for example, of
the idea of 'sacrament', The Church has always celebrated the
Eucharist, baptism, confirmation, and, in one form or another,
the other rites we call the 'seven sacraments'. It is not, however,
until the period of high scholasticism that this ensemble of realities-
realities quite distinct from one another- was grouped under a
common denominator. There is, however, this important difference : the precision of sacramental terminology was the
outcome of a slow process of theological maturation, whereas the
present use of the word 'liturgy' arose simply out of the manner
in which it was used by historians during the Renaissance. In point of fact, some uncertainty has likewise existed up to our own days
as to exactly where the line of demarcation should be drawn between
'liturgical' and 'non-liturgical'. The problem may appear to have
been solved in the concrete by the fact that the Magisterium recognizes
as liturgical certain forms of worship to the exclusion of all
others, even though a special value is henceforth explicitly admitted
for the pia exercitia of a local community
[8]
. But the theologian is entitled to ask himself whether a mere juridical
determination suffices to confer a spiritual and cultic value
on a particular form of worship. What interests him is to discover
whether there is in the reality itself an essential distinction
between liturgy and nonliturgical worship- a distinction which
might serve as a basis for the juridical determinations
made by the Magisterium.
A consideration of the various efforts made in the course
of the last half-century to define the'
nature of liturgy might enlighten us. So long as the word 'liturgy' was restricted to the field of historical
science, it enjoyed a usage that brooked no discussion. It passed
without' difficulty to the domain of the canonists, who considered
liturgy to be a branch of juridical science, and differentiated
from other branches of the same science only by its material object
[9]
. The cross-over to theology was much more difficult and slow, because
such a crossing over presupposed a veritable metamorphosis of
the concept. In his reaction against the first efforts made by
M. Festugière
[10]
to give a more theological definition of liturgy, Fr. Navatel could write : 'Taken in its more usual sense, liturgy means for everybody,
the sensible, ceremonial and decorative part of Catholic worship'
[11]
. Unfortunately, this was only too true. The great controversy
which then ensued was due to the fact that on either side, attempts
were being made to define quite different things
: whereas the theologians took for the object of their
definition the actual realities of the worship, the historians
and canonists tried to define under the same name of liturgy the
formulae, rites, and rubrics according to which these acts of
worship were performed. Almost all the numerous theological definitions of the liturgy which were
attempted amount basically to the following
: the liturgy is 'the worship of the Church'. In general,
they have this in common, that they proceed in a scholastic manner
with a view to arriving at a rigorous technical definition. Starting
from a general notion of worship, this is distinguished into public
and private, and then into natural and supernatural ; and so the idea of a public supernatural worship
is reached and applied to the liturgy. The disadvantage of this
method is that it does not explain what intrinsically makes this
worship public and supernatural. It appears as such only by the
simple extrinsic fact that it is the worship of a supernatural
society. And since the underlying notion of Church remains simply
corporative, the only basis of the ecclesial character of the
liturgical worship is, then, the juridical and hence extrinsic
determination of the Magisterium
[12]
. Among these efforts to construct a theological definition of the liturgy,
there is, however, one worthy of special mention. It is that of
Odo Casel
[13]
. Without going into the whole of the complex question of the
Mysterienlehre,
it must be admitted
that Casel has shown that the liturgy is not merely the natural
worship which man, raised to the supernatural order, owes to his
Creator, but rather a re-presentation in the mysteries of worship
(Kultmysterien) celebrated by the community of worship (Kultgemeinde), of the paschal mystery of Christ (Urmysterium). In doing this, Casel was the first to link organically-
by his notion of mystery- the liturgical rites with the worship
of the only Priest of the New Covenant, Christ. The encyclical Mediator Dei, while it rejects the juridical and aesthetic
ideas of the liturgy, according to which liturgy would be either
the body of rubrics or a mere ceremonial apparatus, and while
it brings out the part played in the liturgy by Christ Himself
as Head of the Mystical Body, does not seem to have contributed
any new elements which might further the solution of our present
problem. More recently, under the influence of the development
of ecclesiology, two new approaches to the problem were attempted-
those of A. Stenzel
[14]
and of J. A. Jungmann
[15]
. The former, in an endeavor to define
the 'public' character of liturgical worship, establishes a parallel
between worship and revelation. Public revelation does not depend
upon the decision of the hierarchy, but on the contrary, the hierarchy
proposes the revelation because it is public by its very nature.
On the other hand, the recognition by the hierarchy of a private
revelation does not prevent this revelation from remaining private.
So it is with worship. It is by its very nature private or public.
Public worship is that which derives from public revelation,
whereby God constitutes His People ;
and, in the concrete, therefore; it is that worship which the
People of God offers in its capacity of People of God. For J. A. Jungmann, there is a liturgy wherever
there is an actualization of the Church in prayer. But he makes
a distinction between the universal liturgy, which depends on
the Pope, and the local liturgy, which depends on the bishop or
the legitimate pastor of the local church. He admits, however,
that the prayer of a private individual may be liturgical if he
has been deputed to pray in the name of the universal Church.
Jungmann thus had the merit of showing clearly the link connecting
the liturgy with the local church. But in his explanation, as
in that of Stenzel, it seems that the foundation of the ecclesial
character would hardly be other than the juridical decision of the Magisterium.
And then, in their efforts to revise certain ideas held at present,
they run up against current legislation. The Constitution of Vatican II on the Liturgy,
although it gives a definition of liturgy which is almost word
for word that of Mediator Dei, approaches the mystery of worship from another angle.
Instead of starting, as the encyclical did, from a generic and
natural idea of worship and of society, it starts by considering
the unique worship of the New Covenant, that which the Son gives
to the Father in the Spirit, and through which the sanctification
of mankind is effected. Thus the link connecting the liturgical
rites of the Church with the only Priest and the only Sacrifice
appears much more clearly. The liturgy is the re-presentation
of the one and only worship, the actualization of the one and
only Priesthood. The Constitution on the liturgy has made singularly
clear this indissoluble connection of the liturgy with the priesthood
of Christ. But it must not be forgotten with what insistence it
underlines the fact that all Christian worship is an actualization
of this same priesthood. This is true of that private prayer offered
in the silence of one's heart- a form of prayer which is strongly
recommended
[16]
. This prayer, too, is an actualization of the
priesthood of Christ ; apart from this,
it would be valueless. Hence, liturgy cannot be defined simply
as an 'actualization of the priesthood of Christ'. That is why,
when the Constitution asserts that it is the exercise by the Church of
the priestly function of Christ
[17]
, the specific element of this definition obviously
can be only 'by the Church'. Yet we are still at the same point
of our investigation. Is there something intrinsic in liturgical
prayer which makes it the prayer of the Church
? It would be easy to point out in the Constitution
on the liturgy all the elements needed to formulate a reply to
our last question- elements presented in a more or less implicit
manner. But since these are of an ecclesiological order, it seems preferable to consult directly
the masterpiece o£ the Council, the Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium.
It was doubtless
a grace for the Council that it began its debates with the liturgy-
; and there is no doubt that we find in the Constitution on liturgy
some valuable elements of a renewed ecclesiology. But from the
strictly ecclesiological point of view, this first Constitution
still contained some hesitations later surmounted in Lumen Gentium. In our investigation of the theological basis of the ecclesial meaning
of liturgical prayer, we therefore consider it preferable to
refer directly to the teaching of this second great Constitution,
without prejudice to our returning afterwards to the earlier Constitution
so as to appreciate all the better its doctrinal affirmations.
2. Theology of the Liturgy according to the Ecclesiology
of Vatican II The remarkable progress which Vatican Ii has caused Catholic ecclesiology
to make by the publication of the Constitution Lumen Gentium,
consists essentially in the rediscovery of certain basic facts
of traditional ecclesiology, which in the course of centuries
had in the West slipped gradually into the shadows, in consequence
of a certain shift of accent. Once more the stress has shifted
from the consideration of the hierarchical structure to the more
fundamental one of the mysterious nature of the universal Church
to that of the local church, the vital area of the agape and worship,
where the Church is 'actualized' as an event in the History of
Salvation. These fundamental notions of the ecclesiology of Vatican
II are the necessary basis for the elaboration of a theology of
liturgy. In an excellent article, Fr. Congar has well shown
[18]
a few years ago, how the whole of the ecclesiological conscience of the
Ancient East was centered on the mystery
of the Church, manifested chiefly in the concrete reality of the
local church. It is to this outlook that Vatican II returns. This
mystery of the Church is that of the divine life which Christ,
by His Incarnation, has restored to the whole of mankind. The
work of the Holy Spirit, in the bosom of the church, is to reshape
human nature as individualized in ourselves, into the image of
that of Christ. Through
asceticism on the one hand and the sacraments on the other, man-
and with him, the whole of creation- is reshaped to the image
of God by contact with that central radiation point of divinization
which is Christ, whose direct rays of light create that sphere
of divine life which is the Church. The East did not, as did the
Latin West, elaborate an image of the Mystical Body in a corporate
and sociological sense. Its thoughts remained above all in the
sphere of 'mystery' : the unity of the
members of the Church and the communal character of the sacraments
depend not on the idea of a hierarchically constituted society
under a single visible head, but on the reception and sharing
by all of the same supernatural reality of the divine life. The reality which lies at the centre of this ecclesiology based on the
mystery of Christ, is therefore that
of Communion 18a. The divine life is essentially communion : communion
of the Divine Persons in the bosom of the Trinity, communion of
the divine and the human in Christ, communion of redeemed men
in the divine life which is in Christ, and communion with their
brethren in this same divine life. The Church is, during the time
extending from the Ascension to the Parousia, the sacrament of
Christ and of the salvific plan of the Father, because it is,
in the midst of the nations, the realization and manifestation
of this divine reality of communion. But mystery (or sacrament) in the biblical and patristic sense of the word,
means the realization and manifestation of a spiritual, invisible
reality in a material, visible reality. This visible reality is
the 'realizing sign', with which the invisible reality, in the
final analysis, becomes identified. Now it is in so far as it
is a visible communion of the baptized in the same faith, the
same charity and the same hope that the Church is a sign of spiritual
communion with God
[19]
and is salvation actualized
[20]
. This is why the Church, in so far as it is 'event' and actual
manifestation of its mystery, is the local church and quite specially the community assembled for worship. The best manifestation
of the Church, as the Council recalls, is the celebration of
the Eucharist by the Bishop surrounded by his faithful and by
his presbyterium
[21]
. Israel, the People of God of the Old Testament, was a people 'according
to the flesh' ; it was identified in
place and time with the sum total of its members, and even if
it could be concentrated in a 'remnant' it could not be whole
and entire in different places and at the same time. But the Church,
because it is a People of God 'according to the Spirit', is whole
and entire wherever its mystery is present in sign, that is to
say, wherever the spiritual reality of communion with God is to
be found manifested in a visible ecclesial communion. Each local
church is not an administratively circumscribed area of the universal
Church, but a complete realization of the total mystery of the
Church
[22]
. Entrance into the People of God is effected by
baptism which confers that sharing in the priesthood of Christ
which the Constitution on the Church calls the 'sacerdotium commune'. It is by virtue
of this priesthood that all Christians, including those who have
a special ministry, share in the worship of Christ and of the
Church
[23]
. The worship of the
New Covenant is not the worship of a privileged caste, it is that of the whole People of God. The ministerial
priesthood, of which the Constitution next speaks, and which is
grafted on the common priesthood, confers the capacity to fulfill
a special function within the cultic activity which always remains
that of the community in its entirety
[24]
, Since these hierarchical ministries pertain to the structure
of the Church, it is easy to see that the ideal manifestation
of the Church and the most perfect one is the celebration presided
over by the bishop. This is not, however, the only possible way
in which the local church can `realize' itself. Such a realization
or actualization takes place just as truly at the level of the
parish celebration of the liturgy, presided over by the bishop's
substitute. And even without the presence of a sacred minister
there can be a real manifestation of the mystery of communion
of the Church, and hence a real local church, even though the
hierarchical aspect is not manifested
[25]
. This is why the common prayer of a religious community or
of a community of laymen without vows, is really a 'prayer of
the Church'
[26]
. It is the same in the case of a family : when
a father and a mother, surrounded by their children, offer their
prayer to the Lord, that is the prayer of what the Council calls
an 'ecclesia domestica'
[27]
; it is, then, the prayer of the Church. Given all these points we may now state the conclusion
to which they lead us. Wherever the faithful come together in
community in order to manifest their communion in divine life,
by entering into communion among themselves in the Breaking of
Bread, in the hearing of the word of God, and in truly Christian
prayer, there Christ is present under the very sign of their communion,
and their worship is that of Christ expressing Himself by the
voice of His Bride; it is the worship of the Church. In every
authentically Christian prayer of a worshipping community the
prayer of the Church is to be found, because this prayer itself
is what makes of this community a church, a 'church-event'. Hence,
the basis of the ecclesial character of liturgical prayer is the
fact that it is the manifestation and actualization of a local
church, of the People of God as a community of salvation and worship
[28]
. But immediately an objection will be raised. Would the Divine Office recited
in private no longer be the prayer of the Church, no longer be
liturgical prayer ? In the first place
it must be remembered with what insistence the Council recalls
that liturgical prayer of its nature requires a common celebration,
and how it exhorts priests to recite their office in common as
often as circumstances permit
[29]
. It remains true, however, that even when a priest recites his office
in private, his prayer is considered 'the prayer of the Church'. It certainly is so in the general sense in which
every prayer of a Christian is made in Christ, and therefore in
the Church
[30]
. But if we consider as 'prayer of the Church' that prayer in
which there is a visible (sacramental) manifestation of the People
of God, it seems to us that no less from this point of view the
private recitation of the office may equally be called 'liturgical'.
In this instance, however, the ecclesial sign is reduced to its
minimum. The use
of a traditional formulary and rhythm of prayer common to all
the faithful of the universal Church or of a local church,
may in this case be the sign visibly linking this prayer with
the universal Church or a local church, for this visibility is
required by the very nature of the sacramental order. This should lead us to reflect on another aspect of the question, that of the approval by the hierarchy of the texts
and rites employed in liturgical prayer. In order that a prayer
may really be a sign transforming sacramentally into People of
God the assembly which offers it, it must obviously be authentically
Christian. This is to say, that as regards its contents and the
way in which it is performed, it must respond to certain objective
conditions which make of it an adequate expression of the salvific
reality, of the paschal mystery of Christ. It is not therefore
the performance in common of any kind of little devotion which
will be 'liturgical'. That is why the Magisterium of the Church,
conscious of its pastoral function, has always watched over the
orthodoxy and Christian authenticity of the prayer of the members
of the Church. When the hierarchy recognizes and approves a prayer
in one form or another as 'liturgical'- and these forms have varied
much during the course of the history of the Church-this means
that it recognizes in it its authentically
Christian character and its aptitude for expressing the paschal
mystery of Christ, which is the very mystery of the Church herself.
These prayers thus recognized by the pastors of the Church therefore
acquire a guarantee which prayers improvised by the faithful independently
of their pastors do not enjoy. This does not always imply that
the prayers of the latter category cannot possess the same spiritual
value and the same Christian and ecclesial character as those
recognized officially. In other words, the approval of the hierarchy
is, in this area, declaratory rather than constitutive
[31]
. A concrete proof of this may be found in the fact that at
present certain parts of the liturgy are left to the choice of
the participants, even when they are not clerics and cannot therefore
enjoy delegated jurisdiction. So not only a deacon, but also a
layman may, in the absence of a priest, organize a Liturgy of
the Word. Similar permission has been given to superiors and superioresses
in mission lands, to choose certain parts of the Office, in particular
the readings at Vigils, etc. Moreover, in default of an explicitly
approved formulary, the faithful may find an equivalent guarantee
by using certain forms of prayer recognized by tradition as having
the aptitude to express Christian prayer : the psalms, for instance. It official approval of texts and rites is not constitutive of the prayer
of the church, would deputation be so ?
In the first place, it must be noted that every Christian, in
virtue of his baptism and confirmation, is deputed and enabled to actualize the priesthood
of Christ by the exercise of his royal priesthood in communion
with his fellow-members in the Mystical Body
; every Christian, therefore, can celebrate the liturgy
[32]
. Furthermore, certain persons or certain groups, by the very part they
have to play in the People of God, are bound to this in a special
manner. The Bishop and the priest, who is the bishop's minister,
are by their very calling the sanctifiers of the People of God.
So they have a special obligation ('intrinsic to their ministerial
function) to 'edify', to build up the Church, first of all in
the Eucharist as celebrated by their local Church, but also in
the celebration of other sacraments and in the prayer which,
of itself, ought to be common to them and to the People of God
of whom they are in charge, and to their fellow pastors. By analogy,
the case of religious is similar, especially if, as is true for
the majority of them, they lead a common life. Since their vocation
is ecclesial, they must, either by the simple existential witness
of their asceticism, or by their active ministries, build up the
Church. Their common life and their common ministry in the service
of the ecclesial community must necessarily and by its very nature
be crowned with a communion in the common prayer, since the liturgy
is the summit to which all the Church's activity tends, and at
the same time the source from which it draws its value
[33]
. That is why, long before canon law made it a juridical obligation
for them, priests and religious have from the most remote antiquity
recognized that they are bound (by the intrinsic demands of their
vocation) to liturgical prayer, Evidently, the obligation under
pain of sin now laid upon them cannot change the spiritual nature
of their prayer
[34]
. In declaring that certain persons are officially deputed to
offer the `prayer o£ the Church' according to specified formularies
and rhythms, the Magisterium desires on the one hand to be assured
that in these groups the ecclesial prayer to which their vocation
deputes them is realized to the fullest extent
; and on the other hand it recognizes their prayer officially
and publicly as an authentic expression of the prayer of the People
of God. Here again we are concerned with a guarantee which the
prayer of other groups does not enjoy, even if this latter prayer
may possess the same ecclesial value. Dom G. Lafond, in a communication
to the conference of Monaco in 1965
[35]
, has clearly brought to light how this idea of deputation was
born, or at least was systematized, and finds its justification
in an ecclesiological context quite different from our own. If
the Church is considered as the assembly of all the baptized under
the monarchical government of the Pope (a point of view in which
the Church is something to be 'added to' rather than 'communed
in'), there can be no possibility of the actualization of the
whole Church in a particular church. Consequently, in order to
explain conceptually the existence of a prayer of the whole Church,
no other way was left than to have recourse to the idea of deputation
: the Pope, supreme authority of the Church, deputes certain
persons to pray in the name of all the members of the universal
Church. In an ecclesiology of communion, like that of Lumen Gentium, which sees the realization
of the entire mystery of the Church in each local church, this
recourse to the idea of deputation is no longer necessary, even
if it remains possible to find some explanation for such an idea
of deputation. In point of fact, the Constitution on the liturgy has recourse explicitly
to this notion of deputation in the chapter on the Divine Office
[36]
. Dom G. Lafond, in the article already mentioned, has stressed the fact
that this idea of deputation as expressed in that passage does
not square at all well with the constant teaching of the same
Constitution on the liturgy, which sees in the baptismal character
the deputation of every Christian to liturgical prayer. Moreover,
the Fathers of the Council clearly felt a certain 'malaise'
[37]
, and an addition was made to the text : not only the prayer of priests
and others 'deputed' thereto by law is recognized as liturgical,
but also that of the other faithful praying with the priest. This
addition, which might not seem very important at first sight,
shows that, for the Council Fathers, deputation is not constitutive
of the prayer of the Church, because the prayer of others than
those deputed is recognized as liturgical. J. Pascher, in his
commentary, speaks in this case of a deputation non obligans ;
but is this deputation non
obligans anything other than baptism ?
[38]
It can moreover be shown that the Constitution on the liturgy already contains,
although perhaps less explicitly, the teaching we have deduced
from the Constitution on the Church. It asserts expressly, in
art. 14, that each o€ the faithful, in virtue of the royal priesthood
received at baptism, is delegated (ius
habet et of
f icium) to celebrate the liturgy. And it is from this
doctrinal basis that the pastoral necessity for active participation
in the liturgical celebrations is deduced. Similarly, when the Constitution wishes to recall
the need intrinsic to the liturgy- that it be celebrated 'publicly'
and not 'privately'- it bases this need on the ecclesial character
of the liturgy. Now it sets this ecclesial character in direct
relationship with the sacramental character of the Church, which
is unitatis sacramentum
[39]
. The argument, then, amounts to this :
The liturgy must be celebrated in a community manner because
it is, by its very nature, a manifestation
of the Church as sacrament of unity or of communion. Finally,
in art. 7, the Constitution explains how Christ is present
in the assembly of the faithful united for prayer
: 'Praesens adest denique dum supplicat et psallit Ecclesia,
ipse qui promisit : Ubi sunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo, ibi sum in medio eorum'. Hence, where two or three
of the faithful have come together for prayer, Christ is in their
midst to accomplish the work of glorifying the Father and sanctifying
men
[40]
, and, in this little group, it is the Church which 'offers supplication
and sings psalms'. We see, then, that the teaching of the Constitution on
the liturgy is entirely in accord with what we found in a more
developed form in the Constitution on the Church. And we may therefore
consider that the following conclusions have their foundation
in both these Constitutions. Conclusions: a) A, prayer is authentically Christian and therefore
the actualization of the one and only worship of the New Covenant
when, in its content and its manner of performance, it is suitable
for giving expression to the supernatural reality of salvation,
the paschal mystery of Christ, who is the one and only worshipper
(leitourgos). (The subjective conditions for any supernatural
act are obviously presupposed.) b) When this authentically Christian prayer is offered
in external circumstances such that they make of it a manifestation
of the Church as a community of worship- in the concrete, when
it is the expression of the prayer of the local church- it may
legitimately be called 'the prayer of the Church'. c) The hierarchy officially recognizes this authentically
Christian and ecclesial character of certain prayers offered by
certain persons, under specified conditions, and from officially
approved texts. This prayer, which thus enjoys a higher objective
guarantee, is the one to which present usage reserves the designation
'liturgical'. d) The basis of the ecclesial character proper to liturgical
prayer, as well as that of other prayers which, without being
actually specified as liturgical; possess the same nature of 'prayer
of the Church', is the fact that they are not only an actualization
of the priesthood of Christ, but also, and at the same time, a
visible manifestation of the People of God as a community of prayer
and sanctification. Mistassini l Monte Cistello Armand VEILLEUX ocso. Translated by a Monk of Gethsemani.
[1]
On the biblical use of the word,
see A. Romeo Il termine 'leitourgia' nella
grecità biblica,
in Miscellanea liturgica
in honorem L. Mohlberg,
T. 2, Rome 1949, pp. 467-519.
[2]
A short general study of the word is to be found
in E. RAITZ von
FRENTZ, Der Weg des Wortes « Liturgia » in der Geschichte,
in Eph. Lit. 55 (1941), pp. 74-80.
[3]
Liturgica de ritu et ordine dominicae coenae quam celebrationem Graeci liturgiam, Latini missam appellarunt, 1558.
[4]
Liturgia Latinorum,
Cologne 1571.
[5]
Rerum liturgicarum libri duo, Rome 1671.
[6]
De liturgia
gallicana, Paris 1685.
[7]
Liturgia Romani Pontificis,
1731.
[8]
Const. Lit. art. 13 ; cf. J. A. JUNGMANN, L'Evêque
et les « Sacra Exercitla
», in Concilium 2, 1965, pp. 50-56.
[9]
For instance C. CALLEWAERT : 'Definiri potest liturgia : cultus publicus ab Ecclesia quoad exercitium ordinatus, seu ordinatio eccesiastica
exercitii cultus
publici' (Liturgicae institutiones Tract. 1, Bruges 1944, p. 6). 'Liturgy may be
defined as : public
worship regulated
by the Church as to its exercice,
or an ecclesiastical arrangement of the exercice of public worship’.
[10]
La liturgie catholique, Maredsous 1913.
[11]
In : L'apostolat
liturgique et la piété personnelle, in Etudes
137 (1913), p. 452.
[12]
See,
for example, the definition
given by R. GUARDINI : « Liturgie ist der öffentiche,
gesetzliche Gottesdienst
der Kirche », (Vom Geist der Liturgie), 1934 13-14, p. 4.
'The liturgy is the Church's public and lawful act of worship',
The Church and the Catholic
and The Spirit of the Liturgy,
Sheed & Ward, N.Y.
1953, p, 122.
[13]
The most important works of CASEL on this matter are
Das christliche Kultmysterium, Ratisbon 1960, and Mysteriengegenwart in Archiv f. Liturgiewissenschaft 8 (1928), pp. 145-224.
[14]
Cultus publicus. Ein Beitrag
zum Begriff und ekklesiologischen Ort der Liturgie, in Zeitschr.
f. kath. Theol. 75 (1953), pp. 174-214.
[15]
Was ist Liturgie ? ibid.,
55 (1931) pp. 83-102
; and Gewordene Liturgie,
1941; pp, 1-27.
[16]
Const. Lit. art. 12.
[17]
Ibid., art.
7.
[18]
Conscience ecclésiologique en Orient et en Occident du VIe au XIe siècle; in Istina 6 (1959),
pp. 187-236. 18a On this notion
of 'communion', see, among
many good works,
M. J. LE GUILLOU : Église et «Communion». Essai d'ecclésiologie comparée, in Istina 6 (1959), pp. 31-82. The author there shows
how, in spite of the divisions among
Christians, this notion of «communion»
has remained the common
basis of all the ecclesiologies. See,
by the same author
: Mission et unité. Les exigences de la communion,
Paris 1960. Cf. also J. HAMER,
L'Église est une communion,
Paris 1960.
[19]
Cf. Const. on the Church, Ch. 1, art. 1 : « Cum autem Ecclesia sit in Christo veluti sacramentum seu signum et instrurnentum
intimae cum Deo unionis
totiusque generis humani unitatis... »
[20]
Cf. the explanation given to the Council by the theological
Commission : « Mysterium Ecclesiae adest et manifestatur in concreta societate. Coetus autem visibilis
et elementum spirituale
non sunt duae
res, sed una
realitas complexa, complectens
divina et humana. Quod per analogiam
cum Verbo incarnato
illustratur. » The text is quoted by Dom Olivier Rousseau
in G. BARAUNA and Coll.
L'Église de Vatican II, Tome 2 (Unam Sanctam 51b) Paris 1966, p. 40.
[21]
Cf. Const. Lit., art. 26.
[22]
Ibid. : « Haec Christi Ecclesia
vere adest in omnibus legitimis fidelium congregationibus localibus, quae, pastoribus suis adhaerentes, et ipsae in Novo Testamento ecclesiae vocantur. »
[23]
Cf. Const. on the Church, are. 11 : « Fideles per baptismum in Ecclesia incorporati, ad cultum religionis christianae charactere deputantur. » See also art 10. The same doctrine is explicitly affirmed in the Decree on the Ministry
and Life of Priests, Ch. I, art, 2.
[24]
This had already been clearly stated by Pius XII to the members
of the Congress of Assisi in 1956:
'The contribution which the hierarchy makes and that which the faithful bring to the liturgy, are not added up like separate
quantities, but represent
the collaboration of the members of
one and the same organism, which acts as a single living being... It is in this unity that
the Church prays, offers,
sanctifies herself ; and it
may be said
quite rightly,
therefore, that the liturgy is the work of the whole Church.' Text in La Maison-Dieu
47-48 (1956), pp. 332-333.
[25]
Cf,
B. NEUNHEUSER, Église
universelle et Église locale, in G. BARAUNA
and Coll, L'Église de Vatican II... pp. 607-638.
[26]
It will be useful here
to make a distinction between
the two ecclesiological
tendencies which showed themselves in the nascent Church (cf. J. COLSON L'Évêque dans les communautés primitives, Tradition paulinienne
et Tradition johannique de l'Episcopat,
des Origines à saint Irénée,
(Unam Sanctam, 21)
Paris 1951). The tendency represented by St. John
stresses singularly the part played
by the bishop ; the community which
deserves the name
of church is that
which celebrates
the worship under the presidency of the local bishop. The other
tendency represented
by the writings of St.Paul,
Clement, and Hermas, stresses the community
itself. So Paul calls the community
which meets
at the house of one of the brethren
to celebrate the Eucharist
'the church at
his house' (e.g. Rom. 16, 5 ; Col. 4, 15). It should
be noted that
it is in
this second tendency that the idea of the 'Monastery-Church'
will develop
in the East, and not, as later in
the West, by a progressive assimilation of the monastery
to the diocese and the Abbot to the Bishop. On this
notion of 'Monastery-Church'
see : E. von SEVERUS, Das Monasterium als Kirche, in Enkainia. Gesammelte Arbeiten zum 800-jährigen Weihegedächtnis der Abteikirche Maria Laach, Düsseldorf 1956, pp. 230-248 ; A. de VOGÜÉ, Le monastère,
Église du Christ,
in B. STEIDLE,
Commentationes in Regulam S. Benedicti, (Studia Anselmiana, 42) Rome 1957, pp. 25-46 ; A. KASSING, Die Mönchgemeinde in der Kirche, in Geist und Leben, 34 (1961),
pp. 190-196 ; S. BENZ, The Monastery as a Christian
Assembly, in The Am. Ben, Rev., 17
(1966), pp. 166-178.
[27]
Sec K. RAHNER's remarks on this subject in
his Thesen über das Gebet « im
Namen der Kirche
», in Zeitschr. f. kath, Theol. 83 (1961)
pp. 307-324. The author,
after having explained
how all prayer in common
is, of its nature, an act of the Church, adds : « Mit
Recht gilt also
dieses gemeinsame
Gebet als Akt
der Kirche zum
Nutzen der Kirche. Da sich dies aus der Natur der Sache ergibt, ist dazu nicht
nötig, dass
dieses gemeinsame (und zwar legitim
geschehene) Gebet
ausdrücklich von der kirchlichen Hierarchie aufgetragen wird. Wenn also (über
diese Sache brauchen
wir hier nicht zu sprechen) Liturgie nur jene gemeinsame
Gottesverehrung der Gläubigen
genannt wird,
die ausdrücklich von der höchsten Autorität angeordnet und gesetzlich geregelt wird, darf man schlicht behaupten, dass auch das
« ausserliturgische » gemeinsame
Gebet der Gläubigen
Akt der Kirche heissen kann und
muss. » (p. 317). The same
text is also
on p, 484 of his Schriften zur Theologie,
Band V, Benziger Verlag,
Einsiedeln-Zurich-Koln 1962, pp. 471-493.
The following translation
is from
p. 431 of his Theological Investigations, Vol V, « Some
Theses on Prayer
'in the Name of the Church' », Dalton, Longman & Todd, London,
& Helicon Press, Baltimore, 1966, pp. 419-438 : 'Hence,
communal prayer is
rightly considered as the act of the Church beneficial to
the Church. Since this
follows from the very nature of things, it is not required
that this
communal (and also lawfully performed)
prayer should
be expressly commissioned
by the Church's hierarchy.
Hence if (we need
not speak about this
here) only that
communal worship of God
by the faithful which
bas been explicitly ordered
and juridically regulated by the highest authority is called 'Liturgy',
then it
may be maintained
quite simply that
even the 'extra-liturgical'
communal prayer of the faithful
can and must be
called an act of the Church.'
[29]
Const. Lit., art. 99 ; cf. also arts. 26-27.
[30]
In the article referred to in Note 28, K. RAHNER explains the different modes according to which a prayer may be
'an act of the Church.'
[31]
The thesis according to which the intervention of the Pope would
be constitutive has recently
been again expounded
systematically by J. H.
MILLER, Fundamentals
of the Liturgy, Notre Dame (Indiana) 1960, pp. 24 and ff. See the severe criticism by J. A. JUNGMANN
in Zeitschr. f. kath. Theol. 83 (1961), pp. 96-99.
[32]
Cf. Note 23.
[33]
Const. Lit., art. 10.
[34]
Cf. K. RAHNER, article quoted
in Note 28, p. 317
(Eng. p. 431) : « Diesem Akt der Kirche fügt ein ausdrücklicher
liturgischer Auftrag
der Kirche keine höhere
Wurde vor Gott
hinzu, da es keine grössere gibt als
jene, die der Heilige
Geist mit seinen unaussprechlichen Seufzern dem Gebet verleiht. »
'This act of the Church is
not given any
higher dignity before God by an explicit liturgical commission from the Church,
for there is
no greater dignity than the one given to the prayer by the Holy Ghost with his unutterable
groanings. »
[35]
Liturgie et ministères dans les Communautés
baptismales. We owe our
acquaintance with
this text to the kindness of the author, since the acts of the Conference have not yet been published.
[36]
Const. Lit., art. 84.
[37]
See
the explanations given
in the commentary by J. A. JUNGMANN on
the Constitution on the Liturgy,
in Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil, T. I (Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche), 1966,
pp. 76-77.
[38]
In Eph. Lit. 78 (1964), p, 339. The author
believes, however,
that it is
the juridical deputation
which confers on prayer its liturgical
character : 'Non obligatio
facit actionem liturgicam sed vocatio Ecclesiae' (ibid, p. 338). He had defended the same position against K. RAHNER in his
own Thesen über das Gebet
im Namen
der Kirche, in
Liturgisches Jahrbuch 12 (1962), pp. 58-62.
[39]
Const. Lit., arts. 26-27.
[40]
Cf. the whole of arts. 6
and 7. |
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