Adoremus Bulletin - March 2021 Issue

Adoremus Bulletin

MARCH 2021

XXVI, No.5

A Short History of the Roman Rite of Mass Introduction: The Last Supper — The First Eucharist AB/WIKIMEDIA. THE LAST SUPPER, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)

News & Views

For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

Vatican Issues Guidelines for Holy Week 2021 Amid COVID-19 restrictions

By Courtney Mares VATICAN CITY (CNA) — The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued guidelines on February 17 for the celebration of Holy Week this year in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In the note signed February 17 by the congregation’s prefect Cardinal Robert Sarah and secretary Archbishop Arthur Roche, the congregation said that bishops were called upon to make prudent decisions regarding the liturgy in line with the Vatican decree on Holy Week liturgies issued in March 2020, which will remain valid for this year.

“We therefore invite you to reread it in view of the decisions that bishops will have to make about the upcoming Easter celebrations in the particular situation of their country,” it said.

“Many countries still have strict lockdown conditions in force rendering it impossible for the faithful to be present in church, while in others a more normal pattern of worship is being resumed.”

The congregation noted that the use of social media has aided pastors in offering support to their communities during the pandemic, but it added that “problematic aspects were also observed.”

In light of this concern, the Vatican suggested that media coverage of the Holy Week liturgies offered by the local bishop are “facilitated and favored, encouraging the faithful who are unable to attend their own church

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A conventional history of the Eucharist would begin with the Last Supper and its formative impact on early liturgical practice. Thus, liturgical historian Josef Andreas Jungmann, S.J., asserted in his classical work Missarum sollemnia: “The first Holy Mass was said on ‘the same night in which he was betrayed’ (1 Corinthians 11:23).” But not all scholars today agree with Jungmann.

By Father Uwe Michael Lang Editor’s note: We are pleased to announce a new series of articles on the history of the Roman Rite Mass,

by Father Uwe Michael Lang. Happily, this first of the series coincides with the celebration of the institution of the Eucharist, recalled each year at Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

Subsequent entries will run primarily in our monthly e-newsletter, AB Insight. (If you don’t already receive this monthly missive in your inbox, sign up at Adoremus.org.)

T

he Roman Rite is by far the most widely used liturgical rite in the Catholic Church. The form of Mass most people are familiar with today has been shaped decisively by the Apostolic See of Rome in contact and exchange with other local churches over the centuries. This series of articles is intended as an overview of the development of the Roman Rite Mass until the present day. Understanding this rich and complex history will help not only the clergy in their sacramental ministry but also laypeople in participating fruitfully in the liturgy of the Church.

A conventional history of the Eucharist would begin with the Last Supper and its formative impact on

AB

Adoremus Bulletin MARCH 2021

early liturgical practice. Thus, liturgical historian Josef Andreas Jungmann, S.J., asserted in his classical work Missarum sollemnia: “The first Holy Mass was said on ‘the same night in which he was betrayed’ (1 Corinthians 11:23).”1 However, recent studies have presented a highly diverse picture of primitive Christianity, and the origins of the Eucharist have been subjected to radical questioning. Thus, the leading liturgical scholar Paul Bradshaw sees in the narrative of institution as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) a tradition superimposed on the original account of a simple meal.2 On the other hand, many New Testament exegetes are more confident about the essential historicity of the Last Supper tradition.3 A Night to Remember While the meals Jesus held during his public ministry offer a broader context for the Last Supper,4 there are several features that make it unique, above all its immediate proximity to his Passion. Unlike other meals recorded in the Gospels, this one is limited to the Twelve, his closest circle of disciples.

The setting is not that of open table-fellowship, but a private room that would have been provided by a wealthy patron. The words and actions of Jesus are embedded in this meal, but they stand

out and transform it in an entirely unexpected way.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples on the first day of unleavened bread, in the evening (Matthew 26:17, 20; Mark 14:12, 17; Luke 22:7, 14). Since Jews reckoned the day from sunset to sunset, this evening meal was held on the 14th day of the Jewish month Nisan, the date of the Passover feast, after the lambs had been sacrificed in the Temple in the afternoon.

This day would be a Thursday, with the crucifixion taking place on Friday, “the day before the sabbath” (Mark 15:42; also Matthew 27:62; Luke 23:54), the 15th of Nisan. The Synoptic narratives thus present the Last Supper as a Passover meal.

The Fourth Gospel presents a different chronology: while it agrees regarding the days of the week, it clearly implies that Jesus was crucified as the day of preparation for the Passover was drawing to its close (John 18:28; 39; 19:14). Significantly, Jesus dies on the cross at the time when the lambs are slaughtered in the Temple for the celebration of the Passover meal in the evening. The Last Supper was thus held on the evening before Passover, and it would not have been a Passover meal.

Still, it would have been in close proximity to it, as explicitly stated in John 13:1, Please see LAST SUPPER on page 4

History of Mystery—Part I Father Uwe Michael Lang tells it like it is—and was—as he embarks on the first in a series of articles chronicling the history (and mystery) of the Roman Rite Mass ...................1

The Strengths of Weeks In the West, there’s not one, not two, but three ways to celebrate Holy Week! Father Aaron Williams compares the pre-1955, 1962, and modern rites for Holy Week.............................8

Uniquely Unique Each Holy Week is a new opportunity to encounter Christ, but as the country recovers from COVID, Father Daniel Cardó meditates on why Holy Week 2021 is especially so.........5

Divine Genius at Work In Daniel William’s book Christ the Liturgy, Father Ryan T. Ruiz finds an effective corrective to the idea that liturgy is the Man Show and God better get out of the way.......12

The Safety Song Alexis Kazimira Kutarna provides the latest info about whether the Church can safely return to the full-throated, pre-COVID liturgy as it’s supposed to be done —in song.............................................................6

News & Views ....................................................1 The Rite Questions...........................................10

2 Continued from COVID, page 1 to follow the diocesan celebrations as a sign of unity.”

The guidelines also recommended the preparation of prayer aids for family and personal prayer that make use of the Liturgy of the Hours.

The decree issued in March 2020 by the Congregation for Divine Worship, which remains valid (that is, may be applied at the bishop’s discretion) in 2021, included the following guidelines for the liturgies of Holy Week in areas where there are restrictions on public gatherings from civil and Church authorities: Palm Sunday: The Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem is to be celebrated within sacred buildings; in cathedral churches the second form given in the Roman Missal is to be adopted; in parish churches and in other places the third form is to be used.

The Chrism Mass: Evaluating the concrete situation in different countries, the bishops’ conferences will be able to give indications about a possible transfer to another date.

Holy Thursday: The washing of feet, which is already optional, is to be omitted. At the end of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the procession is also omitted and the Blessed Sacrament is to be kept in the tabernacle. On this day the faculty to celebrate Mass in a suitable place, without the presence of the people, is exceptionally granted to all priests.

Good Friday: In the Universal Prayer, bishops will arrange to have a special intention prepared for those who find themselves in distress, and for the sick and the dead. The adoration of the Cross by kissing it shall be limited solely to the celebrant.

The Easter Vigil: This will be celebrated only in cathedral and parish churches. For the “Baptismal Liturgy” only the “Renewal of Baptismal Promises” is maintained.

The new note from the Congregation said: “We are aware that the decisions taken have not always been easy for pastors or the lay faithful to accept.”

“However, we know that they were taken with a view to ensuring that the sacred mysteries be celebrated in the most effective way possible for our communities, while respecting the common good and public health.”

Pope Francis Accepts Cardinal Robert Sarah’s Resignation from Divine Worship Congregation

By Hannah Brockhaus

VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis on February 20 accepted the resignation of Cardinal Robert Sarah as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Cardinal Sarah, who turned 75 in June 2020, was the most senior African prelate at the Vatican, appointed head of the liturgy department by Pope Francis in November 2014.

He had previously served as the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and as secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The Guinean cardinal has written a trilogy of books read widely throughout the Catholic world: God or Nothing (2015), The Power of Silence (2016), and The Day Is Now Far Spent (2019).

Cardinal Sarah said in a Tweet February 20 that Pope Francis had accepted his resignation after his 75th birthday.

“I am in God’s hands. The only rock is Christ. We will meet again very soon in Rome and elsewhere,” he wrote on Twitter.

During his tenure at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Sarah built a reputation for outspoken commentary on the Church and the world.

In 2016, he encouraged priests to celebrate Mass facing east, prompting a Vatican spokesman to say that his words had been “misinterpreted.”

During the first Synod on the Family in 2014, Cardinal Sarah opposed what he said were efforts by the media “to push the Church [to change] her doctrine” on homosexual unions.

At the 2015 family synod he said threats to the institution of marriage and the family claiming “what Nazi fascism and communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism are today.”

Cardinal Sarah was also at the center of a controversy over the presentation of a book, From the Depths of Our Hearts, as a co-authored work by himself and Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in January 2020.

The book, subtitled “Priesthood, Celibacy, and the Crisis of the Catholic Church,” elicited conflicting statements on the extent of the pope emeritus’s involvement in the project.

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

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Cardinal Sarah defended himself in statements on Twitter, saying January 17, 2020 he met with Benedict and “there is no misunderstanding between us.”

The book contains a chapter credited to Benedict, a chapter credited to Cardinal Sarah, and an introduction and conclusion, which have been attributed to the two men jointly.

Cardinal Sarah was considered papabile, or a candidate for the papacy, in the 2013 conclave which elected Pope Francis.

Born in 1945 in French Guinea, Sarah was ordained a priest in 1969 for the Diocese of Conakry, after periods of study in Ivory Coast, Guinea, France, Senegal, Rome, and Jerusalem.

Sarah was appointed archbishop of Conakry in 1979, at the age of 34, a position he held until 2001, including during the dictatorship of Ahmed Sékou Touré.

During the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020, Cardinal Sarah said in an interview with the French magazine Valeurs actuelles that the sick and dying cannot be denied the sacramental assistance of a priest.

He said: “Priests must do everything they can to remain close to the faithful. They must do everything in their power to assist the dying, without complicating the task of the caretakers and the civil authorities.”

“But no one,” he continued, “has the right to deprive a sick or dying person of the spiritual assistance of a priest.

It is an absolute and inalienable right.”

In May last year, Cardinal Sarah insisted he was wrongly included as a signatory on a controversial open letter arguing that forces could exploit the pandemic in order to usher in a one-world government.

Pope Francis’s New Motu Proprio Admits Women to Ministries of Lector and Acolyte

By Courtney Mares

VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis issued a motu proprio on January 11 changing canon law to allow women to serve as lectors and acolytes.

In the motu proprio Spiritus Domini, the pope changed canon 230 § 1 of the Code of Canon Law to read: “Lay persons of suitable age and with the gifts determined by decree of the Episcopal Conference may be permanently assigned, by means of the established liturgical rite, to the ministries of lectors and acolytes; however, the conferment of such a role does not entitle them to support or remuneration from the Church.”

Before this change, the law said that “lay men who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte.”

Lector and acolyte are publicly recognized ministries instituted by the Church. The roles were once considered “minor orders” in the tradition of the Church and were changed to ministries by Pope Paul VI. According to Church law, “before anyone is promoted to the permanent or transitional diaconate, he is required to have received the ministries of lector and acolyte.”

Pope Francis wrote a letter to Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explaining his decision to admit women to the ministries of lector and acolyte.

In this letter, the pope highlighted the distinction between “‘established’ (or ‘lay’) ministries and ‘ordained’ ministries,” and expressed the hope that opening these lay ministries to women might “better manifest the common baptismal dignity of the members of the People of God.” Pope Paul VI abolished the minor orders (and the subdiaconate) and established the ministries of lector and acolyte in the motu proprio Ministeria quaedam, issued in 1972.

“The acolyte is established to help the deacon and to minister to the priest. It is therefore his duty to take care

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of the service of the altar, to help the deacon and the priest in liturgical actions, especially in the celebration of the Holy Mass,” Paul VI wrote.

Potential responsibilities for an acolyte include distributing Holy Communion as an extraordinary minister if such ministers are not present, publicly exposing the Sacrament of the Eucharist for adoration by the faithful in extraordinary circumstances, and “the instruction of the other faithful, who, on a temporary basis, help the deacon and the priest in liturgical services by carrying the missal, cross, candles, etc.”

In his decree, Paul VI wrote that the lector was “instituted for the office, proper to him, of reading the word of God in the liturgical assembly.”

“The reader, feeling the responsibility of the office received, should do all he can and make use of the appropriate means to acquire every day more fully the sweet and lively love and the knowledge of Sacred Scripture, in order to become a more perfect disciple of the Lord,” the decree said.

Pope Francis said in his letter that it would be up to local bishops’ conferences to establish appropriate criteria for the discernment and preparation of candidates for the ministries of lector and acolyte in their territories.

Pope Francis: Without Liturgy, Christianity is without the Whole of Christ

By Courtney Mares

VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis said on February 3 that it is essential for Christians to participate in the liturgy and the sacraments to encounter the Real Presence of Jesus.

“Every time we celebrate a baptism, or consecrate the bread and wine in the Eucharist, or anoint the body of a sick person with Holy Oil, Christ is here. It is he who acts and is present as when he healed the weak limbs of a sick person, or when at the Last Supper, he delivered his testament for the salvation of the world,” Pope Francis said at his general audience on February 3.

“A Christianity without liturgy, I would dare say, is perhaps a Christianity without Christ, without the whole of Christ,” the pope said.

Speaking via live-stream from the library of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis underlined the necessity of the Sacraments in the life of a Christian.

“In Christian life, the corporeal and material sphere may not be dispensed with, because in Jesus Christ it became the way of salvation…. Therefore, there is no Christian spirituality that is not rooted in the celebration of the holy mysteries,” the pope said.

He then quoted the Catechism, which states: “The mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present, and communicates the mystery of salvation, which is continued in the heart that prays.”

In the history of Christianity, there has often been a temptation to emphasize one’s individual prayer over the spiritual importance of public liturgical rites, the pope explained. “Often this tendency claimed the presumed greater purity of a religiosity that did not depend on external ceremonies, considered a useless or harmful burden,” he said.

However, the liturgy is the foundational act of the Christian experience, he said. “It is an event…, it is presence, it is an encounter. It is an encounter with Christ.”

“Christ makes himself present in the Holy Spirit through the sacramental signs: hence the need for us Christians to participate in the divine mysteries,” Pope Francis said.

When the first Christians worshiped, they did so by “actualizing the gestures and words of Jesus with the light and power of the Holy Spirit.”

“St. Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans: ‘I therefore Please see NEWS & VIEWS page 11

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Playfully Serious and Seriously Playful: The Orthodox Paradox of the Happy Fault

By Christopher Carstens, Editor

AB/WIKIMEDIA. THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN OF EDEN (DETAIL),

BY MASACCIO (1401-1428)

P

oets aren’t known for their straight talk. But that’s not to say that they can’t express the truth. Indeed, sometimes to tell it like it is, some folks have to resort to the symbolic semantics of poetry—in this case, paradox.

A paradox juxtaposes (para) two seemingly contradictory truths or opinions (doxa). Socrates, for example, was said to be the wisest man because he readily admitted his ignorance. Shakespeare showed us how to look beneath the surface of things by saying that “fair is foul, foul is fair.” And even Jesus—the Trinitarian Wordsmith— taught that “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39; also Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; John 12:25).

How can one be both wise and ignorant at the same time? When is foul fair—and vice versa? And this losing life to gain life business—say again?

But before we get to the truth that lies within (yet beyond) words, let’s consider yet another paradox: why is Original Sin called a “happy fault”?

We’ll encounter this orthodox paradox in that great poetic text at the Easter Vigil, the Exsultet. At one point, the deacon will wax (as the moon begins to wane): O wonder of your humble care for us!

O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son! O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!

O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!

O truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the underworld!

This “happy fault,” or felix culpa, has caught the imagination of Catholics (not to mention poets of any persuasion) for centuries. Why is our fault a happy one? What explains this paradox? Even though the Exsultet itself supplies an answer—it earned for us “so great, so glorious a Redeemer”—wouldn’t it have been more desirable to have never fallen in the first place? Aren’t the confines of the natural garden preferable to the freedom of choosing hell? Isn’t the God that Adam did know on earth better than the God I hope to know in heaven?

In short: no, no, and no.

One of the best explanations I’ve come across of this fallen-yet-happy state of affairs is expressed by Msgr. Reynold Hillenbrand (1904-1979), one-time rector of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL, and long-time leader in the American liturgical movement. He explains: “The truth is simple: the world, with all its present disabilities, is now more glorious, is now more fraught with possibilities for our divine life than paradise would have been…. We can become greater saints, than we could if Adam had never sinned and Eden had remained.” Happy indeed!

Surely this explains another paradox: why the Friday of Christ’s death is called “good.” But wait! Who among us, even as we acknowledge “Good Friday” as good, tend to focus on the day’s death rather than the subsequent life?

Why don’t we see through our fallen state to the happy possibilities that lie before us?

Msgr. Hillenbrand answers: “Our thinking is so pre-Incarnation, if I can put it that way.

We direct our attention to the lost Paradise rather than to the infinitely more wonderful, though immensely more difficult, world that we have now.”

Again, Monsignor Hillenbrand offers some insight: “Doubtlessly, one of the reasons we are such dull, routine Christians and have so little effect upon the world is that we have no sense of…our newness in Christ. We are so much engrossed with the riddling effects of the first sin. We sense the collapse, not the restoration. We sense the Fall, not the lifting up. We sense the ancient enthrallment, not the release into the new glorious freedom, the freedom of the sons of God. Our thinking is so pre-Incarnation, if I can put it that way. We direct our attention to the lost Paradise rather than to the infinitely more wonderful, though immensely more difficult, world that we have now” (Proceedings from the 1948 National Liturgical Week, ‘The New Man in Christ,’ August 2–6, Boston, 33).

So, if we wish to avoid the heterodoxy of the fall and ascribe to the orthodoxy of a faith in the risen Christ, an appreciation of the Exsultet’s paradox is key. By it, we can bask in the Vigil’s “dazzling night” and, perhaps, rejoice in our “happy fault.” Indeed, the Exsultet speaks in a moment, but it embraces all of eternity—as does all language intended to be taken in the right wrong way.

How to Go to Hell—and Come Back Alive: Holy Saturday’s Silence AB/Wikimedia. By © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 3.0.

By Christopher Carstens

F

ollowing Good Friday’s pitched battle, Holy Saturday’s silence finds our ears ringing.

What to do today? Where are the liturgical rites to celebrate? Why do I seem to fumble and grope throughout the day? Each of the Triduum’s days bears distinctive features.

Holy Saturday is unique in that it is nearly devoid of unique elements: minimal rituals, limited liturgies, few, if any, sacramental celebrations.

But there is much going on in the depths beneath this silent surface. Of all the reflections, thoughts, and writings of the past 2,000 years about Holy Saturday, the Church has chosen an ancient and anonymous homily for the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours on this day. It is reprinted here in full so that we might deepen our prayer on this extraordinary day, as Christ plumbs the depths of hell: Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and Hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the Son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the Cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone, ‘My Lord be with you all.’ Christ answered him: ‘And with your spirit.’ He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I in you; together we form one person and cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin

“Rise,” Christ says, “let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly Paradise. I will not restore you to that Paradise, but will enthrone you in heaven.”

that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the Cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in Paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly Paradise. I will not restore you to that Paradise, but will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open.

The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

The above excerpt is taken from A Devotional Journey into the Easter Mystery (Sophia Institute Press, 2019) by Christopher Carstens.

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St. John’s Gospel presents a chronology different from that of the Synoptic gospels: while it agrees regarding the days of the week, it clearly implies that Jesus was crucified as the day of preparation for the Passover was drawing to its close. Significantly, Jesus dies on the cross at the time when the lambs are slaughtered in the Temple for the celebration of the Passover meal in the evening.

Continued from LAST SUPPER, page 1 and thus bears many marks and meanings of the Passover. Unlike the Synoptics, John does not describe the meal itself, but focuses on Jesus washing of the disciples’ feet (13:2-11).

Passover Part II From the historian’s point of view, it seems more likely that the Last Supper was not a Passover meal—a position supported by Joseph Ratzinger—Benedict XVI with reference to the work of John P. Meier.5 Even so, at any Jewish formal meal, nothing was to be eaten without God first being thanked for it. At the beginning of the Last Supper, some form of meal blessing (berakah) would have been said. We can also assume the ritual use of bread and wine, the latter being a particular sign of a festive occasion. However, what Jesus said and did at the occasion was unprecedented and cannot simply be derived from any Jewish ritual context. The actual words he spoke over the bread and over the cup of wine make them signs anticipating his redemptive Passion.

Jesus was fully aware that he was about to die, and he anticipated that he would not be able to celebrate the coming Passover according to the established Jewish custom. Therefore, he gathered the Twelve for a special meal of farewell that would include the ritual use of bread and wine, the latter being a particular sign of a festive occasion. While the reference to “this Passover” in Luke 22:15-16 could mean the meal Jesus was holding with the Twelve, it could also point to the new reality he was about to institute in anticipation of his Passion. The decisive moment of the meal was not the customary Passover Lamb (which even the Synoptics do not mention), but Christ instituting the new Passover and giving himself as the true Lamb. This would be in harmony with 1 Corinthians 5:7 (“Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed”), and it is also implied in John 19:36, where the sacrificial rubric of Exodus 12:46 (also Numbers 9:12) is applied to the crucified Jesus: “You shall not break any of its bones.” Christ himself is the sacrificed Lamb and the new Passover is his death and resurrection, which fulfil the meaning of the old Passover. The content of this new Passover is signified in celebration of the Last Supper when Jesus gives to his disciples bread and wine as his body and his blood.

Promise of Blood The biblical institution narratives fall into two distinct groups: Mark 14:22-25 is close to Matthew 26:26-29, both referring to the blood of the covenant of Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:8), whereas Luke 22:14-20, which has an affinity to 1 Corinthians 11:23-27, highlights the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31. While the Fourth Gospel does not report the institution of the Eucharist, it would appear that John 6 (especially verses 51-58) pre-

“ The actual words Jesus spoke over the bread and over the cup of wine make them signs anticipating his redemptive Passion.” ­­ supposes it. The Lord’s words of institution fulfil all five “primary criteria” for sayings or deeds attributed to the historical Jesus, as developed in New Testament scholarship, especially the criterion of “multiple attestation” (that is, confirmed by more than one account)—not just of a general motif, such as “Kingdom of God,” but of a precise saying and deed.6 While there is thus a strong plausibility that the dominical words at the Last Supper, as transmitted by Paul and the Synoptic Gospels, represent the ipsissima vox of Jesus (the “kind of thing” he would have said), the variations in the four accounts pose the question of the ipsissima verba (what exactly he said). Allowance needs to be made for development of the oral tradition and the work of a final redactor. There would seem to be a wide consensus among biblical scholars that Jesus indeed broke bread, gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my body,” thus anticipating the violent death he was about to suffer. Neither the Hebrew nor the Aramaic language use the copula “is,” but it can be safely assumed that Jesus identified the broken and shared bread with his body and hence with the voluntary offering of his life.

“ There is no compelling reason not to accept the origin of the words of institution in Jesus himself.”

The words over the chalice are usually considered to have undergone some post-Easter editing from different theological perspectives. The pre-Pauline and Lukan version, evoking a “new covenant,” mitigates the scandal to Jewish ears of drinking blood. However, the reference to Jeremiah 31:31 raises the difficulty that this passage has no connection with sacrifice or the offering of blood, and it may represent a later addition, at least as it stands in 1 Corinthians. In Luke, the statement that the blood is shed “for you” (Luke 22:20) would suggest an already existing liturgical use. In favor of the version in Matthew and Mark, it can be argued that covenant, blood (sacrifice), and meal are already connected in Exodus 24:8, to which it alludes (see also Deuteronomy 12:7). Why should this stark version of the words of institution as found in Matthew and Mark not be the authentic one, precisely because it is more

difficult to understand and accept in a Jewish context?

In an original way, the words of Jesus link the expectation of the Messiah with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, who lays down his life “for many.”

Origin Story To conclude, then, there is no compelling reason not to accept the origin of the words of institution in Jesus himself. The Apostle Paul, who is usually regarded as the earliest witness to the Last Supper tradition (circa 53/54), claims to pass on what he has received from the Lord himself (1 Corinthians 11:23). The fact that he and Luke include the command “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25; Luke 22:19) would imply a liturgical practice that was already observed in Christian communities.

The next entry in this series will look at the early Christian understanding of the Eucharist and the development of its liturgical form.

Father Uwe Michael Lang, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, is a priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in London. He holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford, and teaches Church History at Mater Ecclesiae College, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and Allen Hall Seminary, London. He is an associate staff member at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, and on the Visiting Faculty of the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, IL. He is a Corresponding Member of the Neuer Schülerkreis Joseph Ratzinger / Papst Benedikt XVI, a Member of the Council of the Henry Bradshaw Society, a Board Member of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, and the Editor of Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal.

1. Josef A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum Sollemnia), trans. Francis A. Brunner, 2 vol. (New York: Benziger, 1951–1955), vol. I, 7.

2. See Paul Bradshaw, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009). 3-19.

3. See, above all, Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015); also Craig Blomberg, Contagious Holiness: Jesus’ Meals with Sinners (Downer’s Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2005); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017).

4. See, for example, Eugene LaVerdiere, Dining in the Kingdom of God: The Origin of the Eucharist according to Luke (Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 1994).

5. See Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth. Part Two: Holy Week. From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, trans.

Philip J. Whitmore (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 112-115; John R. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume One: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 398-399.

6. The five “primary criteria” listed by Meier are: (1) embarrassment (the difficult idea of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ; see John 6); (2) discontinuity (the originality of Jesus’ “new Passover”); (3) multiple attestation (as seen); (4) coherence (with the mission of Jesus and in particular with his Passion); (5) Jesus’ rejection and execution (the alienation caused by the difficulty and novelty of the words). See Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. I, 168-177.

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

A Unique Holy Week—Again

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By Father Daniel Cardó

Look Toward the Light…

As soon as we began to think and work on the different aspects of Holy Week at the parish, I realized that there will be a number of practical considerations still unique to this difficult time. And yet, gratefully, all the challenges are marked by a joyful expectation: being together as a parish during the holiest days of the year. In an Easter letter St. Athanasius said to his people, “This is the wonder of his love: he gathers to this feast those who are far apart, and brings together in unity of faith those who may be physically separated from each other.” (Epistle 5,2) Last year we were physically separated from one another; this year we will be gathered together. But, of course, this physical closeness is not the main goal. I believe that this Holy Week is an occasion for all of us to let the wonder of Christ’s love bring together our minds and hearts, letting his sacrifice heal any wound and division.

The months leading to this year’s upcoming Holy Week have not been easy. With Job we can say, “I have been assigned months of misery; our hearts have been filled with restlessness.” However, the injustices and polarization, the judgements and confusion that we all experience these days are an opportunity to realize that the world—and our hearts—need redemption.

AB/ L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO

Emerge from Darkness…

Needless to say, the months leading to this year’s upcoming Holy Week have not been easy. With Job we can say, “I have been assigned months of misery; our hearts have been filled with restlessness” (Job 7:3-4). However, the injustices and polarization, the judgements and confusion that we all experience these days are an opportunity to realize that the world—and our hearts—need redemption. This long Lent of our history, if embraced with peace, can prepare us for the celebration of Holy Week in a deeper way than when we are comfortable and at ease.

“Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my savior and my God” (Psalm 42:56a). I look forward to a unique celebration of Holy Week with my parishioners, one in which routine and complacency will give room to awe and gratitude; one in which the heaviness and disquiet of so many challenges will move us to hope in God and to praise him as he renews the work of our redemption.

St. John Henry Newman said in his famous “Second Spring” sermon, “If we must escape the present ills it must be by going forward.” I think and hope that this Holy Week can mark for all of us a moment to move on, to stop spending our energies in lamenting the present ills and to escape them not by denying them but by searching the answer for them in God. That is the meaning of going forward: “I will go to the altar of God, to the God of my exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4). I long for a celebration of the Triduum in which we will encounter with renewed hearts the salvation brought by the sacrifice of Christ. Holy Week a year ago was lived in a different and altogether special way. If anything, the faithful, being far from their churches and fellow parishioners, were certainly provided an occasion to desire what so many times is taken for granted. This Holy Week has to be marked by a fresh desire. As St. Augustine preached in a homily, “God stretches our desire through delay, stretches our soul through desire, and makes it large enough by stretching it. Let us desire then, brothers, for we have to be filled” (Homilies on the First Epistle of St. John, 4,6).

This year, with stretched souls, we all should dare to desire, for we hope to be filled.

AB/WIKIMEDIA. JOB AND HIS FRIENDS, BY ILYA REPIN (1844–1930)

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s we approach the celebration of Holy Week, it is impossible not to remember that a year ago we experienced an unthinkable Paschal Triduum in lockdown, without the presence of an assembly at the most solemn and beautiful liturgies of the year. I am sure I am not the only one for whom the very memory of this brings back the pain and confusion of those days. As a pastor, I saw that the suffering of my parishioners who could not be there for those great liturgies was definitely present throughout all the celebrations. And yet, the silence of an empty church became—by God’s goodness— the occasion to realize, more than ever, what it means to be a priest: to offer sacrifice for those entrusted to me, and to intercede for them. How mysteriously close we were those days!

The echo of the empty pews was also the setting to remember that the truth of the celebrations was not diminished by the unusual circumstances: the Lord was, in fact, giving his life for us, the very few serving at the altar, the many who were praying at home, and also those who were indifferent to the sacredness of those holy days. The Lord indeed suffered, died, and rose for all of us.

As I look back on Holy Week 2020 and look forward to Holy Week 2021, I take comfort in knowing that we have been here before—that sacred scripture, the Church fathers, and some of the greatest saints have all understood the need to encounter Christ through the liturgy, a need which is whetted by its absence and satisfied in its consummation.

St. Augustine said it beautifully at an Easter Vigil celebrated 1,600 years ago: “The sun has gone but not the day, for a shining earth has taken the place of the shining sky.

With delighted eyes we behold the gleam of these lamps, and thus, with an illuminated spirit, we can understand the meaning of this shining night.”

The hope of being together for the sacred liturgies of the Triduum makes me desire to celebrate them with all solemnity, with all love, and with all reverence. This joyful expectation reminds me of how St. Justin described the early Eucharist, in which the priest is called to pray “according to his ability” (1 Apology 67), or of the quantum potes, tantum aude (“as much as you can, dare that much”) of St. Thomas Aquinas. This upcoming, unique Holy Week is an invitation for us priests to try to pray for and with our people to the best of our ability, to dare to praise God as much as our hearts are capable of.

“ This long Lent of our history, if embraced with peace, can prepare us for the celebration of Holy Week in a deeper way than when we are comfortable and at ease.” ­­ Move Into the Light…

Now, to be clear, this desire to adore and pray more is, first and foremost, a matter of quality rather than of quantity; it is about the depth that comes from the awareness of the truth of the celebrations. As such, rather than aiming for solemn liturgies because this year people will be physically present, it is the fact that we will be together that offers us the occasion to dare to love and adore the Lord with special joy and renewed strength.

As such, I look forward to being united in gratitude for and veneration of the gift of the Eucharist, accompanying together Jesus in his agony. I look forward to presenting the Holy Cross for loving adoration on Good Friday to hearts awake and open to the new life obtained by the death of Christ. I look forward to the meaningful silence of Holy Saturday, gathered as a community around our Blessed Mother, expecting with hope the fulfillment of the promises. I look forward to hearing the Exsultet

resound in the echo, not of empty pews, but of joyful hearts, and humbly giving my voice to Christ to consecrate the water that will give the life of the resurrection to those who will be baptized during the Easter Vigil.

I look forward as well to realizing with my people just how real these liturgies are; how much truth is fulfilled in those humble and glorious words and gestures through which Christ, Head and Body, renews his great works; how patently the work of our redemption comes to us in this day of our history, so marked by darkness, so deeply in need of the light of Easter. I look forward to hearing as a community the ever ancient and ever young voice of Mother Church singing the ultimate paradox, more current today than ever, “O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” All our suffering truly becomes the occasion for a uniquely meaningful and fruitful Holy Week. “O wonder of your humble care for us! O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son! O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!”

And Let There Be Light!

The Easter Vigil of 2020 was marked, quite symbolically, by the omission of the lucernarium—the rites surrounding the holy fire. Even in the few places in which a fire was blessed, there was still a painful absence: the moving view of a completely dark church slowly being filled with light as each member of that portion of the Body of Christ which is a parish, is illuminated by a taper lit from the Easter Candle. Perhaps if I had to choose one moment of the upcoming Paschal Triduum that I am particularly looking forward to as a pastor, I would say it is seeing how the love of Christ overcomes the darkness and coldness of our wounded world. I hope to feel the warmth of that blazing fire along with my parishioners; I long to see my church being filled with the light of Christ shared with each of those friends who will be celebrating together the resurrection; I desire to experience as a community the power of that Holy Night.

St. Augustine said it beautifully at an Easter Vigil celebrated 1,600 years ago: “The sun has gone but not the day, for a shining earth has taken the place of the shining sky. With delighted eyes we behold the gleam of these lamps, and thus, with an illuminated spirit, we can understand the meaning of this shining night” (Sermon Guelferbytanus 5,1–2, cited in Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, 323). My sincere hope is that 2021’s unique celebration of the Paschal Triduum can bear a unique fruit in all of us, allowing us to see that the darkness we have experienced in recent times is overcome by the victory of Christ, whose light gives us the “meaning of this shining night.”

Father Daniel Cardó holds the Benedict XVI Chair of Liturgical Studies at St. John Vianney Seminary and is visiting professor at the Augustine Institute, both in Denver. He is also pastor at Holy Name Parish, Denver.

He is the author of The Cross and the Eucharist in Early Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2019), What Does It Mean to Believe? Faith in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger (Emmaus Academic, 2020) and The Art of Preaching: A Theological and Practical Primer (Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming).

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

Muted Tones? Liturgical Singing in Time of Pandemic

AB/LAWRENCE OP ON FLICKR

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The nature of the liturgy must be considered in matters related to the liturgy during this time of COVID, as the supernatural does not automatically yield to the natural. Spiritual goods—such as song—must be held in consideration along with material goods.

By Alexis Kazimira Kutarna

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or the past several months, parishes throughout the United States and around the world have been implementing changes to liturgical practices in time of pandemic. As dioceses around the United States began shuttering church doors, the bishops of Texas (where I live) made the decision to follow suit. Effective Wednesday, March 18, 2020, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, issued a notice to parishes that public Masses would be suspended.1 With groups no longer able to gather, church choirs were disbanded, seemingly temporarily.2 Mass was celebrated with a skeleton crew: the priest celebrant, perhaps a cameraman, possibly a server or lector, and maybe an organist, a cantor or even a quartet of singers. As the pandemic continued to unfold, reports arose of COVID-19 spreading from a choir rehearsal in Washington, which began to captivate the attention of choir directors around the world.

When public Masses were permitted to resume in Houston on May 1 (by order of the Governor of the State of Texas and by the Ordinary), pastors and musicians weighed the various factors about attendance, socialdistancing, age of members, and the developing news stories about aerosol spread of COVID-19, to make decisions about singing. In other places, liturgical singing was outright banned. The State of California Department of Public Health issued directives to places of worship to “discontinue singing (in rehearsals, services, etc.), chanting, and other practices and performances where there is increased likelihood for transmission from contaminated exhaled droplets.”3 In other places, while choirs would continue to be suspended, parishes continued to have a cantor assist at Mass, as was the case for a number of parishes in Houston. Decisions had to be made about if and what to sing. Pastors and choir directors were forced to examine their practices in light of available scientific information. What were the factors that contributed to these decisions about singing?

Singing and Transmission of Disease Capturing the attention of choir directors and pastors across the country, we have the anecdotal story of a church choir from Washington State, where 53 out of 61 singers at a choir rehearsal in early March were infected with the novel coronavirus.4 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated an investigation in the matter, as reports say that a symptomatic person attended the rehearsal. However, the CDC concluded: “Choir practice attendees had multiple opportunities for droplet transmission from close contact or fomite transmission, and the act of singing itself might have contributed to SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Aerosol emission during speech has been correlated with loudness of vocalization, and certain persons, who release an order of magnitude more particles than their peers, have been referred to as superemitters and have been hypothesized to contribute to superspeading events. Members had an intense and prolonged exposure, singing while sitting 6–10 inches from one another, possibly emitting aerosols.”5 In addition, there had already been reports of illness spreading at choir rehearsals in Europe. Subsequently, on May 5, a much-touted webinar was held in conjunction with a number of major singing organizations in the United States: the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, Barbershop Harmony Society, and Performing Arts Medical Association (PAMA).

The topic was “What Do Science and Data Say About the

Near Term Future of Singing?” The health experts in this panel described singers as “super-spreaders,” asked questions about whether singing was even possible until vaccination stage, and discussed medical science related to singing.7 Additionally, organizations around the world have initiated studies into the transmission of disease by

“ At what point do factors of public health come into conflict with the dignified celebration of the sacred liturgy? Should we limit singing at the liturgy, or even more extreme, ban singing altogether?” singing as well as by wind instruments.8 While this article does not intend to detail the results of an exhaustive list of scientific studies on aerosols and singing, there are continuing efforts in this area that should be noted. First, a coalition of over 125 performing arts organizations initiated a series of studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Initial results were released in July 2020, followed by a second preliminary release on August 6, 2020. From their first press release, “Among its most significant considerations, the study recommends masks be worn by all students and staff in a performing arts room—even while playing instruments when possible—and that no talking should be done without a mask on.”9 The second study is said to confirm initial results.10 A third round of the study was completed in December, concluding about singing that “Singers produce aerosol at similar rates as woodwinds and brass. The amount of aerosol varies depending on consonants, vowels, intensity, and pitch. Singers wearing a well fit 3-layer surgical style mask reduces aerosol emission.”11 These studies are aimed at considering how music making may continue or resume, and determining the mitigation efforts that are necessary.

In another study of note, the authors of a paper at the University of Bristol argue their results demonstrate that singing poses no greater risk than speaking at a similar volume, prompting the British government to alter its policies for choirs.12 In Austria, too, choir singing is able to resume, with appropriate adaptations.13 In Germany, the Munich study demonstrated that “the air is only set in motion in the area up to 0.5 m in front of the mouth when singing, regardless of how loud the sound was and which pitch was sung. A virus spread beyond this limit via the air flow generated during singing is therefore extremely unlikely. According to Prof. Kähler, the low spread of air movement is not surprising, since singing does not expel a large volume of air in jerks like sneezing, coughing or blowing. Rather, the art of singing is to move as little air as possible and still produce a beautiful and powerful sound.”14 Additionally, the study team from Munich discussed the other reports of choir spread in Berlin and Amsterdam. The exact cause of disease spread is not known, and fluid mechanics Professor Christian Kähler of the Military University concluded that singing, “was not the cause of the outbreaks of Covid-19 at these concerts […]

Air was only propelled about half a metre in front of a singer, and that is not far enough to cause the infection levels of these outbreaks.”15 If such studies are prompting the resumption of choral activities in other places, are these studies not to be considered in the United States as well?

In April 2020, the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contained the following

warning about singing: “Consider suspending or at least decreasing use of a choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition. The act of singing may contribute to transmission of COVID-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.”16 Updated at the end of May 2020, the guidelines for faith-based organizations do not contain any recommendations against singing: “Promote social distancing at services and other gatherings, ensuring that clergy, staff, choir, volunteers and attendees at the services follow social distancing, as circumstances and faith traditions allow, to lessen their risk.”17 Notice the change from the first guidelines to the second: the wording about singing has been dropped.

The scientific community has continued its efforts to study the possibility of transmission of disease among singers and musicians (see third round of NFHS results, above). Another recent development to note is the result of a study by scientists in Munich and Erlangen who joined forces with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.18 One of the results of this study shows that with wind instruments, the aerosol spread is directed more towards the front rather than to the side. The more aerosol transmission is studied, the more the musical community will have better information with which to make decisions about safe music-making, rather than banning live music altogether.

At what point do factors of public health come into conflict with the dignified celebration of the sacred liturgy? Should we limit singing at the liturgy, or even more extreme, ban singing altogether?

The Theological Basis for Singing First among the considerations is the nature of the liturgy itself. It must be stated in such a time as this when tensions are high: this is not to discount factors of public health, but simply to note that the nature of the liturgy must be considered as a factor in decision making, as the supernatural does not automatically yield to the natural.

Spiritual goods must be held in consideration along with material goods. The spiritual benefit of liturgical singing is vast. While its task is to clothe the liturgical text, “its object is to make that text more efficacious, so that the faithful through this means may be the more roused to devotion, and better disposed to gather to themselves the fruits of grace which come from the celebration of the sacred mysteries.”19 The liturgy, then, is by its very nature sung. Music is, as the council Fathers write, necessary or integral to the liturgy: “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.”20 Music in the liturgy, then, cannot be interpreted as an extra or an inconsequential element. Why is this the case? It is because of the relationship of music to the rite itself, and in particular, to the word. The union of melody to text is fundamental to the nature of liturgical music, particularly in the Church’s chant tradition. “[T]he text is a sounded word that has flowered in a musical work.”21 The word that is communicated is, in fact, the Word, made alive in song, in an encounter with the living God. In singing the liturgy, we participate in the very purpose of the liturgy itself: the glorification of God and the sanctification of the faithful. Singing and music are signs, sacramental signs in fact, which represent and make present spiritual realities. Singing the liturgy expresses these underlying realities. We see them expressed in sacred Scripture: The whole of creation, the entire cosmos, imprinted with song in the work of God the Creator, joins in singing the song to the Lamb seated on the

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throne in the heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 5:8-13).

All peoples, all nations, join in praising him (Revelation 7:9-10). The New Song has been definitively intoned, the song of Jesus Christ and his saving work (Revelation 14:1-4). This is the song that we join in singing with all of the angels and saints at every celebration of the liturgy.

Cardinal Ratzinger describes the singing of the Church as a cosmic event, rightly ordered: “The cosmic character of liturgical music stands in opposition to the two tendencies of the modern age…: music as pure subjectivity, music as the expression of mere will. We sing with the angels. But this cosmic character is grounded ultimately in the ordering of all Christian worship to logos.”22 Cardinal Ratzinger also describes the singing of the Church, a surpassing of ordinary speech, as a “pneumatic event,” that “Church music comes into being as a ‘charism’, a gift of the Spirit.”23 With this gift of the Holy Spirit, the Church expresses her love song, an image of the dialogue of love of the Trinity. Through liturgical song, once more the veil is lifted for a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy.

The 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram offers a summary of the effects of the sung liturgy: “Indeed, through this form, prayer is expressed in a more attractive way, the mystery of the liturgy, with its hierarchical and community nature, is more openly shown, the unity of hearts is more profoundly achieved by the union of voices, minds are more easily raised to heavenly things by the beauty of the sacred rites, and the whole celebration more clearly prefigures that heavenly liturgy which is enacted in the holy city of Jerusalem.”24

“ With this gift of the Holy Spirit, the Church expresses her love song, an image of the dialogue of love of the Trinity. Through liturgical song, once more the veil is lifted for a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy.”

An Informed, Reasoned Decision Weighing scientific information, anecdotal evidence, and theological considerations is not a simple one that can be reached without reason and evaluation. One advantage in this decision-making process is that there are various degrees to which this can be accomplished without resorting to the extreme of banning choirs, cantors, and congregational singing entirely. It does not have to be an either-or scenario.25 What are the material and spiritual goods of the decisions, and are they rightly ordered?

Bishop Thomas Olmsted wrote in 2012 that “when the Order of the Mass is sung, the liturgy becomes most true to itself, and all else in the liturgy becomes more properly ordered.”26 We do not sing at the liturgy because we enjoy singing, but because it is the fullest form of the celebration. “Liturgical worship is given a more noble form when it is celebrated in song, with the ministers of each degree fulfilling their ministry and the people participating in it.”27 In fact, Musicam Sacram directs that regarding the sung liturgy, “pastors of souls will therefore do all they can to achieve this form of celebration.”28 What options already exist that take these matters into consideration?

Let us deal with these in the order proposed in Musicam Sacram: first, the dialogues between the priest and the people, as well as the presidential prayers sung by the priest celebrant. These sung portions of the Mass are of the first level, the highest importance. For the average parishioner responding, “and with your spirit,” they are not often doing so with full voice (in the author’s experience). In fact, many people sing more lightly than they may speak. In terms of volume affecting air displacement and transmission of aerosols, the risk may be lower than it perhaps initially appears due to this, and I propose this would make for interesting research. It seems that it may not be necessary to compromise this level of the sung liturgy. A simple chanted response is more appropriately described as lightly sung speech, as opposed to full-throated high-volume singing. We have seen above that studies may now be showing little difference in virus particle concentration between speaking and singing at the same volume.30 The second degree of singing in Musicam Sacram, the chants of the Ordinary of the Mass: we can say that here congregational singing becomes a question. Depending on whether they are masked or not, and how closely spaced the people are (many parishes have blocked off pews), perhaps there is a greater risk level at this point.

This question may also be dependent on the heartiness of the singing in a particular parish, and therefore it may be

AB/WIKIMEDIA

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

A “persona” originally meant that which sounds (sona) through (per)—a mask in other words—which actors in performances of Greek and Roman drama wore onstage, similar to these depictions of personae of Tragedy and Comedy from the ancient Roman theater. Today’s liturgical choirs, albeit from different motivations, have taken on their own personae, as they have been asked to sing through masks to lessen the spread of COVID-19. “Perhaps choirs and congregations,” says Alexis Kazimira Kutarna, “will find their voice anew as masks are removed and they can once again sing with full voice.”

reasonable to reserve this for a decision at the local level.

Is it sufficient, perhaps, to ask that congregants sing more lightly during this time?

For the third degree of parts to be sung: this includes music for the entrance, offertory, and communion. Is congregational hymnody the answer? Perhaps the sung propers are the answer: whether the Gregorian propers, or simplified versions set in the vernacular, with choral/ cantor verses. With a short refrain, these simple chants may be much more akin to speaking than singing. Is this a time when parishes could consider simple antiphons sung by a cantor, or even the full propers? There are many options available, which cannot be adequately addressed here.

Finally, to the question of whether or not choral groups should resume singing or a parish engage only a single cantor: this may be again a decision best reserved to the local level. Is it possible to sufficiently space singers with regard to current local guidelines? In some parishes, a small schola is spread out between singers. (The author has the ability and space to spread singers 20 feet apart each if needed.) Some parishes may wonder whether a choir loft should even be used, due to the question of aerosol particulates spreading into the church, or whether the choir is sufficiently distanced from everyone else.

Ultimately, many of these questions are more appropriately addressed at the local level, rather than a comprehensive ban on singing which ignores the innumerable spiritual benefits to the faithful. This is where the hierarchy of goods must be considered: the spiritual goods of liturgical song.

“ Weighing scientific information, anecdotal evidence, and theological considerations is not a simple one that can be reached without reason and evaluation.”

Conclusion As studies continue to unfold, it may be prudent to recommend that particularly vulnerable persons do not participate in choral groups; of course, pastoral matters remain a consideration. This is even indicated in Musicam Sacram: “The practical preparation for each liturgi-

cal celebration should be done in a spirit of cooperation by all parties concerned, […] whether it be in ritual, pastoral or musical matters.”31 However, we would be failing to make a well-reasoned decision if liturgical singing were to be dismissed outright, considering the extent of the theological basis for singing. As the situation continues to unfold, each local community will need to make decisions appropriate to its own situation, all the while considering the larger picture. After lockdown periods and suspension of Mass comes to an end, attention to these principles on singing can reinvigorate the liturgical celebration. Perhaps choirs and congregations will find their voice anew as masks are removed and they can once again sing with full voice. Until then it is possible to obtain information and scientific data, and also to use our capacity of reason to sift through the information, understanding the nature of singing at the sacred liturgy,

“ A simple chanted response is more appropriately described as lightly sung speech, as opposed to fullthroated high-volume singing.” in order to discern the best path forward. The whole celebration, even in these times, can indeed prefigure “that heavenly liturgy which is enacted in the holy city of Jerusalem.”32 Alexis Kazimira Kutarna earned a Master of Arts in Liturgy at The Liturgical Institute at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, IL. She holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree in music, as well as a Performer’s Certificate. She is currently working on a PhD in Liturgical Studies with a concentration in Church Music at the University of Vienna. Alexis has worked with singers of all ages, having served as a parish music and liturgy director, and as the Director of Music at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston, TX. She teaches courses on the liturgy and liturgical music at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX, summer chant course for the St. Basil School of Gregorian Chant at the University of St. Thomas, and is currently music director and an assistant principal at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School in Houston. Most important is her vocation as wife and mother to two little girls.

This article is reprinted from Worship at Your Own Risk: The Celebration of Liturgy in the Time of Covid-19, with the kind permission of its editors, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Feulner and Professor Elias Haslwanter, both of the Department for Liturgical Studies and Sacramental Theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Vienna, as well as ISD Distributor of Scholarly Books (www. isdistribution.com).

1. Daniel Dinardo, Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Message from Daniel Cardinal DiNardo. URL: https://www.archgh.org/media/14130/ message-from-daniel-cardinal-dinardo-march-17-2020.pdf [Accessed 30 May 2020].

2. The State of Texas order by Governor Greg Abbot prohibited Texans from gathering in groups of more than 10 people. A complete list of civil orders issued during this time (applicable to parishes in the city of Houston) are found at the Harris County website. URL: https://www. readyharris.org/Stay-Safe/ [Accessed 30 May 2020].

3. State of California Department Of Public Health COVID-19 Industry Guidance: Places of Worship and Providers of Religious Services and Cultural Ceremonies (July 29, 2020). URL: https://files.covid19.ca.gov/ pdf/guidance-places-of-worship.pdf [Accessed 30 August 2020].

4. Cf. Lea Hamner et al., High SARS-CoV-2 Attack Rate Following Exposure at a Choir Practice – Skagit County, Washington, March 2020, in: Morbidity and Mortality Week¬ly Report 69/19 (15 May 2020) 606–610.

URL: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6919e6-H. pdf [accessed: 10 August 2020]. See also: Cf. Richard Read, A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead, in: Los Angeles Times (29 March 2020). URL:

Please see SING on page 9

Worship at Your Own Risk: The Celebration of Liturgy in the Time of Covid-19.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the range of measures taken by various governments, large parts of society were almost brought to a standstill in 2020.

Even the religious services of churches and other religions could only be celebrated, if at all, under conditions that were previously unimaginable. These circumstances raise questions in the area of Liturgical Studies as a theological discipline. In 53 contributions (24 of which are in English, including one from Adoremus Editor, Christopher Carstens), Catholic—Latin and Eastern, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, and Jewish authors from Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and from Australia and the Far East, provide insights into the liturgical practices of Worship at their respective churches and communities under these extraordinary conditions.

NEW Your Own Risk?

The Celebration of Liturgy The international, ecumenical, and interdisciplinary breadth of the contributions provide critical reflections in the Time of Covid-19 on the experiences gained from the still ongoing pandemic, and provide constructive proposals for possible 53 contributions in future times of crisis.

In addition, relevant documents are made available in an attachment and in an online Jahre English and German Aschendorff appendix. Find more information at ISD Distributor of Scholarly Books (www.isdistribution.com).

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Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

Holy Weeks Past and Present

By Father Aaron Williams

Palm Sunday In the pre-1955 Palm Sunday liturgy, the rite for the blessing and distribution of Palms constitutes nearly an entirely separate Mass (or a so-called “Dry Mass of the Palms”). The reason for this was that formerly when the Pope celebrated this rite in Rome, two Masses were offered—one at St. Lawrence Outside-the-Walls and a second at St. John Lateran, with a procession with palms taking place between the two. Eventually, the location of this Mass was moved to St. Peter’s and the canons of the basilica gathered with the Pope beforehand at the oratory of St. Maria in Turri for the blessing of palms.

The “dry Mass” consists of an Introit, Collect, Epistle, Gradual, and a Gospel (all with the same ceremonial as a Mass) but no consecration or communion. Following the Gospel, another prayer is said aloud to mimic the Secret. A preface is sung, then the Sanctus, followed by a five-paragraph “anaphora” which is prayed over the palm branches at the altar. The palms are then distributed at the communion railing, and a procession commences outside and then returns to the church (or to the church where Mass will be offered). When the procession reaches the doors of the church, they are shut with two cantors inside. The celebrant and cantors then chant the Gloria laus et honor in dialogue, back and forth from inside and outside the church. At the end, the Subdeacon takes the processional cross and knocks on the doors of the church. They are opened, and the procession continues to the altar where the priest vests in chasuble and begins the Mass. Much of the rest of the Mass continues as any Mass would, with the exception of the Passion reading, read by three assisting ministers, which includes the account of the Last Supper from St. Matthew. The conclusion of the passage is read by the deacon with the ceremonial of candles and incense which normally accompanies the gospel at a solemn Mass.

The reformed (i.e., post-1955) rite eliminates the “dry

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f your parish regularly offers Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form, or if you keep track of blogs on the traditional liturgy, odds are you have heard of places celebrating the rites of Holy Week according to the pre-1955 usage. In recent years, interest in this particular expression of the liturgy has grown such that nearly every place where Holy Week is offered in the older form, a discussion occurs as to which form of Holy Week will be offered.

Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum grants general faculty to priests to celebrate liturgical rites according to the missal of Pope St. John XXIII, which was promulgated in 1962. This missal included the then seven-year-old reformed Holy Week of the venerable Pope Pius XII, which was promulgated in 1955. This reform of Holy Week constituted the greatest rubrical change to the missal of Pope St. Pius V since its publication, and in many ways it was a foretelling of other major changes to the Mass, the fruits of which are found in the missal of Pope St. Paul VI (i.e., the Ordinary Form).

Having only been in place for seven years, the presence of the reformed Holy Week rites in the missal of 1962 has given rise to considerable questions in traditional communities as to whether it is more in the “spirit” of the traditional liturgy to celebrate Holy Week according to its pre-1955 form. What’s more, this concern seems to have been heard by Rome. In 2018 the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei granted an ad experimentum indult to a number of traditional religious orders and societies to celebrate Holy Week according to the pre-1955 usage. (It should be stated that for the priest who is not a member of one of these orders or societies, a particular indult should be sought before celebrating the pre-1955 usage in a parish, though it seems that these have been given freely in the past.) Interestingly, the recent publication of the Vatican edition of the 2021 ordo for the Extraordinary Form also includes permission to offer abolished feasts and observe some rubrics which were removed from the general calendar in 1955, provided those practices are customary or devotional to the faithful in that place.

Given the rise of interest in the pre-reformed usage of the Holy Week rites, it is worthwhile to do a brief comparison of these rites. As a general statement, one significant aspect of the pre-reformed Holy Week which draws interest is its clear attachment to the way the liturgy was celebrated in the early centuries of the Church.

The Mass of Palm Sunday is an excellent demonstration of this point.

Originally, when the Pope celebrated Palm Sunday in Rome, two Masses were offered—one at St. Lawrence Outside-theWalls and a second at St. John Lateran (pictured here), with a procession with palms taking place between the two.

Mass” entirely and replaces it with a brief rite of blessing of palms before the Mass. The priest and ministers reach the altar and omit the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. A free-standing table is set up in the sanctuary and the priest goes around the table to face the people and offers the prayer of blessing. After this, palms are distributed and the procession occurs with the omission of the rite at the door. Red vestments are worn for the procession rather than the violet of the pre-reformed rite. When the Mass begins, the priest changes into violet chasuble. The remainder of the Mass is much the same, with an abbreviated form of the Passion gospel and the omission of the Last Gospel. Interestingly enough, the rubrics prescribe that the priest say aloud the entire phrase, Orate, fratres, ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat apud Deum Patrem omnipotentem (versus simply the first two words, as in the 1962 Missal), but no particular reason is given as to why this change is introduced but not applied to the remainder of the Missal. In many ways, the rite to bless the palms is much the same as it appears in the missal of the Ordinary Form.

“ Formerly, the faithful did not receive Holy Communion on Good Friday, but in the reformed rite of 1955 the priest is instructed to consecrate enough hosts on Holy Thursday so that the faithful may receive Holy Communion the following day.”

Holy Thursday The Masses during the week are virtually unchanged in the pre-1955 form, with the exception that the Last Supper accounts are omitted from the Passion readings.

The Mass of Holy Thursday, however, presents another interesting change which was made necessary due to a change in the rite of Good Friday. Formerly, the faithful did not receive Holy Communion on Good Friday, but in the reformed rite of 1955 the priest is instructed to consecrate enough hosts on Holy Thursday so that the faithful may receive Holy Communion the following day.

In the pre-1955 rite, after the distribution of Holy Communion at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the priest takes a second host, which he consecrated in the Mass, and places it inside the purified and dried chalice. The paten is placed on top of the chalice upside-down, and a veil is placed over them both and secured at the middle with a ribbon. This apparatus is carried in the solemn procession and reserved during the night at the altar of repose until it is retrieved the following day during the

Good Friday liturgy. With the exception of the consecration of a second ciborium rather than a single host, the only other alteration to this Mass in the post-1955 rite is the introduction of the Mandatum, which remained optional.

Good Friday The pre-reformed texts call the Good Friday liturgy the “Mass of the Pre-Sanctified,” which bears some similarity to the Eastern counterpart: the “Liturgy of the PreSanctified Gifts.” The reformed Holy Week uses the title “Solemn Liturgical Action” and omits references to the Good Friday liturgy as a Mass. The liturgy of Good Friday received the most extensive reform in the post-1955 edition.

In both forms, the priest and ministers wear black vestments as if for Mass. The pre-reformed rite begins with the altar bare except for two unlit candles and a veiled cross upon the altar’s mensa. The ministers genuflect to the cross when entering the sanctuary. While the celebrant prostrates himself before the altar, the assisting ministers spread a single cloth across the altar and place the missal at the epistle side. The priest ascends to the altar, kisses it, and goes to the missal where at once is begun the lesson, which may be read by a competent reader from the place where the subdeacon would usually chant the Epistle. A collect follows, and then the Epistle as normal. The tract is sung, and then the Passion reading from St. John. The solemn intercessions follow in much the same manner as they are done in the postconciliar rite.

Having removed their outer vestments, the priest and ministers go to the altar and retrieve the veiled cross, which is unveiled in the traditional three-stage method.

A violet carpet is spread over the lowest step of the altar, and the cross is laid upon the ground for adoration. The faithful approach, making three genuflections, and on their knees they bend low to adore the cross. When this is complete, the cross is restored to the altar.

Then comes the greatest difference between the pre1955 form and its reformed counterpart. The priest and ministers go to the altar of repose, and the veiled chalice and host is brought to the altar in a solemn procession with incense much like the procession the day before.

When they reach the altar, the chalice is unveiled, and the host is slipped on to the paten and placed on the corporal. Plain wine is poured into the chalice, which is likewise placed on the corporal without prayer or gesture. The host, chalice, cross, and altar are incensed in the usual way and the priest washes his hands without saying anything. The Secret is prayed and then the priest says the Orate Fratres without a response from the faithful. Immediately the Lord’s Prayer is said and the priest fractions the host, saying nothing. The host is consumed with the usual prayer and the chalice without saying anything. Following the purification, everyone departs in silence and the altar is stripped again.

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The reformed rite of 1955 intentionally eliminates references to this liturgy as a Mass. The “Solemn Liturgical Action” begins with a stripped altar which is bare of cross and candles. No cloth is spread during the prostration. A collect is added to the rite following the prostration which, like the modern form, is said without Oremus. The rest of the rite up to the Passion is much the same as the form in the Missal of St. Pius V. After the Passion, the priest removes the chasuble and vests in cope, again to underscore that a Mass is not being celebrated. The solemn intercessions are otherwise carried out in the same way. The priest then removes the cope, and the veiled cross is brought from the sacristy by the deacon accompanied by ministers with candles. The cross is unveiled in the traditional method.

The cross is not laid on the ground, but is held by acolytes for the veneration of the faithful.

When this is completed, the priest and ministers vest in violet vestments but without maniple. The corporal is spread, and the ciborium is brought from the altar of repose by the deacon without any solemnity. The incensation and washing of hands is omitted, and the priest immediately begins the Lord’s Prayer which the rubrics direct is to be sung by all the faithful together.

The priest consumes the host in the normal manner, but there is no chalice. Holy Communion is distributed to the people in the normal method.

Following communion, the priest purifies his fingers in a vessel of water. The ciborium is reposed in the tabernacle of the main altar, after which the priest chants three newly-composed prayers for Good Friday and departs in silence.

Easter Vigil The most extensive revisions to the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday are seen in the first half of the vigil. The rubrics of pre-1955 assume that the Mass is offered on the morning of Holy Saturday—and this will pose a difficulty later on with how the pre-1955 form can be offered in the present day.

The ministers begin vesting in violet vestments with the priest wearing a violet cope. The unadorned Paschal Candle is already in its stand in the sanctuary before the vigil begins. A new fire is prepared and blessed outside the church along with the grains of incense for the Paschal Candle. The deacon changes into white dalmatic and is handed the arundo (“reed”)—a long pole supporting a three-branched candle. This is another connection to the Eastern Liturgy where, in the Byzantine form, the priest holds a three-ended candle during the singing of the Paschal Canon at the Easter Vigil.

As the procession enters the church, a taper is used to light the three ends of the reed, each time with the chanting of the Lumen Christi. The reed is placed in a stand near the Paschal Candle and the deacon chants the Exsultet. This particular moment presents a curious element of the traditional liturgy as the deacon himself blesses the Paschal Candle—the only time in the traditional liturgical rites where a deacon is called to bless anything. It is worth noting that in parishes where a deacon and subdeacon are not available, the priest is directed to vest as a deacon to perform this rite. During the chanting of the Exsultet, the deacon stops at certain Continued from SING, page 7 https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronaviruschoir-outbreak [accessed: 20 August 2020].

5. Ibid.

6. After a rehearsal on March 9, 59 out of 78 members of the Berliner Domkantorei (Berlin Cathedral Choir) became sick, 32 with COVID-19: German choirs go quiet as singing branded virus risk (28 May 2020).

URL: https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1189811.shtml [accessed: 20 August 2020]. See also: Amsterdam, on March 8: 4 dead after concert of the Amsterdam Gemengd Koor (mixed choir) in the Concertgebouw: https://slippedisc.com/2020/05/concertgebouw-chorus-is-devastatedafter-pre-covid-bach-passion [accessed: 20 August 2020].

7. Cf. National Assocation of Teachers of Singing (NATS) presents A Conversation: What Do Science and Data Say About the Near Term Future of Singing? URL: https://www.nats.org/cgi/page.cgi/_article.html/What_s_ New/NATS\_presents_A_Conversation [Accessed 30 May 2020].

8. For instance, cf. Br.de, Bamberger Symphoniker: Wissenschaftler messen Aerosolausstoß. URL: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/bambergersymphoniker-wissenschaftler-messen-aerosolausstoss,Ry6T6OU [Accessed 30 May 2020].

9. National Federation Of State High School Associations, Preliminary Results of Performing Arts Aerosol Study Depict Hopeful Outlook for Future Music Activities (July 16, 2020). https://www.nfhs.org/articles/ preliminary-results-of-performing-arts-aerosol-study-depict-hopefuloutlook-for-future-music-activities/ [Accessed 30 August 2020].

10. C f. National Federation of State High School Associations, Second Round of Performing Arts Aerosol Study Produces Encouraging Preliminary Results. https://www.nfhs.org/articles/second-round-of-performing-arts-aerosol-study-produces-encouraging-preliminary-results/ [Accessed 30 August 2020].

11. C f. National Federation of State High School Associations, International Coalition of Performing Arts Aerosol Study Report 3. URL: https:// www.nfhs.org/media/4294910/third-aerosol-report.pdf [Accessed 18 February 2021].

12. Lauren Moss, Singing ‘no riskier than talking’ for virus spread. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53853961 [Accessed 30 August 2020].

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Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

In the rites for the Easter Missal prior to their reform in 1955, the deacon himself blesses the Paschal Candle— the only time in the traditional liturgical rites where a deacon is called to bless anything.

moments to insert the incense grains and light the candle from the reed. When this is finished, the priest vests in violet chasuble and the deacon in violet dalmatic.

Twelve prophecies follow.

The reformed Holy Week sees the blessing of the Paschal Candle outside of the church, much as it is found in the modern form. The use of the reed is eliminated, and the prophecies are shortened from 12 to four. (Interestingly enough, the Ordinary Form restores some of these omitted lessons, though not all).

After the prophecies, the pre-reformed rite calls for the blessing of the baptismal font. The blessing of water is preceded by a preface, and then is blessed in the traditional method where the water is divided and sprinkled in four directions—symbolic of the four rivers of Eden. The priest breathes over the water in the form of the Greek letter Ψ—the first letter of the word psyche (“Spirit”). The Oil of Catechumens and Sacred Chrism are added to the water. If baptisms are to occur, they are done now.

Afterwards, the Litany of Saints is chanted and the priest and ministers prostrate themselves on the steps to the altar. At the invocation, “From all sin, deliver us we pray,” the priest and ministers rise and go to the sacristy where they vest in white Mass vestments. While this is done, the altar is prepared for a solemn Mass with cloths, candles, flowers, and reliquaries. Afterwards, the Mass begins as usual with the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, but no introit is sung.

In general, the Mass is carried out as a normal Mass, but there is also omitted the Creed, the offertory antiphon, the Agnus Dei, the Pax, and the communion antiphon. These omissions are intentionally designed to 13. K irchenmusikkommission In Österreich, Empfehlungen für die Tätigkeit der Kirchenchöre (29 May 2020). URL: https://www.kirchenmusikkommission.at/home/130260/chorsingen-ist-wieder-moeglichempfehlungen-fuer-die-taetigkeit-der-kirchenchoere [Accessed 30 August 2020]; 14. Universität Der Bundeswehr München, 8 May 2020. URL: https:// www.unibw.de/home/news-rund-um-corona/musizieren-waehrendder-pandemie-was-raet-die-wissenschaft [Accessed 30 August 2020].

Author’s translation. Original text: „Die Experimente zeigen eindeutig, dass die Luft beim Singen nur im Bereich bis 0,5 m vor dem Mund in Bewegung versetzt wird, unabhängig davon wie laut der Ton war und welche Tonhöhe gesungen wurde. Eine Virusausbreitung über die beim Singen erzeugte Luftströmung ist daher über diese Grenze hinaus äußerst unwahrscheinlich. Die geringe Ausbreitung der Luftbewegung ist laut Prof. Kähler nicht verwunderlich, denn beim Singen wird ja kein großes Luftvolumen stoßartig ausgestoßen wie etwa beim Niesen, Husten oder Pusten. Vielmehr besteht die Kunst des Singens darin, möglichst wenig Luft zu bewegen und trotzdem einen schönen und kräftigen Klang zu erzeugen.“ 15. C f. Robin Mckie, Did Singing Together Spread Coronavirus to Four Choirs? URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/17/ did-singing-together-spread-coronavirus-to-four-choirs [accessed: September 20, 2020].

16. B ill Chapell, CDC Quickly Changed Its Guidance On Limiting Choirs At Religious Services. URL: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviruslive-updates/2020/05/29/865324310/cdc-quickly-changed-its-guidanceon-limiting-choirs-at-religious-services [Accessed 30 May 2020]. The question raised in the article is whether the CDC and the White House altered the guidelines for political reasons, to motivate support from the Republican religious base, or whether this was simply too specific of a message, infringing upon First Amendment rights.

17. Ibid.

18. A ntje Dörfner, Flöten auf Abstand, Trompeten etwas Näher. URL: https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news-kritik/corona-aerosolstudieblaeser-symphonieorchester-des-bayerischen-rundfunks-100.html [Accessed 18 February 2021]. These are results of an aerosol study conducted by scientists from the Ludwig Maximilian University Hospital in Munich and the University Hospital in Erlangen with the Bavarian

underscore that the Church as yet is not fully joyful as the Resurrection is still to occur on Easter Day (recall again that this Mass is offered on the morning of Holy Saturday).

Following Communion, in place of the Communion Antiphon, Vespers is chanted in a brief form (recall, this Vigil Mass is being celebrated in the morning). This proposes a difficulty when the pre-1955 Vigil is celebrated today since the Vigil may now lawfully be celebrated in the evening at a time when Vespers has already been said earlier, before the beginning of the Vigil Mass. There is no post communion prayer, but the dismissal is given with the double-Alleluia, followed by the Last Gospel.

The reformed Holy Week divides the Litany of Saints in half, with the blessing of the font occurring in the middle. The rubrics prescribe that if the baptistry is in another room, the priest and ministers go to bless the font while the faithful remain in the church to continue chanting the litany. The priest and ministers kneel for the first half of the litany instead of making a prostration. After the blessing of the font, a newly-composed rite of “renewal of baptismal promises” is inserted into the ritual, which includes an exhortation from the priest—the only time such an exhortation is prescribed in the Mass prior to the reform of Paul VI. The remainder of the Mass is much the same as the pre-1955 form except the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar are omitted and rather than chanting an abbreviated Vespers, the ritual gives an abbreviated form of Lauds.

The Vigil and this abbreviated Lauds satisfies the obligation for Matins and Lauds of Easter Day. Lessons from History Liturgical rites, apart from being a sacramental encounter with the worship of heaven, are also windows into our past. Knowing our rites, and those which came before, can give us considerable insight into what these rites mean or why the Church is commending them to us in our modern era. Surely, this familiarity is a part of what Pope Benedict XVI meant when he called for the “mutual enrichment” of the forms of the Roman Rite.

Even in parishes which do not celebrate the Extraordinary Form, priests who are knowledgeable about the sources of our modern rites are better equipped both to prepare themselves and their assisting ministers to celebrate, but also to teach the faithful the deeper meanings of the rites themselves and how they are intended to enable us to encounter God. In this way, I hope that this brief overview of the rites of the pre-reformed Holy Week can enable pastors and liturgical ministers to better understand the significance of these rites.

For further reading, Gregory DiPippo offers a complete study of each day. These articles are available at New Liturgical Movement: http://www. newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/04/compendium-of1955-holy-week-revisions_11.html Father Aaron Williams is a priest of the Diocese of Jackson, MS, serving as parochial administrator at St. Joseph Parish in Greenville. He is a graduate of Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans, and earned a masters degree in Liturgical Studies from the Liturgical Institute at University of Our Lady of the Lake, Mundelein, IL. Radio Symphony Orchestra, published in November 2020.

19. Pius X., Motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini (November 22, 1903), art. 1.

English text: Robert F. HAYBURN, Papal Legislation on Sacred Music, Harrison/NY 1978, 223.

20. SC 112. English text: Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Northport/NY 1996, 31.

21. Luigi Agustoni – Johannes B. Göschl, An Introduction to the Interpretation of Gregorian Chant, A translation with notes by Columba Kelly, Vol. 1, Lewiston/NY – Lampeter 2006, 2.

22. Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy [trans. by John Saward], San Francisco/CA 2000, 155.

23. Ibid., 140.

24. Congregation Of Sacred Rites, Instruction Musicam Sacram (March 5, 1967), art. 5. English text: Hayburn, Papal Legislation on Sacred Music (s. fn. 17), 547.

25. As the studies remain inconclusive at this time, it would be the equivalent of saying that no one should ever drive on the road because the risk of dying in an accident outweighs every other consideration.

26. Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Singing the Mass: Liturgical Music as Participation in Christ, in: Adoremus 18/3 (2012). URL: www. adoremus.org/0512SingingtheMass.html [accessed: 30 August 2020].

Originally printed in four parts in: The Catholic Sun (15 December 2011; 19 January 2012; 16 February 2012; 15 March 2012). URL: https:// www.catholicsun.org/2011/12/15/liturgical-music-as-participation-inchrist (Part 1) etc. [accessed: 30 August 2020].

27. SC 113 (Flannery, 32).

28. Musicam Sacram, art. 5 (Hayburn, 547).

29. The degrees of singing may be found in Musicam Sacram art. 29-31.

“These degrees are so arranged that the first may be used even by itself, but the second and third, wholly or partially, may never be used without the first. In this way the faithful will be continually led towards an ever greater participation in the singing.” (Musicam Sacram, art. 28; Hayburn, 547).

30. Note both the Bristol and Munich studies (s. fn. 12 and 14).

31. Musicam Sacram, art. 5 (Hayburn, 547).

32. Ibid.

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Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

Q

A

: How is the date of Easter determined?

: The answer to this question was hotly debated, but peacefully resolved, in the early centuries of the Church.

One opinion held that the resurrection of the Lord ought to take place according to the Hebrew calendar on 14 Nisan (roughly the end of March in today’s calendar).

Nisan is the name of the month—which is measured by the lunar phases—during which Passover takes place.

Nisan begins with the new moon (or on a moonless night during the lunar phase), reaches its midpoint at the full moon on the 14th day, and ends at the end of the moon’s waning. Those who held this view of when Easter ought to be dated, associated most commonly with St. Polycarp of Smyrna (martyred in 155), were called the “Quartodecimans,” or, roughly, the “Fourteeners.” A second opinion on the dating of Easter, headed by Pope Anicetus (d.168), thought that the celebration of Christ’s resurrection ought always to take place on a Sunday, the day on which our Lord rose. And since 14 Nisan can fall on any day of the week (much as December 25 does for us today), that particular day of the month ought to give way to the first day of the week in the Christian calendar— Sunday.

A formula that accounted for both lines of thought was settled at the Council of Nicaea in 325: the date of Easter will fall on the first Sunday (acknowledging Pope Anicetus’s thinking), after the first full moon (satisfying the Quartodecimans) of the spring equinox. To further complicate things, the actual equinox can move between March 20 and 22, but it is always dated as the 21st for the sake of computation. According to this formula, the earliest date of Easter is March 22, while the latest date of Easter is April 25. In 2021, the first full moon after the March 21 equinox is Sunday, March 28, and the first Sunday following that is April 4.

This complex set of calculations may seem excessively meticulous, but for the Church all reality is sacramental—even time. These metrics for setting the calendric date of Easter reflect the Church’s perennial desire to express the Paschal mystery in sacramental terms.

Q

:Which of the three options

should we use to bless holy water at the Easter Vigil?

A

: The instructions directing the blessing of holy water at the Easter Vigil are often difficult to decipher. The rubrics indicate three circumstances that will determine which blessing text ought to be used.

The first scenario, and the ideal one, envisions the sacrament of baptism, either of adults or of infants, taking place at the vigil. If this is the case, the rubrics indicate, “If there are candidates to be baptized,” the priest says: “Dearly beloved, with one heart and one soul, let us by our prayers come to the aid of these our brothers and sisters in their blessed hope, so that, as they approach the font of rebirth, the almighty Father may bestow on them all his merciful help” (Roman Missal, Easter Vigil, 40).

The Litany of the Saints and the prayer of blessing follow.

A second circumstance finds no persons present for baptism, but a font that will be used for baptisms over the course of the next year. Here, the Missal states, “If the font is to be blessed, but no one is to be baptized,” the priest says, “Dearly beloved, let us humbly invoke upon this font the grace of God the almighty Father, that those who from it are born anew may be numbered among the children of adoption in Christ” (ibid.). As in the first option, the Litany of the Saints and the blessing of water follow (see Roman Missal, Easter Vigil, 41). It is not always apparent when this second circumstance exists. While it’s obvious when there are any persons for baptism, it is not always clear that the font needs to be blessed. After all, how many times does a font need to be blessed? In fact, the font is to be blessed each year—but the third option seems to confuse the issue.

According to the Roman Missal (42, 54), the third option for the blessing of the water is used “if no one is to be baptized and the font is not to be blessed.” This option is chosen if there is in fact no font at all, such as in a monastery, convent, seminary, shrine, or other chapel where baptisms would not usually take place. In this instance, there is no font to be blessed and the Litany of the Saints is not sung; only a vessel of holy water is blessed. Parish churches, which always require a baptismal font, are obviously not in this category.

THE RITE QUESTIONS : When does the veiling of crosses take place during Lent?

Q

A

: The first rubric in the Roman Missal appearing at the beginning of the Fifth Sunday of Lent reads, “In the Dioceses of the United States, the practice of covering crosses and images throughout the church from this Sunday may be observed. Crosses remain covered until the end of the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, but images remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil.” The former Sacramentary placed a similar rubric at the very end of the Mass for Saturday of the 4th week of Easter: “The practice of covering crosses and images in the church may be observed, if the episcopal conference decides.” Thus, the current Missal not only relocates the rubric from after Saturday of the 4th week to the beginning of Sunday of the 5th week, but it also states clearly that the U.S. Bishops have so decreed that the veiling may take place.

Why cover statues beginning on the 5th Sunday of Lent? Historically (and at present in the Extraordinary Form), the 5th Sunday of Lent was called “Passion Sunday.” Its gospel reading from John (8:46-59) ends with Jesus telling some of the Jews, “‘I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area” (58-59). Some associate Jesus’ “hiding” as the source of covering his and his saints’ images beginning on this day. But if for some reason it is not possible to cover the statues and crosses on this day, which is an option, then a rubric following Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper directs that “if possible, the crosses are removed from the church,” adding, “It is expedient that any crosses which remain in the church be veiled” (n.41).

The Holy See’s 1998 letter “On the Preparation and Celebration of the Easter Feasts” (Paschalis Sollemnitatis) adds the further detail about the veils’ color: that “it is fitting that any crosses in the church be covered with a red or purple veil” (57).

Q

: Is a cross or crucifix to be used for adoration on Good Friday?

Q

: When are the lights in the church building turned on

A

: The answer to this question is unclear, either from the documents, from history, or from recent practice.

A strong case can be made for using a cross without a corpus upon it. Originally, the veneration was literally of the true cross itself, or at least a relic of it. But since the cross’s relics could not be provided in every possible location, another cross was used in its place. The language in the Missal seems also to indicate a cross rather than a crucifix. This section of the Good Friday liturgy is called “The Adoration of the Holy Cross”; the text for the showing is “Behold the wood of the cross,” saying further that it is the cross “on which hung” (in the past tense: his body no longer hangs) the savior of the world. Elsewhere in the Missal, if a crucifix is desired, it is indicated as such with the phrase, “cross adorned with a figure of Christ crucified” (see GIRM 117, 122)—wording that does not appear in the Missal to describe the Good Friday cross. Furthermore, in the First Form for showing the cross, the Good Friday rubrics describe the uncovering of “the right arm of the cross,” rather than the right arm of Christ.

On the other hand, the more common practice of the tradition appears to be the adoration of a cross with the body of Christ upon it—a crucifix. The legislator himself appears to have this in mind, since images are easily accessible of Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis each adoring a crucifix on Good Friday.

Besides the instructions in the Roman Missal, the Holy See’s 1988 circular letter, Paschalis Sollemnitatis, says that “For veneration of the cross, let a cross be used that is of appropriate size and beauty, and let one or other of the forms for this rite be carried out with the splendor worthy of the mystery of our salvation” (68). So, whether cross of crucifix, a representation of the holy wood on which our Lord was put to death must be large, beautiful, and “one in number” (see Roman Missal, Good Friday, 19).

at the Easter Vigil?

A

: The Roman Missal says quite clearly that after the deacon or other minister reaches the sanctuary and has sung “The Light of Christ” for the third time, he “places the paschal candle on a large candlestand prepared next to the ambo or in the middle of the sanctuary. And lights are lit throughout the church, except for the altar candles” (17). In other words, the illumination of the church building doesn’t wait until after the singing of the Exsultet, nor after the readings, but precedes them both.

The Easter Vigil celebrates a new creation, a creation that is symbolized in large part by a new fiat lux, “Let there be light.” While the vigil begins in darkness, the darkness is soon swallowed up by light. The holy fire lights the Paschal Candle, and its coals ignite the incense within the thurible prior to the procession. This same new light is then passed from taper to taper among the people, gradually increasing the light in the church before the building’s usual light source completely transforms the church from darkness to light.

Reflecting this transformation, the poetic text of the Exsultet sings of the new light that now surrounds us. And the Old Testament figures—who until Christ’s coming were only shadows—take on clarity as they reveal our new creation on this new first day of the week.

Q:

Should we expect COVID-required adaptations to this year’s Holy Week liturgies?

Q

celebrate Holy Week?

A

: In a word, probably. Even though the severity and number of adaptations will vary from place to place, some COVID restrictions remain in force in most dioceses in the U.S. Near the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, in March 2000, the Holy See released a number of norms and guidelines for the celebration of Holy Week liturgies. These included the elimination of the Procession with branches on Palm Sunday in parish churches, the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday, the individual adoration of the cross on Good Friday, and the blessing of the fire and the conferral of baptisms.

The Holy See has not released similar guidelines in 2021, but it did communicate in a February 17, 2021 missive (see page 1) that bishops themselves, as moderators of the liturgy in their own dioceses, are “called upon to make prudent decisions in order that the liturgy can be celebrated fruitfully for the People of God and for the good of the souls entrusted to [their] care, while respecting the safeguarding of health and what has been prescribed by the authorities responsible for the common good.” Thus, since “many countries [and states] still have strict lockdown conditions in force rendering it impossible for the faithful to be present in church, while in others a more normal pattern of worship is being resumed,” local adaptations will vary.

A

: What resources can help pastors and the faithful prepare for and

: Primary sources include the Church’s own ritual books and documents: the Roman Missal, the Lectionary for Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and the 1988 circular letter “On the Preparation and Celebration of the Easter Feasts” (Paschalis Sollemnitatis).

Secondary sources include Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, by Pope Benedict XVI (Ignatius Press, 2011), Glory in the Cross: Holy Week in the 3rd Edition of the Roman Missal, by Father Paul Turner (Pueblo, 2011), and A Devotional Journey into the Easter Mystery, by Christopher Carstens (Sophia, 2019).

—All questions answered by the Editors

11

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

Adoremus Bulletin and Ignatius Press Are Proud to Announce: The Seven Gifts of “The Spirit of the Liturgy”

MEMORIAL FOR Norline Baum from Henry Baum, Jr. Robert L. Capizzi, M.D. A loving husband and father from Barbara A Capizzi

I

n the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council wrote that liturgical reform and renewal must accord with what they called “the spirit of the liturgy.” But what did they mean by this? Popes had written and spoken about this spirit in the decades before the council, but another important source is the 1918 book The Spirit of the Liturgy by Romano Guardini, which Pope Benedict XVI credits with sparking the liturgical movement in Germany.

A new book from Ignatius Press, The Seven Gifts of ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’: Centennial Perspectives on Romano Giardini’s Landmark Work is a study of Guardini’s watershed text. With contributions from Bishop Arthur Serratelli, Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., Michon Matthiesen, David Fagerberg, Daniel Cardó, Bishop James Conley, Emery de Gaál, and Susan Benofy, as well as Adoremus Editor Christopher Carstens, it analyzes each of the seven core features of the liturgical spirit as Guardini defined it: objective, corporate, universal, symbolic, meaningful, beautiful, and logical.

The Second Vatican Council saw each of these seven characteristics as integral to authentic liturgical reform.

Too often they remain absent from liturgical celebrations even today, when subjectivism and individualism take the place of an objective, corporate spirit; when custommade liturgies neglect the dimension of universality; when frivolous, anemic symbols stand in for a robust symbolism that truly manifests Christ; when beauty and seriousness fade into the background.

We hold back the spirit of the liturgy if we don’t know what it is, if we don’t desire it, and if we don’t work to let it animate liturgical prayer and practice. For this reason, nine experts on the liturgy recall in this book Guardini’s

Continued from NEWS & VIEWS, page 2 urge you, brothers, by the mercy of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God; this is your spiritual worship.’ Life is called to become worship of God, but this cannot happen without prayer, especially liturgical prayer,” he said.

“This thought helps us all when we go to Mass: I go to pray in community, I go to pray with Christ who is present. When we go to the celebration of a Baptism, for example, it is Christ there, present, who baptizes. ‘But, Father, this is an idea, a way of speaking?’ No, it is not a way of speaking. Christ is present and in the liturgy, you pray with Christ who is next to you.”

“The liturgy, precisely because of its objective dimension, asks to be celebrated with fervor, so that the grace poured out in the rite is not dispersed but reaches the experience of each one. The Catechism explains very well: ‘Prayer interiorizes and assimilates the Liturgy during and after its celebration,’” he said.

Francis said that “certain forms of spirituality can be found in the Church which have not been able to adequately integrate the liturgical moment. Many faithful, although assiduously participating in the rites, especially at Sunday Mass, have drawn nourishment for their faith and their spiritual life rather from other sources, of a devotional type.”

He continued: “In recent decades, much has been done. The constitution Sacrosanctum concilium, of the Second Vatican Council, represents a pivotal point on this long journey. It reaffirms in a complete and organic way the importance of the divine liturgy for the life of

Matthew E. Cromack from Mr. and Mrs. Kermit Cromack Barb and Rita Johnson - Dear sisters from Marliyn and Ron Lantz Barbara Reid from Deacon Joseph Reid Leonard Sigurdson from Sylvia Sigurdson Deacon Bill Steltemeier and son Rudy from Ramona Steltemeier

TO HONOR Cardinal Raymond Burke from Joe Norton key spiritual insights, showing how these can deepen our liturgical understanding and practice today.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy “helped us to rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and timetranscending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life.... We were now willing to see the liturgy as the prayer of the Church, a prayer moved and guided by the Holy Spirit himself, a prayer in which Christ unceasingly becomes contemporary with us, enters into our lives.” This new book, The Seven Gifts of ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’ will help to unpack the depth and scope of this classic work.

Visit ignatius.com or call 1-800-651-1531 to order.

Christians, who find in it that objective mediation required by the fact that Jesus Christ is not an idea, not a feeling, but a living Person, and his Mystery, a historical event.”

U.S. Bishops Adjust Liturgical Translation Following Vatican Concern Denver Newsroom (CNA) — The U.S. bishops’ conference decreed that in the translation of the conclusion of collects in the Roman Missal, “one” is to be omitted before “God.” The conclusions will now read “God, for ever and ever.”

The decision follows a letter sent in May 2020 to Anglophone episcopal conferences by Robert Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, addressing a concern about the English translation.

A February 4 note from the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship said the correction was to take effect in the dioceses of the U.S. from February 17, Ash Wednesday.

Until now, in the conclusions to collects the Latin words Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum had been rendered in English as “one God, for ever and ever.”

The committee’s note said that Cardinal Sarah had observed that “there is no mention of ‘one’ in the Latin, and Deus in the Latin text refers to Christ…. The Cardinal Prefect has pointed out the importance of affirming this Christological truth amid the religious pluralism of today’s world.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput from Ernesto and Nancy Garcia Wendell and Sheila Neugebauer - 60th Wedding Anniversary from Michael and Theresa Schweigert Eileen Vogel from Therese Ruedig

IN THANKSGIVING For all Blessings from Pamela Flanagan For the Priesthood from Mary Sheahan For my Life and Blessings - 91 years from Helene D. Zaepfel The note added that English hand missals that preceded Vatican II “reflected the corrected translation…; however, when the post-conciliar texts were published in English, the word ‘one’ was added.”

The USCCB committee wrote in its February 4 note that it “should be noted that when the translation of the Missal currently in use was in progress, ICEL pointed out the discrepancy to the Congregation in Rome, but was told to retain the use of ‘one God’ in the new translation.”

The note said that the Latin rite bishops of the U.S. have voted to amend the country’s version of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal to reflect the change, and that it has been confirmed by the CDW. The most common formula, used when a collect is addressed to the Father, will read: “Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

The change is in harmony with the bishops’ conferences of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, as well other English-speaking territories.

The same change was effected by the English and Welsh bishops, beginning November 29, 2020. The decree of the English and Welsh bishops’ conference said that “The addition of ‘one’ before ‘God’ in the conclusion of the Collects could be construed as mistaken and problematic. ‘Deus’ here refers to the earlier mention of ‘the Son’ and is a Christological, anti-Arian affirmation, and not directly Trinitarian in this context.”

The addition of “one” before “God” “could serve to undermine the statement of the unique dignity of the Son within the Trinity,” or “could be interpreted as saying that Jesus is ‘one God,’” an explanatory note to the English and Welsh decree stated.

Free Online Course for Adoremus Subscribers: Celebrating the Easter Mystery Using the texts and directions from the Roman Missal, the Lectionary, and the Liturgy of the Hours, the online course, free for Adoremus subscribers, “Celebrating the Easter Mystery,” leads participants from the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday through Holy Week and the Sacred Triduum to Pentecost and beyond. By examining the Church’s liturgical and patristic texts, the course provides clarity to clergy and ministers for a more authentic and beautiful celebration of the Easter feasts, as well as spiritual insights for all who join in these most sacred of liturgies.

The instructor for this course is Adoremus editor Christopher Carstens, who is also Director of the Office for Sacred Worship in the Diocese of La Crosse, WI, and a

visiting faculty member at the Liturgical Institute at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL. He is author of A Devotional Journey into the Mass and A Devotional Journey into the Easter Season.

The course curriculum includes: Class 1 | A sh Wednesday, Lent, Palm Sunday, and Holy Week Class 2 | Holy Thursday, Eucharist, and Priesthood Class 3 | Good Friday and Holy Saturday Class 4 | The Easter Vigil Class 5 | The Easter Season and Pentecost To view this course for FREE, visit Easter.liturgy.online. Enjoy!

12

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021

God’s Accommodations: New Book Seeks to Locate Authentic Foundations of Liturgy

Christ the Liturgy by William Daniel. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020. 206 pp. 978-1621385554. $32.00 Hardcover; $17.95 Paperback.

By Father Ryan T. Ruiz.

R

abbi, where are you staying? – Come and see” (see John 1:38, 39). In one of the first dialogues between our Lord and his soon-to-be disciples in the Gospel of John, a key element of the Christian life is boldly pronounced: the necessity to dwell with Christ, who, in turn, desires to dwell with us. Although a number of worthwhile themes can be identified in William Daniel’s Christ the Liturgy, this call to a life in Christ is perhaps one of the more significant ones in relation to the ultimate end of the liturgy.

An Episcopal priest of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, Father Daniel approaches the liturgy in a way reminiscent of Catherine Pickstock’s seminal work, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy, in which the logic of the liturgy is examined through the lens of language and sacred action, revealing the reality of divine presence. There is much to laud in this approach, as well as the principal error that Daniel seeks to correct, namely, that liturgy is not ‘the work of the people,’ but “the work of the One for the sake of the many” (p. 2).

In examining the nature of liturgy as such, Daniel speaks of it as “metaxological,” meaning that the liturgy serves as the “in-between” or “middle-ground” (metaxu) connecting two inseparable realities: Christ and his Church (see p. 164). In this, Daniel highlights the “volitive participation in the procession and return of God from and to God” (ibid.), or deification, using concepts borrowed from the Pauline corpus as well as the Church Fathers, primarily those of the East.

Indeed, one of the strengths of this work, at least as found in the first two chapters, is Daniel’s rooting of his argument on the sure foundation of the theological reflections of the saints, including such luminaries as Gregory of Nyssa, John Damascene, and Maximus the Confessor, and to a lesser extent Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyon, and Ambrose of Milan.

In Chapter One, Daniel provides the much-needed corrective to the incorrect interpretation of leitourgia as ‘the work of the people.’ Using St. Paul’s treatment of leitourgon (“minister”) in reference to those who gather and present the people’s offerings to God, Daniel notes that the act of liturgy and the role of priestly service are inextricably linked: “Paul is the liturgy he enacts— Christ. His liturgical role is to serve as Christ, to gather the offerings of the faithful into the offering Jesus is in himself. Only in this way do the liturgical actions— offerings—of a people become bound to the offering of Jesus to the Father—the one, holy, acceptable offering” (p. 8). This outlook is carried over into the Post-Apostolic period, where the writings of Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, and the Shepherd of Hermas speak to a lack of separation between the offering of Christ and that of the Church, the latter being viewed through the lens of “participation in triune reciprocity— humanity’s share in God’s fullness” (p. 27).

In Chapter Two, Father Daniel delves into human self-knowledge by way of sacramental participation in the very life of God: “When the human willfully ascends through liturgical participation to the location of her identity in this erotic-knowing of the Holy Trinity, she realizes her personhood to be sustained in, by, and through the shared life that is Father, Son, Spirit—Thought, Word, Deed. That is, she loses herself, and in this losing is the ultimate receiving of her identity in the being-known of God” (pp. 50-51). Here, Daniel relies heavily on the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa, who uses the analogy of the mirror to make a connection to the illumination, or deification, that occurs through sacramental participation: “The mingling of lights on the surface of the mirror that is the object—in this case the Light of Christ and the light of the human—is, for Gregory, an active and mutual penetration of the two natures, divine and human, inasmuch as the human’s gaze is locked on Christ” (p. 60). Thus, it is only through the liturgy, and in particular “Christ the Liturgy,” that humanity finds itself as “participating in the being-known of God,” as individuals incorporated into the offering of the Son to the Father in the Spirit (see pp. 81-82).

“

Whereas these first two chapters focus on the establishment of the theological data by which the topic at hand can be approached, the last two chapters seek to marry theology to praxis. Chapter Three, “The Architecture of Faith,” examines “liturgical habitations” where ritual exercises are often predicated by the spatial environments in which they are enacted. Here, in lieu of his earlier reliance on Scripture and the Fathers, Daniel utilizes modern voices in the pertinent fields of study. For instance, in his discussion of liturgical habitation, Daniel highlights the significance of Martin Heidegger’s reflection on the German word ‘to build’ (bauen/buan) and how it originally indicated ‘to dwell.’ Thus, Daniel, quoting from Heidegger, notes that “the way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling” (p.

101). When this connection is lost, that is, when the connection between “building” and “dwelling” is eradicated, a separation is exposed between “inhabiting a space and enacting something within a space” (p. 105). This most notably occurs when the church structure separates the ekklesia—the gathered assembly—from the kyriake oikia—the “economy of the Lord”—which is the sacred action of divine worship (see p. 102).

This, then, leads to Daniel’s final chapter, “The Grammar of God,” endeavoring to resolve the erroneous definition of liturgy as “the work of the people.” The solution that Daniel identifies is rooted in a grammatical structure that has fallen out of use in modernity: the middle voice. This construct occurs when two subjects are involved in a shared agency, e.g., “John and I were walking,” as opposed to “I walked John to the door.” Such a sharing in the action of the verb ensures the appreciation of the “medial nature of human experience and existence” (p. 126) in which there is a “dynamic relation of mutual subjects involved in a shared agency, in an action that cannot be described in purely active or passive terms” (p.

129). Daniel observes that this active/passive dualism has been resisted in large part by the Church’s liturgy, focusing instead on the worshiper’s participation in the action of Christ, “who remains the singular agent of all faithful liturgy, and yet incorporates all of creation into his self-offering to the Father—inter-Trinitarian worship” (p. 148). Subsequently liturgy, far from being the “work of the people” or an act of “self-expression,” is the “work of God” in which “we become Christ in proportion to our participation in the work” of Christ, done “for the sake of many” (p. 158).

As has been made evident, there is much to laud in Father Daniel’s work that sets aright the true nature of liturgy. However, there are also a number of elements in Christ the Liturgy that might prove challenging to particular readers. The first such element is the very structure of the argument itself. Whereas the title of

the work gives the impression of a study that will enter into a deep conversation with the usual modalities of sacramental and liturgical theology, Daniel’s method relies little on the ancient or modern liturgical texts or on the usual points of contact with sacramental theology, and instead approaches the topic more from the vantage point of contemporary philosophy and linguistics. This Daniel does this well. However, for the reader who picks up Christ the Liturgy without a sense of the methodology utilized, the effect could be somewhat jarring.

A second point of criticism can be connected to style. Father Daniel exhibits great erudition throughout the work, and demonstrates that he is a true scholar who has examined the intricacies of his argument and synthesized them with his impressive source material.

However, interspersed in this scholarly approach are exempla that seem to introduce socio-political topics that might distract the reader from the main argument.

For instance, in his discussion of liturgical space as a means of establishing conviviality amongst persons, Daniel dedicates a section to the “industrialism” that can enslave man to consumerism and the machinery that makes this consumerism possible (see p. 111).

This, then, devolves into a “slight detour” (identified as such by the author himself) that outlines Karl Marx’s critique of capitalistic consumerism (see pp. 111-118, esp. 117-118). Daniel justifies this detour by noting that it calls attention to how “spatial restructuring,” in this case, the restructuring of cities and villages to meet the demands of the market, “reconstitutes language, making certain action and relationships possible and others not, conditioning the human to perceive her environment as a dweller or occupant, but not both” (p.

118). Another illustration of such distraction, one that might prove only tangentially relevant to the thesis, is Daniel’s use of a popular television drama, The Good Doctor, to indicate how language can lead individuals to personal self-knowledge and mutual understanding.

The episode that Daniel highlights is one in which the main character, an autistic surgeon, encounters a transgender child and attempts to understand this child’s sense of self-understanding (see pp. 135-137).

In both of these examples, as well as an additional one that Daniel uses to critique a particular politician and national organization for their perceived complicities in the tragedies of recent gun violence in American schools (see pp. 131-132), the exempla do eventually prove pertinent to the particular argument at hand.

However, for some readers these illustrations might appear as incongruous and only tenuously linked to the otherwise scholarly and objective discussion of participation in the inner life of the Triune God in the sacred liturgy.

Finally, the lacuna in treating recent ecclesiastical documents on the topic of the sacred liturgy in general, and this particular question of participation in the action of Christ, the High Priest, in particular, is quite noticeable. Granted, one should not expect Daniel, an Episcopal priest and theologian writing to a mainly Protestant Christian audience, to treat Mediator Dei, or Sacrosanctum Concilium, or the writings of the great lights of the Liturgical Movement, in depth. However, some of the dubia that Daniel raises, including the claim that there has been little exploration of leitourgia from the standpoint of the priesthood of Christ as “offerer, offering, and act of offering” in the West (see p. 3), seems to deny (or at least ignore) the tremendous work done in this regard in Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican circles in the past century and a half, as well as the traditional theological data that has guided the Church’s sacramental/liturgical theology for millennia.

These critiques aside, Father Daniel’s work provides us with a rich study of the liturgy and an attempt to right an improper attitude that has been in vogue for far too long. Through his application of the scriptural, patristic, philosophical, and linguistic sources, William Daniel successfully dispels the aberration that liturgy is “the work of the people,” and rather instills in his readers a sense of liturgy as humanity’s participation in the divine economy of the Triune God: Christ the Liturgy.

Father Ryan Ruiz was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in May of 2008. He currently serves as Dean of the School of Theology, Director of Liturgy, Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Sacraments, and formation faculty member at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology, Cincinnati.