Introduction of the Berakah Recipient

transportation to about fifty notable American liturgical scholars and practitioners to a conference held in honor of the tenth anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium. It was also sponsored by Theological Studies, in no small part through Walter Burghardt, who was the editor at the time. Burghardt and John Gallen were the two people on the point for this event. Both Worship and Theological Studies were planning special editions which together would publish the proceedings of this event.

Here is a rather healthy excerpt of the letter of invitation sent by Gallen that is the touchstone of our academy.

The renewal of the Church’s liturgy has proven to be a massive and delicate undertaking and it is time, on this tenth anniversary of the Constitution, to take stock. Taking stock can be accomplished in several ways. We could, for example, look back, asking what we have done right, done wrong. Again, we can look forward, asking ourselves what we think are the dimension of the present situation, what particular needs, problems and opportunities we have—and in what direction we think the emphasis should be for the future.

Moreover, many of us who are deeply involved in the liturgical apostolate have found that these ten years have indeed been busy ones. We have worked on committees, taught courses on all levels in educational programs, organized liturgical programs, lectured and discussed, assisted dioceses and religious congregations and orders in their own projects for renewal, have been involved in an almost endless variety of tasks to help the work of liturgical reform.

One thing we haven’t had the chance to do is this: professional liturgists of our country have not had the opportunity to come together as liturgists speaking to each other, offering opinions, listening, suggesting and discussing out of a background of both training and experience the most central questions of worship today and in the future.

This letter is an invitation to you. Because of the gracious hospitality of the Franciscan Renewal center in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the marvelous generosity of the Center’s friends, we are able to send an invitation to about fifty American liturgists to meet this winter in Scottsdale for a major conference. We will begin our conference on the evening of December 4, 1973 (Tuesday), and spend our time till noon on Friday, December 7th, in study, discussion and prayer together.

This is a special kind of conference in the sense that it will not be built around a continued series of major addresses, followed by response and discussion. We plan two major addresses: on the opening night Walter Burghardt will offer a challenge that asks what theology and the American Church can rightly expect of liturgy and its renewal in America. Later in the week, Professor Langdon Gilkey will discuss the question of symbol-making in America. The rest of the time, our plan is to organize our rather manageable group into several smaller groups to work together through several central topics that we judge most demanding of our attention. (We would appreciate your suggestions on these topics even now, in answer to this letter.)

And our work together is planned in the context of prayer together. For this reason, we have asked the Monks of Weston Priory in Vermont to undertake this diakonia for us, this work of service: to lead us in prayer during the week. The entire community of fourteen will be with us for these days.

The focus of our conference: to bring together, on the tenth anniversary of the Constitution, persons with “liturgical credentials” in our country to pray and to study what we judge to be principal opportunities, needs and problems of liturgical renewal in the years that are before us. So it is really more future-oriented than directed towards a consideration of the past.20

The meeting was, by all accounts, a success and left its participants hoping for more. And plans for more followed shortly after the meeting. About a month later, Gallen sent out a summary of the discussion on the future of a group, being called at that time the “National Academy of American Liturgists.” It was intended to be “a prayerful and critical forum for reflection on the contemporary liturgical situation in America.” Here are four of the more central issues that were discussed for this new academy.

 Character/quality of academy:  ecumenical, composed of experts from the Christian Churches;  an association with an on-going task and work to accomplish;  not a pressure-group (but one which, because of the level of expertise involved, would undoubtedly carry a fair amount of weight, especially when speaking in concert);  not an attempt to reduplicate the work of other liturgical associations (e.g., FDLC, Bishops’ Committee, Centers, etc.);  a “service organization” related to Churches and their Committees (cf. below “Goal”).

 Goal and orientation: a working group of experts engaged in a process of sharing their diversified expertise together, which results in (a) mutual enrichment, (b) providing liturgical data (as a “service”) for the Churches: these data need then be enfleshed in the psychology, anthropology and sociology of the American communities, a task that requires more than liturgists, but cannot do without liturgists.

 Qualifications for membership: the general rubric is (as it was for the

Phoenix meeting) “liturgical credentials.” How is this to be concretized?

Some suggested headings:  academic (not necessarily doctoral): theological, historical, behavioral, social sciences, art; elaboration of “liturgy” as an academic science;  pastoral: experience; direction/administration of liturgical programs; active present work; publication work aimed at raising the liturgical consciousness of community;  art: in its several forms;  important-distinguished role in other associations, e.g., Standing Liturgical Commission of Episcopal church, FDLC, Centers, etc.

 Models for Academy:  association, meeting yearly or less often; no “home office”;  association with “home office,” composed of two/three liturgists with executive secretarial help; (neither of these models need be full-blown at once, but could be developed in stages).21