Embracing Local Ecology in Liturgical Expression

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Victoria Neufeldt, ed., Webster's New World Dictionary of American English, 3rd college ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 429. The Encyclopaedia of Earth explains that: “Carbon is the most abundant element found in organisms. For this reason, carbon is considered the fundamental building block of all life,” and that “Carbon is a critical element to all life. It is one of the six bulk elements and is the second most common element in the human body. By mass it is the most abundant constituent of all the major molecules that organisms are formed from, including nucleic acids (e.g., DNA), proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. As a result, living organisms are intimately involved in the carbon cycle.” “Carbon,” in Encyclopaedia of Earth, ed. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, DC: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment), http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon?topic=49557 (accessed June 1, 2011). Roger M. Downs and Lynn S. Liben, “Mediating the Environment: Communicating, Appropriating and Developing Graphic Representations of Place,” in Development in Context: Acting and Thinking in Specific Environments, eds. Robert H. Wozniak and Kent W. Fischer (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993), 173–74. Ibid., 159. Catholic Church, “Sacrosanctum Concilium: the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” #37, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html (accessed June 1, 2011). Ibid., #38. For further information on the ramifications of this trend for liturgical inculturation, see my essay: “Bridging the Cartesian Chasm: A Radical Empiricist Perspective on Liturgical Inculturation,” Studia Liturgica 40 (2010): 208–23. Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, “Fifth Instruction for the Right Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, Liturgiam Authenticam: On the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Publication of the Books of the Roman Liturgy,” Origins 31:2 (May 23, 2001): 17, 19–32. (Hereafter referred to as LA). Ibid., §5. Ibid. To this list could also be added: eternal/historical and individual/communal (among others). Joseph Ratzinger, Call to Communion (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), 44. Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion,” Origins 22 (June 25, 1992): 108–12. Ibid., #9. Killian McDonnell, “The Ratzinger/Kasper Debate: The Universal Church and Local Churches,” Theological Studies 63 (2002): 231. Ibid., 230. Ibid., 234. Joseph Ratzinger, “On the Relation of the Universal Church and the Local Church in Vatican II,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (December 22, 2000): 46, quoted in McDonnell, 237–38. This is a view seen with increasing frequency in official church documents on the liturgy, such as LA mentioned above. The exceptions to universal ritual were the local rites that had been celebrated continuously for more than two centuries prior to the Council of Trent, such as the Ambrosian Rite (Milan) and the Spanish (Mozarabic) Rite. For further detail on this, see my articles: “Grounding the Timeless in Place: Exploring the Influence of the Physical Environment on Liturgical Conceptions of Time,” Australian Journal of Liturgy 12/1 (May 2009): 84–107; “Relating Liturgical Time to ‘Place-Time': The Spatio-Temporal Dislocation of the Liturgical Year in Australia,” Christian Worship in Australia, eds. Stephen Burns and Anita Monro (Strathfield, NSW, Australia: St. Pauls, 2009): 33–45; “Inculturating the Easter Feast in Southeast Australia,” Worship 78:2 (March 2004): 98–117. Kevin Irwin, “Toward a New Liturgical Movement,” Origins 40/46 (April 28, 2011): 755. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 756. See http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne_details.php?id=2798 (accessed May 30, 2011). Anscar J. Chupungco explains that inculturation of the liturgy involves the process of inserting the texts and rites of the liturgy into the framework of the local culture, resulting in a liturgy “whose shape, language, rites, symbols and artistic expressions reflect the cultural pattern of the local church.” Anscar J. Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation: Sacramentals, Religiosity and Catechesis (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press/Pueblo, 1992), 30, 37. Such as the phrase from the Exsultet (2011 translation, International Commission on English in the Liturgy) proclaimed during the Easter Vigil: “Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her, ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom and darkness”; or the phrase from the traditional Pentecost sequence: “O most blessed Light divine, Let Your radiance in us shine, And our inmost being fill.” Sacrosanctum Concilium #38. This is not to say that we cannot speak/sing of the historical circumstances of Christ's incarnation, just that we should not fail to speak/sing of our own lived experience of Christ's presence alongside the historical reality of his birth. Additional informationNotes on contributorsClare V. JohnsonClare V. Johnson is senior lecturer in sacramental theology and liturgical studies at Australian Catholic University, Strathfield, NSW, Australia.