Renewal of the Liturgy in the Spirit of Tradition: Perspectives with a View Towards the Liturgical Development of the West

Abstract

Renewal of the Liturgy in the Spirit of Tradition: Perspectives with a View Towards the Liturgical Development of the West Sven Conrad, F.S.S.P. I. The Spirit of Liturgical Development I.1. Some historical remarks In an article on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium (4 December 1963) [henceforth: SC], Burkhard Neunheuser worked methodically through the question of how the liturgy of the Church has always been bound up with a continual process of reform; in his view, this process is nothing other than one aspect of the permanent renewal of the Church’s life. According to Neunheuser, reform of the Church’s liturgical life means principally its “correction and realignment .” Even the earliest period of the Church was one formative of the liturgy, where the idea of reform was already recognizable, namely as the “suppression and elimination of abuses.” After a first process of formation, the liturgical research speaks of a phase of creativity in liturgical prayer. Precisely here does the intervention of ecclesiastical authority seem to have been necessary. Presented as a paper delivered at CIEL (Centre International d’Etudes Liturgiques) Twelfth International Colloquium of Historical, Canonical, and Theological Studies on the Roman Catholic Liturgy, held at Rome, 14-17 November 2007. Translated from the original German by Scott G. Hefelfinger . Antiphon gratefully acknowledges the joint permission of the author and CIEL to make this paper available in English. Burkhard Neunheuser, “Liturgie in steter Reform,” in Costituzione liturgica “Sacrosanctum Concilium” Studi a cura della Congregazione per il Culto Divino, ed. Congregation for Divine Worship, Bibliotheca “Ephemerides Liturgicae ” Subsidia [henceforth: BEL] 38 (Rome: C.L.V .-Edizioni Liturgiche, 1986) 103-119. Ibid., 106. Ibid., 105. Antiphon 14.1 (2010): 95-136 96 Sven Conrad, F.S.S.P. Anton Baumstark remarks on this point that not absolutely everything was subject to this creativity. Moreover, the stabilizing of certain “introductory, interim, and concluding changes” followed relatively early. These changes conditioned in turn the way of thinking about prayer. He also emphasizes the relatively early determination of the liturgical words, brought about partially “under the influence of events coming to pass during the time of persecution.” Although Christian cult developed out of the synagogal heritage, it strove at the same time to bind and unify this heritage with the novelty of the specifically Christian. Here it is important to emphasize , following Baumstark, the original multiplicity of liturgical expression, a multiplicity that could only find a greater unity at the historical moment when the civil provinces of the ancient government also became the model for the Church’s administration.10 According to Baumstark, two factors were decisive for the concrete development of the particular form: first, the language, and second, the mentality of a particular people. In addition, he underscores how the character of the Roman Rite could only develop with the turning from the Greek language that coincided with the transition to Latin.11 Along with this point there is a very interesting remark concerning the Traditio Apostolica, about which Baumstark states: “Also in the prayer texts of Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, at least one thing – the prayer of episcopal consecration – is preserved in the Greek original. Neither here nor elsewhere in the available translations of the liturgical portions of Hippolytus’ writings does any fundamental characteristic proper to the Roman liturgy become noticeable within the realm of the otherwise Greek liturgy.”12 “Even in the oldest forms of cult within particular communities, a certain formulaic good was without a doubt removed from the sphere of textual improvisation.” Anton Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie (Ecclesia Orans 10) (Freiburg: Herder, 1923) 36. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden, 36. Baumsark designates such formulas as “signposts” (ibid.) Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden, 31. Relating to liturgical prayer, Neunheuser refers to “a certain schema, at least in general, in conformity with the custom of the synagogue and the earliest Christian witnesses.” In the original: “vi sia stato un certo schema, almeno a grande linee, in conformità con l’uso della Sinagoga e delle prime testimonianze cristiane.” Burkhard Neunheuser, Storia della liturgia attraverso le epoce culturali, BEL 11 (Rome: C.L.V ., 1999) 42. 10 See Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden, 37. 11 See Ibid., 80...