Sacred Liturgy and Asceticism: Respect for the Ius Divinum

Abstract

Sacred Liturgy and Asceticism: Respect for the Ius Divinum1 Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke Introduction First of all, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Father Paul J. Keller, O.P., President of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, for the invitation to address the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society. In accepting the invitation, it was my desire to encourage you as a scholarly and professional association devoted to promoting the Sacred Liturgy, the highest and most perfect expression of our life in Christ in the Church, especially through your attention to an interdisciplinary approach which respects the integral elements of divine worship: language and gesture, music, art and architecture, vesture, vessels and linens. In a particular way, I urge you, in accord with the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI on the Sacred Liturgy, to continue your promotion of the beauty that must necessarily mark every aspect of divine worship. Fittingly, during the 2012 Annual Meeting, you have chosen to address the subject of asceticism and the Sacred Liturgy. The term “asceticism”, derived from the Greek term askesis for the exercise necessary to achieve athletic or gymnastic excellence, has from the time of the Greek Fathers, in the words of Louis Bouyer, “come to designate the effort a Christian must exercise in the battle waged against those things, both from within himself and from without, that oppose the realization of the ideal of Christian perfection as proposed in the Sermon on the Mount.”2 Such spiritual exercise 1 Keynote Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Catholic Liturgy in St Louis, Missouri, on 28 January 2012. 2 “L’ascèse ... en et venue à désigner tous les efforts auxquels doit s’exercer le chrétien, dans cette lutte qu’il doit mener contre ce qui, en lui ou en dehors de lui, s’oppose à la réalisation de l’idéal de la perfection chrétienne proposé dans le Sermon sur la montagne.” Louis Bouyer, “Ascèse, ascétique et ascétisme,” Dictionnaire Théologique (Tournai: Desclée & Co., 1963) 80. [Hereafter, DT] English version: Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Tournai: Desclée Antiphon 17.1 (2013): 3-30 4 RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE is not seen as the fruit of human effort alone as opposed to the action of divine grace, according to a Pelagian view, or even as complementary to divine grace, according to a semi-Pelagian view, but, rather, is seen to depend completely upon divine grace. It is, in fact, divine grace that inspires or prompts ascetical activity as the fitting response of man to God.3 If every dimension of our life in Christ demands asceticism, so that Christ’s life within us, divine grace, may produce its fruit, then, above all, asceticism is necessary if we are to “worship in spirit and truth.”4 As the history of the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council has so strikingly demonstrated, a lack of attention to the discipline required for true worship deforms what should be worship of God into a man-made and man-centered activity. Pope Paul VI, in his homily on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in 1972, reflecting upon the situation of the Church in the world, spoke of his sense that “through some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God.”5 He spoke of a pervasive doubt, uncertainty, restlessness, dissatisfaction and dissent, and of a loss of trust in the Church, coupled with a ready placement of trust in secular prophets who speak through the press or social movements, seeking from them the formula for a true life.6 He noted how, even within the Church, the state of uncertainty prevailed, observing that after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council it was believed that “a day of sunlight had dawned upon the Church,” while, in fact, “a day of clouds, storms, darkness, wandering and uncertainty” had arrived.7 He commented that we seek to dig the abysses deeper rather than to fill them.8 & Co., 1965) 42. [Hereafter, DTEng]. 3 See DT, 80–82. English version: DTEng 42–43. 4 Jn 4:24. 5 “... da qualche fessura sia entrato il...