Adoremus Bulletin For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy
JULY 2020
News & Views
XXVI, No.1
Triangulating Sanctity: How the Word of God in the Domestic Church Renews the Liturgy
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VATICAN CITY (CNA)—The Vatican’s doctrinal congregation has asked the world’s bishops to report on how a landmark papal document acknowledging the right of all priests to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962 is being applied in their dioceses. Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), wrote to the presidents of bishops’ conferences in a March 7 letter, asking them to distribute a nine-point questionnaire to bishops about the 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum. The questionnaire was distributed to U.S. bishops April 27, a U.S. bishops’ conference spokesperson told CNA. A spokesperson for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales confirmed April 27 that the conference had received the questionnaire and was preparing to distribute it to bishops. In a 2007 letter to the world’s bishops, Pope Benedict XVI explained that Summorum Pontificum enabled priests to offer Mass according to the 1962 Missal as a “Forma extraordinaria,” or extraordinary form, of the Roman Rite. The Missal published by Paul VI would remain the “Forma ordinaria,” or ordinary form, of the Rite, he said. The CDF survey sent this year includes questions such as: “In your opinion, are there positive or negative aspects of the use of the extraordinary form?” and “How has the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum had an influence on the life of seminaries Please see BISHOP on next page
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Vatican Sends Extraordinary Form Mass Survey to World’s Bishops
The heavenly, or eschatological, vision ceased to exist in much post-conciliar liturgy. But the task of the Church, with the indispensable help of the liturgy, “is not to remake the human city according to the more progressive insights of the age, but to remake it in the light of the new and eternal Jerusalem, the glorious city of God.”
By Michael Brummond
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s we move beyond COVID19-induced cancellations of public Mass and their replacement by more regular domestic prayers, it is worth a look back to see what good has come of it all. While the participation in the Eucharistic Prayer and the reception of the Blessed Sacrament were not options for most families, the reading and praying with the Sunday scriptures became a regular means to engage, albeit imperfectly, with the Word heard behind closed parish doors. Indeed, “Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 24). Given the intimate relationship between the scriptures and the signs, actions, and words of the liturgy, it seems fitting to paraphrase St. Jerome and claim that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of the liturgy.1 Hence, for
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Adoremus Bulletin JULY 2020
the future restoration and progress of the sacred liturgy, it remains essential to promote “a warm and living love,” as Sacrosanctum Concilium notes, for sacred scripture. And it is the family, the domestic Church, that plays an indispensable role in stimulating knowledge of and love for the word of God. Thus, a solicitous regard for the role of sacred scripture in the family is essential to the ongoing restoration of the sacred liturgy. Recatholicising the Liturgy Among the general norms guiding the reform of the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium named the importance of sacred scripture: “To achieve the restoration, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, it is essential to promote that warm and living love for scripture…” (24). Since the liturgical books were revised in the wake of the Council with this principle in mind (cf. SC, 25), and Word Up! Mike Brummond offers a road map which helps families triangulate holiness with a renewed love for scripture and an effective integration with the liturgy...............................1 You Say You Want a Revolution? Then go to Mass—that’s Dom Virgil Michel’s advice in a reprint of a 1935 article which explains the link between liturgy and social regeneration........................................................6 Liturgy in Your Living Room Or kitchen or dining room or wherever you have online access. As Joseph O’Brien reports, the Liturgical Institute is offering online courses on the liturgy........................................8
often with greater attention given to the use of scripture in the rites (SC, 35.1, 51, 92), it might reasonably be asked what further restoration and progress of the liturgy remains. Msgr. M. Francis Mannion argues that there have been in fact five distinct postconciliar approaches to ongoing liturgical reform.2 I offer here a consideration of Msgr. Mannion’s own proposal, which he calls “recatholicising the reform.” This agenda “is primarily committed to a vital re-creation of the ethos that has traditionally imbued Catholic liturgy at its best—an ethos of beauty, majesty, spiritual profundity and solemnity.”3 It seeks to appropriate more fully the revised liturgical books within a liturgical reform that is primarily spiritual: “It seeks a recovery of the sacred and the numinous in liturgical expression which will act as a corrective to the sterility and rationalism of much modern liturgical Please see SCRIPTURE on page 4 3…2…1….Launch! Move over Elon Musk—there’s a new digital platform to help the faithful launch into heavenly realities. Its designer, Adam Bartlett, explains how it all works...................................9 Theology + History = Truth In reviewing Helmut Hoping’s newly translated book, Aaron Sanders examines how theology and history play starring roles in the Eucharist’s doctrinal development.................12 News & Views ....................................................1 Readers' Quiz......................................................3 The Rite Questions...........................................10