Posted on 05/03/2005 7:28:14 PM PDT by franky
"THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Brian W. Harrison
THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (translated by John Saward); San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.
The majority of important works on the Catholic Church's sacred liturgy have tended to take a rather specialized approach, focusing on only one or just a few of its various areas: theological, historical, pastoral, cultural, artistic, musical, or the minutiae of rubrical questions. This little volume (232 small-sized pages) by Cardinal Ratzinger - who, in addition to his work as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has long shown a deep interest in, and knowledge of, liturgical matters - sets out to provide a brief overview of all these different facets of the Church's central acts of worship. In doing so, he avowedly takes his inspiration from a book of the same name published back in 1918 by the renowned German-Italian theologian Romano Guardini: his idea is to seek and elucidate the unifying 'spirit' which should always underlie the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, in the present post-Vatican-II context of unprecedented and often ill-advised liturgical change.
Ratzinger divides his reflections into four sections, beginning with the most general questions ("The Essence of the Liturgy") and ending with the most specific ("Liturgical Form"), in which he considers certain key ritual gestures and practices which have been the subject of much debate in recent decades. In between these first and last sections, the author adds a second on the theme "Time and Space in the Liturgy", wherein he deals with such issues as the calendar, liturgical seasons, the significance of church architecture, the positioning of the priest and the location of the tabernacle."
(Excerpt) Read more at rtforum.org ...
The ridiculous practice of the priest praying "at" the congregation instead of with them is mandated nowhere in the rubrics of the Pauline Mass, either in the old or new GIRM.
It just disobediently sprang up out of nowhere and became accepted practice, like communion in the hand, altar girls, twenty Eucharistic ministers at Masses attended by nineteen people, etc.
When priests using the Pauline rite finally start to face God instead of the congregation, we'll know deeper progress is being made.
When they say the words of God( "For Many"), they will really be making progress.
After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not "manufactured" by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. . . . The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. . . . The greatness of the liturgy depends - we shall have to repeat this frequently - on its unspontaneity- Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)ping
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