A New Liturgical Hermeneutic: Christian Maturation by Developmental Steps

Abstract

In this paper I first survey several paradigms of liturgical renewal that respond to the mandate of the Second Vatican Council and I restate a suggestion made in 2007 for a new model of liturgical study, ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’. This new model encourages a deeper appreciation of the current liturgy and is offered that the Church may better discern the way forward in the renewal of the liturgy. Then, following a brief presentation of the liturgical hermeneutic taught at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy and a practical example of analysing a prayer with this method, I conclude by showing how the ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’ model has helped to reveal a liturgical hermeneutic heretofore overlooked, that of Christian maturation by developmental steps.

The method which Daniel McCarthy and I have developed and used here can validly be applied to other liturgical sources, yet this paper's conclusions, based on the analysis of a newly-composed oration in one of the renewed texts (editiones typicae) resulting from the Second Vatican Council and the Constitution on the Liturgy, suggest that Christian maturation was a real concern of those taking part in the Council.

Introduction

In this paper I first survey several paradigms of liturgical renewal that respond to the mandate of the Second Vatican Council and I restate a suggestion for a new model of liturgical study, ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’.¹ This new model encourages a deeper appreciation of the current liturgy and is offered that the Church may better discern the way forward in the renewal of the liturgy. Then, following a brief presentation of the liturgical hermeneutic taught at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy and a practical example of analysing a prayer with this method, I conclude by showing how the ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’ model has helped to reveal a liturgical hermeneutic heretofore overlooked, that of Christian maturation by developmental steps.

The method which Daniel McCarthy and I have developed and used here can validly be applied to other liturgical sources, yet this paper's conclusions based on the analysis of a newly-composed oration in one of the renewed texts (editiones typicae) resulting from the Second Vatican Council and the Constitution on the Liturgy, suggest that Christian maturation was a real concern of those taking part in the Council.

1. The liturgical renewal mandated by the Second Vatican Council

Before the Council: Following the Council of Trent the renewal of the Roman liturgy gave rise to a desire to discover the more ancient sources that lay behind those then extant and to understand their successive development. This scientific research made gradual progress over the next several centuries and informed two models of liturgical renewal in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mgr Francis M. Mannion noted these in a recent article on the paradigms of liturgical musical style.² Mannion illustrates the balance between first, the ‘conventual model’ of liturgy derived from the Solesmes renewal of monastic music and life inspired by Dom Guéranger, and then the ‘participatory or ritual model’ derived from the tradition founded by Dom Lambert Beauduin. According to the ‘conventual model’, ministry is professional, and the participation of the faithful is primarily visual and auditory, whereas in the ‘ritual model’ participation is understood as ministerial.

The scientific research into the history of the liturgy continued unabated. Only fifty years ago Leo Cunibert Mohlberg OSB, Leo Eisenhöfer OSB and Petrus Siffrin OSB, of the Institutum Liturgicum at Sant'Anselmo, which had already been established in 1950 by the Rector, Dom Augustine Meyer OSB, and Abbot Primate Benno Gut OSB, were preparing for the liturgical renewal that would be mandated by the Second Vatican Council through their critical editions of ancient liturgical documents published in the RED (Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta) corpus.

After the Council: Now over forty years since the publication of the four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council, conferences such as this are evaluating the reception and implementation of these Constitutions.

The first phase of implementing the liturgical reform mandated by the Constitution on the liturgy, naturally, was that of producing renewed editiones typicae. This task was aided by the massive amount of scholarship since the Council of Trent, including the critical editions published by the above-mentioned scholars. This process of implementation lasted from the establishment of the Consilium ad recte exsequendam Constitutionem de S. Liturgia,³ set up in January 1964 by Pope Paul VI, until 2001 when the Martyrologium romanum was promulgated. With the production of each editio typica a second phase of work ensued, that of translating it and implementing the new vernacular liturgical books.

The models of liturgical reform, an assessment: Taking stock of the liturgical renewal in 1996, Mgr Francis Mannion published another helpful and important essay entitled ‘Agendas for Liturgical Reform’.⁴ This was reported on by John Baldovin⁵ and rewritten by Mannion in 2004 as, ‘The Catholicity of the Liturgy: Shaping a New Agenda’.⁶ Mannion lays out four different paradigms of liturgical renewal, already operative in the USA, and suggests a fifth.

The five paradigms described by Mannion, here reorganized along a spectrum of increasing adaptation to contemporary culture, are:

First, restore the pre-conciliar liturgy (a restoration model).⁷

Second, reform the reform (change the initial direction of the liturgical reform).⁸

Third, re-catholicize (or spiritualize) the reform (internalize, isolate from surrounding culture).⁹

Fourth, advance the reform (continue the official agenda).¹⁰

Fifth, inculturate the reform (following Sacrosanctum Concilium 37–40).¹¹

Mannion gives examples of major individual and organisational proponents of each paradigm, thus we see:

1. 1. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the clerical Society of St Pius X wished to restore the pre-conciliar liturgy.

2. 2. Mgr Klaus Gamber and Fr Joseph Fessio SJ wish to reform the reform.

3. 3. Mgr Francis Mannion (and, presumably, the Liturgical Institute at Mundelein seminary) wish to spiritualize the reform.

4. 4. Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, CM and the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy established in 1964, and the Congregation of Divine Worship from 1969, the official organs to advance the reform.

5. 5. Fr. Anscar Chupungco, OSB and others wish to inculturate the reform.

Return to the study of texts: Since the publication both of the RED corpus in the 1960s and 1970s and of the post-conciliar liturgical books to which they contributed, much scholarly attention has been dedicated to their translation and pastoral implementation. As very little attention has been given thus far to the detailed study of the editiones typicae, we now see that the time is opportune to deepen the academic study and appreciation of the renewed liturgical books. And so, last year in August 2007 at the meeting of Societas Liturgica in Palermo, Fr Daniel McCarthy OSB and I proposed a new model of liturgical renewal, which we call ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’, for, to the degree to which we deepen our appreciation of current liturgical documents, will the Church discern the way forward in the ongoing renewal of the liturgy.

After that Societas Liturgica meeting we prepared and proposed a project, named DREI (Documenta rerum ecclesiasticarum instaurata) which has been endorsed by the Council of the Preside of the Faculty of Liturgy at Sant'Anselmo. Part of the project is to present and publish literary-critical and hermeneutical analyses of the liturgical documents renewed (Instaurata) at the behest of the Council for the Church's further discerning the course of liturgical renewal. Just as the RED corpus had ecumenical import in the modern liturgical renewal, we intend that the scientific work of the DREI corpus provide resources for further fruitful ecumenical study.

With this new model of liturgical study and renewal, we have discerned a new interpretative key implicit in the euchology of the Church, namely, the growth and development of the Christian. Before we discuss the new interpretative key, let us first present the two pillars of our new methodology.

2. A methodology for the study and interpretation of liturgical texts

This new methodology has been employed by Daniel McCarthy¹² and me first in the paper given at last year's Societas Liturgica meeting,¹³ second in a chapter on the collects of the three scrutinies during Lent¹⁴ and third in our editing a forthcoming book.¹⁵ The two pillars of this new model of liturgical study and renewal combine a detailed grammatical analysis of the Latin language, as taught by Fr Reginaldus Foster OCD in Rome, and the textual hermeneutic of Mgr Renato De Zan, a professor of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, Rome.

The pillar supplied by Renato De Zan reformulates the previous work of Enzo Lodi¹⁶ when he, De Zan, presents eight interpretative keys for analyzing prayer texts and rites.¹⁷ These interpretative keys are anamnesis, epiclesis, doxology, koinonia, theandric, Christological-pneumatological, ecclesial and symbolic-anthropological.¹⁸ These theological interpretative keys, to be used in any textual analysis of prayers, are now part of the standard methodology of the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy learned and inherited by the present generation of students and graduates from all over the world.

With this new methodology Daniel McCarthy and I have come to promote a literary-critical and hermeneutical appreciation of the liturgical texts promulgated since the Second Vatican Council. In our using the ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’ model, requiring as it does a patient and detailed study of the liturgical texts, we have discovered a new interpretative key, to add to those of Lodi and De Zan, that of Christian maturation by developmental steps. Let us now present the new interpretative key in the context of the analysis of a specific prayer and see what aspects of the truth, that have been forgotten or overlooked, we can unearth.

3. The analysis of a text

For these purposes I have chosen the opening prayer for the fifth Sunday of Easter.¹⁹ Its Latin text is:

Source: After more than thirty years of praying from the translations of the 1970 Missale, a new Latin opening prayer was assigned to the fifth Sunday of Easter in the third edition of the Missale Romanum, 2002.²⁰ It was drawn from Saturday of the fourth week of Easter in the 1970 and 1975 Missalia Romana, from where the current official English translation is derived, as I have presented it above.

This prayer is indeed new in that it was composed at the time of Vatican II from parts of two ancient prayers, an oration and a preface, both appearing on Monday of Easter Week in the Sacramentary of Bergamo, an Ambrosian sacramentary with Carolingian redaction.²¹ Neither of these prayers corresponds to any prayer in the ancient Roman sacramentaries, offering yet another example of how the Roman rite appropriates in ways ever new the best of other Latin rites.

Analysis of the verbal forms and times: Now let us look at each clause of the prayer.

Invocation: The prayer begins with the complex invocation, Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, which I express in English as “Almighty, ever-living God”, and is rendered in the official English translation as “Father”. The invocation affirms God's omnipotence and passes over human cooperation.

Petition: Given in the imperative, the petition is the phrase: semper in nobis paschale perfice sacramentum, “ever bring the paschal mystery to completion within us”, which does not appear in the official English translation. This imperative looks forward to its immediate fulfillment, even as the present moment moves into the future.²²

What we ask God to bring to perfection in us is the sacramentum. In classical Latin sacramentum is a military oath of allegiance. Tertullian (c. 155–230) used the word sacramentum to translate the Greek word mysterion referring to hidden things revealed, as in the mystery of faith revealed in Christ. In this prayer the paschale sacramentum specifically refers to the paschal mystery, the self-emptying love of God and the divinization of humanity in Christ. This is specified in the official English translation as, “by the suffering, death and resurrection”. Liturgically the paschale sacramentum is celebrated in the Easter sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist. Leo the Great combines both the historical and liturgical dimensions of the paschal mystery when referring to the Easter sacraments as the “paschal feast in which the mystery of human salvation entirely consists.”²³

God's absolute omnipotence now acts on us, and we cooperate as of yet passively with the divine action.

The rest of the opening prayer is reworked from the prayer over the gifts from the sacramentary of Bergamo. Two phrases express the double purpose of our praying.

First purpose: The first purpose clause is, ut… sub tuae protectionis auxilio multos fructus afferant; “that… they bear many fruits under the help of your protection”, and the official English rephrases the first purpose clause as an exhortative petition, “may we… bear witness to our faith by the way we live”. Relative to the imperative petition perfice, the first (or present) subjunctive afferant is contemporaneous, incomplete, unfinished, ongoing, future and eternal.

Afferant is an example of the very rare classical meaning “may they bring forth as a product, yield, produce”. Thus the purpose for our praying is that God may bring it about that they bear much fruit. The primary meaning of fructus is “enjoyments”, then in a transferred sense “the enjoyment that proceeds from a thing”, as in “fruit, results, returns”; while its translation need not be moralized, the scriptures often refer to the Christian way of life as a tree or seed bearing good fruit.

The idea behind a purpose clause is that the way in which God gives by eliciting our cooperation is part of God's gift. Here God's gift enables human beings to bear fruit and we come to a full conscious and active cooperation with divine gift.

Motive: Tucked away within the first purpose clause, the subject of afferant is eos, “the ones” implied in the relative pronoun quos“whom” of the relative clause expressing the motive, quos sacro baptismate dignatus es renovare: “whom you have deemed it worthy to restore by holy baptism”, officially translated as “whom you renew in baptism”. Dignatus es indicates a time anterior to the subjunctive afferant and specifically refers to God's deeming the baptizandi worthy to be renewed at the Easter vigil. Renovare is “to renew in strength, recreate”; Christ's rising from the grave is the new creation by which we, rising from the waters of baptism, are recreated.

The subject of the first purpose clause, namely “the ones” or “the baptized” are the object of God's action in the subordinate clause. Thus, God is the subordinated protagonist. This inversion is expressive of the increasing subordination of God's action to our ever more prominent response, yet the response of the baptized is ever under the help of God's protection.

Second purpose: We pray that God bring to perfection the paschal mystery within us, with the intention that God may grant yet a further gift expressed in a second purpose clause, ut… et … concedas: “and that you may grant”, omitted in the official English.

Although the baptized have already come to bear much fruit under the protection of God's help, the prayer returns again to God's initiative.

Third purpose: What we ask God to grant is expressed by the entire clause that has an accusative subject eos, “the ones” once again implied in the relative pronoun quos“whom” of the motive clause and an infinitive verb pervenire“to arrive”. As a whole phrase [eos]ad aeternae vitae gaudia pervenire means: “that they may arrive unto the joys of eternal life”. This phrase is understood to express God's intention in granting. It is translated officially as an exhortative petition, “may we come to eternal joy”.

The subject of this third purpose clause is “they” or “the baptized”, whom we have already said are the object of God's action in the subordinate motive clause quos sacro baptismate dignatus es renovare. But this time they are the implied object of God's further gift in the clause ut concedas. In fact in this third purpose clause, [eos]ad aeternae vitae gaudia pervenire, the subject, the baptized, are only implied.

One might rightly interpret that even as we petition God to perfect the paschal sacrament in us now, God's granting that we may arrive unto the joys of eternal life occurs only when we enter into the eschaton. Consequently such an interpretation would emphasize that during our life God is perfecting within us the paschal mystery and only in the eschaton does God grant that we arrive. Such an interpretation however, is not necessary when one carefully considers the Latin language of this prayer. Relative to the imperative perfice God's granting concedas and our arriving pervenire are patient not only of a future and eternal time-frame but also are contemporaneous, ongoing, open-ended, and continuous. This means that the joys of eternal life are already being experienced.

Summary so far: We have presented a brief history of the liturgical renewal and enumerated its various models. We have presented a new model of liturgical renewal, ‘Appreciating the liturgy’ with its two pillars, a clear understanding of the Latin language and its hermeneutic. We have examined one prayer, identifying its clauses to reveal their structure. We have given an hermeneutical interpretation of each of the clauses: invocation, petition, purpose and motive. We have also named the standard interpretative keys, and now wish to present a new hermeneutical key. Just as our method is based upon the two pillars of a clear understanding of the Latin text and its hermeneutic, so too we have developed this new interpretative key from our analysis of the Latin text by a patient and detailed understanding of the verbal forms and the prayer's clausal structure. When we do this we find that the prayer presents several developmental steps for Christian maturation. As each prayer is unique so too the developmental steps and the naming of Christian maturation is unique to each prayer. Let us now turn to examine the chosen prayer in this way.

Christian maturation by developmental steps: Let us begin by identifying the beginning and end of the process of maturation presented in this prayer. This prayer begins by describing God as “Omnipotens” and ends with the arrival of the baptized unto the joys of eternal life. Already we can note that between these two poles there is an inversion of God's omnipotence and our joys, as the activity of an omnipotent God recedes and our activity comes to the fore. Another way to say this is that God's self-emptying (kenosis) is directly related to our divinisation.

We have already seen the clausal structure of this prayer; let us now bring it into higher profile. In this prayer we note that the three purpose clauses, the motive clause and their embedded elements, are arranged according to a double staircase, each with five steps.

Both staircases begin by affirming God's omnipotence without reference to humanity. Both staircases continue with the next step expressed with the motive clause “whom you consider it worthy of yourself to renew in sacred baptism”. The verb dignatus es, often translated as “you have deigned”, far from describing the beneficence of the divinity towards subjects, when followed by an infinitive as here can mean rather that it is worthy of God's self to renew people in sacred baptism. Again the emphasis is on God's self-gift to renew in sacred baptism those made in the image and likeness of God. Our human cooperation is as yet passive as we are renewed.

The next step shared by both stairwells is that God brings to perfection the paschal mystery among us who have been renewed in sacred baptism, and we continue to cooperate passively. Now the two staircases each develop their own route.

The next step on the first staircase is expressed in the first purpose clause. It bears repeating that the idea behind a purpose clause is that the way in which God gives by eliciting our cooperation is part of God's gift. Here the verb afferant, may they bear, expresses the action of the baptized. Here God's gift enables human beings to come to an active cooperation with divine gift. Yet even then we remain under the help of God's protection.

The baptized bear much fruit, the goal of the first stairwell, and these fruit are already to be borne now.

Although the baptized who have cooperated with divine gift have already come to bear much fruit, the prayer returns again to God's initiative in the second staircase, already founded on God's omnipotence who then brings the paschal mystery to perfection within them, in order that God may grant yet a further gift. This staircase continues in the second purpose clause, which simply petitions that God grant another gift.

The subsequent gift of God brings us to a further step, the third purpose clause. Again, the way in which God gives by eliciting our cooperation is part of the gift. Here the verb pervenire, to attain to (a place or goal), expresses the action of the baptized. The verb pervenire pertaining to our action, corresponds to the imperative petition perfice, pertaining to God's action. The root of perfice is facere, to make. The addition of the prefix per- adds the idea of bringing to an end or conclusion, in the sense of perfecting, bringing to wholeness. God, who created all things completes our redemption by bringing the paschal mystery to perfection in us.

Correspondingly, God enables the baptized to pervenire, to attain to this completion. The root of pervenire is venire, to come. The addition of the prefix per- adds the idea of coming to an end or conclusion, or in the sense of attaining to some reality. God, who perfects the paschal mystery in us now enables us to attain our goal. The divine action (perfice) attains its goal only by enabling our fully human action (pervenire).

The baptized attain the joys of eternal life, the goal of the second stairwell. As we have said, the joys of eternal life are already to be enjoyed now.

Thus far we have considered this prayer as it is proclaimed in the Sunday assembly of the fifth Sunday of Easter. The baptized who give their Amen to this prayer affirm that God is perfecting within them the paschal mystery and that they are called to bear fruit and to arrive at joys. This is true for each member of the assembly, child, adolescent, adult, parent or aged. Yet throughout the course of one's life this prayer is heard year by year and inspires anew each year. That this prayer is ever inspiring in every age of life points to another process of maturation, for not only does this prayer describe the developmental steps of maturation at any point in our lives, it also describes our maturation over the course of our lives. Baptized children share in the paschal mystery, but in this prayer we petition God to ever perfect in us the paschal mystery, which points to our maturation in the paschal mystery throughout the course of our lives. Children are called to bear fruit and do so in their care for one another and for creation, but only once one matures to adulthood does one have the possibility of coming to mature generativity. Children are enabled to arrive at the joys of eternal life, yet adults are called to responsible, autonomous, fully human cooperation with divine gift to pursue and realize the joys of eternal life now. This difference between the two is the degree to which God's gift enables human beings to come to a full conscious and active cooperation with divine gift.

4. A new hermeneutic: Christian maturation by developmental steps

By following the methodology proposed in our ‘Appreciating the Liturgy’ model we have discovered a new interpretative key, that of Christian maturation by developmental steps. We further develop and present this interpretative key in a volume soon to be published, and hope to work on it in subsequent volumes, as we see what aspects of the truth have, in the course of history, been forgotten or overlooked, and which we now hope to recover.

Thus we emphasize that in the liturgy those empowered by God, who have given themselves to be immersed in baptism and received as God's own, present with the whole church their offerings as representatives of their ongoing self-gift to God and neighbour with the prayer that God receive the gifts, thereby perpetuating that mutual self-gift originally made in baptism, that this exchange of gifts may come to its fruition, and we may pursue the happiness of mutual self-gift in this life and its fullness with God in the next.²⁴

Far from remaining infantilized, a full understanding of this prayer has shown that God nurtures our maturation by developmental steps until we relate with God, no longer as a child either with an angry parent or as an angry child to be placated by the gift of God's self to calm us, but as an adult collaborator.²⁵

Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315–386) says that we are the offspring of that nuptial chamber who come to feast first as infants at the breast on the body and blood of Christ,²⁶ so we might add that as we are enabled by the recurring and sustaining gift of God's self to mature first into the freedom of the children of God and then to our full stature as adult daughters and sons of God, we are called once again to enter into the same bridal chamber as spouse and therefore to a new generativity.²⁷ Thus, we are called to bear fruit for God, both through full conscious and active participation in the liturgy and through service in the world, and are enabled to experience the joys of eternal life.

Addendum: The structure of a collect.

There are two basic languages, two basic vocabularies used in the literary analysis of a collect. One is literary-critical, the other is grammatical. This is the basic form, but there are many elaborations.