BOOK REVIEW:

THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY

 

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Translated by John Saward. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (1927-Present) was one of the leading theologians at the Second Vatican Council. Currently, he is the Dean of the College of Cardinals and bishop of the title of the see of Ostia.  Since the early 1980’s he has been the president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and president of the International Theological Commission.  In 1981 he was appointed by Pope John Paul II, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which promotes, safeguards and has authority in matters of the Catholic doctrines of faith and morals.

 

SUMMARY

 

In his preface to The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger states his purpose for writing the book: to assist the renewal of understanding present in the liturgical movement.[1] He draws attention to his deliberate use of the title of Romano Guardini’s classic work The Spirit of the Liturgy. Ratzinger remarks that Guardini’s work, “helped rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and time-transcending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life.”[2] His intention is to translate what Guardini did, into the context of the present day.[3] He notes he made no attempt to be scholarly but rather to encourage a “liturgical movement”, toward the liturgy and the “right way” of celebrating.[4]

Ratzinger organizes his treatise into four parts: the essence of the liturgy, time and space in the liturgy, art and liturgy, and liturgical form.  In the first section, he discusses the relationship between the liturgy, the cosmos and history.  He situates liturgical development in human history, emphasizing continuity between Jewish Temple and synagogue worship and early Christian worship.  The second part focuses on the spatial and temporal dimensions of Christian worship.  Ratzinger underscores the eschatological dynamism of liturgy within the historical process of salvation.  He addresses the significance of church architecture, direction and orientation of liturgical prayer, and reservation of the Blessed Sacrament.  In the third part, he discusses the importance of sacred art and music in situating the liturgy within the cosmological, historical, and spiritual dimensions he described in the previous sections.  The final part highlights the prescribed forms and functions of the various rites.  He discusses the true meaning of the phrase “active participation”. Finally, he elaborates on the significance of the body in worship with respect to gestures and postures.

Ratzinger describes liturgy, at its heart, as the openness to the life of freedom and the concrete form of hope in the union with God. Liturgy is an act of anticipation, rehearsal, a prelude for life to come, the rediscovery of true childhood.  It has its own set of rules, sets up its own world, liberates us from the world and places us into a sphere of freedom. 

      The significant biblical image of the liturgy used in the book is the Jewish Exodus.  Ratzinger interprets the departure of Israel from Egypt as the going into the wilderness specifically to offer sacrifices in a manner ordered by the revelation of God.  Through the mediation of Moses, the Ten Commandments were given, the covenant established, worship regulated, and the Israelites learned how to worship in the way God desired.  Ratzinger emphasizes the intrinsic binding of the rule of law and human life in the act of worship.  He notes, “It is the very life of man, man himself living righteously, that is the true worship of God.”[5]

      The significance of this reflection is that the nature of worship itself is the ordering of the whole of human life.  Worship is essential for right human existence. The implication is man cannot simply make his own worship.  Using the Exodus account of the golden calf, Ratzinger cautions that liturgy is not something the community gives itself; it is not a festival or self-affirmation. Liturgy should not be directed at man’s self-gratification but rather to God who first draws man to himself.

In worship the cosmic and historic form a dialectic that reinforces the bond between faith in redemption and faith in the Creator. The account of creation in the Old Testament, with creation orientated toward the Sabbath, illustrates the establishment of creation in history to be a place for the covenant of God with man.  The goal of creation and worship is the same, to draw the whole of reality into communion with God; that God may be all in all.  The cosmic exitus and reditus, the going forth and the return movement, are the essence of worship and highlight the Creator’s free act of creation, ordered toward the response in freedom of love returned to God by man.  In light of sin, the reditus is only possible in the Sacrifice of Christ.

Worship in general is a natural product of man’s religious awareness of his estrangement and struggle for reconciliation with the world.  Existentially, man perceives the real gift of himself as the only valid form of worship.  Animal sacrifices or fruits of the harvest are mere replacements.  Ratzinger comments, “Worship with replacements turns out to be replacement for worship.”[6] The distinctiveness of Israel’s worship lies in the representational worship established by God who gives Abraham the lamb to offer instead of Isaac.  With Christ’s death on the Cross, a new movement of real worship is inaugurated in the offering of the Son to the Father. 

      Ratzinger stresses a historic continuity between the Jewish Temple-synagogue and early Christian worship. He suggests the idea of worship in the Old Testament reveals an awareness of the impermanence of Temple worship and the desire for something greater.  The influences of Qumran and Greek mysticism led late Jewish worship away from the sacrifice of the Temple to the spiritual sacrifice of conforming to the λογος, or Word of God.  Ratzinger asserts Christian worship is not just “Christianized” Jewish Temple worship.  The universality of the Eucharist is the essential feature and distinction of Christian worship. The Christian liturgy understood correctly is a liturgy of the promise fulfilled, of the quest for human history reaching its goal.  In essence it is a liturgy of pilgrimage: the world being transformed, of God becoming “all in all.”

      Worship as a cosmic liturgy embraces both Heaven and Earth but does not escape the limitations of human existence in this world. For Ratzinger it is important that liturgy captures the “not yet” aspect of Christian worship. He notes that, “the liturgy is characterized by a tension between the historical Pasch of Jesus as the foundation of its reality.”[7]  This tension forms a three-stage process.  First the eternal is embodied in the “once for all” event.  Second, in liturgical action the eternal enters into the present moment.  Thirdly, the eternal desires to take hold of man and all reality.  In this way, there is a radical turning around of the cosmic exitus and reditus. “The liturgy is the means by which earthly time is inserted into the time of Jesus Christ and into its present.”[8]

 

ANALYSIS

 

      Ratzinger paints a spiritually rich and grandiose portrait of the liturgy.  Behind the colorful prose he makes several significant points. First, the essence of liturgy is union with God in a manner ordered by revelation.  Essential to the idea of liturgy is that is it ordered by God and man cannot simply manipulate it for his own purposes.  Second, he sees continuity between the Jewish Temple-synagogue and Christian worship. And lastly, he envisions worship with both a cosmic and historic dimension that finds new meaning in the Pasch of Jesus Christ.

 

The Direction and Orientation of Liturgical Prayer

 

      Ratzinger illustrates how his cosmic-historic view, with its emphasis on the continuity between Jewish Temple-synagogue and early Christian worship, applies to the direction of liturgical prayer. First, he establishes a precedent in the Jewish Temple-synagogue tradition.  Second, he presents the cosmic-historic significance.  Finally, he appeals to the unchangeable character of liturgy to justify his claim that the priest and congregation in liturgical prayer should be orientated east.

The focus of worship in the Jewish synagogue was the Temple in Jerusalem toward the Holy of Holies, the “real presence” of God dwelling in creation.  The Sacrifice of Christ superseded the Temple sacrifice.  The early Christians maintained the Semitic expression of looking east, towards the meeting place between God and man, not in the Temple, but in Christ who is symbolically represented by the rising sun. 

      For Ratzinger, facing east is a fundamental expression of the Christian cosmos-history dialectic.  It signifies that the cosmos and salvation history belong together.  It symbolizes being rooted in the once-for-all event of Salvation history while going out to meet the Lord who comes again.  “The cosmic symbol of the rising sun expresses the universality of God above all particular places and yet maintains the concreteness of divine revelation.”[9]

      Ratzinger is critical of the common practice of celebrating versus populum, toward the people.  He considers it a new and “most conspicuous consequence of a reordering,” that changes the idea of the liturgy.  He considers it an innovation stemming from misunderstanding the Vatican II principle of “active participation” and an inadequate understanding of Church history.  Using Louis Bouyer, he shows the modern communal meal idea to be historically inaccurate. He speculates the notion has contributed to “unprecedented clericalization”.[10] The result has been a lessening of the focus on God and an increase of the focus on man’s own initiatives.  For him, the priest and congregation facing each other, form a self-enclosed circle, no longer open, closed in on itself, not allowing God in.

Ratzinger’s defense of the practice of facing east reveals an agenda consistent with Mannion’s characterization of “The Reform of the Reform.” The reform agenda seeks authentic renewal and rethinking of the reform of the liturgy. According to Mannion, the agenda desires a return to the true intentions of the Second Vatican Council’s “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” (Sacrosanctum concilium).[11] They fundamentally agree with the initiatives of the Second Vatican Council citing the problems of rubricism and the legitimate pastoral concerns of the present time.  Yet, the agenda considers liturgical renewal as having gone far beyond what was envisioned by the Council.  They reference Article 23 of the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” which states: “There must be no innovations unless the good of the church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from the forms already existing.”[12]

 

ASSESSMENT

 

      Cardinal Ratzinger’s, The Spirit of the Liturgy, aims to help rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty and time-transcending grandeur.  He is effective in this task with the use of an elegant writing style that makes ample use of imagery and profound mystical, spiritual and biblical reflection to highlight the interplay between creation and the Creator.  His reflections on the cosmic and temporal dimensions of liturgy, the continuity with Jewish tradition, and the relationship between actio and oratio are profound and cannot help but lead the reader into a deeper appreciation of the divine event.  He offers many significant observations concerning the meaning of gesture, posture, image, music, and silence. 

      However, Ratzinger does have an agenda.  It is obvious from the text that he is not satisfied with the current state of liturgical celebration.  Although many of his observations are credible he does not present logically consistent arguments for his positions.  In the preface, he notes the book is not intended to be a scholarly work.  A fact that is immediately apparent by the lack of corroborating sources.  Although he elaborates in detail as to the significance of his propositions he never provides the relevant reasons to justify his claims.  The constant emphasis on the practice of facing east becomes tedious and painfully predictable throughout the text.

Regardless of his agenda, Ratzinger does provide keen insight into the current liturgical movement. On occasion he offers surprisingly astute observations.  Of noteworthy mention are his reflections on Eucharistic adoration, the use of liturgical readings to solve the inculturation problem between seasons of the year across hemispheres, and the need to establish moments of interior silence during the liturgy.  I would not recommend the book to anyone looking for a serious treatment of the liturgy. Yet I would not hesitate to suggest it to someone wishing to spiritually reflect on the deep mystery of the Eucharist.