On Liturgy: Quotes from Elements of Rite, by Aidan Kavanagh
p. 40: "...liturgy, like ritual in general, exists to undercut and overthrow the very structures it uses. This is so not because the Gospel is similarly anti-structural, which it is, but because historic human wisdom has detected that human structures ossify and become oppressive or disintegrate when left to themselves. Bureaucrats and their bureaucracies implacably become tyrants and tyrannies when they are not regularly undercut, overturned, or reversed. This can be done by revolutionary violence, which is usually traumatic for the whole social group as a whole. Or it can be done more gently and regularly by irony and ridicule, as in a Saturnalia or Feast of Fools in which the structures of the social group are reversed, the high are brought low, and a certain salutary chaos is allowed free rein for a certain well-defined, well-protected time. This works to the good of the social group by restoring its necessary structures after having put them all "in their place". The lesson human wisdom seems to have learned is that although we probably cannot do without bureaucrats and bureaucracies, we certainly can do without tyrants and tyrannies".
p. 44: "Rite means more than liturgical customs. It could be called a whole style of Christian life, which is to be found in the myriad particularities of worship, in canonical law, in ascetical and monastic structures, in evangelical and catechetical endeavors, and in particular ways of theological reflection."
p. 45: "The liturgical assembly is less a gathering of individuals than a dynamic coordination of orders. These orders are catechumens, servers, penitents, deacons, the baptized faithful, presbyters, and bishops. Each of these groups, in transacting their own business both in and out of the liturgy, contributes to the consummation of the business of the whole assembly both in and out of the liturgy. The assembly enacts itself publicly by order, for Christians differ by groups in their relation to the Gospel. Thus their shared witness, charisms, obligations, and styles all contribute in rich diversity to the Church's ministry of reconciliation. It is a central part of the pastoral art to be able to discern, respect, and coordinate the rich gifts of the Church and the world to which the Church is corporate minister by God's grace."
p. 46: "The liturgy presumes that the world is always present in the summoned assembly, which although not of "this world" lives deep in its midst as the corporate agent, under God in Chris, of its salvation. In this view, the liturgical assembly is the world being renovated according to the divine pleasure -- not as patient being passively worked upon but as active agent faithfully co-operating in its own rehabilitation. What one witnesses in the liturgy is the world being done as the world's Creator and Redeemer will the world to be done. The liturgy does the world and does it at its very center, for it is here that the world's malaise and its cure well up together, inextricably entwined."
p. 49: "Blessings and consecrations: which are graceful gestures and words meant to recall the assembly to him from whom all good flows. The assembly is aware neither it nor any of its ministers make things holy. Things and persons are holy just as creatures of an all holy Creator. All the assembly and its ministers can do is to discover and proclaim that holiness to the most intense degree which seems most appropriate to the occasion."
p. 75: "The eucharist is not a mnemonic tableau of a historical event. It is a sweeping thanksgiving for the whole of the Father's benevolence toward the world and his people in Christ and the Holy Spirit. It does no more than what Jesus did in all the meals he took with those he loved. What he did at those meals quite escaped the bounds of any one meal on any one occasion. What he did was to make human beings free and forgiven table partners with God."
p. 44: "Rite means more than liturgical customs. It could be called a whole style of Christian life, which is to be found in the myriad particularities of worship, in canonical law, in ascetical and monastic structures, in evangelical and catechetical endeavors, and in particular ways of theological reflection."
p. 45: "The liturgical assembly is less a gathering of individuals than a dynamic coordination of orders. These orders are catechumens, servers, penitents, deacons, the baptized faithful, presbyters, and bishops. Each of these groups, in transacting their own business both in and out of the liturgy, contributes to the consummation of the business of the whole assembly both in and out of the liturgy. The assembly enacts itself publicly by order, for Christians differ by groups in their relation to the Gospel. Thus their shared witness, charisms, obligations, and styles all contribute in rich diversity to the Church's ministry of reconciliation. It is a central part of the pastoral art to be able to discern, respect, and coordinate the rich gifts of the Church and the world to which the Church is corporate minister by God's grace."
p. 46: "The liturgy presumes that the world is always present in the summoned assembly, which although not of "this world" lives deep in its midst as the corporate agent, under God in Chris, of its salvation. In this view, the liturgical assembly is the world being renovated according to the divine pleasure -- not as patient being passively worked upon but as active agent faithfully co-operating in its own rehabilitation. What one witnesses in the liturgy is the world being done as the world's Creator and Redeemer will the world to be done. The liturgy does the world and does it at its very center, for it is here that the world's malaise and its cure well up together, inextricably entwined."
p. 49: "Blessings and consecrations: which are graceful gestures and words meant to recall the assembly to him from whom all good flows. The assembly is aware neither it nor any of its ministers make things holy. Things and persons are holy just as creatures of an all holy Creator. All the assembly and its ministers can do is to discover and proclaim that holiness to the most intense degree which seems most appropriate to the occasion."
p. 75: "The eucharist is not a mnemonic tableau of a historical event. It is a sweeping thanksgiving for the whole of the Father's benevolence toward the world and his people in Christ and the Holy Spirit. It does no more than what Jesus did in all the meals he took with those he loved. What he did at those meals quite escaped the bounds of any one meal on any one occasion. What he did was to make human beings free and forgiven table partners with God."
Comments
Post a Comment