Liturgy

c is t e r c ia o f t he s t r ic o bs e r v a fOL.7 N0.3 NOVEMBER 1973

Ge;tb:: rr1an i Abbe(1JLibvza

L I T U R G Y Vol ume 7, Number 3 / November 1973

EDITOR Is PAGE 1

TOWARDS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF RITUAL ...OR RITUALISM 3Grard DUBOIS

HUMILITY AND THE SACRAMENTS OF FAITH IN WILLIAM OF SAINT-THIERRY Is SPECU LUM FI DEI 1 7

Chrysogonus WADDELL

GROUP MASSES IN A MONASTERY 25Vi ncent LESCANNE

FRANCOPHONE REGION IN EUROPE AND CANADA:THE CELEBRATION OF VIGILS DURING THE PASCHAL TRIDUUMTHE RESULTS OF A SURVEY 33

Edmond FRANDIN

A LOCAL AMERICAN PROJECT FORTHE CELEBRATION OF VIGILS DURING THE PASCHAL TRIDUUMAT GETHSEMANI ABBEY 45

Chrysogonus WADDELL

A HOMILY BY FATHER JEAN LECLERCQ:ORTHODOX-CISTERCI AN SYMPOSIUM, OXFORD, AUGUST 27, 1973 61

Jean LECLERCQ

SIGN AND SYMBOL: THOUGHTS ABOUT COMMUNION AND COMMUNICATION 67Thomas IMHOFF

THE EXERCISE OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY IN THINGS LITURGICAL 85Mari e GOUJOT

LITURGY Bulletin serves to share with others whatever thoughts and experiences may contribute towards the development of a living lit urgy for today.

Manuscripts should be forwarded to: Fr ChrysogonusGethsemani AbbeyTrappist, Kentucky 40073 (U.S.A.)

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E D ITO R Is PAGE

In the last issue of Liturgy I made a rather rash promise. The

President of our Order's Liturgy Commission, Fr. Gerard Dubois, had

drawn up a progress report, giving a brief run down of our attempts to

comply with the letter of July 8, 1971, sent by the Sacred

Congregation for Divine Worship to the three branches of the Benedictine

family, and asking them to come to some sort of agreement as regards

the basic ele ments of a monastic Liturgy of the Hours, A working commission had been organized, and much blood, sweat and tears had been expended on drafting such a project with a view to further discussion by

the Superiors of the

Benedictine Confederation, who were to meet in Rome 5 at Sant' Anselmo,

in mid-September of this year. The key document in the dossier was a twopage series of General Princi-ples or "Praenotanda", giving the basic

prin ciples for the celebration of the Divine Office, but ensuring much

the

same sort of flexibility made possible for us by our present "loi-

cadre" legislation. I twice

intruded into Fr. Glrard's report the remark that

the latest version of this Praenotanda-draf t would be published "in the

next issue of Liturgy" (p.8 and p.13 of the July, 1973 issue).

In point of fact, there is now little point to publishing in these

pages the latest version of the Praenotanda, since the situation has radi

cally changed, and the draft referred to is of putely historical interest.

How so? Because at the Benedictine Congresso, the Superiors of the Bene

dictine Confederation voted overwhelmingly in favor of an entirely new

document which would ensure -- if approved by the Holy See the same

degree of flexibility in things liturgical which now obtains, thanks to

the broad provisions of the "loi-cadre ''. The vote in favor of

the new document -a Declaratio de Liturgia HoraY'WTI iu::cta

Ritum Monastieum - was approved by an overwhelming 190 in

favor, as opposed to only 23 not in favor, with a single

abstention. This is all the more remarkable in

view of the fact that the Abbot Primate had read to the Congresso a

letter received from the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Divine

Worship, stating -to quote one of my three informants -"that we had

to have a

'.

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conunon breviary-1 In a letter from one of the Abbot Primate's secretaries,

I was told that the abbots ·ejected by a good two-thirds any

imposition of a uniform breviary, but (they) agreed that -for

those houses that might need it . · they would work out a sample

breviary. " The same "man on the spot" went on to write that

"Neither Cult nor Religious seemed too happy with this decision (I

rather think they were badly informed as to the mood of the abbots)

and so we went directly to the Pope." Personally, I hope

to receive further light on this score, since our Procurator General,

Fa ther Vincent Hermans, wrote to Father Gerard and myself that it was

the Abbot Primate himself who spoke at great length with Mgr.

Bugnini (S.C. for Divine Worship) and Mgr. Mayer(S.C. for Religious),

and later to Cardinal Villot (Secretary of State), who promised to speak

about it with the Holy Father. At the moment of writing, the only thing

I know about the Holy Father's attitude as regards

the new development is that, when speak

ing to the Benedictine abbots, he said only that "the problem of the liturgy

is difficult" , and that "it will be seriously studied" .

With everything still up in the air, it would be misleading were I to

try to give any kind of a clear picture of what the present situation really

is. In fact, my three principal informants differ a bit as to concrete details,although all three are religious who attended the Congresso, and who are

closely connected with the principal figures involved. However, were I to

have to summarize in a single sentence the pertinent facts as of this

moment, it would read something like this:

The Holy See has asked the three branches of the Benedictine family to come up with either a common breviary or with something tending in that direction; but the Benedictine Superiors have re plied in effect that they can 't implement this request with out failing in their pastoral responsibility to their communities.

Is this disobedience? disrespect? Of course not! We' re simply witness

ing an excellent concrete exemplification of what Saint Benedict is talking

about in his chapter 68: "If a Brother Be Commanded to Do Impossible Things"

. The Holy See has asked of us something which the Benedictine Superiors as

a whole think might well be ultimately harmful . These Benedictines are

currently "explaining tlle reasons(for this persuasion) calmly and in due

season, with out pride, obstinacy, or contentiousness ." What the final

outcome will be,

I don 't know -except that, no matter what it is, it will be our own fault

if we fail in that love and faith and ecclesial sense which alone will

en- sure for us Christ present and acting in our living, monastic

liturgy.

---· 6 ./J/l . ( '//V/ Stf

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TOWARDS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF

RITUAL

OR RITUALISM

Let's begin with a sto:ry. It's taken fran Haner's The Odyssey; and it's abcut the welcare given by Nestor and his family to Telefuiakhos and his canpanions.

Polykaste, a fair girl, Nestor's youngest, had meanwhile given a bath to Telenakhos -bathing him first, then rubbing him with oil.She held fine clothes and a cloak to put around him when he had c::are goo.like from the bathing place; then out he went to take his place with Nestor.When the best cuts were broiled and off the spits, they all sat dONn to banquet. Gentle squireskept eve:ry golden wine cup brirrming full.And so they feasted to their heart's content •

Book III, 435-444 (tr. R. Fitzgerald)

The wela:roe given Telanakhos takes on the fonn of an i n i t i a -

t i o n. In point of fact, so long as a traveller, an exile, a shi?l!-"ecked person entering upon foreign territo:ry hadn't received these rites fran sare citizen of the c:ount:ry, he wasn't safe, and fell outside the protec tion of the law. As we've seen in Haner's account (and see also Book N,

48 and Book X, 463), these rites included a bath and an anointing with oil, the clothing of the guest, and a neal . For a long time this was the camon practice in most

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civilizations. (In the Jewish milieu at the time of Christ: Jesus carplained that S.irron the Pharisee had neither washed his feet nor anointed his head with oil; the then current rites of hospitality

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for citizens of the sane a:>untry were based en the rites of "initiaticn" .)

And in the case of saneane's being introduced into the ecclesial c:x::mrunity, what was the rite of welcome? A bath , an anointing with oil, the reception of a white gru:ment, and a meal: baptism, conf innaticn,and the Eucharist. For us men of the 20th centw:y , these actions aren 't particularly "natural" ; but in the time of the early Church , these ritu al acts were taken f or granted. Christ didn 't adopt as signs of his work of grace actions or gestures which were out of the ordinary,

foreign to daily lif e;he assumed o u r very hunan actions and gestures, but in vested than with a new meaning, an absolutely new point of reference - the Paschal Mystery. The Church isn 't just a simple hunan association ,

a club, a family; it 's the Bcx1y of Christ. And to becane a nenber of the Church means to be inoorporated into the Body . 'of Christ by means of his death and resurrection; and it 's precisely this death and this resurrection Which are operative in the sacramental actions. These actions and gestures, hc:Mever , are in the f irst instance human actions and gestures. Just as it 's my sacrifice which is transubstantiated into the Sacrif ice of Christ, and just as it 's my prayer which is taken up by him and transfonred into his prayer, so also it 's our expression of the rite of hospitality which is taken up and transfomed so as to becare the ritual expression of our inoorporation into Christ. This is true, each in its CMI1 way , in the case ofthe other sacranents, and in the case of all the sacramentals and other rites of the Church. The root syrrbolism of the hunan action remains, but it takes on a radically new meaning. But this new meaning is invested in a reality which is already part and parcel of our life: a new quality of our life, and not sanething apart f ran our life. We have to avoid, an the one hand , the reduction of the sacranental action to a purely human dimension, and, onthe other hand, the separaticn into two closed canpartrcents of our life as human beings and the salvation given us in Christ. Grace isn 't sanething tacked on, a sort of "sea:md storey" of our house, without direct accessfrom the f irst f loor; rather, grace means a change in the quality of our human life; sanething which aff ects and transforms our very life, by

making it transcend itself , and, in this sense, rise above itsel£.

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All this we already knCM; but it's good to emphasize the point since, in actual practice, our ordinary daily rites of hospitality no longer oonsist in oiir giving guests a bath and anointing than; and it's no longer in the oontext of an ordinary neal that bread and wine becorre signs of the Body and Blood of Christ. Under one aspect, this distinction between two types or series of actions or gestures -our human actions as opposed to sacred rites -is legitimate and satisfy ing (I'm not at all a partisan of having the Eucharist celebrated in the oontext of a carmmity meal • • • )• But, under a different aspect, this distinction entails the risk of introducing a "rupture" between·life and rite.The unfortunate oonsequence would be, on the one hand, the absence of a spiritual di.nension to our ordinary life (which would no longer be directly affected by the Myste:ry of salvation); and, on the other hand, the absence or lack of a vital resonance, the "vacuity" or lack of contact between ritual actions and our senses. {And ho.v many Christians there are, for whan the Mass has becx:me a penswn, a burden sare duty, sarething done fran a sense of duty, but which no longer hasa real inpact on life! For such as these, the Mass has becorre pure "rite"; it's no longer that sacrament which, starting fran the objective realityof a sbnple human fella.vship or brotherhood makes us pass through the Pasch of Orrist into full a:mnunion with God; for such people, the Massis no longer that which gives meaning and finality to human existence; it'sno longer the "feast"•)

Though, in spite of the evident risk involved, it might well be a good thing that the major sacramants instituted by Christ have developed along the lines of ritual acts of worship distinct fran the actions of eve:ryday life {this expresses the dirrension of the "otherness" of the sa cred), it doesn 't necessarily follCM that the various "sacramentals" also ought to acquire a certain autonCJT\Y relative to the actions which they're neant to

5Towa:t'ds a Better Understanding of Ritual...or "sanctify". Were they to do so, the result would be an exagger ated ritualism; and there's really no reason why the sacramantals ought not to be more bound up with the hunan actions to which they refer.The sacranents are actions instituted by

Christ, and we can't modify the basic

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human action: the bath, the anointing, etc. ; but in the case of the sacra mentals, this is not true, because in this area the Church has f ull

liber ty. It 's useless, for instance, to ritualize an action which no longer is in current use, or which no longer has any meaning in man 's real lif e.On the contrary, however, it might be good to 11celebrate11 this or that happening or action 'Which is now part of our experience, even if this has n 't been done in past centuries.

let ' s take an example. our Cistercian RituaZe makes provisions fora particular cererony on the occasion of the Father Irnmediate 's first visit to his daughter house. This is normal , because this visit is a real event, a "happening" with a real meaning; rnoreover , this visit is directly geared to further our progress in the spiritual life. However , 'What 's actually relebrated, ritualized, is the welcx::rne itself -a welcx::rne reserved to the Father Irrmediate. His caning, his arrival is what 's celebrated, and notin a purely human manner , but in its specif ically Christian dimension.It onre happened (a long time ago!) that in one rnonaste:ry , the Father Imnediate arrived sooner than expected, and there was no one to meet him. Since it was time for Vespers , he cane to dloir , and then took the evening neal with the a:mnunity; he even spoke that evening in chapter.

But thenext day, af ter Terce, the crmrunity gathered on the church steps , the Fa ther IlmEdiate made his grand entrance fran the guest house , and the 11litur gical rereption" then took plare. What was the human act which was thus being celebrated? In point of fact, the real welcx::rne had already taken

plare. Af ter Terce, the cx:mrro.mity was no longer in the "welcaning mood"as would have been the case had the Father Irornediate r e a 1 1y arrivedat that time. The liturgical action no longer had the s u p p o r t of the human action. It had becnrre pure rite (if not pure canedy) carried out in the name of fidelity to a rule. It was no longer the sanctif ication or relebration through prayer of a human action.

This sort of thing leads straight to ritualism.

Along these lines, it 's a shame, for instanre ( -though, what can 'We do about it?) , that the abbatial blessing doesn 't coincide with the canonical installation of the abbot elect.

7Towards a Better Understanding of RituaZ...or

All the above represents a f irst series of remarks which might be made with regard to ritual: be especially caref ul to preserve the link between rite and lif e. What has to be sanctif ied is a r e a 1 h u- m a n s i t u a t i o n; and this real hunan situation takes on a newmeaning in the context of the .Myste:ry of Olrist. This is why the particu lar hunan situation is celebrated under a special aspect and in a particu lar way (ritual} ; but this ritual aspect must never be separated f rom,or rendered autonooous relative to the situation actually experienced; othe:rwise, this will lead to a false distinction between the sacred and the prof ane. Concrete solutions are doubtless not easy to find; but it 's in this general direction that we ought to proceed . (We'll take a look at

a precise exarrple -the reception of the hflbit - later in this

article.}

+

A second series of remarks:

The reality which is thus sanctif ied, which takes on a new meaning because of the Mystery of Christ, and which can consequently be celebratedin a liturgical manner, is a h u m a nt h i n g.

s i t u a t i o n and not a

Of course, things are used -bread, wine, water , oil, vestzrents. But these are used as materials \\'hi.di are part of an action: a meal, a bath , an anointing. . • , an action which is at the same time (if we re-call what I said above in the f irst part of these notes} a h u m a n situ

ation with its CMn specif ic and proper density. (For instance, a meal isnot just any sort of thing, and there are all sorts of meals: which is thespecif ic type of meal which is experienced in this particular liturgical ac tion?} There are sane things which can even beca:ne transf ormed as a result of the way in which they are used; and this is the case in the instance of the eucharistic bread and wine. However , this is the only instance;and even here, this transfonnation is ef fected with a view towards sane thing else -our ccmrrunion with Orrist. (In scholastic language, one would

say that the real presence is the res et signum; res: this means the spiri tual reality , the intimate fruit of a certain action , the "result" of the consecration; but it 's also a signum, that is to say , a means destined to produce yet another spiritual reality, another specif ic result; it 's not

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simply an end only, res tantum.}

7Towards a Better Understanding of RituaZ...or

I know vey well that there are also a great many blessings of ob

jects in the Rituale : we ronsecrate chalices; we bless religious habits, candles, even houses, autos, airplanes, and all sorts of things 1 !1 But precisely these blessings saretimes raise serious problems , and are not without their risk:

- either because of superstition or fetidlism, whidl are to be f mmd ver:y present in certain strata of the population in sane regions , where there 's a need felt f or magic fonnulas, talismans , amulets.

(We sprinkle holy water in order to ward off the devil; we have a Saint Olristopher medal in our car: in itself , this is f ine; it 's similar to derorating our n:xxns with picfures of the saints or ikons.

But ifthis is thought of rather as a good luck chann to supply for our careless driving or our lack of knowled:Je of driving regulations . • ! ! )

- or f olklore, which no longer has anything about it specif ically Christian.

In France, a f ew years ago, there were sane priests who had parishes in ship-building tCMns, and who asked themselves questions about the "christening" of ships and boats • • • Launching a ship provides the

oc casion f or the traditional cerem::>ny involving both religious and civil authorities. The "sponsor" (i.e., the godf ather or godrrother) dashes a l:x>ttle of champagne against the prav of the ship, while the priest sprin kles it with holy water. Just what is the meaning , the Christian meaning ,of a cerenony such as this , and of the accanpanying blessing? At Dunke:r:que , one of these priests said, back in 1968:

The blessing of a ship isn 't a means of winning God 's might and power during storms at sea, but rather the of fering madeby a team of workmen , and a prayer of fered God so that the

ship might f ulf ill its mission of ef fecting a f raternal link

between oontinent and continent.

Note that the point of reference here is not things, but men. God 's

blessing is directed t.CMards men; and another one of these priests had

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this to add:

God deesn 't bless just anyone , or anything, or at just anyti.rre, or in any manner. God gives his blessing to those who are tcy

ing to bring their life into hanrony with his will, with hisGospel or their a:mscience. • • If this ship is used in the serv ice of men , and not just in the seJ:Vice of making a profit, then

God will bless those who tum to lllin • • •

-Informations CathoZiques InternationaZes n° 308/15 mars 1968,

p.15.

So the ref erence is to human situations rather than to things.

And isn 't this what the Constitution on the Liturgy has to say in n° 60?

The "sacramentals" are sacred signs which bear a resenblance to the sacraments; they signify ef f ects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Churdl's in tercession. By them m e n are disposed to receive thedrief eff ect of the sacraments, and various o c c a s i o n s i n 1 i f e are rendered holy.

Nothing is said about t h i n g s. N° 61 does make an allusion to things, but only to mantion their being u s e d:

Thus, for well-disposed rrerrbers of the f aithf ul, the litur gy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctif ies alnost ev- e:ry event in their lives • • • There is hardly any prop-er use of material things whidl cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God .

This is the spirit in which we ought to envisage the various bless ings of objects. MJreover, the Council reCXJg11izes the fact that a re fonn of our current practice is called for:

With the passage of time, there have crept into the rites of the sacraments and sacramentals certain features which have rendered their nature and purpose less clear to the people of

today; and hence to that extent the need arises to adjust

certain aspects of these rites to the requirerrents of our tilres.

-Ibid., n° 62 .

Towards a Better Understanding of Ritual...or 9

let's apply the above to our rites of m:mastic initiation.

1- Just what is the s i t u a t i o n involved in the rites of m::mastic initiation? The situation is this: we welc:x:roo into the cxmnuni

ty a new nerber, who is a novice. This is the principal element ofthe cereroony. The chief thing isn 't the blessincJ of the habit. This wela::me can be expressed, of course, in various actions; and one of these actions can be that of clothing the novice in the habit wom by

the camrunity (rerrenber the wela:ma given TelSnakhos , described at the begi.rming of this article • • • ) But note that , even in this instance, what we e x p r e s s by givi.ng the habit as a gesture of welcxxne de rives , not f:ram the f act that it 's a "sacred" habit , but that it 's the habit wom by the a::mnunity. (The cx:mnunity , of course, is a cxmnunity consecrated to God; but this isn 't the primary neaning of the givingof the habit. Besides, the habit given the novice isn 't the CXJWl, butthe usual habit.)

In this sense, a rite centered on the blessing and giving of the "religious" habit risks focussing too nuich attention on an cbject, to the detrinent of the real situation, which is the celebration of a welcone. (The very text of the prayer found in our Rituale of 1689 made

no allusion to the novice 's entry into the ccmnunity , but only to the symbolism of the habit; the symbolism didn 't even refer to a change inone 's life, but rather to the breastplate which protects against the at tacks of the enemv , the mantle which presees one f ran bad weather, the covering which hides sin, the nuptial robe whidl enables one to enter into the Kingdan -as if the novice couldn 't be saved unless he

perse veres) • Besides, even in the case in which the change of clothing would express the aspirant 's itegratian into the ccmnunity, there 's no need that this take place right in chapter. It 's no longer the practice to take off clothes and put them an in public . . . It 's much nore in keep ing with the situation as really experienced to make this rite a cele bration of welcx::me.

This is the perspective in whidl the Order 's Liturgy Ccmnission prepared its project , which was approved by the General Chapter of 1971. The rite includes neither the blessing nor the giving of the habit in

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chapter. The rite is carried out with a maximum of liberty, according to the local situation. The type proposed by the Liturgy carmission is ccnprised of a reading of a passage from the Holy Rule, the postulant's request to be received, the exhortation by the Abbot, and his acceptance of the postulant as novice, a prayer, and sore kind of chant or song.There's nothing against lengthening the cererrony by a nore spontaneous sort of expression of good wishes -for instance, in the novitiate, when the novice returns after having dlanged into the novices' habit.

In doing as described above, we're simply returning to our tradition current in the Middle Ages.

It's quite clear that, up to the time of the Middle Ages, having one's hair shorn (the tonsure) and the change of habit took place only at one's p r o f e s s i o n (for the habit, see what Saint Benedicthas to say in his chapter on the'reception of brethren into the a::rrmunity;

in the West, this tradition was codified in 816, at the Synod of Aix-la Chapelle). In the Middle Ages, Citeaux maintained the tonsure in the a:m text of profession; so also, the clothing with the cu.vl took place only after the actual profession. The novices, hc:wever, apparently word ordi nacy clothes similar to those worn by the brethren of the cxmnunity. This habit wasn't blessed, and it was put on in the wardrcbe roan after the chapter roan cererrony. Cluny, an the contrary, gave the

habit and the ton sure at the ve:ry beginning of the period of probation. But these actions didn't take place in chapter; as at c1teaux, they took place a f t e r the reception in the chapter roan.

It would be interesting to t:ry to discern the influences operative in the evolution of the rites such as we find them in our Rituale 1689,which is the first witness we have to our till recently familiar practice. There must have been two factors at work:a certain kind of confusion with the roonastic profession rites, and a desire to establish a parallel between entry into the nonastic

TOUJards a Better Understanding of Ritual...or 1life and ent:ry into the clerical state.

COnfusion with the rites of nonastic profession:There are sane rronastic rituals (ms .fran the 14th oentu:ry,

quoted by Martene, De antiquis monachorum ritibus, Lib. I ,5, c.l, n°4)which have the cu.vl given already at the beginning of the novitiate; others en-

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visage the novice's a::mnittrrent as, it would seem, definitive -and this has its :roots in Hildanar, tCJ.\Tards the middle of the 9th century . Is it not in this optic that the three petitions prescribed by the Rule during the novitiate were actually made, at dteaux, b e f o r e one's entry into the novitiate, during the

three or four days spent by the postulant in the guesthouse? {An

analogous rite is found in the 9th century, in Hildauar, who has already been referred to.} Sarething of this still re mained till recent times, since, at the beg.inning of the postulancy, the postulant made his first petition. Our current practice has restoredthe three original.petitions to the key rrarents of the period of prcba tion: the beginning of the novitiate, the first vCMs, and the solemn pro fession.

Influence of the rites of ent:ry into the clerical state:

The starting point was the tonsure, which the Cluniacs gave already at the beginning of the novitiate.This smacked of the clerical practice; and it led to the clerical- "ritualization" of the reception of thehabit. The monastic tonsure was, naturally erough, patterned on the cleric al tonsure .The Constitutions of Hirsau, dating fran the end of the 11thcentury, are a case in point {PL 150:934 ff.}. We've already stated above

I

that the change of habit took place at the same tine as the giving of the tonsure, that is to say, after the ceren:>ny in chapter. At the beginning, the novice went to the wardrobe rcx:m after receiving the tonsure in church; but the· tine came when

he received the habit in the same place where he had received the tonsure {just as the cleric received the surplice in the sane place where he received the tonsure}; little by little, the reception of the tonsure and of the habit became parts of a single rite. The first manuscript evidence is found in the 14th century ritual referred to above. HCMever, the 13th centmy English custanacy fran Eynsham already marks a step in this direction:the giving of the tonsure and the reception of the habit take place in the infi:rrna:ry chapel. The abbot presides over both actions. He removes the postulant's clothes as he says"Exuat te• • •",

TOUJards a Better Understanding of Ritual...or 1and he then gives the ca.vl (yes, the c o w 1 ! !!} as he says "Induatte • • •" The novice is next sprinkled with holy water.The habit, havever,

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is not blessed; and the abbot puts aside his crozier and renoves his stole before proceeding to the clothing of the novice. True enough , atdteaux, the tonsure wasn 't given at the same time as the habit; but it 's doubtless through the intennedia:ry of the Benedictines that the r i t e for the reception of the habit was introduced at sane particular period which we can 't specif y. It 's interesting, isn 't it, that our fonner rite for the reception of the habit used to end with the prayer "Adesto, Danine, supplicatianibus" , which was the prayer used for the tonsure rite (cf . M.

Andrieu [editor] , Pont. Rom. Germ. du Xe siecle, T.I , 5).

2- WelCXITie into the c:xmnunity: this is the lived situation which we celebrate liturgically, inasmuch as this weloome has a dimension other than that of a simple f raternal gesture. We 're a camn.m.ity of men whoseek God, and we 're entering into a :rronastic "tradition" • • •

This doesn 't neant that we have to have this celebration coincide with the day the postulant arrives. Because the reality involved in this wela:xre is cx:mplex, and it 's carprised of several degrees: sane we receive simply as guests or :etreatants; others we receive as persons on probation; and still others -at the other extremity of the procedure -as fully

f ledged menbers of the carmunity , in virtue of their solerrn1. profession. But before we arrive at this f inal stage, there are preliminary stages; and anong these is the candidates admission as a novice, at the term of a certain period of time in our midst. As the nacre itself suggests, the "postulant" ("one who asks") remains , so to speak , outside the

cx:nnu.mi.ty;he 's precisely asking to be admitted into the a:mnunity. The novice is received as a rrerrber of the family, but as a a "novice" nanber. The bond created at this stage between novice and a::mnunity is stronger than is the

case when a postulant arrives; and it 's nonual that we reserve the welcane in the strict sense until this stage of rronastic initiation is reached.

It 's at this manent that the applicant will begin wearing the rronaste:ry habit.

Obviously, this situation can be experienced dif ferently from one nonaste:ry to another. This is why the Abbot has been lef t f ree to decide the best time for the celebration of this rite of welcane.

+

Toar>ds a BetteP UndePstanding of Ritual...or 1

Another application of this principle: The LI'l'CffiGY OF THE HOORS

.An'Dng the various htmtan situations, there are sare which are

bound up with t i m e; and, were we to develop this point, it 's here

that we wruld find the Liturgy of the Hours , which , acoording to the Constituticn on the Liturgy, has as its proper f unction the sanctif ica tion of the day.

We f ind, hc:Mever, the same principles enumerated above.- What we have to sanctify is not the earth 's position relative to

the sun (if this were true, we would have to change the tirre for Lauds and Vespers every day • • • ) • The thing that oounts is the sanctif ica tion of the h u m a n s i t u a t i o n which is experienced at those "oosmic" periods of rooming, evening, night , full noon , etc. Because ,man is rooted in a spatio-tenp:>ral universe, and he 's marked even in his psychological depths by the alternations of light/darkness, day/night • • • (There are times when the industrial world wruld like to ignore this f act; there are, for instance, certain f actories where three dif ferent shif ts succeed each other independantly of the cycle of the day/night , and by reason of the exigencies of assenbly-line production; but it 's precisely this which we f ind nn-natural, even anti-natural -and with good reason.)

- It 's our CMil ooncretely e x p e r i e n c e d situation whidlhas got to be sanctif ied, and not the ooncrete experienced situation ofthe ancient Romans or Gauls • • • This justif ies the principle of an adaptation of the rhythm of the Of fice to our modem oonditions of daily

life, and to those of the daily life of our oomnunities. This is the reasc:nfor the liberty given each monastery to shape up its CMil daily schedule (within, of oourse, limits .inposed by the very nature of our celebrations and the Order 's spirituality: prayer at night, prayer at dawn , etc.) .

There's no reason to be scandalized if the Little Hours , for instance,are scheduled at precise times in function of the rhythm of the daily work . Just as the time for Lauds and Vespers is detennined by their link with "cosmic" tirre, so also the specif ication of the "third" , "sixth" , and·ninth" hours is tributary to our ooncrete c i v i 1 iz a t io n. And

2

our CMil civilization is not the sane as that of the RJmans • • • In

practice, ha-lever , there 's anple opportunity for a certain degree of convergence - prayer before leaving for the m:>ming work (or else the mid-noming break , the "oof fee break") , prayer before the noontiroe break for dinner, prayer before leaving for the af temoan work. • •(In certain camru:nities, there can be a problem with reqard to COrpline, so of ten as we want Vespers to be an Hour which gathers together the en tire camruni:ty. This means that the time for Vespers has to be quite quite late; and that it oould pe:rhaps take on the aspect of the f inal cmmunity prayer , i.nnediately before retiring for the night. • • )

At any rate, in keeping with n° 88 of the Constitution on the Litur gy, we have to respect the vePitas HoraPUm, i.e., the relationship

between each Hour and the oorresponding time of day or night; we have to respect , too, the oonditions of present day life; that is to say , we have to cele brate the situation as really experienced -sanething which the very texts used in the Liturgy of the Hours pre-supposei o..ir

practice of even f airly recent tines is no longer thinkable -when, during Lent , in order to re spect the 1e t t e r of the law (which wanted us to f ast till Vespers) , we f inished all the day Hours (Vespers included) before noon; or when, on Holy Saturday , we celebrated the Paschal "Vigil" ("O beata n o x") at

9 A.M.

Trans., Gethsemani Abbey aro OOOOIS

M:>nt-des-Cats

Towards a Better Understanding of Ritual...or 1

k;

1

* H UMI L ITY AN D TH E SACRAME NTS O F FAITH

I N W I L L I AM O F SAI NT-TH I E RR Y ' S SPECULUM FIDEI 1

Like his great and good friend Bemard of Clai:rvaux, Willimn of Saint-Thiercy was endcMed with a prodigious ability to assimilate andto make his own ideas and expressions borrowed from many different sour ces. Indeed, a certain amount of William 's literacy out-put consistsof little nnre than patristic and biblical exoe:rpts strtmg together so as to fonn sane kind of a coherent whole. The De sacramento aUaris, for instance, ends with a florilegiwn of such texts used by William toundergird his own preceding treatise.2 So also, two of his ca:nmentaries on The Song of Songs, consisting respectively of texts by Ambrose J and Gregm::y the Great, 4 oontributed massively to his later and highly original Exposi tio altera super Cantica Canticorwn; 5 and in the prologue to his Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, 6 William describes his roleas author-cnmpiler in tenns of a bird with borrowed 'plumage: if the original owners of the feathers were to demand back their plumage, William would be one bare little bird without a feather of his own.7

But even when William is less explicit as regards his sources, the knowledgeable reader is aware that whole paragraphs are sanet:i.mas cribbedstraight from Augustine; or that William must have written this or thatfolio with his copy of Gregocy of Nyssa open before him on his work-des 8

and Etienne Gilson claims (a bit far-fetchedly, pe:rhaps) that, to the really perceptive ear, there are echoes of Pseudo-Deni;> to be found evenin William 's literacy style.9 At times, one even has the impression

1

that William of Saint-Thiercy is imitating William of Saint-Thierry.

But no matter hOW' derivative William might be by reason of his sources, what he does with this material is often astonishingly original. cassian once wrote that the monk should so interiorize the texts of the

* This paper was originally prepared for the series of Cistercian conferen ces given in 1973 at Western Michigan University, in connection with the annual program sponsored by the Medieval Academy.

1

psalms , that when he prays them, they becx:me, as it were, his own

new creations. This is what William himself often did with his biblical and patristic sources.

The puri;:ose of this paper is to draw attention to one or two such "original" pages in William 's Specu Zwn f i dei , written probably between

1140 and 1143 in the inmediate af tennath of William's polemic againstMaster Peter Abelard, Prince of Dialecticians. lO

This treatise represents a systematic attempt to deal with sane of the problems touching on the genesis, developrent, and structure of the act of faith. These were, for William and his oo-evals, no merely

speculative problems. The quality of their f aith detennined the quali ty of their whole lif e in Christ; and there were nonks in William 's rronastic milieu whose f aith rested on f limsy foundations indeed. It was sympotanatic of William 's theological realism that he broke of f his lof ty considerations on The Song of Songs in order to address himself f

irst tothe ref utation of Peter Abelard, and then, in a nore positive wey , to asystematic treatment of matters touching on the act of f aith.

Not unexpectedly , the role of reason in the genesis and evolution

of the act of f aith looms large on William's horizon; and, for the f irst half of the treatise, so of ten as William touches on the relationship be tween reason and f aith , he writes a.lnost exactly what the reader of An selm, or of Peter Iarbard, or of Thanas .AqUinas, would expect him to write: f aith requires the submission of reason to divine authority; f aith is based, not on the imnediate evidence of the revealed truth, but onGod 's authority; faith is not acquired by logic or dialectics; humilityand absolute submission of reason to authority are essential oonditions

for the subsequent understanding of what one believes . . • 11

Indeed , so insistent is William on the problans posed by reason , that the reader , though he reoognizes the orthodoxy of each of William 's staterrents, be

gins to wonder vhether, deep dc:Mn, this champion of f aith can envisage reason other than as a nost unfortunate obstacle to a really serious spiri tual lif e. William a.lnost seems to look on reason in much the same way

1Humility and the Sacraments of

Teresa of Avila, centuries later, looked on the imagination in certain kinds of prayer: it was the mad WJitlaI1 of the house.

Strange to say, it is later on in the Speculum, in sections dealing with new subject-matter, that William 's insight into the relationship be tween faith and reason finds a particularly ridl and original expression. Midway through the

treatise, he suddenly interrupts his penetrating dis cussion about the man whose whole being strains to attain to an intellec tual understanding of the faith he professes. Without wanring, he rroves from the level of reason to another level:

Fear not, servant of God; let your feet not stumble, nor your footsteps slip. Men without faith ask for signs; and men of hesitant faith seek for wisdan. 'As for yoo, enbraceChrist crucified • • • If you heed the flesh with its senses, (he} will appear foolish and weak; but if, with the Aµ>s tle Paul, you have the mind of Christ, you will understand that the Word of God is sovereign Wisdan • • •12

And, with the help of Pauline texts on the wisdom of God seen as fool ishness by men (1 Cor 1:23-24}, William goes on to shcm that "the fool ishness of God 's Wisdom is the flesh of the incarnate Word", and that the fleshly-minded man can find healing only in the flesh of the Wordmade flesh (whidl William equates with the foolishness of the preaching of the gospel and with the sinplicity of faith). 13

Becx:xne foolish, then, in order to becane wise; and the econany of the Myste:ry (of Christ} hidden fran before all ages in God the Creator, will becx:xne clear to yoo.Becx:xne weak with the weakness of God , and you shall learn what is the i.mneasurable greatness of his paver in us who believe acoording to the wo!king of his great might.14

The inp:>rt of what William is saying bea::::mes all the rrore astonish ing when we situate ourselves in the intellectual climate of the early 12th centu:ry . Western European man was at last beginning to exploit his intellectual resources in a wey undreamed of before the redisoove:ry of Aristotle and the revival of dialectical discourse. A new universe was waiting to

be explored, and there were many understandably eager to ex ploit

1to the full the resources offered by dialectics and the new learn-

20

ing. The f rontiers of the then knavn world of ideas were waiting to be crossed; and the experienre - nu.ist have been as heady as it was f or Co

lurrbus sailing across an uncharted ocean to disrover a New World, or for the astronauts landing on the mx>n.

But here is William telling us to foi:get all that , and to enbrace Cllrist crucif ied. Is he being reactionary? anti-intellectual? Not in

the least. Because, for William, as for the Cistercians in general, there was nothing static in the experience of the nonk who resolutely entered

into the EXJVerty of the 11sacraments of f aith11 - and by 11sacraments 11

,

William usually (but not consistently) rreans sacraments in the early pa tristic sense; that is to sey , those sacred realities which express and give access to yet deeper , nore divine realities: the Sacred Humanity ofthe incarnate Word, the Scriptures, the Church and the whole systan of

sacrament-signs (baptism, Eucharist , etc.) . 15

It is true, William tells us , that we have been created for eterni ty , and that our spirit, which is aapa:x: Dei , has by its very nature a

certain af f inity with the divine, eternal realities. 16 It is also truethat, by reason alone, we can attain to a true , even lof ty knowledge aboutGod: we can knCM that he exists, and we can knCM sanething about his providence and his attributes. 1 7 But a knowledge of God sudl as thisis not what the nonk is af ter. Rather than preoccupy ourselves with this type of rational, discursive knCMledge about God, we have to enter with oourage and conviction into a quite diff erent universe. It is not an in accessible God outside space and tine, but the incarnate Word of God who is the proper object of our f aith: and when William speaks of the Incarnation, he includes all that goes with it -the earthiness and materiality of birth , suf f ering, death on a cross; a sacramental system in which spiritual realities becx:me accessible only through material substances as

hurrble as water, bread, wine, and oil; sacred books written in an of ten uncouth idian, and teeming with events and seyings of fensive to right rea

son • • • All this is sarewhat scandalous 'When we consider the spiritual

nature of man, created in the .iroage and likeness of God. 18

Humility and the Sacraments of 2

But once we have entered into all the la.diness of this hurrble eCXlt'lany of salvation, things begin to happen. Because, the life of faith, rooted as it is in the scandal of the Incamatian, has its arm in-built dynamism. William distinguishes three degrees of kna.vledge in this gra.vth in faith.

The first he describes in te:rm:; of a sarewhat grudging "hospi tality11.

"He who believes will be saved • • •', says the Lord. So the first degree oonsists of not refusing the grace of hos pitality to those things which care to us fran outside our selves • • •(that is to say, the whole eronomy of salvation as described by the gospels, in cx:>ntrast to the truths we can deduce about God by reflecting an our own spiritual na ture); one simply obeys the Lord, and gives one's sirrple assent.19

This rather strained "hospitality" leads, ha.vever, to a nore in

timate type of relationship -one of "friendship".

The serond degree ronsists of a familiar friendship based on good will: like a friendship between fellCJN-citizens of the same city, between nembers of the same camrunity, between men who cx:>mnune and share in the same bread and in the sarne chalice.20

But this deeper, nore intimate perception of the divine realities gra.vs into an even richer experience, much nore intimate:

The final degree is a sort of marriage in the depths of the soul -a marriage between the truths {of faith)whidl have been received fran outside oneself, and the imnanent truths (i.e., those acCE!ssible to man by means of his faculty of reason). 21

In other words, all the "philosophical" truths we can kna.v thanks to reascm -truths such as God's existence, his providence, his attri butes -are na.v kna.vn in a manner radically different f:rom the way these truths are knarm by the dialectician. This is nCJN no merely speculative, abstract knCJNledge, but a 11taste-and see" experienre of the living God, an experience which admits of an ever g:ro.ving perfectibility.

1Th:is presentation of faith in tenns of a dynamic g:ro.vth in

which the subject is transfonred. in proportion as the realities of faith are progressively interiorized, is perfectly in line with the type of experi-

T l-..ard 24 . Thomas n.rn,;1"1 25 d 26 Th • •

22

enoe decsribed in the very heart of the Benedictine Rule, in ChapterVII "On the Degrees of Humility". In 1959, Fr.Placide Deseille, o.c.s.o.,published an irrportant article 2 2 in which he analyzed with finesse thedoctrine contained in this chapter, and shaved that this teaching, media ted to Benedict by a line runnioo·. from The Rule of the Master back to Cassian, back to Evagrius, and finally back to the cx:mron

doatrina ofthe desert fathers, had the same inbuilt dynamism. In the first degree of humility, the rronk is i;x:>ssessed by an alrrost animal fear of an angryGod. Depressing as this starting-i;x:>int might sound, it is, after all, on ly a starting-i;x:>int. And the rronk who manages to ascend all twelve de grees of humility attains at last to a perfection of love and interior freedcm in \\h.ich all that had been done, in times past, with constraint frcm without, is nCM done spontaneously, by seoond nature, as it were,out of love for Christ and for the sheer joy of virtue. William, it would seem, has treated the evolution of the act of faith in teDllS of the sane sort of dynamism.

Fran the 12th century until the tine of the Council of Trent, theo logians in general agreed that one of the reasons for the institution of the sacraments was our need to be exercized in the virtue of hunility.A line of developnent can be traced from Hugh of Saint-Victor 23

to Peter.LA.Aliu , ., to '""":1 .as, an to Bonaventure. e variations are many, but the main there rings clear. By his sin of discDedi.ence, Marn turned frcm God , the uncreated substantial Good,

to a material, cre ated gocxl inferior to man 's CMn spiritual nature. Consequently, God, in his justice, has willed that we regain our lost likeness to God by meansof an econCJey' of salvation essentially bound up with material realities.Since man ranains spiritual by nature, this dependence on material realities as vehicles of grace involves a real huniliation.27 All this sounds

1vaguely similar to William's insistence on the humble, lo.vly nature of the "sacraments of faith". But nc:Mhere in Hugh of Saint-Victor or in the later theologians do we find, in this sacramental context, anything resembling William's teaching about the radical dynamism of that faith which, adhering to

Christ crucified, expands in a love and kno.vledge of the deepest sort possible.

Humili ty and the Saaraments of 2

One f inal note. William was not the only Cistercian who had a predilection for what was poorest and nost hurrble as a rreans of entering nore perf ectly into the deep things of Gc:xl. Saint Bernard 's devotion

to the Sacred Humanity of Cllrist was an expression of the same basic

approach.. Pe:rhaps the "mystique" of poverty characteristic of the earli-: est Cistercians, but soon lost, was the fruit of the same type of experi ence; and much the same oould be said of the ideas expressed by the

White Monks in the areas of art , architecture, liturgy, music • • • In

their CMll way, they too were interested in passing beyond the f rontiers of the then kn0N11 world of ideas; and in their CMn , pe:rhaps they suc ceeded.

Cllrysogonus WADDELL Gethsanani Abbey

N O T E S

1 The best edition is the one by J.M. ch.anet, O. S.B., GuiZZa:ume d,e Saint-Thieriry: Le miroir de Za foi, Bruges [Editions Charles Bey aert] , 1946. Also excellent is the edition by M.-M. Davy , Deu:x: triaitefs sur Za foi, Paris [Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin] , 1959 . The text is also in PL 180 :365-398.

2 PL 180 :341-366.3 PL 15:1947-2060 .4 PL 180 :441-474 .5 PL 180:473-546.6 PL 180 :547-694.7 PL 180 :547. The f igure of the bird is bor?:OWed f rom Horace.8 William's sou.roes have been studied by Dem chanet, Aux souraes

de la spiritualite de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, Bruges [EditionsCllarles Beyaert] , 1940 . His tentative oonclusions are nCJN the sub ject of discussion by a number of scholars interested in the prob lem of William 's sources. The current tendency is to reduce oon siderably the direct inf luence of Eastern writers on William..

9 The Mystiaal Theology of Saint Bernard , London-New York [Sheed andWard] , 1940 , p.219 , note 22.

10 Cf . chanet, edition cited in Note 1, supra, pp. 11-17 and 36-40 .11 In the Dech.anet edition , Cllapitre III , pp. 74-93 ( = PL 180

:372- 376 , passim .

124

12 dlanet, 112-113; PL 180:38lb.13 Ibid.14 Ibid.; biblical references fran Eph 3:9 and 1:19.15 Excellent note on William's concept of saaramentum in

dlanet,op. cit., p.25, with valuable remarks about William's witness toan aspect of 12th century sacranental theology deserving of closer study.

16 Dechanet, 134-135; PL 180:386bc.17 Dechanet, 144-145; PL 180:389d.18 In the dlanet edition, Chapitre VI, pp .166-129 (=

PL 180:382- 385), passim.19 chanet, 138-139; PL 180:387b.20 Ibid.21 Ibid.22 "A propos de I'epilogue du dlapitre VII de la Regle", in

CoUeatanea O.C.R . 21 (1959), pp.289-301.23 Summa Sententiarum, Tract. Dl, Cap.I, in PL 176:117-118

(Hugh 's au thorship of this treatise is disputed}; De saaramentis Z-egis natura l-is et sariptae, in PL 176:34.

24 Petri Lombardi Libri IV Sententiarum, Lib. Dl, Cap.5, Ed.Quarrachi, Firenze, 1916, T.II, p.747.

25 Summa Theologiaa III, q.61, a.2; In IV Sent., dist. 1, q.l, a.2,1 ad 2um.

26 In IV Sent., Dist.I, Pars 1, q.l, Ed.Quarrachi, Firenze, 1949, editio minor, T.4, pp.5-6.

27 Cf . P.Innocenzo Colosio, O.P., "La prassi sacranentale cnre eserci zio di mri.lita", in Rivista di Ascetiaa e Mistica 9 (1964), pp.101- 116.

2

G R 0 U P M A S S E S

I N A M 0 N A S T E R Y

During the past f our years our crmnunity here at Pierre-qui-vire

has been experiencing sarething which , so f ar , doesn 't seem to be prac

ticed at large to any great extent. Once a week we don 't have a oonventu al Mass. Each of the brethren is given, on those occasions, the opportunity of celebrating the Eucharist in sore other fonn.

I think that it might be usef ul to other ccmnunities if I t:ry to sey sarething about our experience of the past four years. After a brief "histo:ry" of this experi.nent (its genesis and the reascns behind it) ,we '11 see how, in the ooncrete, we car:ry it out in actual practice. We '11 end with a brief sw.vey of the results -the positive f ruits as well as the limitations.

HIS'IORY

It might be a good thing to begin by saying a fEM words about our cx:mnunity. We have 85 roonks. Alnost two-thirds of us are priests. This reans sore forty ooncelebrants every day , in a sanctuary which, even four years ago, was small enough. (Actually , we f inished re-wo.Iking the interior of our church a few rocmths ago.) The conventual Mass is celebrated an weekdays at 9 A.M. It 's

preceded by lectio divina or one 's avn personal projects, and is followed by

manual work.

'lb be perfectly frank about it , the reascns which urged us to

attanpt a dif ferent rrode of celebrating the Eucharist were , in part, negative: in particular, the large size of the cxmm.mity , and the

proportionately large nunber of concelebrants.All this meant too much solemnity on even the least important ferial days. Then, too, there was too great a distance be tween the sanctua:ry, where the concelebrants were, and the monks ' choir.Taking these two cisrcurrstances in consideration , it became rather dif fi-

126

cult to experience at depth the cxmnunity dimension of the celebration.

But there were also positive reasons. Am:>ng these was . the need

of assuring that each of the many groups which visit our monaste:ry should be able to participate in the Eucharist in the marmer best suited to it. (There has been, havever, an evolution as regards the need experiencedby these groups to have a special fonn of the Eucharist.) But the chief reason was the desire that a greater diversity in our manner of living the Eucharist would help us penetrate deeper into the fullness of its ridles.

CXJR PRACI'ICE IN THE CDNCRETE

The usual day, which we call the 11free day" , is more often than not Thursday. On this day, there's no conventual Mass, and each monk is free to celebrate Mass as he wishes.

For saoo, this means an extrerrely quiet, solitary Mass -rather like the "private" Masses of times past.

More often, perhaps, Thursday provides the occasion for groups of the brethren to share in the sane celebration:

- Groups fonred during the past four years or more take advantage of this opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist as a group.

- Each week, a number of similar groups are fonned spontaneously.

One or- rrore of the brethren write their naires on a notice board, and those who wish to share in their celebration of the Eucharist do so. The rea sons for detennining the choice of a particular group vary: the time or the place; the texts chosen for the Mass; or sinply the personality of the first naire on the list, since he's the one who gives the Eucharist its "style" for that particular celebration:one is rrore meditative, another more lyrical; one tends to be brief, another more anple; and sanetimes the "pole of attraction" is saoo special guest -the retreat master or sane visiting- abbot.

- Another interesting instance of such groups is given by those

_pe::r::manent groups within the carmunity , which invite others to join

thent.

Group Masses in a 2

Take, for example, the f ann brethren. Their work keeps them

fran taking part in the weekday c:onventual Mass. As a general rule, these brethren (of whan there are three or four) have a c:oncelebrated Mass at the end of the rroming, in a small chapel on the f ann itself , only a mile or so from the rronastery. On the free day , if the

work so allc:ms, they arrange to have their celebration at 9 A.M. It 's a

rare thing that there aren 't two or three nonks f rcm the nonastery to join them for that Mass. Then, too, the Guestmaster sends , as of ten as possible, a feN guests to join them -usual y individuals who don

't belong to any ofthe groups visiting the nonaste:ry . This is the plan which is follc:medas a general rule. The brother who presides asks each of the participants

to introduce himself with a few words aboot who he is and what he does.Af ter the gospel, there 's a brief exchange of ref lections on the text just read: no need to describe this f urther; but perhaps it might be

good to note that this sharing of the gospel takes place in a calm; f riendly ,wann atmosphere. It 's hard to say just what gives this particular toneto the celebration. Perhaps it 's the setting -a small, unpretentious but inviting chapel, with a large windOt'which looks out on the f ields and woods; perllaps it 's the personality of the brethren who participate in

the celebration • • • For the eucharistic liturgy , all group themselves around the altar. No one hesitatesply this or that liturgical fonnu la to concrete situations, or to amplify the "Merrentos" so as to linkthem with the remarks made af ter the reading of the gospel. The f act that there's a stable group which welcx:mes others into their celebration ofthe Eucharist is doubtless what gives this celebration its special charac ter; for Father Guestrraster has· of ten comnented on the prof ound impress ion made on the guest participants. It ' s by no means rare that this cele bration of the Eucharist marks for them, if not always a "starting point" , at least a "turning point" in their retreat at our rronastery.

-Yet another type of group situation. An already clearly def ined group (student groups f ram the sane school or town , the novices f ram sane religious house or institute, etc.) celebrate the Eucharist together with sare of the nonks. In this instance, it 's the m::mks who are integrated into the group celebration, rather than the group which is integrated in to the rronaste:ry celebration. This experience is quite

2positive. At the

Group Masses in a 2

very least, it provides imaginative ideas for the brethren, whose vow of stability precludes their going out to f ind ideas is other types of cele bration.

There's still an inf inite nunber of possibilities for variety. We've even seen one group gather at dGMil, on the edge of a small lake near the nonaste:ry. They had gone there to celebrate Christ , the rising Sun, who cx:xres to vi.sit us f rom on high."

Before taking a look at the results, we should say that in most in stanres the group celebrations of the Eucharist provide the occasion for an exdlange of ref lections based on the readings of the Mass -either those found in the lectionary , or those chosen for sane particular

reason. In this latter instance, the readings are posted in advance. This prac tice of having a "dialogued hanily" is doubtless the reason why , nore re cently, sare have proposed having- a read Mass -that is to say , an ex tremely quiet Mass without any ref lective exchange based on the readings.

At sudl Masses, there are usually a number of brethren who participate, and rarely the sane ones. This is a good sign.

FRUITS

It might be doubted that the practice described above oould result in so rich a harvest of f ruit of eve:ry sort. Here we ' 11 tiy to make a brief invento:ry of sare of these f ruits.

It didn 't take long for us to bea:Jre oonscious of the f act that it was much easier to experience a trua a:mnunion in prayer when there were eight of us instead of a hundred. The alteration of :rhythm was also f elt by a great number of us as being helpf ul , because it interrupts routine and makes one pull oneself together. (At the sane time, we noted that sate of the brethren oonsider this as a dif ficulty.)

Another important disoove:ry occasioned by these group Eucharists was that of "shared ref lections on the gospel" . A large number of ncnasteries have already experi.rrented with this new way of praying the scriptural texts; in our case, it was the Eucharist which provided us with the prop-

Group Masses 'ln a Monastery 29

er oontext for this experience. These shared ref lections have enriched us oonsiderably , because, for the greater number of us , they provided us

with the first occasion f or speaking about tlrings spiritual in f ront of our brethren. A number of the brethren felt a new f reedan at being ableto express themselves in public in this manner. What a joy, too, to dis cover the riches of this or that brother, af ter having lived beside him

for a number of years! Finally , the gospel was perceived under a new aspect.

We can note , too, that these Eucharists with a smaller number of participants make possible a greater liberty , and by this very f act, teach the a:mnunity how to make good use of a legitimate creativity in liturgical matters.

There 's yet another f ruit to be gotten f mn these small group cele brations: for rronk-priests, they provide a good schooling in hCJN to pre side at a celebration. At any rate, such celebrations make us nore de manding as regards ourselves even in other oontexts , and at the larger conventual Masses. One gets a deeper insight into his prayer-lif e, sothat one can celebrate the ccmnunity liturgy at perhaps a deeper level.

Finally, in this type of prayer, which is si.rrpler , more f amiliar ,

and oonsequently easier to personalize , we 've of ten been able to be closer to one of the brethren on the occasion of sare evert which touched him pro foundly -for instance, the death of a f ather or of a rrother . In too large an assembly , a certain amount of discretion is absolutely necessary.

DIFFia.JLTIES AND LIMITS

But it 's also quite clear that the above manner of celebrating group Masses has its dif f iculties and its limits. One of the first which we soon ran up against was the lack of equality, at the level of decision-makingand organization, between nonk-priests and monks who are not priests. These latter run the risk of being at the mercy of the fonner. In spite of dif

f erent attts to solve the problem, this is always going to remain a delicate point.

3

There's another difficulty which became apparent over only a long period: there were sore priest-non.ks who were unwilling to preside at a Mass, and so were afraid to sign up as participants in such groups. This reinforces a bit the objection ma.de in the preceding paragraph.

Another difficulty of an almost theological order:is it really legitimate to celebrate the Eucharist in small groups such as the fann brethren, for instance, or the students? (Note, too, that sore groups are oonstituted on the basis of mere friendship or canpatability of personali ties.) Ought not the Eudlarist, by its ver:y essence, to renain open? If one has

experienced this, one perceives that it isn't easy to give a sim ple Yes or No answer. Sare have at times suffered a great deal becauseof the restrictiveness inherent in such group Masses.

We also perceived that the Eucharist celebrated together is not necessarily the best and IOOSt imrrediate manner of having the groups with in the carmunity get to meet and knav each other.This type of group en counter is easy to effect, but is it always authentic? Doesn't it run the risk of illusion? We sanetirres had the impression that we were trulysharing reflections on the gospel, and experiencing the Eucharist together; but, in i;x:>int of fact, weren't we saretimes just talking for the sake of talking? and didn't we remain centered on our avn selves and oor CMil par ticular problems? This can happen . On the other hand, if such group Eu charists make it possible to becare aware of a certain lack of camrunica tion between brethren, this itself is already a sign of progress.

We ought to note, too, that the problem of groups of young people with their particular needs has evolved over the past four years .Inthe beginning, group Masses of this type put them at their ease, arrl ma.de it i;x:>Ssihle for them to meet nonks as persons, and not just as personages hieratically glued in their choir-stalls; it also made it p::>ssible for them to discover neN ways of celebrating the liturgy. Navadays, theynore often than not have plenty of opportunity0 haring in small-scale

Group Masses in a 3Eudlarists, while, on the contrar:y, they are more and nore deprived of a::mrnunity Masses of an arrpler density. Small group Eucharists, then,

Group Masses in a Monastery 31

have lost their original aspect of being great discoveries; though, at the sane tin'e, the young people always appreciate a really deep reflec tion in a:mnon on the gospel read at Mass, to which they like to retum to re-read time and time again.Havever, 100re than in tin'es past, they appreciate the a:mventual Mass. True , it's less personalized; it's more"d:>jective". But they experience it as a reality lived at depth by those who really believe in it.

Finally, we ought to point out that, when we first began this experi ment, we were thinking in tentlS of soon arriving at t w o

free days. each week . But we never went so far. Why? Doubtless because all that calls for nore preparation, 100re imagination, a 100re total gift of self.As a whole, it might be extrerrely enriching; but it's also 100re demanding.

CDNCWSION

We've been quite aware of the fact that this experiment can't be transposed intact into a small cxmnunity -which, havever, would feel less acutely the need for such group Masses.

We also realize that this practice isn't a universal panacea, as

is a:nply clear fran the nere enumeration of the difficulties we enoountered. But we still think that our CMn experience might be of interest to others.

OUr avn cx:mnunity has undergone an authentic experience which helps us to make constant progress in our search for God .This is a source of joy for us; and we believe that it has been of real profit.

Trans., Gethsemani Abbey Vincent LESCANNE La

Pierre-qui-vire

33

FRANCOPHONE REGION IN EUROPE AND CANADA:

T H E C E L E B R A T I 0 N 0 F V I G I L S

D U R I N G T H E P A S C H A L T R I D U U

M THE RESULTS OF A SURVEY

The heart of the liturgical mystery is the Paschal Vigil. On the basis of this fundamental core, the Church has developed the Pasdlal Mys te:cy. It was at a quite early date that she decided to solemnize the Vigils of the Paschal Triduum in a special way -Vigils of Good Friday and Holy Satumay.

It wasn't long before the day oelebrations of Holy Thursday -in particular, the rerrenbrance of the institution of the Eucharist -had

its repercussions an Vigils of Holy Thursday . It should be stressed, how

ever, that the Paschal Triduum begins only with the Mass of the Lord 's Supper, late in the afternoon or in the evening of Holy Thursday.

Still, it's perhaps nonnal that sarething of the remembranoe of the Last Supper should help detennine the character of Holy Thursday Vi gils.But in this instance, one has to take care that the change of to nality has its parallel in a change of structure of this particular Of fioe.

This explains the particular interest of this survey on the

way our (French-speaking) corrmunities have handled the problem of these especially venerable Vigils.

This survey was made by the Father Prior of Bellefontaine.Question naires were sent to a nurrber of our cx:mnunities of French-speaking zronks and nuns, as well as to

several cx:mnunities of Benedictines.We received replies fran 28 cx:mmmities, three of which are Benedictine. The resultsof the survey here given may be ronsidered as a lement to the question naire returns published in the last issue of Liturgy O. C .S .O . - "The Cele bration of the Paschal Myste:ry", op. ait ., June 1973, pp .15-58.

3

I - GENERAL IMPRESSION

The really striking thing is the f act that so many have maintained the traditional structure of two or three Noctums . In nost instances, it was felt to be suff icient sinply to transpose into Frendl

what used to be done in Latin. HcMever, there 's only one instance of a nore or less elSJant translation of the Latin texts , without any great ooncem

for making textual adjusbrents in the French version.

We should recognize that fact that the result of this survey isn 't particularly satisfying. In those instances where the three Ranan Noc tums have been retained, along with the proper responsories and antiphons , the Of fice has retained a certain imler cdlerenc:e. But often one has madea particular dloice of only certain psalms , antiphons and responsories, without due attention to the unity of the Of fioe. The result is a certain

imbalance in the spiritual synthesis proposed for our ireditation

The structure nost cxmronly adopted is the follCMing:

- OPENING: Invitatoi:y and hymn.- 'n«l NOCIURNS, each one with 3 or 4 psalms , with or without

anti- phons (in one or two nonasteries, 6 psalms per nocturn) .

For the 1st Noctum, a biblical reading -usually a sung version of the Lamentations;

for the 2nd Noctum , a patristic reading with re

sponsocy.

- CCNCUJSION: a simplified fonn, with a f inal prayer and doxology.

Of the 28 monasteries, at least 24 present an Of fice of this type - with variations, of cx:>urSe.

II - PRESENTATIOO CF THE VARiaJS ELEMENTS

l- OPE:Nm:;Psalm 94 isn 't the only invitatory psalm in use. A number of nnna-

steries use the follCMing:Tobit 13: Ubexy , Sept-FansPsalm 69: Les Neiges Psalm 95: Tamie

The Ce lebration of Vigils during the Pasahal Triduwn 35

A few nonasteries seem to have no hymn.The hynns nost often used are: "Par la Croix"

"Myst.ere du Calvaire" "Bois tout en feu"

So far, not much variety in the choice of hymns.At lt>nt-des-cats,

"Vend.redi saint, c'est l'heure des T res".

2. PSAIIDDYA gcxxl number of monasteries were cnntent to choose their

psalms fran arrong the psalms sung in tirres past at the Good Friday and Holy Saturday Night Offices. A fEM carm.mities have been nore original.A tabulation of the psalms in use might be of interest -though, unfortu nately, not all the questionnaire retums were specific as to the precise choice of psalms .

G O O D F R I D A YLa Trappe : 12, 21 A, 21B + 37, 53, 87 + Is 49Timadeuc:2, 21, 26 + 37, 39, 53Mont-des-Cats:21A, 21B, 37 + 54, 34, 53Sept Fons:12, 21, 25 + 87, 68, 58Les Neiges: 87, 54, 21 + 40, 41-42, 68Tamie: 2, 37, 39, 53 + 58, 63, 93, 141Igny: 21, 30, 34, 40 + 42, 54, 58, 68Le Desert:2, 21, 30, 37 + 39, 53, 68, 93St-Benoit-sur-Loire: 2, 21, 26, 27 + 39, 53, 87, 93Bellefontaine: 2, 21, 26 + 39, 53, 68 + 87, 93, 98

The psalms most often retained are:PS 21 (9 tilres)

Ps 37 (6 tines)Pss 2, 39, 68, 87 ( 5 times)Ps 93 (4 times)

H O L Y S A T U R D A YLa Trappe :4, 15, 23 + 29, 53, 76 + Jonah's CanticleTimadeuc: 4, 14, 15 + 23, 26, 29Mont-des-Cats: 3, 6, 12 + 15, 26, 29 Sept Fons: 8, 103, 102 + 76, 77A, 77B

3

Les Neiges: 87, 54, 21 + 40, 41-42, 73Tami : 3, 15, 29, 26 +70, 75, 84, 87Igny : 15, 16, 19, 27 + 29, 39, 53, 70Le Desert: 4, 10, 12, 15, 19, 26 + 29, 55, 56, 62, 75, 87St-Benoit-sur-IDire: 4, 15, 23, 26 + 29, 53, 75, 87Bellefontaine: 4, 14, 15 +23, 29, 70 + 75, 87, 96

We note the f requency of the following psalms: Pss 15 and 29: 8 times

Pss 4, 26, and 87:5 timesPs 75:4 tines

ANI'IPHOOS

The greater number of xronasteries don 't seem to use antiphons; how ever, several have made an atterrpt to ef f ect a :renaval in this area. By

wey of exanple, we off er the antiphons retained by a few cx:mnunities.

Tami (D)D FRIDAY

Net I Ps 2 They arise, the kings of the earth,princes plot against the ID:rd and his Anointed.

Ps 37 Like a lamb led to sacrif ice, the IDrd opened not his xrouth.

Ps 39 O let than tum back in conf usion,who delight in my harm.

Ps 53 False witnesses rise up against me,they breathe violence.

Net II Ps 58 Rescue me, God, f ran my foes;protect me f ran those who attack me.

Ps 63 And ncM my soul is troubled: Father , save me fran this Hour!

Ps 93 They attack the life of the Justand rondemn. innocent blood.

Ps 141 Father, if I nust drink this cup,let your will be done.

La TrappeNet I Ps 12 Give light to my eyes

lest Ifall asleep in death.Ps 21A o IDni, do not leave me alone,

rescue my soul f rom the hand of the wicked!Ps 21B I will tell of your name to my brethren

and praise you where they are assarbled.

The Ce lebration of VigiZ s during the Pasoha Z 3

Net II Ps 37 Those who plot against my life lay snares;

Ps 53 O Gcx:l, hear my prayer. Ps 87 . . .

Sep1: Fons Net I Ps 12 I was like a gentle lanb led to the slaughter;

Iknew not the evil designs they plotted against me .Ps 21 Fram the sole of the foot even to the head,

there is no soundness in him,but bruises and sores

and bleeding wounds;they are not pressed out , or bound up,

or sof tened with oil.Ps 25 He was 'l«>unded for our transgressions ,

he was bruised for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

and with his stripes we are healed.Net II Ps 87 Father , forgive them;

for they know not what they do.Father , into your hands

Icx:nmend my spirit.Ps 68 Towards the ninth hour ,

Jesus cried out with a loud voioe,"O God , ·It¥ God ,

why have you forsaken me?"Ps 58 God was pleased to reooncile through Jesus

all things to himself ,whether on earth or in heaven ,

making peace by the blood of his cross.

f.t:>nt-des-catsNet I Ps 21A He had no forr cx:meliness

that we should desire him;he was without beauty.

Ps 21B Gcx:1 will tum tcMa.rds the prayer of the poor man; he will not soom his prayer.

Ps 37 Like a lamb led to sacrif ice, he opened not his :roouth.

Net II Ps 54 The betrayer had given them a sign:The one I shall kiss is the man: seize him!

Ps 34 Listen, o wrd, to Il¥ just cause, be attentive to Il¥ supplication.

Ps 53 No antiphon.

3

HOLY SA'IURDAY

TamiNet I Ps 4 I will lie down in peace;

in God will take my rest.Ps 15 Even my body shall rest in safety.

Ps 29 O lord , you have raised my soul fran the dead.Ps 26 I am sure I shall see the lord.ts

gcxxmess in the land of the living.Net II Ps 70 Keep my soul in peace,

close to you, O lord.Ps 75 The earth in terror was still

when God arose to judge.Ps 84 Those who hope in the lord

will not be disawcinted..Ps 87 You have laid ne in the depths of the tali:>,

in places that are dark, in the depths .

La TrNet I Ps 4 I will lie down in peace;

in God will take my rest.Ps 15 Even my body shall rest in safety. Ps 23 At Saturday Vespers .

Net II Ps 29 o lord , you have raised my soul fran the dead.

Ps 53 • • • Ps 73 • • •

Net III Ant. You restored me to life , O lord,f ran those who sink into the grave.

Sept Fons

Net I Ps 8 Multitudes were f illed with terror at sight of him;yet, through him, multitudes will be f illed with joy.

Ps 103 You will restore me to life,you will retum. and draw rre forth f ran the abyss , you will c::orre to console ne.

Ps 102 He has loved us,and by his blocxl he has freed us f ran our sins: glo:ry and power be his for ever!

Net II Ps 76 Was it not neoessa:ry that Christ should suf fer , and thus enter into his glo:ry?

Ps 77 A and B It is good to wait in silencefor the salvation of the lord.

He is II'\Y' portion,therefore I will hope in God.

3The Celebration of Vigils during the Pasahal

Mont-des-catsNet I Ps 3 I will lie davn in peace;

in God I will take my heart.Ps 6 In death, O lord, no one remembers you.

O lord, return, rescue my soul.Ps 12 Give light to my eyes, o I.Drd,

lest fall asleep in death.Net II Ps 15 Even my bcx1y shall rest in safety.

Ps 26 Because of your goodnessI hope in you, 0 I.Drd.

Ps 29 O IDrd, you have raised rqy soul from the dead.

PSAIM CDLLECl'SThese I found used only at Tami , where they 're xrentioned in connection

with every other psalm; hence, two oollects per noctum. Psalm collects of this kind might be a resource which could be exploited on a larger scale. Since there is a dearth of really suitable antiphons at the present time,psalm collects might conceivably contribute an important christological eleIIEnt.

3. READINGS , RESPONSORIES, VER>ICLES

READINGS

First noctum. Unfortunately, few nonasteries gave any precise details about the f irst noctum reading. The singing of the Larrentations (either in

Latin or in French) seems to have been :retained in nost cases , with or

with out an accx:mpanying responsory.

Occasional mention is made of Hebrews 9:11-18, as well as of Hebrews 2:10 - 3:2 + 7:25-28.

Seoond noctum. The patristic reading is taken fran one of the

several available collections of Of f ice Readings Prires du Temps

Present, or

the lectianaries edited by O:r:val, Toumay, the Daninican nuns, or En-Calcat.sane houses have their own particular readings.

RESPONSORJES

At Bellefontaine, there are three Lanentatians, each follCMed by' a respan

so:r:y ''L 'esprit est ardent" , "lt)n &e est triste'' , "O vous qui passez".

4

Atoong the other French responsories used in other camn.mities, we

also f ind:for Good Friday: "Tres sur la terre" (M:>nt-des.-Cats) .

"I.es res" ; "Au rront des Olives" (Igny , bon:owed f rom Belloc) •

"Tu m'as crucif ie'' (La Trappe, taken fran the Taize Of f ice) .

"Christ-us f aetus est" (in Latin -Tamie , Bellef ontaine) . for Holy Saturday: The responsories f ran the Taiz Of f ice are used.1 or else:

"Pleure, gffid.s, rron peuple"; "Toi qui as bris la puis sance des enfers"; "Aujourdhui , notre Sauveur a bris

les portes de la rrort" (Clai:rval) •

Finally, there are sane rronasteries which have kept the gregorian respon sories.

VERSICLES.lt>st m:>nasteries have dropped versicles. By way of exception:

G:>od Fri cI,ay: La Trappe - Net I v. They divide my clothing arrong them.

R. They cast lots for my robe.Net II v. False witnesses rise up against me .

R. They breathe out lies and f ury.Net III V. Drag me not Cbwn , O my God, into the night of the

R. Confound me not with men of blocxl. [wicked.Mont-des-Cats - Net I V. I am a wonn and no man.

R. The butt of men , laughing-stock of the people.Net II V. See how nru.ch the Father has loved us.

R. To deliver the se:rvants, he gave up his Son.Holy Saturd.aY

La Trappe - Net I V. In him I shall take my rest.R. I shall slumber in peace.

Net II V. Even my body.R. Will rest in safety.

Net III V. I am reckoned as one in the tcrnb.R. Like one alone arrong the dead.

Mont-des-Cats - Net I v. In peace I shall sleep and take my rest. [safety.R. For you alone, Lord , make me live and dwell inv. You will not leave my srul arrong the dead.R. Nor let your beloved know decay.

The Celebration of Vigils during the Pasahal 4

4. FINAL PRAYERS AND CONCUJSIONIt's only occasionally that anyone has thought of using a

litany-prayer in this place, even though such a litany 'WOuld be ideal for this particular day and for this particular Hour.

O ka is planning to corrpose a quite elaborate version of a litany.

Po rt du S a l u t man.lions the Seven Last Words of Jesus listened to in

total silence. This is 'WOrth exploring advantageously, it seems to ne.

As a general rule, the conclusion of Vigils on these last days of Holy Week seems s t abridged. Mention is sanetines made of a prayer, of a doxology. Sorretines the responsory "Orristus factus est" is sung by way of conclusion.

III - ATI'EMl?TS AT RENEWAL

Three nonasteries have been nore original in their attarpts to revise

the Offices of the Paschal Triduum.

1.BRICQUEBEC- V i i l s o f Good F r i d a y These Vigils have been arranged in a special wey, so as to

retain sanething fran the arrangenent of the psalms used in tines past, and so as to celebrate the Paschal Mystery acoording to the successive stages of its unfolding.

At Vigils, there are 12 to 15 psalms spread over or three

noctums; but the structure of the Office isn't the usual one.After the opening section (invitatory and hymn, as usual), the rest of the Office takes on the fonn ofa Celebration of the Word. A c:xmrentator or "animateur" effects a snooth transition fran psalm to psalm, and shews hCM the Mystecy being celebrated is progressing. The brethren find this helpful. The choice of psalms can change f:ran year to year, so that a different aspect of the Mystecy can be celebrated and renewed .- V i g i l s o f H o l y S a t urd a y

These Vigils retain the traditional structure.The style is particularly austere; and the psalms are chosen in function of the day.

4

2. OKA

On the one hand, thought is being given to re-arranging the recitation of the psalter in such a way as to shape up a real "vigil" or night-watch: participation left up to the individuai, who cares and goes as he likes; psalms read or sung only by individuals • • •

On the other hand, Vigils would be structured so as to have as their point of departure a Lamentation sacething along these lines:

Lamentation;A long New Testament reading;Hanily by the Abbot or one of the brethren;A rather elaborate litany-prayer.

3. EN CAICAT

H o l y T h u r s d a y Vigils are built around the general thene of the Last Supper and Farewell Discourse. Several ideas are successively proposed for neditation:

1- One of you will betray me:

Biblical text : Jn 13:1Responso:ryAntiphon and Psalm 54 Reading: Jn 13:21-30 ResponsoryConcluding prayer

2 - IDve one another:Biblical text : Jn 15:9-13 Antiphon and Psalm ll7

3 - I give you my peace:Biblical text : Jn 14:27-31 + 16:32-33Antiphon and Psalm 114Concluding prayer

4 - Lo::rd , where are you going?HynmLitany-prayer Responsory

5 - Your sadness will change into joy:Jn 16:20-23ResponsoryAntiphon and Psalm 65:6..,.14Collect

4

6 - 'llle Bread which I give:Biblical text : Jn 6 :49-58 Responso:ry "J 'ai desire"

7 - The High Priestly Prayer:Jn 17 , with the intercalated ref rain-antiphcn,

"Father, glorify your Son".

This Off ice has been IIDJ.ch appreciated by the brethren and the guests. At the same tine, those in charge of the liturgy at En-calcat say that thisHoly Thursday Of f ice is overly intellectual; it d.oesn 't provide suf f iciently for everyone ''s participation (psa.lnody and chants) •

Gocx:1 Friday On the contrary, this M::>ming Of f ice has been Imlch appreciated f i:an every point of view. It 's structure is considerably zoore classic than

on Holy Thursday, and is based on the following schena:Hymn "Mystere du calvaire"

Psalm::>dy Ps 55 with antiphon and refrain Ps 50 with antiphonPs 142 with antiphonPss 84 and 72 with versicles

Reading follaved by the :responso:ry "Pour nous le Christ s 'est f ait

Song of Zacha:ry Iissante"

4 . SAINT-BEN01T- SUR-IDIRE

This ccmnunity includes, anong the other Of f ices, a penitential Of f

ice celebrated at noon, Holy Thursday. Its structure is as f ollows: [l0-20Invitator:y: A monition and a canticle (the Song of Hezechiah, Is 28:

Readings: 1st Reading with the antiphon, "Qui me sera"2nd Reading with the antiphon "Obsecro"3rd Reading

Hanily

Examination ofconscience "Conf iteor"

Psalm 31 (recited seated}Conclusion: Lord 's Prayer (sung) and Final Collect

Saint-Benolt.. sur-Ioiz is thinking of including the sacrament of penance for those want it. In this case, there would be fewer readings , and zoore ritual gestures (kiss of peace, gestures of reconciliation) •

4The Celebration of Vigils during the Paschal

C O N C L U S I O N

By wey of conclusion to this sw:vey, the only thing I want to sey is that our Vigils for these holy days don t t seem to have found the optimum

degree of spiritual and theological ridmess. This is an appeal to

every body for further rneditative ref lection at a greater spiritual depth -at the level of the individual and of the ccmrnmity .

Trans., Gethsemani Abbey Eclnand FRADilJ

Bellefontaine

4

A LOCAL AMERICAN PROJ ECT FOR

T H E C E L E B R A T I 0 N 0 F V I G I L S

D U R I N G T H E P A S C H A L T R I D U U

M AT GETHSEMANI ABBEY, KENTUCKY

ile typing the preceding survey dealing with the celebration of Vigils during the Paschal Triduum in French-speaking c:xmnunities of Europe

and Canada, it occurred to me that sare readers might be interested in a few notes and texts .f n:m an Anerican-speaking ccmmmity . Perllaps a sm:veysimilar to the one described and analyzed by Br . Edrrond Fradin of Bellefontaine "WOuld be of value a survey taking in the English-speaking camrunities ofboth hemispheres. Pending the irrplementation of such a project , hc:Mever ,

the following is off ered simply as an exarrple of one fonn of Good Friday and Ho- ly Saturday Vigils as celebrated in one of our American Cistercian houses.

Our early Fathers, in their passionate love for the Rule of Saint Bene dict, f elt obliged to opt against the universal practice of the Western Church during the last few days of Holy Week. Since the early 9th century , Benedictine cxmmmities evei:ywh.ere had adopted the Ranan fonn of the Of f ice. Indeed, Monte

Cassino had been forerrost and among the f irst to celebrate the Of f ice of the

Paschal Triduum more Romano. But since Saint Benedict himself had made no explicit , or even implicit, reference to such a derogation of the Of f ice- · structure described in detail in his Rule, our Fathers maintained even during the f inal days of Holy Week the nonnal ferial-day type of Of f ice. Texts and

chants were, of oourse proper to these days; but for the critics of the White

Monks ' liturgy -critics such as Peter Abelard -this did nothing to of f - set the scandal of Cistercian particularism during those few days when all the rest of the Western Church Universal was celebrating the same liturgy in quite the sane way. But our Fathers managed to remain quite intransigent

in the matter until the mid-17th cenury, when the traditional CistercianOf f ice undezwent a "rananization" such as brought the nonks of ctteaux intoline with the rest of Benedictine nonasticism during the last few days of Holy Week.

446

Our Order retained this Ranan fonn of the Sacred Triduum Offices until the Ranan Holy ek liturgical refonns of the mid- and late-1950's, when the General 01.apter re-introduced the simpler 12th century form of the Office. Very few were particularly happy about the result.Many felt that, for these very special days of the liturgical calendar, a form of Office was needed such as would mark a departure from the ord:inal:y routine of cxmnunity prayer; atthe same time, the Ranan Office marked too great a rupture, and made exorbitant ly extravagant claims on the average m:mk 's attention by

its markedly different structure, its many rubrics, and the strange nature of the gregorian nelodies Cwhidt we had retained in their debased 17th century fonn)•

Our loi-cadre indult enabled eadl of our cxmnunities to find its own local solution to thl.s problem. 'llle follcming notes deal only with the Vigils Office as celebrated here at Gethsemani on Good

Friday and Holy Saturday.

'llle very special character which attaches to these days is reflected in the style of our celebration. Vigils are celebrated in an atnosphere of deep darkness. 'llle brethren arrive to find the church only dllnl.y lit -just enough light to avoid oollisions between brethren, and to enable them to read the notes of the music used for the opening litany-response.

The Office-structure is identical for both days:

INIIDDUCl'ION: Silent PrayerLitany Collect

OFFICE OF PSAIMS AND READINGS:Psalm - Silent prayer - CollectPsalm - Silent prayer - Collect Psalm - Silent prayer - Collect

Reading - Silent prayer Psalm - Silent prayer - Collect Psalm - Silent prayer - Collect Psalm - Silent prayer - Collect

Reading - Silent prayerMeditation Song by Schola or

Cantor Final Collect

A Loaai Ameriaan Projeat 4

The reader 's lectern is in its usual place tc:Mards the top opening of choir. But in f ront of it stands a handsane but austere menorah, orseven-branched candelab:rum. The height is such as to allow the readers of the psalms, collects, and readings to fulf ill their flmctions by the light of the candles, rather than by artificial light. Another novelty is a second lectern placed at the rear of choir, behind the superiors ' stalls.Its use is conf ined to the beginning and ending of Vigils, as will be de scribed in just a m:ment,

No music or texts are needed by the brethren except , of course , for those who have individual functions to perfonn • •

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The Superior gives the usual signal, and evecyone k n e e 1 s before the choir desks. This in itself is sanething of an innovation proper to this celebration, since, for the Of fice, kneeling for the entire ccmnunity isn"t elsewhere prescribed. We have an especially meditative fo:rm of Vigils twice a week as a general rule, and anyone who wishes to do so may kneel during the periods of silent prayer. But in the present instance, evecyone who can reasonably do so kneels in silent prayer , and for a sare what longish period

Meanwhile the Cmtor has stationed himself at the lectern behind the Superiors ' stalls. Everyone rerrains kneeling while he begins the Litany. The litany-response is textually and musically so silrple that singing it

t:hroujh once suf f ices to cx:mnit it to menory ; but , in order to rem::we eve:rypossible chance of uncertainty, the litany-response is pre-intoned each

titre the cx:mnuni.ty has to repeat it. In other words, each invocation by

the Cantor ends with his "Have nercy, O lord", and the ca:mrunity repeats

the ''Have nercy, O lord" exactly as sung by the Cantor. The lovely text

of the litany is an English adaptation of a popular litany-text authored by Fr. Lucien Deiss , of international rencMn; the melody is CMn. The reader can get a better picture of what has just been described if he/she will tum the page.

Once the litany gets underway, the lights -already dintred -are ex tinguished (except for the small light at the Cantor 's lectern , invisible

o

48

to everyone except the Cantor). Meanwhile, the seven candles of the menorah are lighted by the se:rvant of the church.

a a ·,

lo\ a a I

1- At prayer in the Garden of Olives, Je- sus Christ, 2- Betrayed by the kiss of Judas ,

J- Scourged and crowned with thorns,4- Burdened with yoor Cross,

IQ\ IC\ [l i1... weeping with sadness and fear,2- aband:>ned by your a- pestles, 3- clothed with a robe

of purple,4- rrounting even to Golgatha,

canforted by an angel: delivered over to sinners : covered with scorn and shame: bearing the weight of our sins:

ao c a IIR, HAVE MER- CT., O I.ORD! i j ,

At the end of the Litany, evei:yone ran.a.ins kneeling while the one presiding prays the opening Collect at the lectern next to the

irenorah.

Let us pray.Ioro Jesus,this is the day of your longest and greatest suffering, the day of your deep and solerrm agony of sool and body . Make our hearts vigilant as we keep watch with you,and keep alive in us this truth:that 1 o v e is the deepest ireaning of it all. Grant this, o Savior of all iren,

who live and reign, God, for ever.

OFFICE OF PSAIMS AND READINGS

The brethren take their seats; and as soon as everything is perfectly still, the Office of :psalms and readings begins. Each psalm and reading is read by a different individual -saneone, however, who hopefully can read in a quiet,meditative rnarmer, and who won 't be too disorientated

A Loaai Ameriaan Projeat 4by having to read by the light of flickering candles.

I hope no reader of these notes will be unduly upset at being told that the seven candles are progressively extinguished, one by one -one after each psalm, and after the concluding collect.Yes, all this is frightfully nedieval, and noreover smacks of a suspiciously arbitrary sort of symbolism. And, yes, I know that it's a shameful thing in this post-Vatican II Age to retain sanething so redolent of the tastes of theage for which good Rupert of Deutz wrote, or his faithful ffis

fc disciple, Durandus, Bishop of Mmde. In point of fact, no one/has atterrpt ed to invest this progressive extinguishing of light with any particular explanation.So far as I kncm, it's enough simply to experience the deep ening darkness of the church. as we

sink deeper and deeper into the Myste:cy of the suffering and dying of the Lord. In point of fact, the extinguishing of candle light was one of the elarents retained by our early Fathers intheir Office for the Sacred Triduum at Lams, however, rather than atVigils. This was done in sarewhat msatisfacto:cy manner, I admit.A single candle placed on the presbyte:cy step.D.lring the chanting of the hymn, all the church lights were snuffed out, with the exception of this single candle.It didn t burn for long, however, since it too was extinguishedas soon as the Cantor had intoned the antiphon for the Benediatus. This was too vestigial a fonn of a ritual action which needs a sanewhat nore ample type of expression if much of an impact is to be made .

As regaros postures during the psalms, silent prayer, collects, and readings -each of the brethren can sit, stand, or kneel according to his CM11 personal inclination.

'!be follaving paragraphs describe in nore detail the content of this

part of the Office.

PSAIM 2 - SILENI' PRAYER

I.et us pray.Nations are in tunult, Lord Jesus, and peoples munrur .Kings of the earth arise,and princes and governments of peoples plot against you;

4A Loaat American and in banbed cities and ravaged comt:cysidesyour suffering and death are renewed and prolonged. Help us to shcM forth in our lives

50

that we ackncMledge you as truly Son of God,and let us be nunbe:red cmmg those blessed men of nercy and love who put their trust in God.This we ask in your own name, lord Jesus.

PSAIM 21 - SILENT PRAYER

Let us pray.lord Jesus,you were never one to soom. or despise the poverty of the poor; for, though being God, you became man,and not only a man , but a man subject to death,death even upon a cross,when fierce bulls of Ba.shan closed you in,and lions, rending and roaring, opened their jCMS,and holes were tom. in your hands and yoor feet.By your death and by your sufferings, O Friend of man,receive into your present glory and blessedness the countless thousands who llCM share with you the bitter chalice of suffering, humiliation, betrayal and contempt.We ask this in your own name, lord Jesus,who live and reign, God, for ever.

PSAIM 26 - SILENT PRAYER

Let us pray.lord Jesus,you are our light and our salvation; but darkness closes in upon us,and salvation seems far distant • • •.Abandon us not, do not forsake us.But rather, as we share in the dark and hidden mystei:y of yoor suffering, so also let us share in the fullness of life which you would give us.Let our heads be raised,and let our hearts be filled with song and rusic; and let us pass with you through death to life,O Savior who love the children of men, and wi1o live and reign, God, for ever.

READIN:; This is a Lamentation specifically Lamentations 4 :1-6 . The text is sung in English according to a fonnula based on the wonderfully saber nelodic ''standard" fonnula of the Solesrres edition of the Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae . The reading is followed, as usual, by a pericxl. of silent prayer.

5A LocaZ American

PSAI.M 37 - SILENI' PRAYER

Let us pray.lord Jesus,you took upon yourself our guilt which tooers higher than our head; you received in your own bodythe arrCMS of GocPs wrath;and you made your own our sins, foul and festering. Your heart throbbed with our own pain,your strength was t,the very light fled frcm your eyes; but stl:onger than our sinwas the abundance of your love,which overcame all that separates the children of man frcxn God.Look upon us, your brothers.'As you have shared in the bitter hal:vest of our sinfulness, so let us share, carq:>assionate Savior,in your victo:ry over the po.-rers of darkness and perdition:this we ask in your CMI'l name,for you are God, living and reigning for ever and ever.

PSAI.M 39 - SILENT PRAYER

Let us pray.It is not sacrifice for which you ask,O God our Father,nor holocaust and victim;but for hearts ready and willing to serve, obedient even as Jesus was obedient, obedient unto death upon a cross.As he has entered into the deadly pit of miry clay in \\hich we sink,and yet has passed, through his strong obedience,into the glo:ry he shared with you before the beginning of the world,so may we, his brothers, also slip the bonds of clay,and pass with him into the fullness of life and peace and truth.This we ask, O Father, through the sane Jesus Christ your Son, our Savior,who lives and reigns, God, for ever and ever.

PS.ATM 68 - SILENT PPAYER

Let us pray.You hungered, Lord Jesus,and we gave you poison for food. You thirsted,and we gave you vinegar to drink.You looked to us for oonsolers, for rren of c:orcpassion,but we gave you bitter gall, and death, and the taunt of dnmkards ' songs. Yet your love, your mercy, IDrd Jesus,

is stronger than our sinfulness and blindness.

5A LocaZ American 52

Make us f eel our povercy and pain , that we may cry to you; and that you, in your strong love,may lif t us up, revive our hearts,and make us to dwell with you for ever. This we ask in your CM1 nane , I.Drd Jesus;for you loved us, loved us even to the end,and nt:M you reign, God, for ever and ever.

READING This is a patristic reading, taken frcm one of mmy dif ferent sources, and variable year to year. The reading is followed by the usual period for silent ref lection and prayer. Meanwhile, the Schola merrbers havequietly slipped out of their places in choir , and have assembled as noiseless ly as possible aromid the lectern behind the choir , where the light is diln

eoough to be unnoticed in choir , yet strong enough (though barely). to make

it possible for the singers to see their music. On Good Friday , the MEDITATION SCNG is the wonderf ul canon by our American cx:mposer William Billings (1746-1800} -When Jesus Wept . We use three groups of singersf or this canon (a canon is a form of canposition in which the rrelcxly is imi tated exactly by the successive two or m::>re singers: all sing together , but each group begins singing at a different tine -like "Rav, Rav, Rav Your Boat" or "Frere Jacques'') . Though self-taught, Billings was the outstand ing American nrusician during the 18th century.

A native Bostonian , and atanner by profession, he organized large nurribers of singing schools and published many volurres of psalm tmies and anthems .

When Je - SUS wept, the fall- ing, I

tear in mer- cy flowed be- yond all bound.

I rWhen Je - SUS groaned a trem- bling fear 4 .

1 r-,· J

I z: r I Q) ;I I

seized all the guil- ty world a- round.

A Local .American Project .• 5

One further note about this canon -as in the case of similar canons ,

the Cantor sings it through once,· so that the brethren will have the chance to hear the text clearly and distinctly before the polyphonic trea'bnent

begins (with the three groups, the piece is sung through twice in its en tirety} . Even with music of this type, we mean to respect the principle that music is in the service of the word, and that its chief f unction isto make the word rrore f ruitf ul. My CMl strong persuasion is that music,of ten enough, transcends the word taken as a merely intelligible entity: but this isn 't the place to start discussing the function of music in a nonas tic liturgy.

By this time, the only light lef t in the church cx:roes fran a single candle still f lickering on the menorah. By its light the presiding priest prays the f inal collect:

Let us pray.

We have kept watch with you this little while, IDrd Jesus. May the remembrance of your bitter suf ferings and death abide in our hearts,and bring us to a deeper understanding of your love for us. Let your love strerqtlieri the feebleness of our own love ,so that, ever grc:Ming in oDedience and readiness to save,we may live and work and pray and sUf fer for all men for whcm you lived and worked and prayed and suf fered,and attain at last to the f ull measure of our growth in you,that your kingdan may cx:roe at last in all its fullness. This we ask in your CMl Na:rre ,O Savior of the world, lord Jesus , Friend of man, who live and reign, God , for ever and ever.

The last candle is now extinguished, and the church is in total dark ness. The brethren remain in silent prayer a few minutes longer , and theOf f ice ends in absolute silence.

The reader might well have the impression that the preceding prayer

and the psalm-collects hold the world-record for prolixity. They 're cer tainly suf f iciently ample; but this is rather intentional. Much has beenwritten about the genius of the English language best suited for the litur gy. Conciseness has usually been stressed as t h e important quality. I have little argurrent with the theo:cy; but , in actual practice, such prayer texts, ideal as they might seen in theory , often fail to make much of an.inp3.ct -at least here, at Gethsemani. I realize full well that those two-

1a\

5

line collect texts are supposed to have all the impact of an urgent telegram message -and quite likely they do have this sort of impact with nany parishioners. others of us exi:erience them nore as sudden intrusions, as -to use Fr. Rd:lert M:>maus • felicitous expression -litur gical burps. My CMn impression is that an extranely brief collect f unctions wonderfully well within the context of a nore ample fonnulary, sudl as the

General Intercessions, where a two-line concluding prayer is saretines ideal. But otherwise, I rn not sure but what a rather nore ample type of prayer is better suited to the situation, instead of a theologically dense telegram.In the context of sp::mtaneous or .improvised prayer within a structuredlitur gy, nost celebrants go on seemingly for ever. If oonciseness is really all that congenial to our Anglo-Saxon tenperament, roore of us , when praying in this way, would avoid verbosity. I think it a bit symptomatic, too, that in the new Sacrarrentary soon to be cxrrmercially available, Sunday and f east day Masses of fer a choice between two opening prayers -one based on the corres:i;:onding Latin text, the other a new carposition (usually authored by

our own Fr. Rd:>ert of Spencer , who dese:rves our heartiest congratulations

and gratitude} . Though always theologically dense and econanical in dloioa of words, these latter prayer-texts tend to be considerably longer than those based on a Latin text.

On H O L Y S A T U R D A Y, the structure of Vigils, as well as mudl. of the content of the Of f ice, are as on Good Friday. The opening litany is as follCJNS :

E. - g e· ' Ila'ea c a

1- Crucif ied, m:>ek.ed, de- rided, O lord, Je- sus Christ, 2- Taken dcMn f rom the cross,

3- Visiting regions of hell,

1al Q D·

1- nailed to a cross of shame, 2- wrapped in a lin- en shroud, 3- raising the dead fran the grave,

(

pierced by a soldier 's lanoa : laid in a rock-hewn tomb: breaking the bars of death:

d al D 0 f\l"· IIR. HAVE MER-CY, 0 LORD! ij .

5A Local American

OPENING COLLECTLet us pray.Your <llurch, Loro Jesus,is keeping sole.rm vigil gathered around your torrb.Earth held your body;but already you were visiting the places of darkness, the realms of the kingdom of aeath,bringing to thoEe who were thirsting for your lightthe fullness of the redeeming love poured out on Good Friday .King Jesus , as we reverence your bitter suf ferings, your blessed death by crucif ixion, and your burial, so let us gr<:1N in love and understanding,till our life becx:mes a sharing in your death , and our death a sharing in your life.We ask this in your own name ,o Savior of all men.

PSAIM 4 - SII.ENr PRAYERLet us pray.Lift up the light of your f ace on us, IDrd Jesus : for even in the darkness of death,when you ·. laid your body da-m in peace,and gave yourself to the swif t sleep of death , light streams f ran your countenance:because your death has becare the source of life , salvation, joy;and even in your death we behold glory. Lord, lif t up the light of your f ace on us. This we ask to the glory of your name,for you are God , living and reigning for ever.

PS.AIM 14 - SILENI' PRAYERLet us pray.Lord Jesus, who shall be admitted to your tent?Who shall dwell with you on the high nountain of your transcendent glory? He who has f irst been admitted to a sharing in your suf fering;he who has f irst ascended with you the holy nount of Golgatha. Loro, may we so enter into cx:rnmunion with you in your suf ferings, that we may be at your side in the glory of your heave.". 'lly kingdom. We ask this, IDro, in your own name.

PSALM 15 - SILENT PRAYERLet us pray.Your body rests in safety, Lord Jesus ,your soul will never be lef t am:mg the dead ,nor will you, Gerl. ts Beloved, knav decay and corruptioo. Help us to keep you ever in our sight,so that when fears rise in our heart -fears of death, of pain , of humiliation, of despair -

6

we may f ind strength and cx::mfort, .and may welcane with joy the heritage that f alls to us!Grant this, IDrd Jesus,who, having died, nt:M live and reign, God, for ever and ever.

The READING which now follows is another section of Lamentations -Lam 5 :1-9,12,14-15,19-20 -sung with the sane nru.sical fonnula used on

the preceding day. Then, as usual, a period for silent prayer and ref lec tion.

PSAIM 23 - SILENr PRAYER

Let us pray.The gates of death, ID.rd Jesus ,opened to swallow you up into darkness;but they becarre for you gates that opened up into larger life, so that for those who would follow you in life and in death , the gates of death have becx:Jre gates of lif e.0 gates, lif t high your heads;let us enter with trust and confidence,enter with Jesus, the King of glo:ry,who has overcane death, overcane sin, overcane pain. All this we ask through the same Lord Jesus.

PSAIM 26 - SILENr PRAYER

Let us pray.IDrd, you are our light, our salvation, the stronghold of our life.Though death draw near,though the grave devour our f lesh,we shall not fear;for death will open up to usan entiy into an eternal dwellingwhere we shall savor your sweetnessand be with you throughout the endless day of eternity. Grant then, as we seek your f ace, O ID:rd,here in the land of shadows,we may one day behold your f ace unveiled,in the glory of eternal life. This we ask of you, ID.rd Jesus,who live and reign, God, for ever and ever.

PSAIM 29 - SIUNI' PRAYER

Let us pray.During the deep night of your suf fering, death, and burial, ID:rd Jesus, there were tears;but joy oorres with the dawn of Easter Day,

A Loaai Ameriaan Project • 5

J

when rn::>unring tums into dancing, and sackcloth gives way to joy.May we so now share in your chalice of suf fering, IDrd Jesus , that we may rejoice with you in the joy of :resurrection:For you live and reign , God, for ever and ever.

The serond READING -a patristic one, whidl varies f ran year to year -is nav read; and the usual period of silence follows . Then, from the

lectern in the rear of choir, the cantor sings the follc:Ming texts, culledand adapted fran various Greek sources. The nodal pattem is based on a laroontation tone found both in the Synagogue tradition and the Byzantine tradition. Obviously, it would be dangerous to ask an entire rn::>nastic

choir chant this larrentation; but since it was written specifically for our Cantor , Br. Clu:ysostam, who hasn 't the slightest dif f iculty with

augnented seconds and the like, there 's no problem. In music of this sort - whidl danands great f lexibility and spontaneity -actual notation is of ten enough nerely appn:oci.roative, so that Br.Chrysostan is following the intention

of the c:x:xrposer when he occasionally introduces his avn variant of one ofthe cantillations.

r jJ

0---- How shall I la-ment for you, O Christ my God?

1 ' J1- The no-ble Jo-seph took your pure Bod-y f ran the Tree, wrapped it in

r r } )II

f ine lin- en, laid it in a new rock-hewn tanb.

r , 0 11

R. 0 Life, hc:M shall you die?

[die?] Glo-ry to you, Christ.

_o How shall I lmrent • • • •

'

6

K

}' p J' i 2- The earth was in ter-ror, the sun turned }:)la.ck ari,d hid. its t'ace

r ' Jf= P tJ

f p f •ol p "r rwhen it be-held you, the Light which knows no set-ting,

r J , Js ; I lowered into the cold taab of death.

R. 0 Life • • • 0 How shall I • • •

p p J J J- You des-cend-ed in-to the realm of Death, O Life im-mor-tal,

; J II

shat-tered the bronze gates of hell, de-stroyed Death 's king-dan.

R. 0 Life • • • Concluded by :

0 -- How shall I la-nent for you , O Christ my God?

A Loaal American 5

FINAL COLIBCI'

Let us pray.O Christ , you are the Irmortal One ,and yet you laid dONl1. your life in death,so that by your suff erings, death, and burial in a tonb,you might save us f rom the corruption of death.Those who were awaiting your a:xning in the dark realms of death beheld the light of your glory,even as you lay lifeless in the tonb .Grant us, too, to behold sane glimner of this great glory, that we may praise you for your love and mercy,O Friend of man,who live and . reign, God, for ever and ever.

One remark about the psalm-collects, which I forgot to make earlier.We use the Grail Psalter here at Gethseroani, so the allusions to the psalms are all based on this translation. The RSV Psalter or the Jerusa lem Psalter would ·have resulted in a sanewhat diff erent vocabulary forthese collects.

Many readers will doubtless f ind the above type of celebration muchtoo passive. If it were a question of having this kind of Vigil as asteady diet, I 'd be inclined to agree with than. HCMever, it 's a

question, rather, of a special type of special celebration reserved to just two days of the liturgical year. Perhaps , however , Ishould qualify what I 've just written by adding that, twice a week , we

actually do have a fonn of Vigils rather similar to what has been described in the preceding pages. For sane of us , this marlcedly passive approach is THE ideal for our type of xronastic life; others of us want much

irore active involvenent , with plenty of singing , group-responses , and so

forth. M::>st of us like having a irore sub dued type of Vigils twice a week, but we wruldn 't want it as the daily

fonn of Vigils.

It would be rash to hazard a prognosis conceming·-a future evolution of our local fom of Vigils for Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The basicproject has been implemented here for the past three years, and any attempt on my part to do nore than adjust minor details has met with real opposition. I take this as a sign that nost of us are happy with our present practice,and that we do f ind it what it ought to be -a ireans of our entering asdeeply as possible into the Mystery of the I.orcPs death and resurrection.

Chrysogonus 'W'J)DELLGethsemani Abbey

6

A HOMILY BY FATHER JEAN LECLERCQ

ORTHODOX CISTERCIAN SYMPOSIUM

OXFORD, AUGUST 27, 1973

Editor 's Note:The Oxford Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium of 1973 took place

within the context of ZiturgicaZ celebration. As a general ruZe, each day had its Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Euaharist. On the opening and aZosing days of the Symposium, the Eucharist was celebrated according to the Roman R'ite. For the remaining four days, we twice went to the Ortho dox chapel of Saints Gregory and Macrina for the Liturgy; and twice wehad the Eucharist celebrated according to two different fo!'ITls of the An glican Mass Order. Except for the several Orthodox Liturgies, the setting for our aelebrations was the lovely chapel of Mansfield College, where, from their sundry niches. and stained glass windows, Thomas Aquinas, Abe lard, Calvin, Hooker, Augustine, and dozens of other representatives of divers theological traditions Zooked on -surety with deep rejoicing - as AngZiaans, Orthodox, Catholics, and members of yet other Christian traditions joined in a communion of Zove and liturgical celebration.

For the opening Mass, most of the material was aulZed from the Mass forrrruZary for Pastoral or Spiritual Meetings. Though it formed a single aesthetic whole, it was astonishingly ''catholic" in the sources upon which it drew. The organ prelude, for instance, was a set of anonymous 15th cen tury versets on the 1'Te Deum ", first prin ted by the music publisher Pierred 'Attaingnant {1528-1529). The proaessional hymn -"Abide, 0 Risen Savior" -had for its text words authored by some of the brethren of St. Joseph 's Ab bey, Spencer, but inspired by the Lutheran chorale'ch bZeib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ"-itself derived from several sources, including a translation of the Lutheran Melancthon 's Latin hymn, "Vespera iam venit, nobisaum Christe maneto" (the German text appeared in 1579). The melody for this hymn was likewise Lutheran in origin, being originally the funeral hymn "Christus,der is mein Leben", in Melchior VuZpius ' Sch8n geistlich Gesangbuch , 1609. The Mass was, for the most part, celebrated in English, though the Ordinary was sung in Latin, and in Gregorian chant. For the "Gloria in excelsis ", the 12th century Cistercian form was used, rather than the Roman version currently printed in books of the Roman Rite. Texts of the readings weretaken from the Mass Lectionary in the ''Revised Standard Version" -a lineal descendant from the King James Bible. The Eucharistic Prayer was the fourth one, based ZargeZy on the primitive form of the Byzantine Liturgy of St.Basil. Finally, the recessional hymn -"The Great Creator of the Worlds" -

6was a paraphrase by F.Bland Tucker of a text from the early 3rd century Epist le to Diognet us , sung to the tune of "Tallis' Ordinal" -a melody written by Thomas TaZUs (d.1585) for a translation of the hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" (prescribed for ordination sewices in The Book of Com- mon Prayer -which explains the name given the tune).

6

As for the fine homily it was given by a monk whose aharism is too universal to allof3no loaalize him too speaifiaally. There are prob ably few readers of these pages who do not know and love Father Jean Lealeraq. In order the better to situate the horrrily in its preaise aontext,the homily will be preceded by the Mass readings used for the aelebration.

READING I Deut 30;10-14 The word is very near you for your observanae

ses said to the people, "Cbey the voioe of the lord your God , keep his cx:mnandnents and his statutes which are written in his book of

the law, and tum to the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

''For this cx::mnandment which I ccmnand yoo. this day is not too hard

for you, neither is it f ar of f . It is not in heaven, that you should say,•Who will go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, that we nay hear it and do it? ' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us , and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? ' But the word is very near you; it is in your nouth and in your heart , so that you can do it."

RESPONSORIAL PSALM 18:7, 8, 9, 10R. lord, you have the "WOrds of everlasting life.

The law of the lord is perf ect, it revives the soul.

The rule of the lord is to be trusted,it gives wisdan to the sirrple.

The precepts of the lord are right, they gladden the heart.

The a:mnand of the lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes.

The fear of the lord is holy, abiding for ever.

The decrees of the ii>rd are truthand all of them just.

They are llOre to be desired than gold,than the purest of gold;

and sweeter are they than honey,than honey f:ran the canb.

READING It Phil 2:1-4 Have the same aonvictions, the same love, the same aonaern for unity

If there is any encouragerrent in Ori.st, any incentive of love, anyparticipation in the Spirit , any af f ection and synpathy, canplete my

6joy

A Homily by Father Jean 6

by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in f ull acoordand of one mind. Do nothing f ran self ishness or conceit, but in hunility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only tohis CMl1 interests, but also to the interests of others.

ALLELUIA VERSE Psalm 132:1

Alleluia. Alleluia.

See how good it is , how pleasant, that brothers live in unity.

Alleluia.

GOSPEL John 14:23-29 The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will teaah you every

[thingJesus said to his disciples, "If a man loves ne, he will keep rey "WOrd,

and rey Father will love him, and we will cx:xne to him and make our hane with him. He who does not love ne does not keep my wards; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

"These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But

the Counselor , the Holy Spirit , whan the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your reme.nbranoe all that I

have said to you. l?eace I leave with you; rey peace I give to you; not asthe world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be af raid. You heard ne say to you, 'I go away, and I will cnne

to you. If you loved ne, you would have rejoi ced, because I go to the Fa ther; for the Father is greater than I. And nCM I have told you before

it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe."

H 0 M I L Y

In the readings for this Eucharist, what strikes ne nost forcef ully

is the passage f ran Deuteronomy in which Moses, in the name of God, asks the cbosen people to be faithful to God :"Obey your God, keep his statutes, tum to the Lord. II

I have reoently returned ;Eran a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai where I stayed for a short while at the Monastery of Saint catherine on that Holy Mountain. While there , I was quite dehydrated after only a few hours in

7

the desert. One night, unable to sleep because of thirst, I re-read the

A Homily by Father Jean 6

biblical account of the Exodus , and came to tmderstand various things.

I realized in this land of blazing sun that the journey of the chosen people was nuch longer and harder than mine, which was hai:d encugh, in

spite of the water bottles we had. Ioould not help thinking: "Surely

Iwould have been one of those who munmired against Moses and against God." God, ha-rever, was faithful to his Peq>le and led than to the Land of Pranise.

Many centuries later, Christian nonks cane to Sinai to found the

Monastery of the Transfiguration, with a chapel dedicated to the Burn

ing Bush -the f irst manifestation of the presence of God - on this notmtain of the oontemplation of God by M:>ses, the reciprocal oontempla tion of the Father and the Son, and the contemplation of Christ by Peter, Janes and John, who represent the whole Church. lt>nks f ran dif ferent countries, rites and languages cane to Sinai. There is even a

Ia.tin psalter arrong the exhibits of the library. In their a.vn way they testi fy, in spite of the weaknesses of monks of all times and

places, to a IIDl'laSticism whidl has remained faithf ul to God because God

has always been, is still, and always will be faithf ul to nonasticism.

The key to the understanding of this faithf ulness is given us in

the readings f ran Saint Paul and even nore f ran Saint Jolm. Jesus, in the account of Saint Jahn, echoes Moses: "Keep lI¥ word, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be af raid."

Gcx:1 has becare incarnate through the Virgin Mary, the buming bush manifesting in Jesus the presence of God on earth. Jesus is no longer bodily present, but he is in us and arcongst us through his Spirit.

Saint Bernard was fond of oomrenting these texts f ran Saint John 's Gospel where Jesus talks of

his departure and the abiding presence of both himself and his Father making their "hate" in us and oonstantly sending forth the Ibly Spirit, the COunsellor . Saint Bernard f requently ocmnented these texts by evoking a verse f ran the Book of Lamentations acoording to the Septuagint:

The IDrd is the Spirit before us, to whan we say, 'We live under a Shadow am:mg the nations ' •

Spiritus ante tacienl nostram Christus Daninus , cui diximus:In unbra vivimus inter gentes' •

7

For Bernard, to use this text in this manner is quite in keeping with the traditian of the Omrch. It is one of those texts selected for collec tions of "abstracts" which in the early latin patristic tradition were called testimonia. It is ia>ssible that these texts had already been

used by the writers of the New Testament; and they were certainly used later an by Irenaeus, Origen , Cyprian of carthage, and other Greek and Latin fathers.

This is a symbol of both the oontinuity and the universality -today we would sey oecunEni.sm' -of the patristic and rronastic traditions. In

this way we see how God has been faithf ul to his Church, to his churches, and how in their tum they have been f aithful to his Word and his words.

Saint Bernard in his exegesis of these Gospel passages depends solely

and directly on the latin text of Origen. And as usual , he does not simply repeat what his predecessor said. Living tradition is a growth, and en richnEnt, a oontinuous integration of previous insights into new syntheses.Bernard''s teaching, based an the Gospel of Saint John, the verse f rom Lam:m

tations, and the latin text of Origen is that God has become f lesh in

Oirist out of love. The Spirit is the shadow under which we live so that men of the f lesh may learn to taste the life o;f the Spirit and bea:xre one

spirit with the glorif ied and transf igured Lord. The obscure dawn -

"aurora et ipsa subob:scura satis" as Saint Bernard says which was Christ

's life an earth will shine forth

in all its splendor in the revelation ofthe Spirit. Yet already, everday, the presence in us and arrongst us of the

Counsellor sent by the Father through the Son gives us joy and peace:• • •The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my narre ,

will teach you all things. • •• • •Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. • •

• • •let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. • •• • •If a man loves me, he will keep my word , and my Father will love

him, and we shall a:ine to him, and make our hane with him.

Jean LECLERCQ

Clervaux

6A Homily by Father Jean

67

S I G N AND S Y M B 0 L THOUGHTS ABOUT WISDOM, HUMAN AND DIVINE

COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNION

This article has been written in the hope of arousing more interest in religious signs and syrrbols.

Today the liturgy has more diversity and f lexibility than it had in the past , and there is more opportunity f or planning lively and

intelli gible celebraticn. However, if the liturgy is sought merely for the en joyment of music, or for change and novelty, it will likely f ail in its purpose. Today there is as Irnlch need as ever f or real prayer and f aith, if liturgy is to prove f ruitful. It is gocxl that change is taking place; many things in the Church, as also in the liturgy , should have beenchanged a long time ago. But the value of the liturgy comes throughfaith and the the right use of signs and symbols, the ireans and ways off inding union with God. God is the very source and neaning of all reli gious syn'bols.

Thomas Merton wrote in an article called "Symbolism: Camrunication

or Ccmnunion?" -

He who speaks of symbols enters an area where ref lection, syn thesis, and oontanplation are nore important than investigation , analysis, and science. One cannot approach an apprehension of a symbol unless one is able to awaken, in one 's being , the spiritu al resonances which respond to the symbol not only as s i g n,but as saarament and presence . Needless to say , when we speak of symbol here, we are interested only in the f ull and true sense of the word . 1

One might imagine that God oould cxmnunicate Himself to oneself

without any sign , without true spiritual signs or syrrbols; but in the case of a person who retains the use of his senses, it would be unlike ly that God would do so. The nonnal. way for a perscn to reach the in visible is through the visible , by means of his sensibilities, and by

using his senses and f aculties wisely and with simplicity and mortif ica tion is his life of religion.

All true and lasting foniis of religion are grounded in signs and symbols in which people find truth and life. (The Church today is recx:>g-

Sign and 6

nizing nore explicitly than in tines past elanents of truth even in non Christian religions.)

The way in which a Buddhist monk nortifies his thoughts and concepts in giving no clear explanation for what he seeks, may be his way of reali zing the limitations of hunan thoughts and concepts as means to expressand explain the all-errbracing truth he does seek. He does not shut outall thoughts, concepts, and the like in the same way a quietist would; rather, he makes an active response, and may acutally make the best use

of thought, concept , and the i1na3"es, words and signs he does use. Further on in the same passage quoted above, Thanas rt.on says:

The true symbol does not merely point to sanething else. It oontains in itself a structure which awakens our consciousness to a new awareness of the inner meaning of life and of reality itself . A true symbol takes us to the center of the circle,not to another point an the circumerenoe. A true syrrbol pointsto the ver:y heart of all being , not to an incident in the f lc:M of bea:ming. Hence symbolism is always important in religion and worship. Synbols do not only point to 'hidden realities ' which are 'higher ' . They are in themselves religious realities in their CMil right, especially when their nature is sacramental.It is by synbolism that man enters af fectively and oonsciously into contact with his CM11 deepest self , with other men, and with God. 2

Zen stresses not retreat f rcm lif e, but full innersion in it. It re jects the sha.cbv world of concepts and categories in order to perceive the

world directly. Yet, through detachnent and ultimate truth , we may believe that a person f inding this truth and illumination in himself and in all things will use than as true symbols, and make the best use of symbolism.In Japan the practice of Zen discipline is encouraged even fJ::om a practi cal viewpoint to help awaken mental pa.vers and give new canf

idence, toinf luence people in their culture, style of life and work. 3

A discipline which disregards the trappings of attadlm:mts and vani ty, and favors the interior life in order to bring a perscn to inner unity is of real value, but most especially in one 's lif e of religion. By re

straining the ulsiveness of nature, a person may f ind.· solid virtue in enbracing God's will. When a perscn feels his own limitation and insuf-

6

f iciency rrore keenly, he can th.en rrore cxmf idently (and not less cxmf idently) seek and embrace God 's loving will, His merciful designs and

goodness. The Christian kn.cMs the sto:ry of the pharisee and the publi can; he also knc:Ms hc:M the moral is to be realized and put into practice. This means trusting and anbracing God 's will, not presunptiously , but yet with great c o n f i d e n c e -even though one might feel desolate orunworthy. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadc:M of death , I f ear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staf f , they oan

fort me" (Ps 22, 4 ) . The valley and the shadc:M of death might well be the E!l'q?tiness God cane to f ill, the weakness and insuf ficiency He cane to supply for.

The value of religious synbolism does not depend so much on what a person likes, or even on what he may always desire. Nor does it depend always, or even to a great extent, on the histo:ry of the origins of the

syrrbol in question. Their value may be known more by the fruits they bring forth in lives of sincere and f aithful dedication and devotion.

Sone changes will be needed in various practices, fonus, and so on. But too rapid or radical change should be avoided. It may prove the loss of values reg-arding symbols which cannot be recovered, or which can be re

oovered only with dif f iculty. Sane people can adjust to change rrore readi ly than others without losing essential values. But coercion and force should not be used to make people change; for unless a person can makethe value of symbols real for others in a new way , he can have no hope of

accacmplishing any sort of gcod by forcing change or revolution on others.At the sane time a person who is so conservative as to resist a 1 1 change -even going against authority -may be att.errpting to invest things with a permanency which f ew things on earth really possess.

A Buddhist or a Zen master may have a lesson f or Christians in his acceptance of the limitation and insuf f iciency of human words , thoughtsand actions, and in the W1Y in which, through simplicity and :rcortif ication (singleness of purpose or single-pointedness) he finds the deeper meaningof human words, thoughts and actions in a deeper spiritual awareness. "Bud

dhism seeks the 'salvation ' of all creatures by insight." 4

Sign and 7

In this way, Christians may f ind a richer value in their Christian life and practice, while in no way giving up any aspect of Christianity, with its very rich symbols of life and hope. These symbols should never be lost as a resu1t of changes in practice,_ a busy

life, or trial and tanptation.

The body is also .inp:>rtant -its position or posture -when a per son seeks to use tlrlngs in the right way. Yoga is ver:y helpful for prayer and reoollection; but westemers tend to f ind it hard to sit in a full lotus position. The habit of just sitting straight in an ordinar:y chair, and of keeping the back straight may be ve.r:y

helpf ul, especially since nest people sit a lot while doing dif ferent things; so that this simple act of sitting might be made to help

tc:Mards attaining to inner unityand reoollection, to an :inner hai:m:>ny, and to a proper integration of thewhole nan. In this area, rhythm is of inportance, too. 5

Rhythm might well be one of the tr0st inp:>rtant aspects of nature. The steady pace of gn:Mth and life, noverEnt and change are everywhere. Along with beauty, rhythm nost readily raises man above himself , freeing him

fran tyranny of strife so as to make spiritual values present and real

for him. Rhythm might be called the pulse with which God sets the universein notion. But xoodem man has broken this rhytlml in his life. He seeks to satisfy his senses and appetites , but without regard for the higher values and principles of life. Though the Christian life is the life of grace, this grace elevates and perfects nature in man; grace does not de stroy nature, but rather brings it to fulf illment.

If the producers of T.v.and the novies are to render a true

service to mankind, they should seek to satisfy not just the senses and latrer ap petites of man, but also his higher aspirations; they should manifest aregard for man "s higher values and principles, that is to say, the sa cn:rl, the eternal, supernatural wisdan, the sense of xeyster:y and wonder,

oontenplation • • • Man 's natural , human wisdan, if it is t.O be true and real wis<hn at all, ought also to lead in sate way to divine Wisdom. Hu

man wisdan has to seek its fulf illment not only in man and in his present life, but also in map "s eternal destiny; and this rreans nore th.an a ioore earthly wisdan, or sane -utopian dream of happiness.

7

The happiness of a person may rightly be sought in this life in building the earthly city in acoo:rd with the teaching of the Second

Vati can Council; but this search f or happiness must also go further than an earthly utopian dream of happiness, in o:rder to seek higher principlesof life and action.

A Cllristian seeks peace in being united to God who gives him

peace and every blessing, in being united with him who is the c e n t e rof his lif e and the c e n t e r of the universe; and the means of

attaining this peace and unity in him are ever at hand. By wisdan a

person chooses the right way to the right end. .And so by wisdom -a supernatural wisdom whicn sees beyond the senses, passions and enotions,with all their concupiscence and craving -a person may cxrne to know

and love him 'Who is the source of his being, of all being. It is by keen spiritual perception and the gif ts of his Spirit that these spiritual re alitiesbecare real for us, and that the body and its senses are rightly used.

Human wisdan is valid and even ilrp:>rtant, for we are human beings; but human wisdan must also be able to bring itself into acoo:rd with di

vine wisdan and our eternal destiny. In praying with reverence and de votion, there should be present sare element of rhythm which , though hard to analyze in specif ic ways, increases and authenticates the value and intensity of prayer , and leads it into greater depths, to greater peace and harnony. Rhythm f inds little place in that idleness and torpor whidl lead to stagnation; nor in \llleasiness that restless agitation which easily leads to strif e and violence. By rhythm and prayer, human wisdanf inds its rightf ul place in life, and the WO\lllds and troubles of man 's in terior lif e are healed so that he may f ind the way to happiness, peace

, and unity.

Sare are helped to f ind and maintain this element of rhythm sirrplyby giving their attention to their breathing.

6Prayer -in f act , rrost

·,'prayers makes :rhythm possible and easy, if the sacred is held onto and

kept real for oneself , not merely by feeling Uike feelings of the presence of God) , but by the principles of one \s life and conduct.;. 7 A person may

7

then f ind rhythm in other things as well: in plant life, novenent, and growth; in the steady novement or notion of a wheel, of water, or of many other things in life; in the changing weather and seascms. If a person uses religious symbols rightly, he will also perceive the rllythrn God has put into the world and in many things about him. By

rreans of aregru:d for the sacred , rhythm is perceived, along with the sacred charac ter of life and worship, of faith , hope, and love. 8 But without this,religious syrrtx:>ls may tend to lose their value; they will be absurdly abused, ignored , or mistreated.

A Zen master, Y'Uan-WU, cx:mrents:

Here is manifest the unsophisticated self which is the ori ginal f ace of your being; here is shown bare the nost beauti ful landscape of your birthplace. There is but one straight passage open and unobstructed through and through. This isso when you surrender all your body, your life, and all thatbelongs to your i.nnost self . This is where you gain peace, ease, non-doing , and inexpressible delight. 9

It might be helpf ul, while trying to realize one's own insuf f iciency in oneself and one 's own limitation , as well as the limitation of the things around us, to remen'ber that the self-suf f iciency and absolute pefection of scmething created need never be taken too seriously. Creatures which make a bid for self-suf f iciency and absolute perfection cannot be taken seriously. They are sirrply funny.

The realization of one 's limitation and insuff iciency leads also to the nortif ication of vain hopes, hopes of f inding one's happiness in self , in scree self-satisf action or self -glorif ication, in attachments, vanity, and the like. All this is helpful, so long as one takes care to avoid discouragement and despair. Discouragement and despair would be the re sult, were one to lack a full realization of one's dignity as a son ofGod in Christ Jesus. This realization is what gives a person his real value and worth.

Counsel is also irrportant in practicing Zen discipline and nortif i cation, especially if a person has little experience in c:onlative

7Sign and Syrril:>o Z 73

prayer. Sane persons might f ind Zen discipline too dangerous for the mind. They need dif ferent types of prayer , they need images and ooncepts.These images are, in f act , always valuable when rightly used J lO and sane concepts may also be helpf ul. 11

As Thomas Merton wrote, modem western man has made a poor use of synbols, and has greatly neglected than. But today there is rrore inter est in Zen, prayer , and oontet11Jlation. So there may be hope of f inding

a s 0 1i d s p i r i t u a 1i t y in the right use of synbols, if

only we have that spiritual wisdan which Thomas Merton oonsidered necessa ry when he wrote:

The realm of symbols is the realm of wisdom, in which manf inds truth not only in and through objects, but in himself ,and in his lif e, lived in accordance with the deepest prin ciples of divine wisdan. 12

and:

Scripture likewise is very full of the praises of wisdan:All wisdan is fran the l.Drd

and it is his CMn for ever.The sand of the sea and the rain-drops ,

and the days of eternity -who can assess than?

- Eaale 1: 1-2

Before all other things wisdom was created; shrewd understanding is everlasting.

-Ibid . 1 :4

In gaining sane degree of wisdan and \ll'lderstanding, there will not be so mudl ooncern about the way practices are perfonned on a superf icial level. Rather , it is in a deeper spiritual awareness that the basicunity will be found and preserved -in the use of syrrbols, in the life of the parish, in the religious cxmnunity , and in all people as a whole (the basic unity which all religious integration seeks) • In fact, it isthe true religious integration of life and experience in prayer and spiri-t\:la1ity cit, even IlOW"', gives, eternal value to life. This carmot be

Cbne s;i,n;>ly by satisfying our cravings or ooncupiscence . which is not to say that all satisf action or enjoyment is bad.

7

'1he sign of love and unity given by Gcxl's only Son is himself in the Eudlarlst under the fonns of bread and wine.

The symbol of love is the cross, the image of the cross is 1o v e.

Thomas Merton says that true syrrbols are ordered to cxxrmunian, not to c:a:rmunication , and are not sinply indicative signs .- that is to SCJ!:! , merely sare way of making an ord:inal:y nessage kn.CMil.

To ocmmmicate with God is nore, much xoore than to make kn.am to

him what be already knows. It is to open heart and mind to him who can numi.cates in wisdan and love. It is to listen to his word, whidl broadens for us into tm.i.ty and love. He is the God of all the universe, earth, people and nations; so his rressage extends to all the earth, to all men, even to the nost obscure persons and things. The psalmist says :

The heavens are telling the glory of God;and the f il::?nammt proclaims his handiwork.

Day to dCJ!:! pours forth speech,and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

Psalm 18 (19} :1-4

Creation tells of God's glo::cy and proclaims his handiwork . A Beingas essentially true as God must reveal himself in his words , and must be

.reflected and sarehow manifest in than. As an artist reveals himself in his wo:rk.s, and as a person manifests through his works and doings what he is in himself and in his innost heart, soGod reveals h.iroself through his handiwork.

Though the Word is heard in silence (at least, nore often, and per haps oo.re easily in silence) a dialogue of love cx:mrences with him who isrove. This dialogue should lead to a cmmunion of love , in mlity and devotion. The silent hours of the night and early noming with its noming prayers are of ten ideally suited to our listening to the Word and our at tending to him. With the tranquility of nature and the surroundings as our setting, we are encouraged to watch in hope and prayer - in cx:mron prayer and private prayer.

7Sign and Symbol 75

Let the \'X)rds of my rrouthand the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in thy sight ,O I.Drd , my rock and my redeaner.

-Ps 18 (19):14

But mether a person speaks or keeps silent, the fruits of the in terior man becx:me manif est in many ways .

The good man fran his good treasure brings forth good things;

and the evil man fran his evil treasurebrings forth evil things.

- Mt 12:35

At this point it might be wondered 'Vbat syrrb:>lism has to do with love, a camnmion of love, a mity in love between all Goers people. But even in human love, that love begins with a sign , a word, a ges- ture or an action, and is carried on with tokens and synix>ls to express that love, that mutual love between the partners. So also with God 'sdealings with men, where there are those signs and symbols, "sacraments" , and visible gestures and deeds such as are needed to foon and maintain friendship with God. Th.is f riendship is begun in baptism, and deepens , grows, and increases insofar as a person 's actions are all directed byf aith, hope and charity. Religious profession itself takes place within the setting of a oererrony; though , of course, a person is rrore ircme

diately c:xmcemed with his deep personal relationship with God , with his invisible mion with him, than in the material realities which symbolize this mion.

There is a human need f elt to ex.press thoughts and esteem in words; desires and needs have to be translated into action; and there is a need for mutual sharing. God 's justice and the real needs of others orof ourself inp::>se a duty on us in this regard . At the same tine , a per son can becane attached, can be misled, or can beoane unf aithful if he too readily or too foolishly expresses and manifests his CMI1 thoughts, notions, and ideas, while at the sane time perhaps suppressing or dis regarding the voice of God 's Spirit within , his inspirations and hisxrovenents, light and life.

7

But I tell you,that of every idle word men speak ,

they shall give acoount on the day of judgment.For by thy words thou wilt be oondartned,

and by thy words thou wilt be justif ied.-Mt 12 :36-37

We need, then , · to have God s word abiding in us in our minds and heartsand wills.

God does accept a person just as he is, with his nature and his t.enperanent. Yet, if we take this too much for granted, we can go to excess. We can bec:x:1te , in our self -cunplacency , inattentive to God 's Spirit; we can be unfaithf ul, fail to respond to God 's love by

expressingour own love through sign and symbol, deed and action. 13 It is :important for a person to accept himself as he is with his own nature and tem perament; but he ought not to follow too much the bent of his own par ticular nature and terrperament, or to relate to everything only in tellllS of his own peculiar way of thinking and acting. Rightly understood, then, detaduoont takes place on all levels, and in many dif ferent ways . Being detadled f ran self is not a once-for-all detachment. Spiritual advancement itself demands the f ull gif t of oneself ; it requires an unremitting , oonstant endeavor. But if one is to be renaved in God's Holy Spirit, he must give himself to this inner renewal by neans of detachment: he must be :ready to strive to do God's will. To be detached , in order to bec:x::ma

attached to God!

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I Will tell of all thy wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and exult in thee,I will sing praise to thy name , O Most High.

- Ps 9 :1-2

If m:m at times do wonderf ul deeds , what must be the deeds of Godl We cannot truly reoogni.ze his deeds in this life and in this world, un less we f irst allow him to do his wonderful deeds in us. Then we f irst

begin to appreciate him and his wonderful works and what he is in himself . Then we can bec:x::ma glad so as to exult in him and sing praise to his name.

We do need God 's Spirit even to f ind and reveal ourselves in our words and doing as we are truly revealed before God in the eternal Word

7Sign and Symbol, 77

of his Son.Yes, it is my Father 's willthat whoever sees the Son and believes in himshall have etenlal life,and I shall raise him up at the last day.

- Jn 6 :40

To see the Son of God is not the sane as seeing an object or a creature.

Yet the mind may be intent on a sirrple abject or creature while at thesane ti.ma seeing God s Son and believing in him (and this means believingin his love) . With sirrple f aith a person may be intent on sare kind of hmiane action, .sare virtuous thought or action; sanething whidl expresses for him the mystery of Godts love. He forgets self ; he loses self (hisf alse self ) , and allCMS Gcxl"s Spirit f ree rein in his heart and life.

Finally, he :realizes himself to be one in God and one with the universe -

"the unity in all nature" , as the Buddhists might state it. But what personal integration such unity demands!

In this lif e, where our virtue is less perf ect than it should ideally be, charity can at times be a dif f icult practice. There is need for wis dom and disoernnent, for the striving that goes to prese:rve

this unity and love. When love ceases, the rre:re passing an of infonnatian beoones f elt

as a burden. If we are to make God 's message known, charity-, wisdom , and understanding must perform the spadework of unity and love. A person has to try to attain to understanding; there has to be mutual

understanding ifpersons are to relate well. But while striving to relate to others , we also have a deep need for prayer. We have to pray that the God of peace and love may reach the hearts of us all, since he is the ver:y bond, the ver:y love that joins all. On the other hand, the Master of Deceit is workingto oppose and to destroy charity, justice, and truth: in a word, unity - the unity Christ prays for:

I pray not only for these, but for those also

through their words will believe in me.May they all be one.Father, may they be one in us ,as you are in me and Iam in you , so that the world may believeit was you who sent me.

- Jn 17 :20-21

7

t

The Scriptures abound in praises of wisdan; but they also excelin teadling wisdan by rreans of wisdan-teachings and sayings. The gospel rressage is an expression of this wisdom, and its precepts are divinely in spired. By wisdan a person begins with and accepts the hunan and the na tural; yet he also seeks and perceives principles higher than man himself and his natural surroundings. Wisdom begins with human prcblems and rela tionships, but relates these problems to roan's eternal destiny , and solves than in the light of this divine wisdan.

It is inportant for a person rightly to be himself , and to accept him self . But it should be obvious that a person carmot be oonpletely suff i cient unto himself . He must also forget himself , transcend himself , andbe ready to sacrif ice himself . f.b:lem. man has made himself too much the center of his life and of this world, too much an end in itself , without IIU.ldl of a relation to God. Unity will be shattered unless , by

ireans off aith and the practice of charity, justice, and truth, evil is overoomeby wisdan. This rreans living wisely and prudently with God ts help, in order to find not only our real self , but him in whan we 1ive and nove and have our being -God , who is the source of all life and being; God, who isB e i n g itself .

lt>dern science, technology, knowledge and industiy are all good. They

have made great advances. But wisdan and humility , truth and f aith , ought never to be forgotten, neglected, ignored. othe:rwise, life bec:x:m=s folly. It might be sophisticated in a superf icial way, but it leads to ruin and disintegration.

By wisCbn a person cooes to distinguish between the Creator and the creature, between the created and the Uncreated. Wisdan reveals the created with all its weakness, limitation, and dependence. But wisdan reveals m:>re; it reveals how the created relates to him who is; it reveals how the creatureextols its Creator, and how glorious it is in the sight of its Creator.Wisdom shc:MS hOW' the created world and all creatures ref lect the goodness of him who made all things to be good.

Thy steadf ast love, o lord, extends to the heavens,thy f aithfulness to the clouds;

righteoosness :ts like the rrountains of

thy judgnents are like the great deep; man and beast thou savest, o lord.

God,

7Sign and

HCM precious is thy steadf ast love , O God!

The children of men take refuge in the shadc:M of thy wings.Ps 35 (36):5-?

We too ought to make a response to God , who manifests himself by giving us his steadf ast love and all good gifts. If we f ail to

reoognize his gifts to us, if we fail to recx:ignize what he is in himself , then we cannot be poor , humble, and self-sacrif icing. Only by sacrif icing on the

altar of sacrif ice the idols of attachments and f alse deitiescan a per

son hope to cc:ma to the true images, to those symbols which are mysterious yet fully real. Of fering no clear explanations in thanselves, they are essential truth in God 's sacred Truth; they stir up our hope and love, and tend to unite us to God. On the other hand, abusive symbols and slogans lead rren to violence and strife, to war and revenge. They are forces which make for evil, and there can be no true wisdan in them.

By wisdan a man cc:mas to f ind vital cxmtact with God even and mainly

tbrough the things we see and hear and do, and in other persons who are united in Cllrist, and who bear the divine likeness in themselves. Throughwisdan and a response to symbolism, a person can enter ef fectively and con

sciously into contact with his deepest self , with other men , and with God. Already the carmunion which is the f ruit of such a rontact with self , God,

and rren, foxms the bond which is to be eternal in that friendship and can

munion of the saints , apostles, prophets, and all the holy men and warenand chosen ones of God, who themselves have chosen to be thus united for

ever in God.

By the kiss of peace at Mass, a Christian gives his brother or sister the sign of peace and f riendship in the brothe:rhood of Christ, the brother

hood which Christ cane on earth to establish. OUr prayer should be that this kiss of peace be sincere, the kiss of a f aithful f riend, and not that of a Judas who betrays Christ with a kiss. This kiss of peace may not al ways provide great consolations, or even nanents of deep c:x:mmunion; but it ought not to be judged merely an the basis of cansolatiors and feelings.

Since Christ has given us the sign and symbol of his love, these sym bols will hopefully bear fruit in us and in our lives when we respond to Christ 's love by means of our f aith, hope, and charity, as well as by ourcxmterplatian. and wonder .For wonder is necessary for contemplation.

8

One does not becare a contenplative by analysis or investigation; still less by a sneering attitude or kn.ow-it-all approach.

In the area of liturgy and symbolism, h<Mever , instruction is good

so of ten as with humility and docility we open ourselves to the prof un dity of the mysteries which becone manifest only when we accept the "truth of mystery" • The same is also true for the st'lrly of dogma and for certain of the conceptualized symbols or conceptual symbol-structures which , f or

us Christians, do not necessarily conf ine meaning and profundity -pro

vided that, on our part , there is a corresponding humility which is so closely interrelated with truth . 14

This is important for opermess to the revelation of God 's truth and mystery. The rejection of It¥Ste:ry is much like rejection the faith, and this would render symbolism f ruitless.

Rav precious to me are thy thoughts , 0 God!How vast is the sum of them,they are rrore than the sand.

When I awake, I am still with thee.-Ps 138 (139) :17 -18

God hiinself is the rrost profound of all his mysteries -God as he is in himself , and as he is in his thoughts. The Inf inite rrust always be a mystery and beyond the grasp of a f inite mind. It is not by straying fran

any true reality, or f rom the hard f acts of reality, but by imrcersing ourselves in reality with humility, reverence, and wcnder , that we can grasp God as essential Truth , and can knOtl him as inf inite I.Dve and Good ness.

God i.s inf inite Wisdan. Wisdan for man means to rightly accept him self and his surrmmdings, while also f inding the way to best reach and

attain the greatest Good, that is to say, union with God, with him who is the Eternal One. In the Tao Te Ching, there is a Chinese saying by Lao Tzu:

The highest good is like water . Water benef its all tlrings generously , and is without strife. It dwells in the lowly places that men disdain. Thus it canes near to the Tao. The highest good loves the (la-1ly) earth for its dwelling. It lovesthe prof0\.ll1d in its heart, it loves humanity in f riendship,

sin cerity in speech, order in govenunent , ef fectiveness in deeds, tilre.liness in action. Since it is without strife , it is without

Sign and 8reproach.. 15

8

As Christians, it is in Christ that we f ind our Way , our Truth , our Life, our life in him. OUr life is based on faith in him, and in him we f ind our joy and consolation, our peace and rest.

Care to me,all you who labor and are heavily burdened,andIwill give you rest.Take my yoke upon you, and learn f ran me;forIam gentle and lowly in heart,and you will f ind rest for your souls.

F01:: my yoke is easy, and ll¥ burden is light.

-Mt 11 :28-30

But along with faith in Christ, we need as nn.ich as anyone else to use our bodily members rightly; we too need to resist allurements and f alse securities; we have to use all God 's gifts rightly, with true wisdom. The full f lowering and f ruit of response to God in sign and symbol

during the present time of comnunion and love in f aith, will cx::me in the vision of the eternal Son and incamate Word in the glo:ry of the Father , to whan the Son is united in the one Holy Spirit -that is to say, in the Beatif ic Vision. We should desire this vision of God , even though we cannot know it fran experience in all its fullness. At the present time , we can only have sare idea of it through the various ways in which we pray, and in the fore taste we have of it in prayer.

A Christian may f ind a taste of this union and cx:mnunion in the

Eucharist. our joy will indeed overf low when we too are glorif ied in and with the Son , together with all the elect, in thatperf ect unity that all men even now seek, in that nost perf ect cx:mmunion

which is to be .

N O T E S

Thanas IMHOFF

Our Lady of the Assurrption

1 Fran Father I.Duis Merton 's article, "symbolism: Ccmnunication or c.armunion?" which appeared in Monastic Exchange 2/ 2 ( 19?0) , pp.l f f .

2 !bid.3 Great Re h{Jions of the World lin series published by the

National Geographical Society] r pp.152 and 153.4 Thanas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters .5 William Johnston, Cbr>istian Zen, Ch.8; see also pp .105-107

Sign and 8Appendix:

Postures.

8

6 Ibid., Ch.9: Breathing and Rhythn.7 !Duis Dupre, The Other Dimension, Ch.7 The Sacred Revealed. On p.322,

the Author brings out the need of authority and tradition for the re elation of the transcendant.

8 Ibid., p.299. Sacred history is so full of Ieyths and symbolic models that we may well call it ''mythhistory". Yet its content consists of new happenings, and it is in this novelty that a historical f act de tects the hand of God.

9 rton, op.cit, Ch. on Zen Buddhism funasticism, p.233 f f . 10 Dupre, op.cit., Ch . Of Holy Signs; see especially p. 161.11 The nortifying of images and concepts of the mind is not the same as

eliminating altogether thought-processes and thought structure. Rather, these are to be brought into oonfonnity with the truth and with reality .Even in the dark night of the srul a person oontinues to do his work and his duties. In The New Catholic Encyclopedia 4, the Author of an article dealing with "Nature and kinds of ooncepts" , p. 107 , says:

These various expressions e:rrphasize the basic Aristotelian- Tho mistic position that ex>ncepts (and universals) exist fonnally in the mind but f undanentally in things themselves. The concept has been fo:med under the inf luence of the thing (so it resembles and represents the thing) but it exists as such only in the mind. In this way Thanism steers and middle path between ultra-realism, which ascribes too much reality to the concept (i.e., it exists as such outside the mind) , and naninalism, which ascribes too little reality to it (i.e., there are no universal ooncepts, onJ_y general names) • The rroderate realism of St. Thanas recognizes that things can be and are kncMil by the lruman intellect as these things exist really and in themselves. But it also recognizes that for such real things to be known , they must be brought before the mind as objects, "for ledge occurs acoording as the knGm is in theknower'' (Summa Theologica Ia,12.4 } .

12 ' art. cit., Note l; p.6 of the article.13 Adrian van Kaam speaks of involvanent and detachment in his book On

Be-ing Involved .14 !Duis Dupre, op. cit., p. 159 , writes about oonceptual symbolization

as being predominant in scientific language; but, by a conf ident self suf f iciency of scientif ic discourse, language tends to lose the living ccntact with experience which is so richly present in non-discursive symbols. By af fording very clear-cut answers, very def inite struc tums in concepts and theories, a person may bea:xne closed, not opento further truth, and even to the knavledge of truth. This oonf ines the Jreaning and tends to nan:ow the truth. HcMever, a science does not do this necessarily, or with absolute necessity. I.ouis Duprei an p. 157 that language is the symbol par exce llence . W::>rds

can do much. rcore tl'lan pictures, for instance. It might suf f ice to say here that tbe alnost inf inite meaningfulness and usef ulness of lan-

Sign and 8

guage and linguistic foDTIS should not be confined, :restricted, or l.imi.ted by self -suf f icient and urmecessary ways. Louis Dupre speaks about symbols in Chs. 4 through 7: "On Holy Signs'; , "Symbolism of V«>rds'' , "Myth and Its Sw:vival" , and "The Sacred Revealed"

15 Great Religions of the World, p.128.

8

8

THE EXERCISE OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY

IN THINGS LITURGICAL

Note: This conference was given du:r>ing the cou:r>se of the recent meeting of the group Litu:rgie et Monases at Mortefontaine. The generai theme of the meeting, which provides the context for this conference, was "The Community and its Liturgy in the Life of the Contem porar>y Chu:r>ch ".

--- --- --------------------- -- ---- -- --- - ---- -- -- ---- -- -- ----- -

When one thinks about it, one readily preceives to what an extent

many, if not all, have responsible roles to carry out in the celebration of the liturgy.

As a general rule, this is true of ever:y "celebrant-asserrbly": each one, acoording to his own particular role, shares the responsibility f or

that particular celebration. We have to admit, ho.vever , that the ooncretesituation dif f ers f ran place to place. The poor parish priest, for in stance, scnetimes f inds himself f aced with a congregation in which 50% to 90% of those "assisting" are present chief ly "to do their Sunday duty ,to fulf ill the Sunday obligation". In this situation , the priest has a harder time of it than he would in our own

assanblies, where, we might well hope, there 's no one who assists in a purely passive manner. At least, this is what we ought to hope • • •

As regards our own situation, our assanblies are rrore restricted as a general rule, and are made up of -and this is irrportant - peo ple who already know each other. The preparation of our celebrations

has already been entrusted, not just to one person (as is of ten the case with the pastor in his own parish) but to several, and even - ideally

8- to ·a si zable number of the brethren.In our celebrations, the various functions are distributed between a nurrt>er

of participants, and each mem ber of the a:mnunity can take his tum in perfomd.ng this or that particu lar function.

8

In each celebration, of oourse there are several functions which are thrown into higher relief -the celebrant or president , the choir-master , and so forth. • •

But I 'm not particularly interested in providing any precise rules for any of these functions. Just a few years ago, our Usages or our manu als of liturgy made provisions for absolutely every detail -even to the right thumb •·s being placed over the lef t thumb! NCMadays things are so variable, they change so much over a period of time. • • Take, for instance, what a hebdanadary or a so-called 11invitator" has to do today, crnpared with what he had to do a feN years ago -or even just a fEM nonths ago! Things vary f ran one cx:mnunity to another -as I 've had occasion to note during these f ew days of our ting. There 's a great deal of variety, for exanple, in the way the hebdanadary carries out his func tion. So it 's i.npossilile to fix clear rules for each person.

My deepest oonviction , however, is this. It 's not this or that specialist who is responsibile for the celebration , but rather , EVERYONE and F.ACH ONE is responsible for each celebration.

First of all, in virtue of what each person brings in a positive w to each celebration; or , unfortunately, what each person doesn 't bring because of a certain sort of refusal to be himself , or because hecan even obtrude sane element of a negative sort, such as will be disturb ing for the prayer of the brethren.

In oi:der to make Iey'Self understood, I 'm going to give sare ooncrete exarrples. Because, for rre, it 's nore a question of actual experience than of books or learned treatises.

In a camnmity such as any one of ours , a priest has been at great painS to prepare a really top-notch hanily. He has given it a great deal of thought; he has prayed over it; and he knows how to preach. Well, ifhe finds himself giving his hanily in the presence of forty or f if ty nodding heads, thatts the end of his hanily!

A brother who, for sane f ault of his own, is absent from a celebra tion has sanething to answer for: he, as a member of that assanbly, is

The Exercise of Our 8

irreplaceable. So, too, in the simple case of saneone careless

enough to arrive late, and to make a disturbing noise while so doing • . • Or sareone who canes with his bad terrper or glocmy spirits or overbearing

aggressivity • • • All these are instances of the exercise of our respon sibility in our prayer in oorrnon. And what should we say , f or example , about the suppressed laughter in the rourse of a celebration , becausethe brother responsible for the petitions of the general intercessionsdidn 't know ho.v to express than correctly? Or, take the stif led d:lortle when an overly timid ronf rere makes a mistake • • • The intrusion of this sort of thing can do a great deal to disturl:> the a:mmmity at prayer.

During the past several days, we 've been told that the ccmmmityhas to becarre aware of itself in its ecclesial dinension: that is to say , the ocmmunity has to be conscious of itself as Church, as Bride of Christ; and that it is the Cb..lrch. herself who is the celebrant of the liturgy in whidl each person -and, I repeat, EACH PERSON -has a role to play,and ought to have a role to play.

If you like, I 'll take as my main idea the f ollcwing af f irmation: the chief resJ:Xlllsibility of each celebrant, of each person who is a cele brant (and that means everyone) is:

to be TRJE, to be AUTHENTIC, to be GENUINE.

To be true before Christ ,to be true before one's brethren,

to be true with oneself .

I ought to say straightway that "to be true" is alm:>st a pleonasm.If a person really IS, then he necessarily IS TRUE . Let ire explain: sane

one who acts like a robot or like a puppet during a celebration simplyisn 't there; he just SN 'T.

On the other hand, to introduce a tripart division -to be true before God, before one s brethren, with oneself -this is really quite

artif icial. Because you can 't really be true and honest with God ,

while at the same ti.ne forgetting to be true and honest with your brethren. If God , in whose presence we stand, is the true God , then he '·s the God who

8

gathers us together, who calls us together to becare one , time af ter time; and, in particular, in this celebration. So, in being present to God, we have to be also, and at the sane time, present to our brethren. And if we' re present to God and to our brethren , and if we• re true and authentic in their presence, then we have to be true to ourselves - true by reason of our bodily presence, our expression, our gestures • . •

However, if l'm to explain all this, I'll have to do so accordingto sare logical order. And so I '11 adopt the artif icial, but useful three part division!

FIR3'1' DUTY:

IF WE fRE TO BE TRULY IN THE CHURCH, WE HAVE TO BE TRIJE BEFORE

CHRIST, WHO IS THE ONE, REAL CELEBRANT ,

"Where or three are gathered together in JT!Y name , there am I in the midst of them," says the lord.

And so, when we 're gathered together in order to pray , Christ is truly in our midst. He is the one true celebrant , the one true pray-er, and we have to be united with him. To be rrore exact , it 's a question of our being true and authentic with Christ, before the Father, and through the Holy Spirit.

This isn 't just a pretty theological aff innation. We have to live it in the concrete. We really have to be in the presence of God when we celebrate.

But this is dif f erent fran that other problem -that of being habitu ally aware of the presence of God, of being oonstantly attentive to God.

Further, if we 're truly present to Christ, who gathers us all together into one, if we 're really present to Christ, the one true celebrant, we caneven say -thoU;Jh, of oourse, with all the necessary qualif ications - that a certain fo:on of ''personal piety" watl.dn t be true, wouldn 't be

authentic in this particular celebration; because we can 't forget f or an instant that we ''re all gathered as one in order to pray together.

oneprofessor of liturgy used to say: "Nothing upsets me trore than those priests who, throughout the whole of the Mass, think of nothing bit the Good God"!! !

The Exercise of Our 8

But it also remains nonetheless true that, as Thanas Merton once said in a text quoted by Father Charles Durront ,

The f irst and only sei:vice the rronk can render in the Church is his prayer itself .

"In the Church" -this begins with the local camnunity , with the rronk who is present in a praying carmunity, a carmunity of prayer.

This experience isn 't sanething which can be improvised on the spur of the ITO'l'ellt. It has been said, and said again; and I think it good to note yet once again that the cx::mmunity 's celebration ref lects sinply what the camrunity itself is, and the way in which it lives

Don t we have the everlasting feeling , when we celebrate, that we 're acting "as if " • • • perfo:rming actions ''as if " we were truly representa tives of Christ at that rratEilt . • • "As if "re not present, sounding

thereins and the hearts! !! No, there s no "as if " 'When it canes to the realitieswe celebrate in the liturgy.

Celebration can •·t ever be a mere parenthesi s, whether in the lif e of the ccmrunity, or in our a-Jil personal life. We 're responsible f or our cele bration twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four, throughout the whole ofour life, and not just when we enter the church , or when the celebrant oorres

out f:ran the sacristy. A person can 't really be true before God as if itwere an attitude he can tum of f or on at will.

In her oonference to us , Sister Marie..-Jean said that every celebra tion has a "before" and an ''af ter" . When one celebration cxxres to an end, I 'm at the , "before" of the next celebration. The soorce of our prayer is our daily life considerably rrore than books or abstract ideas.

Each cele bration reans a rreeting with Christ, a happening; and we can rreet Christ, and

live this happening only to the extent that we 're waiting for Olrist, that we're living and experiencing Christ. We can recognize Christ only

if we already ''know" him, only if we 're used to seeing him throughout the oourse of our daily life.

This is true, not just for the person whose resflOTlSibility in the celebration is more apparent, nnre visible; it 's true for each one of us, in virtue of what we are when we celebrate the liturgy.

9

Let 's begin with the one who presides over the prayer -the person whan we style the "president" , or "principal celebrant'' , 'or "hebdanadru:y" , or what have you.

His f irst responsibility , and perhaps the one on which we often

least insist -though it really IS his f irst and foreirost responsibility - is that he himself be the f irst (pre-esse } in being in a "state of prayer",in the presence of Christ, in being true and authentic bef ore God .

When we say that the one who presides at prayer is the "representa tive" of Christ, this is sorretldng quite dif f erent f rom what we rrean when, in the context of a state rererrony or sare other type of of f icial function , we say that saneone is acting as the representative of this or that public authority. For instance, on Bastille Day there 's going to be a cerennny

at the municipal war nnnurnent. The Prefect , who can 't f it this into his schedule, sends the head of his Cabinet . We say that the Cabinet head is the Prefect 's "representative" . But what does this really rrean? It rreans, before all else, that the Prefect himself isn 't there! The presence of the head of the Cabinet signif ies the absence of the Prefect.

But for the one who presides at our prayer , it 's just the opposite:

his precise function is to show us the presence of Christ. And this he

can do only to the extent that he himself is in the presence of Christ.He can draw his

b:rethren, guide them into an experience of prayer , only if he him self is praying, only if he himself is in the presence of Christ.

The "success" of a celebrant oughtn't be neasured acoording to sane external no:crn. There 's always a danger for us of getting canonized on the basis of our extemal curportrrent. And let the man without sin be the f irst

to cast a stone • • • Is there any of us who, at the end of a celebration

of the Eucharist, hasn tt been a bit tickled to have sane pious lady oorne

up and mw:mur oonf identially ,"Oh, Father , it was such a lovely celebra tion'' . • • Obviously, as sane one has written , no one has ever seen acereroony which hasn 't oorne to an end; and there 's never been a burial which hasn 't been a success. But let 's not forget that the success can 't be gauged si.rrply by the f act that the celebration is over , or that the person has been buried. The only real success is where our true responsibility

9The Exercise of Our

lies -at the level of filth. Faith , obviously, can 't be seen; it 's

not visible. But so of ten as we have sane function to carry out in a

given celebration, unless we ourselves are truly praying , no matter

hCM brilliant we might appear when viewed exteriorly, we 've really made

a iress of our essential responsibility .

This has , then, a certain m:a:nber of practical applications •

Is the person who presides at the Eucharist f irst of all happy, jubilant, to be celebrating the Eucharist? Is he really making his own what ts proclaimed in the Second Eucharistic Prayer , where the text reads:

We thank you for oounting us worthyto stand in your presenoo and serve you.

Is the one presiding really like a person "who sees the Invisible

One" so as to make him s e e n by his brethren. Is the priest himself

wholly given to listening to the word of God? Or is he simply sitting

there, waiting for the rrorrent when , af ter the readings, he has his own role to perfonn?

All this presupposes that the celebrant keeps himself f ran having

any illusions about himself . He 's there for the precise purpose of signi

fying the presence of Christ, not for drawing the attention of his breth

ren to himself , by reason of his individualistic approach or way of acting.

But an the other hand, if he wears a hang-dog expression , or puts

on a glcx:xey f ace, he 's not going to be the sign of Christ which he should

be for the brethren.

Is the celebrant really speaking to God when he says a prayer? Let 's

not forget that a prayer , whether said privately or during a a:nmunity cele bration, is never recited. A prayer is said, and said to saneone.

When the celebrant says or sings the pref ace , is it really a thanks

giving? Contrary to what sare priests apparently still believe , the words of consecration are not magic fonnulas recited over bread and wine. The

Institution Narrative is sanething which begins with the f irst words of

the preface, and goes on to the Per ipsum of the Great Doxology -a word

92

spoken to God. And when one person speaks to another person , he doesn 't express hiJTiself in just any way .

Yet another awlication, one which is even irore practical. Please have a bit of mercy on those poor prayer conclusions 1 Rav many priests, such as we are, make a real ef fort as regards the body of the prayer. But

when we arrive at the conclusion, to the m:>st important phrase of all,

theone which gives Christian prayer its real meaning , but which we know by

heart, of f we go, skipping th.rough the "We ask this through our Lord

Jesus Christ • • • '' as quickly as possible, as if the One we were addressing had already lef t.

We all too of ten hold the president of the assembly as the sole responsible party, and assign to him the responsiliility for the whole celebration. In point of fact, evei:yone sharing in the celebration isa sign of Christ. Accx>rdingly, it follows, doesn 't it , that eadl partici

pant ought to be his real self in all truth in the presence of Christ?Everyone should, as Saint Paul says , ref lect Christ as in a mirror.

Take the reader, for instance. The Constitution on the Liturgy says that "Christ is present to the assembly when the reader proclaims the word of God, when the psalmist lends his voice to Christ , and whenthe people sing''. The assanbled people thenselves are a sign of the pres ence of Christ; and, as Saint Jerare has said, if ·we •,:re to :read Scripture correctly, we have to read it as a message addressed to us by a f riend.Well, you can"t read a rressage f ran a friend unless he 's :really and truly a f riend! Once again, this sort of thing can 't be improvised;

there can. be no ''let 's pretend" , no "as if ".

The cantor or the choir-master -he 's not just a sinple orchestra conductor. His mission is that of drawing his brethren into praise, into prayer. Now, Christ, and only Christ, can draw us into prayer. And so the

choir-master , his technical role notwithstanding, and even in virtue ofhis highly tecbnical role, is a sign of the presence of Christ drawing us

to pray. So that you can better understand what I •:m trying to say , I '11re mind you of the inverse caricature. Think of certain choral groups where saoo of the singers, having "executed" one selection , take up a newspaper

and scan it till it ts time for them to sing the next number. I trust that

The Exercise of Our 93

we don't keep newspapers in our choir stalls; but there are so many other ways in which we can amuse ourselves, distract ourselves, instead of being imrersed in prayer.

The sane is true of the simplest :functions, to 'Whidl we sanetines fail to devote sufficient attention. Take for instanre, a "second-string" invitator, who has to intone a psalm.

can he intone Psalm 21, and say:"O God, my God, why have you forsaken -rre?" in just a n y way?

So, too, with the sezvant of the cburch or the server when he of fers the priest the bread and wide. Is he conscious of what he is doing? And the aex>lyte who spreads the linen cloth on the altar -does he do it such a wey that it becorres a sign that the U>rd is inviting us to sit at table with him?

t's go still further. What about the fellCM we might call "the last and least" in the ccmnunity, the one who 's so :EXX>rly endc:Med that he can't carry out any assigned function? Isn't he, par exce llence , asign of the presence of Christ? If he isn't, if we don't reoognize Christin this "pcx::>r man", this is perhaps our own fault, because we fail tobe attentive to these pcx::>r 'Who belong to Christ in a special way. Every

cc:mmmity has its poor men .

So, by way of conclusion to this first part of my oonferenre, I should like to repeat a phrase ooined by Sister Marie de la Croix:

Without personal prayer,there''s no liturgical prayer.

In this area of personal prayer, each·and every one of us has the greatest possible responsibility to exercise.

In the out-line I'm following, there's a phrase about the Superior:Because of the link between liturgy and life, the Superior has a special responsibility which is not solely of the juridical order.

Earlier in this rreeting, I said that I felt a bit uneasy

94about giv ing advice to the cantor or organist. All the nore so when it cares to giving advice to the Father Abbot! So I 11 quite

sirrply express my own personal point of view.

The Exercise of Our 95

For rey- own part, nc:Madays when I experience a celebration involv- ing rey- Father Abbot, and when I see him really praying , jubilating, and singing the "Holy, holy" , or the Song of Mazy, my Abbot is much rrore ofa sign of the presence of Christ for TIE than in times past. This is

true even when Father Abbot is simply saying his ''Amen'' in response to one of the brethren who happens to be presiding. I renenber that, years

ago, when I was one of the masters of cerennny, there was one abbot who

had a fondness for pontif ical cerenonies, but who refused a psalter when I handed it to him during Pontif ical Vespers , so that he could sing alongwith the others who were chanting the psalms: singing the psalms just wasn 't a pontif ical ;function. Or else, at Mass, he used to doze of f peacefully

on his catb.edra, while the sub-deacon was busy chanting the epistle. • •

My Abbot is nruch nore a sign of Christ when he presides over charity.Saint Augustine himself used to tell his faithful,

For you, I m your bishop;but with you, I 'm a Christian.

It seems to rre that an Abbot or and Abbess ought not to feel a lossof dignity when acting in keeping with this dictwn. There are sare who

will object that authority has to be marked out in sare manner or another.Sure. In sane manner or another. let

's take the Gospel. It 's true that, in the Synoptics, Christ presides at the Last Supper , and he'·s the one mo saysthe blessing, takes the bread, breaks it , and gives it to his disciples. But Saint John presents us with the s Last Supper and the s

President in a sarewhat dif ferent manner: the Lord takes a tcwel, a. basin , a napkin, and kneels before his disciples in order to wash their dirty feet • • •No lace-f ringed vestments , as in srne of our Mandatum Rites. And, in Saint John 's Gospel, it 's precisely at this point that Jesus gives the

Superior, the Abbot , the responsibility which he is to exercise:I have given you the example,

so that you might do likewise.I.et the one who is the f irst annng you

be the one who serves.

This is also true, obviously -though mutatis muta:ndis - for all the other ''of f icers" of the m::maste:ry. If th.ey have any share of authority, it 's only by :imitating Christ the Servant that they 're going to

96be signs of the presence of Christ.

The Exercise of Our 97

And this brings us to:THE SECDND DUTY:

In order to be true before God,we ha:ve to be true before our brethren, we have to be in their service.

Here, too, we monks have a privileged situation when cx::mpared with that of the parishes, where nost of the faithf ul are llllacquainted with each other. It has been said that, when they t re gathered in church for Mass, they' re all brothers, but without ever having seen each other; and that, a few minutes af ter Mass, they part their ways and know each other no better than they did before. As for us , we have the possibility , the

grace, of celebrating with brethren who live together in carmunity andccmnunion of life twenty-four hours out of the dqy t s twenty-four. We havepeople from outside the m:mastery present for our Stlllday Mass, and we wel care them into the celebration as best we can -the precise manner dif fers from nonastery to monastecy; but of ten enough , the other liturgical Of f ices are celebrated by only the oomnunity, plus , perhaps , a few retreatants.

Here again, does the responsibility of each one of us begin onlywhen we enter the church? Isn t t it rather sanething rooted in the totality of our life? As I've already said, we can celebrate only what we actually live. We can celebrate together only to the extent that we really share inthe life of the ocmnun.ity such as it is today, the cx:mmunity which we

ought to knCM and love, and with 'Which we ought to live , with all its joys, suf ferings, f ratemal life, and tensions. As

Father Savin said , this means a camn.mi.ty which is more or less diversif ied , if not divided: and this is sanething we have to be aware of when we enter upon our celebration. One might even say that, for people devoted to prayer , as we are, that the can- 1TIL111ity celebration is the place where we ought to live our cnnm.mity lifeat its maximum degree of intensity; because where else are we so much atone, so truly brothers, as when we''re at prayer?

Each one of us , then, has the responsibility of being true and authen tic before his brethren , and with his brethren. And this means , in thef irst place, wanting to pray, wanting to celebrate together. It also means

wanting each and all of the brethren to be able to celebrate. No one is to be at a disadvantage when it a:::>mes to celebration.

98

The saire remark remains no less true in this present oontext: the attitude I tm describing isn 't sarething one can :inprovise or work up on the spur of the m::m:mt. We can 't act 11as if " we were brothers . OUr

re sponsibility doesn 't begin when the Of f ice begins, but, rather, is cn extensive with our whole life. If , at sare rronent during the day, I 've hurt one of my brethren, if I 've f lattened him out , how can I celebrate the Eucharist. It 's easy enough in the general intercessions, for in stance, to want to include the whole of human kind in one 's beautifully

phrased intentions; while at the same time, perhaps , being forgetful of that individual, ve:cy concrete conf rere who is suf fering right beside one.

Being true and authentic before one' s brethren necessitates a certain technical preparation. We don 't have any right to neglect a f unctionwhich we' re supposed to carry out in the service of the brethren. The president of the assembly ought to learn how to preside; and this isn 't sanething one can improvise without preparation . To fail in this regard would be to m:x::k the brethren whan we 're addressing.

let 's make only a few practical applications:

How can a president of tre assembly welcane his brethren if he isn 't, in the f irst place, really happy at being with than? How can he honestly

sey to them, ''The Lorn be with you" , if , in the actual life of the ccmnunity, he functions as a public poisoner? How can he invite his brethren to

repent, if at that particular rroment , he himself is f illed with rancnr a gainst this or that brother? or of he fails to recognize that he himself ,in his life lived in camrunity, is a sinner just like anyone else? As sare one has said, "It takes courage to be a celebrant : the sinner has to f ace sinners" .

How can the celebrant say to his brothers , "Go in the peace of Christ" , if , right avay, he 's going to start wrangling with one or another of them?if he's going to take up again a lif e f illed with the wrong kind of tensions, f illed with accusation against his brethren?

But it 's not just the president who has this responsibility towai:ds his brethren. We might even say that the president 's attitude depends in lai:ge measure on the attitude of the brethren before him. Earlier in this

The Exercise of Our 99oonference I gave the example of their attitude to the homily; but a great

10

many other exarcq;>les could be given. The quality :of the celebrant 's gestures, attitudes, words , and general carp:>rtnent depend as much on the persons in f ront of the celebrant as they do on the celebrant himself .They can be open to him, receive him; or they can ref use him , reject him . And hCM of ten the poor celebrant is justif ied in repeating the text f rom Saint Luke's Gospel:

Iplayed the f lute for you,but you didn't

dance; I sang a lament,but you refused to weep.

The responsibility of each and every person is an intrinsic part

of this prayer shared in camon , such as any real celebration ought to be.HOW' can the brethren given a genuine ".men" in response to a prayer , if they haven 't really prayed through the rrouth of the celebrant? HOW' can we pray together unless we accept at real depth the choice of this or that chant or reading ma.de by the choir-master or sane other responsible person? When one of the brethren is giving the homily, are we sitting there judg

ing him - ''How'' s he going to do?" -or are we really receiving f:ran him the word of God?

All this presupposes an interior attitu::l.e: Happy are the pure of

heart, the peace makers • • • for they, and only they shall see God!

Hew can a cantor make his brethren sing if he doesn 't really love them? if he isn 't of one heart and of one sa.ll with them? HcM is he go ing to get the oamruni.ty to sing if he doesn '· t have a deep conce:rn for the poorer brethren? Father Sirgant has written that "The soul of our celebrations is our love for the brethren'' . In order to proclaim theGospel really well, you have to 1 o v e those who are listening.

Nor should we forget that being true and authentic also means never forgetting the fact that one isn 't alone in his responsibility. There are others with responsible functions to be perfonned. In the celebrations of scme ccmnunities, you can feel a certain tension , for instance , between the person in charge of the readings , and the person in charge of the nrusic. In

order to make my point better , let me present another caricature of whatnot to do: a deacon who reads Chapter 13 of the Gospel according to Saint

The Exercise of Our 101

John -the chapter on f raternal charity - . while at the sane time making it clear to the ccmnunity, by his attitude and his gestures, that he thinks the server holding the gospel-book for him is sanething of an idiot!

Then, too, I m cx:mstantly astonished at seeing hCM many people in our conmunities seem to think thenselves perfectly oorrpetent and ready at any m:ment to give others needed lessons • . .

This is true of each of us -those wham we call "simple participants" .

But hCM are we going to pray, torate with saneone who is rrore or less unf riendly to us? sareone whan we/poorly of ? "In order to celebrate ," Father

Paul Houix said, ''you have to die a little bit; to celebrate of ten rreans to suf fer". And Sister Marie-Jean said, "There are sick people who are cured, eyes which are opened , and anxieties which are put to rest simply by one or another of the brethren in the ccmnunity." Unforb.mately, don 't we sane times have to witness in the course of sane of our celebraticms that thissick person becanes still :rrore sick, that that blind man becx::mes yet :rrore blind, and all through the f ault of the brother who 's standing next to him? Each one of us is responsible for the welrorre given our neighbor in

church; and this is n o t the responsibility of cmly the celebrant.

Each one of us should lend his voice to the cxmron praise sung by

all. Either we do this, or we ref use to do so. Finally, each one of us is responsible for his CMI1 being there -a presence which is not just material, but true and genuine: a presence of charity. And hCM of ten we break the Body of Christ by our absence, by our attitude of aggressivity , or simply by our being sulky with others!

Here again, we tend to forget our respcmsibili ty tc:Mards the littler ones, the really poor cmes. Don 't we saneti.mes have the terrptaticm -es pecially if there are guests "of distinction" present -to t:ry to gloss over the presence of this or that brother whan we might describe as ''less presentable'' , or ''not at all presentable"?

So, then, if we' re going to celebrate in all truth, we have to knc:M

our brethren, with all their joys, their disoouragerrent; we have to re joi ce with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep; we have toknCM the camrunity as it really is, without hiding any of the dif f iculties, but without helping to f urther any of the elerrents of divisicm and

divisive ness. It 's sanetimes said that the Eucharist ought not to be celebrated,

10

because there are tensiorg and oppositions in the camnuni.ty . Well, it 's true that the Eucharist in particular , as also every kind of prayer ,

ref lects exactly what we are. But it 's also true that the Eucharist is f irst of all the work of Christ, and that it ref lects not only what we are , but what we want to be, what we ought to be.We don 't have to re fuse to give a brother the kiss of peace because we 're not in camn.mion

with him; rather , we give such a brother the kiss of peace precisely be cause, in spite of the tensions we 've felt up till then, the nanent has

cnne when we reach camnmion with each other. As Father Savin told us , "Unity as sarething realized once and for all is just a dream. Unity has

to be realized, has to becx:me real at every successive nanent. Unity is the work of Christ, who realizes it, ef fects it here. andnCM, during this particular celebration. Unity isn 't sare Utopia which we '11 never reach." I 'd also like to quote Sister Marie-Jean, who said: "If the liturgy were just sarething merely human , it would have nothing it could do in such situations of discord anong brethren; but because it 's divine, it bears within itself the strength of unity" .

So f ar I 've S!X)ken about being true with the brethren whan we knCM. I should also say sanething about our being true with the guests of the nonastezy, even when we don 't kn.CM them personally. We

should realize that at times there are ''strangers" in our assembly. It would be a lie were we not to take them into account, were we simply to ignore their presence -by acting as if , for instance, everyone knew

each other. We

should renember what the Teaahing of the Apostles has to say: if a "poor man" enters the church, and there 's no chair available for him, then we should give him the president 's chair to sit on -the place of Christ!

THIRD DUTY :To be tPUe with

oneself.

F;irst of all, we have to accept ourself as we really are. As Saint Paul says , ''The grace of Cod. has been given to each, but to each in a dif

ferent manner; but it is the sane Spirit."

1

Each of us has his own positive qualities and his own inperfections and dif f iculties. We feel this more keenly men scmoone with a particular fimction to carry out tries to play a :role which is beyond him. We have to knew, then, h.ow to refuse a function so often as is necessary; but we

have to avoid any impression of not being available for other roles '\Nhich we c a n perfonn reasonably well. We all have our limitations; but we also have our God-given gif ts gif ts which are meant to bear fruit in the service of others. And who arrong us hasn 't run up against a dif f icultyfound in all our camrunities? -that of having sane function to be carried out, but 'INhich evecyone ref uses to accept. Here, again , we have an example of a failure to exercise our responsibility.

But if we do agree to accept sare role, and if we think that we 're reasonably capable of doing a gcod job, this doesn 't mean at all that we' re going to be able to play by ear and improvise on the spot, without any pre vious practice or preparation. We

saretinEs have to be able to improvise on the spot.And we have to knCM hCM to invent , create spontaneously. But

let 's never fo:rget that most "improvisations" are prepared well in advance!

We have to kn.CM hON do things as well as possible, how to tum in a polished perfonnance. It s obvious that the cantor 's or 01:ganist 's respon sibility doesn t begin just when the Of f ice begins and gets under way. No, it starts f ran the rrorrent he begins preparing to function as a cantor oran organist, f rom the rrarrent he learns how to produce a gcod tone or play a choro.

We have to learn hew to be true with our body!Here we ought to have not just a paragraph , not even just a canplete conference, or even a session on yoga and bodily expression. 'What we need is an entire programre of asce sis, a discipline of life, a lif e-long discipline.

Let 's not forget thatit 's by rreans of the Irediation ef f ected by our b o d y that we 're able to be bef ore our brethren. It 's only because of our body that they ' re able to see us, and that we can be for them signs of the presence of Christ.Now, hew many of us are there who are af raid of their body? Hew many of us

The Exercise of Our 10are there who, while we' re celebrating the liturgy or carrying out sanefunction, are really, as we French say, "at ease in our CMn skin"? 'Ihis attitude isn t t sarcething \\hich can be produced at the drop of a hat! Here again, we 're dealing with a responsibility that af fects our \\hole life -

1

Leam.ing hCM to pray with the whole of one 's body!

The celebrant is obliged, at certain times , to "raise his hands". Here we 're no longer dealing with rubrics mich prescribe

almost to the inch just mere our fingers are supposed to be! But this gesture ofthe hands does have to be the expression of prayer. By raising his hands,the celebrant ought to be the sign of Christ at prayer. In view of the

f act that so many of us have so much dif f iculty in being true and authentic when it canes to our ritual gestures, I think that, so f ar as I 'ro concerned, one has to learn how to pray with his body when one is alone, without hav ing to be directly concerned about the brethren, or inf luenced by their presence. I donlt think that anyone is going to experience this gestureof the lif ted hands in any really deep way , unless, in the privacy of one 's private cell and in prayer in solitude, we sanetirres speak to God

through our hands , without saying or thinking any precise words or thoughts.

The paJms of our hands turned tavards saneone also have sarething to say about our act of of fering and our beggar ls c:ry. The sarne palms turned to Gc:x1 in order to express "Give us this day our daily bread" are f illed a

few rrarents later, when one of the brethren puts in our hands the Bread, theBody of Christ!

Gestures are of dif ferent sorts. Sanearefunctional, others are sym bolic. Both have to exist. As Father Laurentin has said, "The liturgical gesture ought to be in the service of both the rational and the non-rational. Technicians are witness to this first aspect; but people in love are in no way ready to sacrif ice the non-rational aspect of gesture to the rational aspect. II

And what should be said about the expression of our f ace, of the way

we look at the brethren? We have to look at the brethren whan we' re address ing without any af fectation whatsoever, and without being namby-pamby; at

the same time , we ought not t:ry to bCMl them over.

We have to kn.CM how to stand straight in God ' s presence and in the

presence of our brethren. We also have to knCM how to be seated. A presi dent of the assembly slurrped. over on his chair is no longer exercising his famction as one who presides.

10The Exercise of Our 1All these points involve the question of our self -rnaste:cy and our ·

inner unity, which is at the heart of the 'Whole matter.i

Sareone might argue that, f or a time , we ought to abstain f ran.making any gestures whatsoever, so as to recover them later on , spon taneously, ''f ran within". Well, perllaps; but if so, we ought to be f ully aware and deeply oanscious of 1b.e fact that such an abstention is truly abno:onal, truly "against nature''!

We also have to learn how to pray in our singing • • • In spite of m,y own incanpetence in the matter, oould I please raise a slightly insidi ous question? Why do sare celebrants want to sing eve:cythi.ng which can rubrically be sung, when their singing actually drops sanething of a curtain between themselves and the brethren (and between themselves and God) ?As celebrants, 'What they should express is our lif e-in-depth , bef ore God

and before the brethren. But all too of ten , this insistence on singing with out any degree of canpetence eve:cy note which can , in theo:cy , be: sung in stead of spoken this is a real obstacle to carmunication. Perhaps those who are really capable of expressing thanselves through their singing are

nore rare than one might at f irst believe • • •

I ought to say sarething -though I wan 't - about being true and authentic before circumstances of place , tine, and abjects • • •

There 's also a question of being true 'When f aced with the unexpected,

the canpletely unforeseen.

It seans that our life of silence and prayer ought to give us even nore of a chance than have people 'Who live in the tumoil of the present day world, to rec:ngnize the value and the importance of the syrrrols -ges tures and objects -which we use and have at our disposal.

So, by way of resume: . The responsibilty which each of us has isn 'tthe responsibility of having to car:cy out sore really extraordina:cy function; rather , it 's a responsibility 'Which each and eve:cyone of us has in eve:cy celebration.

This responsibility isn 't sarrething which af fects only the period during which the celebration is actually taking place. Rather , it 's a

11

responsibility which affects our whole life of prayer, our whole life lived with the brethren. Take, for instance, even this meeting in which we're all taking part: our discussions and our reflections should enable us eventually to act in an even nore responsible marmer as regards the life of prayer as lived in our respective cx:mnunities.

Idon t :make any claim to have seen every aspect of the questions I've discussed. Is.inply wanted to stir up your interest, so that you yourselves would want to pursue to the end avenues of thought I only touched upon .

Trans., Gethsemani Abbey

Marie GOUJar

Septfons