Papers given at the Third National Congress of the "Centre de
Pastorale Liturgique," Strasbourg, France, 1958, first published
under the title "Parole de Dieu et Liturgie," Lex Orandi Series, Ed.
du Cerf.
Nihil obstat: John Eidenschink, O.S.B., J.C.D., Censor deputatus.
Imprimi potest: +Baldwin Dworschak, O.S.B., Abbot of St. John's
Abbey.
Imprimatur: +Peter W. Bartholome, D.D., Bishop of St. Cloud.
October 20, 1959.
Copyright 1959 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville,
Minnesota.
CONCLUSIONS FORMULATED BY THE STRASBOURG CONGRESS
1. No liturgy without the Bible.
The liturgy draws on the Bible for its readings and chants.
Further, it is interwoven with echoes of the Bible, and in its
hymns and prayers it makes use of words which are those of the
Bible. Thus the Church prays throughout the whole world, and
she has always done so.
It is not enough to say that the Bible occupies a privileged place
in the liturgical celebration. It plays such a fundamental role that
without the Bible there would be no liturgy.
We cannot enter profoundly into the liturgical celebration if we
ignore sacred history. No liturgical progress is possible without
the Biblical education of clergy and faithful alike.
2. The Church reads the Bible in the liturgical assembly.
Here we see the continuity between the Old Testament and the
Church: the Word of God of old was addressed to the people
assembled in the desert, gathered together by Moses. The Church
always addresses the people as an assembly.
The liturgical assembly is the privileged site of the proclamation
of the Word of God.
3. The Church reads the whole Bible.
The whole text of the Bible is not found in the books of the
Roman liturgy. But four remarks must be made in this
connection:
a) Every year, some pages of the majority of the holy Books have
a place in the Breviary, as an invitation to read and meditate on
the whole Book. The private reading of the Bible is the effect and
fruit of the liturgical celebration.
b) If there are special passages to which the Church frequently
refers, it is because these pages are the summits of sacred
history. But these are understood the more fully the more one
knows the whole of the Bible.
c) The Missal is more and more, for the faithful, the starting-point
of Biblical culture.
d) Initiation into the Bible starting from the Missal allows us to
avoid a subjective interpretation of the Biblical texts. It removes
the danger of illuminism. It causes us to be the more fully aware
of the fact that the Bible is given us by the Church. It emphasizes,
furthermore, the profound bond which unites the Word of God
and the sacrament.
4. The whole Mass proclaims the Word of God.
The first part of the Mass is, properly speaking, neither a
Foremass nor a catechism lesson, but a liturgy of the Word of
God. As the "Directoire" reminds us, "The Word of God is a
proclamation in the Church of the mystery of salvation which is
realized in the Eucharist" ("Directoire," n. 1).
At the consecration, the Word of God (which was pronounced
before being written) becomes the living, efficacious, saving and
sanctifying Word.
5. In the liturgy God speaks to us today.
The Word of God gathered up in the Bible is not presented to us
as a collection of archives, but as a Word addressed to us today
by the living God.
To the man who reads the Bible without faith, the Book is a
witness to the past; to the Christian who hears the text
proclaimed in the liturgical assembly, the Word is present, of
today; it reaches the depths of his being and causes him to
communicate in the present action of God in the world.
6. The liturgy carries out here and now what the Bible
proclaims.
The Bible tells and sings of the great works of God. Throughout
the whole of the Old and the New Testaments God creates,
judges, delivers His people, makes a covenant with them, is
present in their midst to sanctify them.
In the Church the sacraments carry on in our midst the works of
God, those of the Old and the New Testament. The same God acts
in an analogous manner yesterday and today, to create, judge,
save, make covenant with, dwell with His people and sanctify
them.
The liturgy causes us to enter into the history of salvation. We are
in sacred history. There is a rigorous continuity between
Scripture and the Church.
7. The sacraments are Biblical signs.
Instituted by the Lord as signs of the New Covenant, the
sacraments have a pre-history which is rooted in the whole Old
Testament. This is why in the course of their celebration the
Church evokes the most ancient pages of the Bible (Abel,
Abraham, Melchisedech in the Canon of the Mass; Sara, Rebecca,
Rachel in marriage; paradise, the flood, the exodus in the
consecration of the baptismal water, etc.)
It is a fact of tradition that in her liturgy the Church establishes
analogies between the sacraments of the New Covenant and the
works of God under the Old Law. She does not call up a kind of
play of serviceable images; she goes straight to the religious
content of these accounts. The liturgy (in its most authentic
elements) reunites us with the soul of the Bible: God continues to
act and to intervene in human history as He began to do long ago.
And this is why, at the same time as it refers to the Biblical past,
the liturgy, faithful to the spirit of the Bible, announces the future
toward which we are tending. It announces that God will in the
future perform analogous and still greater works.
8. Even though the use of the Missal is more and more
widespread, it is with their ears that the faithful should hear
the Word of God.
If the Bible is the Word of God addressed to men, they ought to
listen to it. They ought to hear it with their ears; a lector is, then,
indispensable. We cannot insist too much on the following:
a) before speaking to the faithful, the lector should wait until
they have finished sitting down (for ordinary readings) or
standing up (for the Gospel);
b) the reading must be carried out slowly enough and loudly
enough to be heard;
c) pausing at appropriate places facilitates the understanding of
the text;
d) before proclaiming a text, it is essential to have read it and
understood it.
This technique is to serve a life of faith: the Word which we are to
make heard is the Word of God. And, therefore, it is to be
regretted that so often the reading in the mother tongue is
carried out less carefully and that a less respectful attitude is
maintained during it than when the proclamation is made in
Latin.
9. The faithful must understand the Word of God.
For this we need a translation that is at once faithful and well
phrased. Yet the attempt should never be made to render the text
understandable by modifying it. The Bible is the Word of God; it
is not man's business to soften it.
On the other hand, it is possible by means of a short comment
given before the reading to remove textual difficulties. Finally,
and above all, the proclamation of the Word should be followed
by the homily which aids the actual congregation present to enter
into the understanding of the Word of God. To be understood, the
Bible demands a constant effort on our part. This effort must be
made in order to allow the humblest of the faithful to receive the
Word of God.
The homily is, furthermore, not simply an explanation; it is itself
a glad proclamation. It echoes the Word of God. It should lead the
hearer to adore that Word and to praise it.
10. God has spoken a human language.
This is the simple fact: the Bible is written with human words.
The progress of the various Biblical sciences, far from lessening
our admiration for the Bible, can only increase it, for they allow
us to enter more deeply into the divine pedagogy here laid out.
For men of today, there are many stepping-stones leading to an
understanding of the Bible. Modern man, like Biblical man, has a
sense of the concrete and of history, a sense of solidarity, of love
for the persecuted; he is rediscovering his sense of symbolism.
Because it speaks a human language, the Bible is rich in human
resonances.
11. The Church replies to God by the Word of God.
God awaits a response to the Word that He addresses to us. The
Word of salvation requires a dialogue.
God Himself, in the psalms and Biblical canticles, and in the Our
Father, has given us the key-words of our response.
The liturgy takes up the psalms as being a prayer continually new
and always springing up from the meeting between God and man.
When the Church prays, it is always in reference to what God has
done for His people in the past, in hope that He will do the same
for us today. The prayer of the Church is born of the Word of God
and supports itself on it.
12. The pedagogy of the faith of the child and the adolescent
is bound up with presenting the Bible in the liturgy.
The role of the Bible in the formation of Christians and
particularly in the pedagogy of the faith of children and
adolescents is primary. This fact is being rediscovered more and
more clearly today.
But this formation would be misleading if the Bible or Biblical
history were made to seem simply a memory exercise or matter
for examination.
The Bible should cause the child to enter into the life of the
people of God. This is why no catechesis is fully Biblical if it is
not liturgical.
Participation in the Mass, attention to the liturgical cycle,
celebrations of the Word that are carried out as part of catechesis
are essential in order that the student may enter into the mystery
of the people of God.
13. The work of the Word of God goes beyond the limits of the
liturgical celebration.
Before coming to the sacramental life of the Church, man must be
evangelized by the proclamation of the Word of God.
And when this Word is received in the liturgical assembly, it has
not completed its course.
The believer is to keep this Word, it is to germinate in him, and
little by little introduce him into a wisdom which is that of the
children of God. It is fulfilled in prayer, in thanksgiving, in
charity, in an apostolate. It wishes to transform the world and to
establish in it the kingdom of God.
"And as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and
return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make
it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so
shall My Word be, which shall go forth from My mouth: it shall
not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and
shall prosper in the things for which I sent it" (Is. 55:10-11).
CONTENTS
CONCLUSIONS FORMULATED BY THE STRASBOURG CONGRESS
INTRODUCTION
Canon A. G. Martimort
Director of the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique
Chapter One
THE BIBLE IN THE LITURGY
Rev. Pierre Jounel
Professor at the Institut Superieur de Liturgie
Chapter Two
THE SACRAMENTS AND THE HISTORY OF SALVATION
Rev. Jean Danielou, S.J.
Professor at the Institut Catholique of Paris
Chapter Three
GOD HAS SPOKEN IN HUMAN LANGUAGE
Rev. Hans Urs von Balthasar
Author, Lecturer
Chapter Four
THE WORD OF GOD LIVES IN THE LITURGY
Rev. Louis Bouyer, Cong. Orat.
Professor at the Institut Catholique of Paris
Chapter Five
THE WHOLE MASS PROCLAIMS THE WORD OF GOD
Rev. A. M. Roguet, O.P.
Director of the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique
Chapter Six
THE CHURCH RESPONDS TO GOD WITH THE WORD OF GOD
Rev. Joseph Gelineau, S. J.
Professor at the Institut Superieur Catechetique and the
Institut Superieur de Liturgie
Chapter Seven
THE BIBLE AND THE LITURGY IN CATECHESIS
Rev. Francois Coudreau, S. S.
Honorary Director of the Institut Superieur Catechetique
Chapter Eight
IS IT POSSIBLE, IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, TO BE A "MAN
OF THE BIBLE"?
Rev. Charles Moeller
Professor at the University of Louvain
Chapter Nine
"BLESSED ARE THEY WHO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD AND PUT
IT INTO PRACTICE"
Rev. Joseph Lecuyer, C. S. Sp.
Professor at the Regina Mundi Institute, Rome
Chapter Ten
THE LITURGY AND THE WORD OF GOD IN PARISH LIFE IN THE
GERMAN DIASPORA
Most Rev. Otto Spuelbeck
Bishop of Meissen
INTRODUCTION
Canon A. G. Martimort
This book, as its title indicates, is a result of the meeting of two
movements characteristic of Catholicism today: the liturgical and
the Biblical. To begin with, then, let us briefly trace the paths
taken by these two movements up to this point of confluence.
The liturgical movement came to realize in the course of its own
interior development that it must become Biblical, that it could
be neither authentic nor profound unless it were accompanied by
a discovery of the Scriptures. Pope Pius XII, in his discourse
closing the Assisi Congress, dated the beginning of the liturgical
activity of the papacy in our times from the year 1913 and the
publication of the Motu Proprio "Abhinc duos annos." And this, of
course, was, following the Bull "Divino Afflatu," a return to the
psalms in the Divine Office and some restoration of primacy to
the Sunday and the economy of salvation.
At the time when these pontifical documents were appearing in
Rome, Dom Lambert Beauduin in Belgium had just inaugurated
the memorable and fruitful campaign of which we are the
fortunate beneficiaries and heirs. Putting aside the grandiloquent
prayer-formulas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
educated Catholics began to nourish their piety on the texts of
the Missal, its prayers, its psalm verses set to Gregorian
melodies, in the spirit of the various liturgical seasons. And such
Catholics were numerous indeed, if one can judge from the
success enjoyed by the Missal of Dom Lefebvre between the two
wars.
But this first discovery of the liturgy immediately led to others,
the first being that of the popular character of the liturgical
celebration. Far from being meant to be savored in solitude, the
liturgy is communal by nature, and the liturgical community is
not composed of a restricted elite but of uneducated and simple
people also: the poor have had the Gospel preached to them.
From 1943 on, therefore, when Abbe Godin posed the question:
"Is France a mission country?", the liturgical movement has been
striving to distribute to the little ones this bread that they crave;
we have been in anguish at the sight of the sheep of Christ going
hungry, to use the words of the Council of Trent.
It was at the very moment when the effort began to gain
momentum towards the popular diffusion of the liturgical
message that we abruptly encountered the problem of its Biblical
form. In translating the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass, the
nuptial blessing, baptism, the Easter Vigil, certain members of the
apostolate to the people balked at the idea of evoking all these
ancient patriarchs, these primitive images, these prayer-formulas
taken from the Pentateuch or the Psalter. But just when these
well-intentioned apostles had begun to yield to the temptation to
do away with this Biblical language which they declared to be out
of the reach of the ordinary man, the yearly studies of the Centre
de Pastorale Liturgique, founded in 1943, began to reveal, and
with continually greater force, the importance of the Bible in the
liturgy.
Far from being an external ornament, the Bible was found to be
the very speech of the liturgy; the sacramental signs are
Scriptural signs; the sacred realities presented in Christian
worship are those of the economy of salvation revealed by sacred
history and continuing it. As in 1946 we studied the Mass, in
1947 the Lord's Day, in 1948 the liturgy of the sick, and in 1949
that of the dead, in 1951 solemn Communion and confirmation,
in 1952 baptism, and holy Orders and marriage in recent years,
the decisive study in each case clearly was that of the Scriptural
data, clarified by the rites themselves and set out by the Fathers
in their catecheses.
But why should I call this work of ours a "study"? It was rather the
joyful contemplation of the Mystery, of the perfect unity of the
economy of salvation, of the Christian sense of history, of the
struggles of man on this earth, of the divine pedagogy of the
faith. It was the awareness that meditation begun under the
impulse of the Biblical message contains indefinable harmonies.
This door, seemingly closed, from which the people were turning
away, actually opens on a kingdom. In the liturgy God speaks by
the Bible.
We have come to realize, therefore, that no liturgical progress is
possible without the Biblical education of Christians, since
without the Bible there is no liturgy.
Now, in God's Providence, the liturgical movement can benefit
from the Biblical studies carried out during the same period. It
seemed at first, it is true, that Scripture scholars and liturgists
were following parallel paths destined never to meet. At about
the time when Dom Beauduin was launching the liturgical
movement in the French language, Father Lagrange, who in 1890
had founded the School of Biblical
Studies in Jerusalem, wrote the first of his commentaries on the
Gospel commentaries which are still not outmoded after fifty
years.
Against the modernist and liberal offensive, and in the face of the
discoveries of historical criticism, Catholic scholars, following
the lead of Father Lagrange, studied the composition and the pre-
history of the sacred Books, the archeology and comparative
literature of the Orient they devoted themselves to textual
criticism, apparently an austere and arid task. This work seemed
calculated to discourage the reading of the holy Books for
spiritual nourishment and refreshment, yet it has, on the
contrary, finally served to develop it.
Abruptly, in 1943, the encyclical "Divino afflante spiritu" gave
public support to these scholars, who up to that time had
appeared suspect. After so much research of a seemingly
negative trend, the Bible now appeared as being essentially the
history, slow and progressive, of revelation and salvation. After
the aridities of philology, literary history could at last begin to
flourish.
A new era of Biblical study opened out: that of research into the
Biblical themes traced out, defined, purified, interwoven,
spiritualized from the beginning of revelation to the end. To the
surprise of the exegetes themselves, the analysis of these themes
rehabilitated, to a great extent, the use made of the Bible by the
liturgy and the Fathers. It is true that discrimination has to be
exercised in this regard; nevertheless, the continuity between
piety and scholarship has been rediscovered; and thus the last
obstacles to the Christian reading of Scripture have been
removed.
The difference between the style of the notes given in Bibles
published in France before the war and those of recent years is
significant here; the success of the latter is a proof of the interest
of the faithful in the sacred Books. Above all, we have been
shown in recent years the fact of the universal appeal of the
psalms--they are prayed by lay people in books of Hours or
Breviaries, they are sung to popular melodies in Christian
gatherings. The Bible has ceased to be the private possession of
the few and has once more become the book of every Christian.
And thus the way has been prepared for this present confluence
of the Biblical and liturgical movements, a confluence which, we
pray. will still further extend and strengthen their effectiveness.
CHAPTER 1: THE BIBLE IN THE LITURGY
Rev. Pierrre Jounet
MY TASK IS, at the outset of our studies, to make an inventory of
the Biblical riches contained in the liturgical books--the Missal,
the Ritual, the Pontifical, and the Breviary of the Divine Office--
texts that become life, the Word of God and the Word of the
Church of Christ, in their actual sacramental celebration.
One cannot celebrate the liturgy without encountering the Bible
at every step. This fact is obvious, both on the plane of the
official texts which the Church places in our hands for the
celebration and on the plane of the celebration itself. We shall,
therefore, first present the place of the Bible, the inspired Book,
in the liturgical formularies; and secondly, the place of the Word
of God in the liturgical action, the celebration.
THE BIBLE IN THE LITURGICAL FORMULARIES
At first sight there would appear to be a great difference between
the psalmody of the Hours, the celebration of the Mass, and the
administration of a sacrament. But, as we know, a comparative
study--and especially one made in the converging lights given by
the different rites of the East and the West--reveals a fundamental
identity of structure, a design in three parts: reading, chant, and
prayer. The Church inherited this pattern from the Morning
Office of the synagogue,[1] and, as Jungmann has shown, it is
"neither arbitrary nor fortuitous, but corresponds to the very
nature of the economy of salvation. Salvation comes from God,
whose revelation we receive when we read His Word. This Word
touches our hearts and awakens in them the echo of the chant.
And, finally, the prayers of the assembled faithful are gathered
together and offered to God by the priest."[2]
Now, we meet the Bible in each of the three parts of this
fundamental liturgical pattern, equally in the liturgy of the Mass,
in the celebration of the other sacraments, and in the Divine
Office.
IN THE MASS
The whole liturgy of the Mass is filled with holy Scripture, both in
the celebration of the Lord's Supper and in that of the Word of
God.
The readings of the Mass are almost exclusively taken from
Scripture.[3] But the arrangement of these readings differs
considerably from one rite to another, and within each rite the
method of reading is not necessarily uniform.
The arrangement of the readings in the various rites has only one
common characteristic: the fact that the liturgy of the Word
always culminates in the proclamation of the Gospel.
Arrangement of the Readings in the Western Rites
Rome ordinarily has only two readings: the Gospel is always
preceded by a preliminary reading. But while this first reading is
in the majority of cases taken from St. Paul, any other reading
from the New Testament or the Old may be substituted. The ferial
Masses of Lent have no reading of an Epistle in the strict sense of
the word, a pericope from the Old Testament always takes its
place. Even though certain Masses, those of the Ember
Wednesdays and of the Wednesday of the Great Scrutiny, have
three readings, they still have no Epistle, since the first two
readings are taken from the Old Testament.
The Masses of the Ember Saturdays have, by way of exception
five readings from the Old Testament before the Epistle; but this
distribution is not a primitive one--the old Roman lectionaries
have either four or six readings;[4] the reading from Daniel and the
Canticle of the Three Young Men is a Gallican addition. In
reducing the number of the readings from twelve to four, the new
Ordo of the Easter Vigil has re-established the practice of the time
of Gregory the Great,[5] causing us to read, according to the best
tradition, first the Law and the Prophets, and then the Apostle
and the Gospel.
In the rites of Milan and Toledo there are usually three readings,
as in the ancient Gallican liturgy. St. Ambrose indicates the
traditional order: "First the Prophet is read, and the Apostle, and
then the Gospel."[6] Various indications, in particular the number
of Collects given in the early substrate of the Gelasian
Sacramentary, allow us to presume that this was also the practice
of the Roman Church before St. Gregory the Great. If this is the
case, then the liturgies of Milan and Toledo are the guardians of
the universal tradition of the West.[7] Any liturgical reform should
be aware of the weight of this testimony.
In the Oriental Rites
The Oriental rites are divided into two great families, that of
Antioch and that of Alexandria.
The Syrian tradition has been maintained in all its purity by the
Syrians of the Oriental rite, who always have four readings, taken
from the Law, the Prophets, the Apostle and the Gospel,
according to the ordinance given in the fourth century by the
Apostolic Constitutions.[8] Here we are in contact with a tradition
which may go back to the apostolic age, since the twofold reading
of the Law and the Prophets formed part of the meetings in the
synagogue on Sabbath mornings (Luke 4:16-31; Acts 13 15;
15:21). The Western Syrians and the Maronites, having once had
the four readings of the primitive arrangement, have now fixed
the number at six (Law, Prophets, Wisdom, Acts, Apostles,
Gospel), although in practice they ordinarily hold only to the last
two. The Armenians read a passage from the Old Testament, then
from the Apostle and the Gospel. The Byzantines read only the
Apostle, followed by the Gospel.
The Egyptian tradition (the Coptic and Ethiopian rites) has
remained faithful to the four readings, but it takes them all from
the New Testament, each one having its own name: Apostolos (St.
Paul), Catholicon (Catholic Epistle), Praxis (Acts), Evangelion
(Gospel).
Whatever the number of readings retained in the various rites
may be, we should note the predominance given to the New
Testament and the special place accorded St. Paul. But for our
purposes here, the method in accordance with which the Bible is
proclaimed in the assembly of the faithful is of equal importance
with the arrangement of the readings.
The Method Followed in the Readings
In the liturgy of the Mass, the Bible is read either continuously or
in selected pericopes.
Continuous reading was the method used in the ancient Church.
The most obvious proof of this fact is to be found in the
voluminous commentaries on the Old and New Testaments left us
by the Fathers, for these are simply transcriptions of their
homilies on the Scripture readings given in the liturgy. From the
fourth century on, we see from the letters and the sermons of St.
Ambrose and St. Augustine that certain Books were reserved to
certain liturgical seasons: at Milan, as at Constantinople, the
Books of Job and Jonas were read during Lent; in Africa, Genesis
took up part of this season, and the Acts of the Apostles were
read during Easter time.[9] But, even though the various Books of
the Bible were attached by preference to a special period of the
year, the president of the assembly was still free to determine the
length of each reading.
It was in the middle of the fifth century, in Gaul, according to the
twofold testimony of Sidonius Apollinarius and Gennadius of
Marseilles, that the first efforts were made to determine the
pericopes proper to given seasons. But the continuous reading
was, naturally, interrupted by great feasts, for which were chosen
the passages most appropriate to the mystery being celebrated.
In our own times, although the reading of selected passages has
become the general rule, nevertheless the ancient practice of
continuous reading has left more than a few traces in the various
rites: among the Syrians, both Eastern and Western, the
continuous and complete reading of each Book of holy Scripture
has remained the normal form. In the Byzantine liturgy, the
reading of the Gospel is distributed throughout the year among
the Sundays of St. John (Easter time), of St. Matthew and of St.
Luke, the Gospel of St. Mark being used on ferias from the twelfth
week of Matthew on.[10]
In the Roman liturgy we still find important traces of the "lectio
continua," and many of us take pleasure in discovering them. For
the Gospels, we can see that St. John was read from the fourth
Sunday of Lent[11] to Pentecost; then St. Luke until the sixteenth
Sunday after Pentecost (eleven pericopes for sixteen Sundays);
and St. Matthew up to Septuagesima (eleven pericopes for
thirteen Sundays per annum). The plan for reading the Epistles of
St. Paul is still clearer, not only in the Sundays after Epiphany
(continuous reading of the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of
Romans), but also from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth Sunday
after Pentecost, where the Epistles follow the exact order of the
New Testament.
Both methods followed by the Church in the liturgical reading of
the Bible imply a theology of Scripture. The "lectio continua"
proclaims the fact that all Scripture is for our instruction, that it
is the Word of God addressed, in a continual present, to the
community of believers; while the selection of pericopes implies
a meaningfulness in Scripture, at once a significance in relation
to some present event and an internal progression of revelation
itself.
Such a selection means bringing out the typology of Scripture: the
account of creation and of the Exodus read during the Easter
Vigil, the great images of salvation recalled during Lent (Daniel,
Suzanna, the Three Young Men, Jonas) nourished the paschal
faith of the primitive Christian community. These images were
reproduced on the walls of the catacombs and of the houses that
served as churches,[12] and later on in mosaic on the cupolas of
baptistries,[13] because the Christians of early times had a living
awareness of the continuity of the mystery of salvation. They
knew that by baptism they themselves had set out on a new
Exodus under the leadership of the new Moses, the Good
Shepherd, Jesus.
The selection of pericopes also brings out the fact of a
progression in revelation, and the fact that the believer must go
through successive stages to arrive at the final goal. So, for
example, in the Milanese rite for the Mass of the second Sunday
after Pentecost the continuity of the divine plan shines out
clearly: the first reading (Num. 20:2-13) shows us Moses drawing
the living water from the rock; then in the Gospel (John 2:1-11)
we see the water changed into wine, thus preparing us for the
consecration in which this wine is transformed into the Blood of
the risen Lord.
The Chants
The Bible furnishes not only the readings of the Mass; the
Christian community looks to it also in most instances for the
texts of the chants by which to respond in some way to God's
Word. We are thinking particularly of the Gradual response and
the processional chants for the Entrance, the Offertory, and the
Communion--and with these we must also include the Alleluia
chant, which, in all rites without exception, accompanies the
Gospel procession.
Among the chants of the Mass, a special place must be given to
the Gradual, not only because of its antiquity--which has given to
the collection of all the chants of the Mass the name of
"Graduale"--but because of the exceptional place that it holds in
the liturgy of the Word. It is above all by this chant that the
Church responds to the Word of God with the Word of God.
"Legenti respondentes cantavimus," as St. Augustine says in one of
his sermons.[14] This is, as a recently published French Missal well
names it, the "chant of meditation."
To understand its complete religious value, we should not think
of it as sung with the lengthy neums by which monastic piety
adorned it, but rather in its primitive form of psalm verses sung
by a deacon or a lector,[15] with the people singing a refrain at
regular intervals, often the acclamation Alleluia. We find
Hippolytus--in the setting of the agape, it is true--already
suggesting that psalms containing the alleluia should be used.[16]
And the Irish Missal of Stowe (seventh to eighth century) contains
as Communion chants a whole series of psalms in which the
alleluia is repeated again and again.[17]
It may be that the Gradual had even an earlier form than this
responsorial one: the simple reading of the psalm, of which we
have the last vestige in the Tract of the Lenten Masses.
We have been speaking of psalmody; it is from the Psalter that,
from the beginning, the Gradual was traditionally taken, and later
on the processional chants as well: "Davidicum psalmum consona
voce cantavimus," St. Leo said to his assembled people.[18] The
processional chants, at least the Introit and the Communion,
follow one another in the Roman rite for the Sundays after
Pentecost according to a kind of continuous psalmody (Ps. 12, 17,
24, 26, 27...for the Introit; Ps. 9, 12, 16, 17...for the Communion).
But the Gradual psalm is always selected for its own sake, as Dom
Hesbert has shown in his "Antiphonale Missarum."[19] We find the
Bible in the chants of the Mass, then, both in the form of "lectio
continua" and in that of selected pericopes. We have already
shown the significance of each method in speaking about the
readings.
We should also note here the fact that, while the majority of Mass
rites use varying formulas in the Communion chants, the ancient
Church had only one Communion psalm, Psalm 33: "Benedicam
Dominum" with the verse "Gustate et videte." This is the testimony
of the "Apostolic Constitutions" (fourth century) and of the Liturgy
of St. James for Syria, of St. Augustine for Africa[20] and St. Cyril
for Jerusalem. This same theme is developed today in the
Armenian Communion chant: "Come to the Lord and be filled with
His light, alleluia: taste and see how good is the Lord, alleluia.[21]
As to the Alleluia chant preceding the Gospel, this is not a kind of
second Gradual, as some liturgists have thought, but an
acclamation accompanying the Gospel procession. Here the
witness of all the Oriental liturgies is conclusive.[22] When, in
Rome, it seemed desirable to add a psalm verse to the Alleluia,
this was always chosen by preference from among the royal
psalms, especially from Psalm 92, "Dominus regnavit." This was
for a long time sung in Greek in remembrance of the Byzantine
origin of the ceremony: it acclaimed the Christ-Basileus who,
under the image of the book of the Gospels, appears, surrounded
with lights and incense, in the midst of the assembled
community. But however moving the rite which accompanies it
may be, the Alleluia verse should never be considered equal in
liturgical importance to the Gradual psalm. And still less should
it be allowed to supplant it in the celebration.
The Prayers
In the prayers of the liturgy of the Mass, the place of the Bible is
less immediately evident but it is no less important. It is true that
the prayers of assembly or those over the offerings, the great
Eucharistic prayer (the Oriental anaphoras, the Roman canon, the
Spanish illatio, the Gallican immolatio), which are the free
creations of the religious genius of a people or of a period, could
have been nourished from sources other than the Bible only.
But it was the Bible that gave them their typology; it is frequently
from meditation on the Scriptural event, on the conjunction
between the Scriptural event of the past and its accomplishment
in the New Covenant, that the prayer is spontaneously born. We
need only remember the "Exsultet," the twelve prayers of the old
Easter Vigil and those of the old Pentecost Vigil, the ancient
Ambrosian Prefaces--which had a place for several centuries in
our Roman-French sacramentaries and which are still the glory of
the Milanese Missal[23]--in order to grasp the full expressiveness
of liturgical prayer nourished by Biblical typology.
But the Eucharistic prayer takes far more than its typology from
the Bible. It places itself in the stream of the history of salvation,
the stages of which are described for us in the Bible.
Having sung the greatness and holiness of God the Father, the
Son and the Spirit, uniting the voice of the Church with that of
the angels whom Isaias heard crying the Sanctus; having
celebrated the divine economy of the Old Covenant, God's choice
of a people as His own, the epic of the Exodus and the entrance
into the Promised Land, the Oriental anaphoras--and our own
Roman canon in its succession of proper Prefaces and
Communicantes--sing the mystery of the redemptive incarnation.
Then they use the very words of the Gospels and St. Paul to
consecrate the bread and wine and to recall the command of the
Lord to celebrate His memorial until He returns.[24]
And, finally, the prex eucharistica places the Sacrifice of the New
Covenant in the great sacrificial history of redeemed humanity, in
a mighty synthesis that goes from Genesis to the Apocalypse,
from the sacrifice of Abel the Just to the offering made by the
hands of the angel on the golden altar of heaven.
And all this is carried out in a Biblical way, in a long prayer of
blessing and thanksgiving borrowed from the Jewish ritual of the
Berakha of the Table.[25] Here appear successively the song of
Moses at the Exodus (Ex. 15:1-8), Nehemias' prayer of
supplication (9:5-37), and the ardent thanksgiving of St. Paul at
the beginning of the Epistle to the Ephesians. If the Roman canon
has channeled its prayer in the stylistic forms of the ancient
pagan cult of Rome, the sap that goes through them is
nonetheless new. It antedates the unknown master of the fourth
century who fixed its rhythms; it comes from the people of the
Bible. It was when he opened the Missal at the prayer "Supra quae
propitio" that Pius XI spoke that phrase which illuminates our
whole liturgy and our whole religious history: "Spiritually, we are
Semites."[26]
Everywhere in our Missal--in its readings, chants, prayers--we
find the Bible. And the Mass, the climax of the liturgy, is not an
exceptional example of the coming together of Scripture and
liturgy. This is true of the celebration of the other sacraments as
well.
IN THE LITURGY OF THE SACRAMENTS
To limit the scope of our report, we shall be content to indicate
(1) how the prayers accompanying the sacramental rites have
been built up from the Bible, taking baptism, Orders, and
marriage as examples; and (2) the place given to Biblical readings
by the Oriental liturgies in the celebration of the sacraments.
The Biblical Typology of the Sacramental Rites in the Roman
liturgy
The liturgy of baptism reveals all its riches only to the man who
studies it from the viewpoint of the ordo for the baptism of
adults, placing himself in the context of the Lenten liturgy and
the Easter Vigil.[27] When, during the exorcisms, the priest
addresses those whom he calls "children of the promise," it is in
order to pray on their behalf to the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, recalling the deliverance from Egypt, Mount Sinai, and the
angel protecting the people on their march across the desert.[28]
But it is especially during the holy night, in the prayer
consecrating the water, that the continuity of the two Covenants
is clearly shown. To the primordial waters on which rested the
Spirit, to the four rivers of the earthly paradise, to the waters of
the flood and the water springing from the rock to quench the
people's thirst, the Lord Jesus communicated a life-giving power
by receiving baptism from John, by changing water into wine at
Cana, by walking on the waves of the lake, by causing water and
blood to flow forth from His side opened on the Cross, by
sending His apostles to baptize all nations and thus to prepare
the manifestation of the holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem, which
will be watered, like a new paradise, by the rushing rivers of life.
What a magnificent synthesis of Biblical theology, the realism of
which should not escape our notice: in baptism these are the
wonderful works of God which are renewed for him who enters
the ranks of the redeemed.[29]
The meaning of the sacrament of Orders, by which the three
degrees of the sacred hierarchy are established, is revealed in the
consecratory prayers for a bishop, for priests, and for deacons by
a continual reference to Biblical typology: high priest of the New
Covenant, leader of the new people of God, the bishop is a new
Aaron and a new Moses; the fullness of the Spirit is conferred
upon him by a spiritual anointing, of which the anointing of
Aaron was the image, and the sumptuous vestments of the
Hebrew high priest were but the symbol of the holiness of the
episcopate. The image that hovers over the elect of the Lord is
that of the glory of Yahweh (consecratory prayer of the bishop).
Again, as Aaron associated his two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, in
his priestly office (Num. 3:4); as Moses set apart seventy-two
elders of Israel to whom God communicated His spirit to govern
the people (Num. 11:16-25); as the apostles chose men to
collaborate with them--so the bishop can associate with himself a
college of priests of the second order, preachers of the second
rank, who will be his co-workers in the divine service and in the
government of the Church (consecratory prayer of priests). And
finally, as in former times the Lord chose the sons of Levi to
watch faithfully over the mysterious works of His house, so today
the pontiff lays his hands on the men who are to be his ministers
at the altar and the administrators of his own house (prayer
consecrating deacons).
Thus, the hierarchy of the Church, in its three sacred Orders, is
seen to arise from the depths of Exodus. The assembly in which it
carries out its ministry here and now is no longer the assembly of
the desert, gathered around the Tabernacle; it is the assembly of
the new people of God, united around the altar to take part in the
Banquet of the Lord.
Yet the Church never forgets the whole continuity in which her
own history is included. To assure ourselves of this fact, we need
only reread in the Roman "Pontificale" the beginning of the
famous synodal admonition which may be the work of St.
Caesarius of Arles: "Beloved brothers and priests of the Lord," the
bishop says to those with whom he has just celebrated the
Eucharist, "you are the co-workers of our Order.[30] We ourselves,
in spite of our unworthiness, hold the place of Aaron; you, that of
Eleazar and Ithamar. We carry on the mission of the twelve
apostles; you continue that of the seventy-two disciples. We are
your shepherds, and you are the shepherds of the souls that have
been entrusted to you."[31]
Christian marriage also is placed in the context of the history of
salvation, which began with the first human couple and will be
completed in the wedding-feast of the Lamb. We find again in the
liturgy of marriage the recalling of the Old Covenant, with Adam
and Eve established in the indissoluble unity of those who are
"two in one single flesh,"[32] receiving the blessing of fruitfulness
which the Lord would never revoke, neither after the fall nor in
the flood. And the Old Covenant is here also with the holy women
of the patriarchal period, Sara, Rebecca, Rachel--types of woman
as both wife and mother;[33] with Tobias and the second Sara;[34]
with the great images of the nuptial love of God for His people,
and of human happiness pictured in the concrete images of
abundance and fruitfulness in family life.[35]
But beyond the Old Covenant, the New gives to the union of man
and wife its highest dignity by making it the sign of the union
between Christ and His Church.[36] Although it has less of a lyric
quality than the liturgy of Antioch, that of Rome makes its velatio
nuptualis a kind of Canticle of Canticles, the themes of which
should echo indefinitely in Christian family life.
From baptism to holy Orders and marriage, then, the liturgy of
the sacraments opens out to us their true nature: their source is
the death and resurrection of Christ, and at the same time they
realize a stage in the plan of God's love, which began in paradise
with the creation and the fall and is being carried out all through
the ages until the Lord's return.
The Biblical Readings in the Sacramental Rites of the Orient
The East has retained more than we the communal character of
the liturgical celebration. This fact is obvious in the case of the
Divine Office, the obligation of which is still attached to a parish
or monastic community and not to individuals. It is true also of
the administration of the sacraments, including that of the
anointing of the sick. Many of us were deeply moved in recent
years by the accounts of the death of Mar Ivanios (1953) and of
Mar Severios (1955), the two great bishops of the Syro-Malabar
rite, who each passed from this world to God in the midst of a
true liturgical celebration in which each was the principal actor
since he was still the pontiff, as in the old accounts of saintly
deaths. And this communal celebration of the sacraments always
takes place in the context of a true liturgy of the Word. We shall
content ourselves with giving a few examples.
Christian initiation.[37] The East has remained faithful, in its
liturgical texts if not always in actual practice, to the continuous
rite of Christian initiation: all the rites, with the exception of the
Chaldean, assume that after baptism by immersion and
confirmation, the neophyte will receive the Eucharist. "If the
candidate is a very little child," states the Byzantine Ordo, "he
should be communicated under the species of wine only." And so
it is not astonishing to find that the baptismal rites still take the
place of the Mass of the Catechumens, as they did in the times of
St. Justin and Hippolytus.
After the rites of the catechumenate (signation, exorcisms,
renunciation of Satan, and profession of faith), everyone goes
into the baptistry. There, in all the rites except the Byzantine,
readings are given before the priest blesses the water.[38] In the
Byzantine rite the readings take place after confirmation, in the
sanctuary, immediately before the celebration of the divine
Liturgy. The pericopes are taken especially from the teaching of
St. Paul on baptism (Rom. 6:1-8), from the conversation of Jesus
with Nicodemus (John 3:1-8), and from the commission given to
the apostles to baptize all nations (Matt. 28:16-20).
Marriage.[39] Only the Armenians and the Ethiopians give the
nuptial blessing during the Mass, but all the rites accompany the
celebration of the espousals and of the crowning with a certain
number of Biblical readings. The Byzantines content themselves
with two (Eph. 5:20-23 and John 2:1-11). The Copts have a double
series for Sunday and for weekdays. And the Armenians have no
less than seventeen readings, the mere naming of which
(although certain pericopes are repeated) could furnish the
outlines of a solid Biblical theology of marriage. Here is the list:
For the espousals: Prov. 9: 12-17; Cant. 8; 14; Osee 14:6-10; Is.
27:11-13; Gal. 4:2-7, 4:13; Luke 1:26-28.
For the blessing of the bride's robe: Is. 61:10--62:3; 1 Pet. 3:1-9;
John 2:1-11.
For the crowning (the marriage properly so called): Gen. 1:26-27;
Gen. 2:21-24; Is. 61:9--62: 6; Eph. 5:11-23; Matt. 19:2-9.
For the laying aside of the crown: Osee 14:6-8; 1 Tim. 2:9-15; John
2:1-11.
The Anointing of the Sick.[40] The rite of anointing is very long.
With the Syrians it lasts about two hours. In all the rites, the
participation of several priests is required if possible, according
to the text of St. James: "Is anyone sick among you? Let him call
in the priests of the Church" (James 5:14). In the Byzantine rite
the Office of the Holy Oil is entrusted to seven priests, each of
whom gives an anointing. And each of these is accompanied by
two readings, an Epistle and a Gospel. Here again the choice is
interesting as giving a Biblical light on the theology of the
anointing of the sick.
1st anointing: James 5:10-16; Luke 10:25-37 (the Good Samaritan).
2nd anointing: Rom. 16:1-7; Luke 19:1-10 (the meal with
Zaccheus).
5th anointing: 2 Cor. 1:8-11; Matt. 25:1-13 (parable of the ten
virgins).
6th anointing: Gal. 5:22--6:2; Matt. 15:21-28 (the daughter of the
Canaanite woman).
7th anointing: 1 Thess. 5:14-23; Matt. 9:9-13 (the meal with Levi).
Our own ritual of the visiting of the sick, which is so beautiful
and so little used, would be still further enriched if all these texts
were included, bringing their message of hope and peace.
IN THE DIVINE OFFICE
Everyone knows, of course, that in all the rites the Bible furnishes
the very texture of the Divine Office with its psalmody, the
singing of the canticles of the Old and New Testaments, and the
continuous reading of the holy Books. We shall, therefore, make
only two observations here on the subject of the relationship
between the Bible and the Office.
The Place of the Biblical Readings in the Office
The Roman Office is typically monastic. This is why, following
the ordinance of the Rule of St. Benedict, all the readings of any
length are included in the Office for the end of the night, in the
nocturns of the vigil. The day Hours, including Lauds and
Vespers, have only "Little Chapters" that are mere reminders.
By contrast, the Oriental Office, retaining a far more clearly
marked popular structure, gives its Scripture readings at the
Hours in which the people are invited to participate: Lauds in the
morning; Vespers in the evening; and on the vigils of the great
feasts, vigils which are days of fasting and more intense prayer,
there are readings at the Hours of Prime, Terce, Sext and None,
which are called on these days the "Great Hours." This, at least, is
the Byzantine tradition, which is echoed to a certain extent by the
liturgies of Milan and Toledo. Thus the Spanish Breviary indicates
four readings for Terce and None, and one reading for Sext on
each of the three days of the fast preceding Epiphany.[41]
Let us take, for example, the feast of Epiphany itself. In the
Byzantine rite, the holy theophanies of our Lord are preceded by
a vigil with obligatory fasting. Each of the Great Hours of the day
has three readings (Prophecy, New Testament, Gospel); then in
the evening come the Vespers of the feast. This includes,
together with the usual psalmody and the "lucernarium," fifteen
readings (thirteen from the Old Testament, followed by St. Paul
and the Gospel) and is completed by the solemn celebration of
the Liturgy of St. Basil. The Liturgy itself is followed by the
blessing of the water, which includes five readings.[42]
Although the Milanese liturgy does not display such profusion,
somewhat overwhelming for Latins, it does possess for the
evening of January 5 a Vesper Office of similar structure: the
Office of the "lucernarium" followed by four readings with their
responsorial psalms, and by the Mass of the vigil, after which the
psalmody of Vespers is continued.[43]
We might note that, although the Church always gives a large
place in the Divine Office to the reading of the Bible, the place for
this reading is not the same in all rites, and it is not self-evident
that the one accorded to it in the Roman rite is the best. We could
quite well conceive of its insertion at the end of the psalmody of
Vespers; here it would afford the best form of evening prayer for
the Christian community and could serve as the prelude to
evening Mass.
The Biblical Inspiration of the Prayers
Unfortunately, the Roman rite has chosen a facile solution to the
question of prayers in the Office, ending all the Hours except
Prime and Compline with the Collect of the Mass. We are far from
the wealth of the Milanese Office, which introduces up to five
proper prayers into the psalmody of Vespers and has for each of
the Hours of the day a prayer asking for the special grace
connected with that Hour: "...as at the third hour Thou didst
strengthen the apostles of Thy Son by the visitation of the Holy
Spirit..."; "...who didst will that Thy Son should ascend the cross
at the sixth hour..."; "...who didst command that the thief who
professed his faith on the gibbet of the cross should at the ninth
hour pass over to paradise...."[44]
Our Office, however, had an earlier state in which flowered a
prayer made up entirely of psalmody and the Biblical background
of the Hour being celebrated. We have two important witnesses to
this. First, the Psalter Collects. In accordance with the tradition of
the Egyptian monks, which was accepted from the fourth century
on into the practice of the Churches of the West, after each psalm
came a brief pause for prayer (the Gloria Patri was born of this
custom). Then at the end of this silent prayer the president of the
assembly gathered the whole Christian substance of the psalm
that had just been heard and made it into a Collect.
We still possess three series of these psalm-prayers, which have
an incomparable value in giving a Christian understanding of the
Psalter. For example, consider the prayer in the Roman series
concluding Psalm 112, "Laudate pueri":[45] "Laudantes benedictum
nomen tuum omnipotens Deus, rogamus ut nos in sinum matris
ecclesiae collocatos, caritatis tuae facias stabilitate connecti.
Per...." "Praising Thy blessed Name, almighty God, we pray that
we who are gathered together in the bosom of our mother, the
Church, may be bound together in the firm bond of Thy love.
Through Christ...."
With the psalm-prayers of the sixth century, we might also recall
the morning and evening prayers of the sacramentaries which
may date from the same period. These are the prayers with which
the president of the assembly concluded the morning and
evening gatherings of the faithful. Such, for example, after those
of the Leonine Sacramentary, are the orationes ad Matutinas (3,
94), the orationes ad Vesperum (3, 85), and the twenty-five
orationes paschales vespertinales (1, 56) of the Gelasian
Sacramentary.
All are filled with echoes of the Bible: "Efface, we pray Thee, O
Lord, the notice of our guilt inscribed by the law of sin, which
Thou hast made void for us in the paschal mystery by the
resurrection of Thy Son...." "O Lord, true Light and Author of light,
we pray Thee that Thou wouldst dispel the darkness of our vices
and enlighten us with the light of virtues...." "Give light, we pray
Thee, O Lord, to our darkness, and in Thy kindness drive away all
attacks of the night."[46]
The Gregorian Sacramentary also has an analogous series of
orationes matutinales, orationes vespertinales, and orationes
cotidianae,[47] which have disappeared in its successors of the
ninth and tenth centuries. The abandonment of these prayers at
the time when the first abridgments of the Office, the first
"Breviaries," were being developed has meant an impoverishment
of the Roman liturgy. Here again, may we express the desire that
these documents, born of the piety of the contemporaries of St.
Benedict, of St. Caesarius of Arles, or of St. Isidore of Seville, may
emerge from the domain of specialists and once more be used to
enrich the official prayer of the Church.
We have now carried out an investigation of the liturgical books
of the East and West, sufficiently extensive in both time and
space: quod semper, quod ubique. And this has served amply to
justify our initial statement: the formularies of the Catholic
liturgy are taken from Biblical texts. It remains now to show,
more briefly, how this sacred text, gathered from the Bible in the
liturgical formularies, is welcomed as a living Word in the very
act of celebration.
THE WORD OF GOD IN THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATION
The liturgical celebration manifests the mystery of the Word of
God and gives it its highest degree of effectiveness. The mystery
of the Word is essentially that of a living presence: the Word of
God received in the Bible is not presented to us as a document
taken from the archives, as would be, for instance, the testament
of Richelieu or the record of the trial of St. Joan, but as a Word
transmitted to us here and now by the messenger of the living
God. And it is precisely in the liturgical proclamation of the Word
of God that this twofold actualization takes place, of the
messenger and of the message.
The Messenger as Present in our Midst
God speaks to me here and now through His messenger. This
living messenger is, above all, the Apostle. In the oldest
description that we possess of the liturgical assembly, that of St.
Justin (about the year 150), the author says that "the recollections
of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read," thus
giving the first place to the apostolic message.
When we examined the organization of the readings in the
different rites, we were able to establish the fact of the
universality of the Gospel reading and also of the exceptional
place given to the reading of the New Testament, especially of St.
Paul. When the Old Testament is included in the readings, it is
not read for itself or as one more sacred text; it has its place in
virtue of its prophetic character and the light shed on it by the
New Testament. In the non-Roman liturgies, the Old Testament
readings are nearly always explicitly commented on by the
apostolic reading that follows.
And all this leads us to take cognizance of the living presence of
the apostle in the midst of the Christian community. "In the
organization of the Church, we are connected with Christ by the
apostles; and the Church, founded on them, causes us to hear
their voice when she instructs us, when she repeats to us the
good news they proclaimed."[48] "The apostles were, in fact, the
first to break the Eucharistic bread in Christian gatherings, and
their presence was replaced, when they were no longer on earth,
by the reading of their writings, which were to 'bring them back,'
to render them present, so to say, in the midst of the community
gathered round the altar."[49]
This living presence of the apostle in the midst of the assembled
community gives an increased importance to the appeal to their
intercession: "May the prayer of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John be
a wall of defense to our souls," sings the choir in the Chaldean
liturgy;[50] after the reading of the "Catholicon," the Copts have the
following prayer "O Lord our God who has revealed to us by Thy
holy apostles the mystery of Thy Gospel, which is the glory of
Thy Christ, and who has entrusted to them, according to the
infinite riches of Thy grace, the work of preaching to all nations
the incomprehensible treasures of Thy mercy: we pray Thee,
make us worthy to share in their lot and in their inheritance.
Grant that we may always walk in their footsteps, imitate their
struggles, and share in the tribulations that they underwent for
the cause of justice."[51]
The living presence of the apostle--but, above all, through his
mediation, the living presence of Him who sent the apostle,
Christ Himself.... To realize this we need only consider the
honors paid to the Gospel.
In the Roman Rite. In the entrance procession of a pontifical Mass,
the book of the Gospels is carried by the subdeacon; then the
bishop places it on the altar, after he has kissed the altar itself.[52]
But this is only a vestige of the ancient liturgy; then the book of
Gospels was carried to the altar in a solemn entrance procession,
preceding that of the bishop, by one or more acolytes wearing
chasubles; when they had come into the sanctuary, a subdeacon
who had accompanied them received the book and placed it on
the altar: "eum desuper planeta illius suscipiens, manibus suis
honorifice super altare ponat."[53] And the book thus remained on
the altar until the moment when the deacon took it up in order to
sing the Gospel.
The procession to the ambo has great majesty in the description
given in the Ordo of the seventh century:[54] two acolytes carry
torches and three subdeacons in charge of the incensorium walk
ahead of the deacon who has kissed the book before taking it
from the altar. All, of course are standing, while the choir sings
the Alleluia and a psalm verse taken from the royal psalms. Here
we have, in fact, a theophany, an appearance of Christ the King,
the Son of God, of one substance with the Father, in the midst of
the assembly. The honors paid to Him are those that were
rendered to the imperial majesty.
Catholic faith has always thus treated the book of the Gospels as
the equivalent of the living Person of the Lord. This is the reason
why, from the Council of Ephesus to that of the Vatican the book
of Gospels has presided over the council meetings. St. Cyril of
Alexandria gives witness to this: "The holy Synod assembled
together in the church gave Christ, as it were, membership in and
the presidency of the Council. For the venerable Gospel was
placed upon a holy throne."[55] At the end of the seventh century
Pseudo-Germain of Paris wrote: "The procession of the holy
Gospel comes forth like the power of Christ triumphant over
death, with the aforesaid chanting and with seven lighted
candles...going up into the opposite ambo...while the clergy cry
out: Glory to Thee, O Lord."[56]
When the deacon has placed the book of Gospels on the desk of
the ambo, the announcement that he makes of God's Word is
hailed, not only by the clergy present, but by all the people:
"Gloria tibi, Domine!" Nowadays, after the singing of the pericope,
the book is reverently carried by the subdeacon to the celebrant
for him to kiss; but in former times it was presented to all:
"tenens ante pectus suum super planetum porrigit osculandum
omnibus." And the book is finally replaced carefully in its case
("deinde ponitur in capsa"), for now the liturgy of the Word is to
be followed by that of the Banquet of the Lord.
In the Oriental Rites. These yield nothing to the Roman liturgy in
the homage they give to the Gospel. In his day, St. Jerome
admired the practice, in all the Eastern Churches, of lighting
candles at the reading of the Gospel, even though the sun had
already risen.[57] As we all know, in the Byzantine rites the book is
carried solemnly to the altar in a real procession, the Byzantine
"Little Entrance," which corresponds to the Great Entrance or
procession with the offerings. The Syrian rite of Antioch is
content to have a procession with the book around the altar, an
obvious vestige of the ancient entrance procession. The
procession to the ambo--or, at least, the presentation of the
Gospel when it is sung directly on the threshold of the sanctuary-
-is, in all the rites, similar to that of the Roman: lights, incense,
singing of the Alleluia.
In the majority of the rites (Coptic, Eastern and Western Syrian,
Armenian) the singing of the Gospel is reserved to the celebrant
priest or bishop. The role of the deacon is to invite the people to
welcome the Word of the Lord: "Silence!" says the Syrian deacon,
"with fear and purity let us hear the message of the living words
of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which is read in our
presence."[58] In the Armenian rite, to the invitation of the deacon:
Proschume (Be attentive), the people answer: "It is God who
speaks."[59]
The Message as Given Here and Now
It is God who speaks, and it is today that He speaks to His people
gathered together in response to His call. Here we are at the very
heart of the mystery of the Word proclaimed in the liturgy.
Theologians still have much to tell us concerning the mode of
this today which is realized in the mystery of Christian worship
and concerning the sacramental efficacy of the liturgical
celebration affirmed so explicitly in the decree "Maxima
Redemptoris"; but the fact dominating all the controversies of the
various schools is the calm use that the Church has always made,
throughout the entire liturgical year, in the proclamation of the
Word of God and in the celebration of her mysteries, of the word
today.
It is quite certain that in hearing the call of the Apostle on the
first Sunday of Lent: "Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold,
now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2), we have no temptation to
transport ourselves back nineteen hundred years; it is today that
we are invited to begin our paschal ascent to Jerusalem, to enter
into the combat with Satan, as St. Leo the Great explains to his
flock gathered in the Lateran.[60] In the same way, then, when on
Palm Sunday we take part in the procession after the singing of
the Gospel which announces the triumphal entry of Jesus into
Jerusalem, or when, at the evening Mass on Holy Thursday, the
celebrant reproduces the Gospel scene by washing the feet of
twelve of his brethren, this is not an evocation of the past, it is
not a play--it is today.
Intimately connected with the proclamation of the Word of God,
making but one reality with it, the priestly homily has, moreover,
as its purpose to introduce us into this today by opening our
souls to the Word we have listened to, by planting that Word in
the very heart of our spiritual needs, and, frequently, by bringing
to light the matrix of meaning that otherwise would seem strange
to many by reason of its different cultural context. The problem
of the proclamation of the Word of God in a living language has
become today a most acute one in the Latin Church. But let us not
forget that the problem is twofold: the problem of translation, but
also the problem of preaching. The two problems are indissolubly
bound up with one another in the proclamation of the Word if we
desire that it be received today as a fruitful seed.
The efficacy and the actuality of the living Word reach their
maximum degree of realization on the further side of the
proclamation itself, in the sacramental action. And this is true not
only because "the Word of God is the proclamation in the Church
of the mystery of salvation realized in the Eucharist,"[61] but
because the words of Jesus gathered up in the Gospel, announced
to the people in the Epistle of Holy Thursday, are assumed anew
by the Lord as His personal action when the priest pronounces
over the bread and wine the words of consecration. Here the
Word of God is actio Christi, as Pope Pius XII reminded us in his
address closing the Assisi Congress.[62]
Without wishing to anticipate the chapters to come, which will
bring out this fundamental relationship of the sacrament to the
Word, it is, nevertheless, indispensable for us to discover the
twofold climax of the evangelical liturgy and the Eucharistic
liturgy in this twofold presence of Christ manifested in the
proclamation of the Gospel and in the consecration of the
offerings, in order to understand the internal progress of the
celebration of the Mass, and the permanence of the Word of God
at the very moment when it is by its means that a new mode of
the presence of the risen Lord in the assembly of the faithful is to
be realized.
For it is precisely here, in the sacramental actualization of the
living Word of God, that the liturgy opens out to us the mystery
of the Scriptures, as did the Lord to the two disciples at Emmaus
at the moment when He was about to sit down with them at table
and break the bread for them. As it is in the liturgy of the Word
that the progressive revelation of the Old Testament receives its
definitive clarification in the light cast on it by the teaching of
the apostles and by that of the Lord, the celebration of baptism or
the Eucharist causes us to enter into a sacred history which
continues through the ages until the Lord shall return in the
manifestation of His glory.
In this perspective we can easily understand the indestructible
bond that the will of the Lord and the profound life of the Church
have woven between Bible and liturgy, and how it is that the
Biblical renewal and the liturgical renewal can make progress
only if they proceed together, each referring to the other so as to
bring out all its own potentialities. What kind of a liturgical
celebration would that be in which the Biblical readings remained
incomprehensible to the understanding of the congregation, in
which the Psalter was a sealed book and could no longer give to
the prayer of the people its richest expression, in which the
Exodus meant no more than a vague memory, in which the sacred
names of Jerusalem and Sion awakened no echoes in our hearts
with their wealth of hope and love? There can be no authentic
liturgical life without the exultant discovery of the message
carried by the Book which God has put into our hands.
But, if Christian specialists in Biblical studies search the caves at
Qumran, if they devote themselves to discovering the literary
genre of each inspired Book, bringing out its structure, from
Genesis to Apocalypse, they are well aware that they are far more
than mere historians of the past, that the whole reason for the
existence of the Books, which these scholars are now restoring to
the Church in the freshness of their first flowering, is to be
received in a community of the faithful, to be welcomed with the
fervor with which the Jews heard the scribe Esdras read them the
Law, to be accepted with the same Amen (Neh. 8:6).
ENDNOTES
1. A. Baumstark, "Comparative Liturgy" (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1955).
2. J. A. Jungmann, "Des lois de la celebration liturgique" (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1956).
3. The Gallican and Spanish liturgies often reserved the first reading of the Mass for the
"Passiones" of the martyrs. The lectionary of Luxeuil witnesses to this usage for the feast of the
apostles Peter and Paul (edition by Dom Salmon, Rome, 1944, p. 181.) See the article by de
Gaiffier, "La lecture des Actes des Martyrs dans la priers liturgique en Occident," "Analecta
Bollandiana," 1954, pp. 134-166.
4. According to the witness of the "Comes" of Wurzburg (end of the sixth century), published by
G. Morin, "Le plus ancien Comes ou le lectionaire de l'Eglise romaine," in "Revue benedictine,"
1910, pp. 41-74, reproduced with some errors in the DACL, 8, col. 2284-2302.
5. The fourth reading is not that indicated in the Gregorian Sacramentary (Wilson edition, p.
55), but that given in the appendix to Ordo XXVIII (M. Andrieu, "Les ordines romani," 3, p. 412),
which is equally Roman.
6. Ambrose of Milan, "In psalmum" CXVIII, 17, 10, PL 15, col. 1443: "Prius propheta legitur, et
apostolus, et sic evanglium." For the system of readings in use in Toledo, see G. Morin, "Liber
comicus quo Toletana Ecclesia ante annos mille et ducentos utebatur" (Maredsous, 1893).
7. Africa seems to be an exception. When St. Augustine speaks of tres lectiones, he includes the
psalm as one of them: "Hoc de apostolica lectione percepimus, deinde cantavimus psalmum, post
haec evangelica lection, has tres lectiones pertractavimus" (Sermon 176).
8. The best edition is to be found in Funk, "Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum"
(Paderborn, 1905), Vol. I.
9. References in the DACL, 5, col. 248-249. See also Baumstark, op. cit.
10. N. Nilles, "Kalendarium manuale utriusque Ecclesiae" (Ratisbonne, 1897), 2, pp. 445-459.
11. The day on which the Roman Lent probably began before the year 380. See A. Chavasse, "La
preparation de la Paque a Rome avant le Ve. Siecle," Melanges Chaine, pp. 67-76.
12. At Doura-Europos, in the third-century baptistry, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, the
Good Shepherd can be seen; cf. Jean de Lassus, "Sanctuaires chretiens en Syrie" (Paris, 1944), p.
11. This study is summarized by the author in DACL, 15, col. 1864.
13. L. de Bruyne, "La decoration des baptisteres paleochretiens," in "Miscellanea liturgica in
honoren L. Cuniberti Mohlberg" ( Rome, 1948), IV, pp. 189-220.
14. St. Augustine, "Enarrationes super psalmos," in Psalm. 40, 1.
15. "Cantor cum cantatorio ascendit et dicit responsum" ("Ordo Primus," n. 57, ed. Andrieu, IX, p.
86). During the paschal night it was the same lector who read in Latin both the Lesson and the
Canticle before giving place to a lector in Greek. (Appendix to Ordo 28, ed. Andrieu, III, p. 412.
16. Hippolytus of Rome, "La tradition apostolique," n. 26, ed. Botte, "Sources chretiennes," II
(Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1946), p. 61.
17. G. H. Warner, The Stowe Missal (London, 1915), p. 18.
18. Leo the Great, "Sermo 3 de Natali ipsius," PL 54, col. 45.
19. R. J. Hesbert, "Antiphonale Missarum sextuplex" (Brussels-Paris, 1935), p. 88.
20. "Communion" (Rite and antiphon of), in DACL, 3, col. 2428-2429.
21. "Liturgie de la Messe armenienne" (Venice, 1939), p. 68.
22. The whole picture is given in A. Raes, "Introductio in liturgiam orientalem" (Rome, 1947),
pp. 78-79.
23. For example, in Alcuin's supplement to the Gregorian Sacramentary, the prefaces of the
forty-day fast, of the woman of Samaria, of the man born blind, of Lazarus, in H. A. Wilson,
"The Gregorian Sacramentary" (London, 1915), pp. 265-267; or in the "Liber Sacramentorum"
edited by Dom Menard, PL 78, col. 68-72.
24. An excellent selection of Oriental anaphoras translated into French can be found in the two
works of Adalbert Hamman, "Prieres des premiers chretiens" (Paris, 1952) and "Prieres
eucharistiques des premiers siecles" (Paris, 1957).
25. See O. Casel, "Le Memorial du Seigneur" (Paris, 1945), pp. 23-50, and L. Bouyer, "Liturgical
Piety" (Notre Dame University Press, 1955), pp. 118-126.
26. Discourse addressed to pilgrims of the "Radio catholique belge," Sept. 6, 1938. The text is
given in "Documentation catholique," Dec. 5, 1938, col. 1460, and is reprinted in A. Croegaert,
"Les rites et prieres du saint sacrifice de la Messe" (Malines, 1949), 3, pp. 217-218.
27. It is the Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Reg. 316) that present the ancient context most
faithfully, with its three Sunday scrutinies so perfectly adapted to the needs of an adult
catechumenate.
29. In this whole picture of the typology of water we should not fail to include the prayer:
"Sanctifare per verbum Dei unda caelestis" of the Roman "Pontificale" (Gregorian preparation of
the water in the rite for the Dedication), which is common to the three Western rites and comes
directly from St. Ambrose, DACL, 2, col. 693-694.
30. Referring to the "Ordo episcoporum," which Dom Botte presents in "Etudes sur le sacrament
de l'Ordre" (Paris, 1957), pp. 107-118.
31. "Pontificale Romanum, Ordo ad Synodum." G. Morin has identified the author of the synodal
admonition in the "Revue benedictine," 1892, pp. 99-108, a study partially reproduced in DACL,
6, col. 576-579.
32. Gospel of the Mass pro sponsis.
33. Prayer of the nuptial blessing.
34. Introit of the Mass pro sponsis.
35. Gradual, Tract, Communion antiphon of the Mass pro sponsis.
36. Epistle of the Mass and prayer of the nuptial blessing.
37. Two Oriental rituals of Christian initiation are available to the reader of French: the
Byzantine ritual in "La Priere des Eglises de rite byzantin" (Chevetogne, 1937), 1, pp. 323-356;
the Syrian ritual of Antioch in "L'Orient syrien," 1956, pp. 156-185.
38. For each baptism the Oriental priest blessed the oil of catechumens and the water, as he
also blesses oil of the sick each time this sacrament is to be administered. Only the holy chrism,
blessed by the patriarch, is conserved like the Eucharist.
39. The complete French text of all the Oriental rituals for marriage can be found in A. Raes, "Le
Mariage dans les Eglises d'Orient" (Chevetogne, 1958).
40. The French text of the Byzantine Ordo is given in "La Priere des Eglises de rite byzantin," 1,
pp. 417-447.
41. "Breviarium gothicum," PL, 86, col. 150-174.
42. The French text is given in "La Priere des Eglises de rite byzantin," 2, pp. 143-178.
43. "Liber vesperalis juxta ritum santae Ecclesiae Mediolanensis" (Rome, 1939), pp. 141-147, and
"Missale ambrosianum" (Milan, 1902).
44. "Diurnale ambrosianum" (Milan, 1862): "ut, sicut hora tertia Apostolos Filii tui visitatione
Sancti Spiritus confirmasti...ut qui, hor diei sexta, Filium tuum crucem ascendere voluisti...qui,
hora nona, in crucis patibulo latronem confitentem paradisi transire jussisti...."
45. L. Brou, "The Psalter Collects" (London, 1949).
46. The ancient Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Reg. 316): "Dele, quaesumus, Domine, conscriptum
peccati lege chirographum: quod in nobis Paschali mysterio per Resurrectionem tui Filii
vauasti.... Te lucem veram et lucis Auctroem, Domine, deprecamur: ut digneris a nobis tenebras
epellere vitiorum et clarificare nos luce virtutum.... Illumina, quaesumus, Domine, tenebras
nostras; et totius noctis insidias repelle propitius." For the morning and evening prayers of the
Leonine Sacramentary, see the edition of Mohlberg, "Sacramentarium Veronese," nos. 587-593.
47. Ed. Wilson, "The Gregorian Sacramentary," Ic., pp. 126-136.
48. O. Rousseau, "Pastoral Liturgy and the Eastern Liturgies," "The Assis Papers" (Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1957), p. 117.
49. Ibid.
50. "Liturgie de la sainte Messe selon le rite chaldeen" (Paris, 1937), p. 52.
51. "Liturgie copte de saint Basil," in "Petit Paroissien des Liturgies orientales" (Harissa: Lebanon,
1941), p. 454.
53. "Ordo Primus," nos. 30-31, ed. Andrieu, I.c., p. 77.
54. Ibid., nos. 59-60.
55. Cyril of Alexandria, "Apology to the Emperor Theodosius," PG 76, 471. Many other
references may be found in A. Croegaert, op. cit., 1, p. 560.
56. PL 72, col. 91.
57. Per totas Orientis ecclesias, quando legendum est evangelium, accenduntur luminaria, jam
sole rutilante (Adversus Vigilantium).
58. "La liturgie syrienne, Anaphora des Douze Apotres" (Paris, 1950), p. 35.
59. "Liturgie de la messe armenienne" (Venice, 1939), p. 37.
60. Leo the Great, "Sermons," 2, Serm. 27 (Paris, 1957), p. 33.
61. "Directoire pour la pastorale de las Messe," n. 1.
62. "The Assisi Papers" (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1957), p. 229ff.
CHAPTER 2: THE SACRAMENTS AND THE HISTORY OF
SALVATION
Rev. Jean Danielou, S.J.
THERE ARE, of course, many aspects under which we may
consider the relations between the Bible and the liturgy. First of
all, as we saw in the previous chapter, there is the fact of the
importance given to Biblical texts in the ceremonies of the
liturgy; in particular, the first part of the Mass is a liturgy of the
Word, the essential content of which is the reading of texts from
the Old and New Testaments. But the liturgy is at once word and
action, logos kai ergon; and the Bible is at once a book and a
history. It is this second aspect that we are now going to
consider--the relationship of the actions that make up sacred
history in the Old and New Testaments to the actions that are the
sacraments of the Church.
We should, first of all, recall the fact that liturgical tradition
continually establishes analogies between sacramental actions
and the works of God in the Old and New Testaments. Let us take
some examples from baptism and the Eucharist, sacraments
which the Fathers continually relate to the essential events of the
Bible. In the space available here, it is, of course, impossible to
go into the details of this teaching which fills the sacramental
catecheses and the liturgical texts; I can only indicate the great
themes.[1]
In connection with baptism, let us take the blessing of the water
given in our present ritual:
O God, as Thy Spirit hovered over the waters at the very
beginning of the world, so that even then by their very nature
they might have the power of sanctification....
O God, as Thou didst wash away by water the crimes of the guilty
world, and so by the flood didst give us an image of the new
birth; for it was the same element that signified the destruction
of sin and the beginning of virtue....
I bless you, O water, creature of God, by the living God, who
caused you to flow from the fountain of paradise and
commanded you to flow out in four rivers and water the whole
earth; who changed you in the desert to a water fit to drink and
caused you to flow from the rock to quench the people's thirst....
I bless you through Jesus Christ, who in the wonderful miracle at
Cana changed you by His power into wine...; who was baptized in
you by John at the Jordan; who caused you to flow from His side
together with His blood....
Let us go over these analogies. The first is that of the primordial
waters sanctified by the Spirit. As the Spirit of God, hovering over
these waters, raised up the first creation, so the same Spirit,
hovering over the baptismal waters, raises up the new creation,
effects our rebirth. The Spirit of God is the creative Spirit. Christ's
word refers to this aspect: "Unless a man be born again of water
and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom (John 3:5). "Why are
you immersed in water?" St. Ambrose asks the neophyte. "We
read: "Let the waters bring forth living things" (Gen. 1:20). And
things were born. This took place at the beginning of creation.
But it was reserved to our own times that water should give you a
new birth by grace."[2]
Here we can begin to see the dimension that is given to baptism
by this analogy. Baptism is of the same order as the creation of
the world, and this because to create is an action properly divine.
It is the same Spirit who raised up the first creation and who will
raise up the new creation. The Spirit descended on the waters of
the Jordan, thence to bring forth the new creation which is that of
the Man-God. And baptism is the continuation of this creative
work in the era of the Church. The very context of springtime, in
which baptism is administered, expresses this analogy. Spring is
the yearly anniversary of the first creation and of the new
creation as well.
Immediately after speaking of creation, the prayer of
consecration alludes to the flood--a new act of God's power and a
new symbol of water. The relationship between the flood and
baptism goes back to the first Epistle of Peter, in which baptism
is called the antitype of the flood. Optatus of Milan writes in the
fifth century: "The flood was a figure of baptism because the
whole universe, soiled by the tide of sin, by the intervention of
water was restored to its pristine purity."[3] Water is the
instrument of God's judgment; it is water that destroys the sinful
world. Baptism is a mystery of death. It means the destruction of
the ancient man, as the flood meant the destruction of the
ancient world so that a new creature may appear, washed clean
and renewed by the baptismal water.
The essential point here is the symbolism of water. Lactantius
writes: "Water is the figure of death";[4] and Ambrose: "In the water
is the image of death."[5] Per Lundberg has brought out the
importance of this theme of the waters of death, which seems
strange to us until we remember the text of St. Paul showing us
that baptism is at once death with Christ and resurrection with
Him. The prayer of consecration brings out the contrast between
water as creative and destructive, between the creation and the
flood: "It was the same element that signified the destruction of
sin and the beginning of virtue." Thus the text of St. Paul refers to
the baptismal rite; this is seen to be a putting to death by
immersion in water and a new birth by arising from water. We
rediscover the true symbolism of the rite by referring to the
realities of the Old Testament.
But we have by no means exhausted the Biblical analogies of
baptism. The prayer of consecration goes on to speak of the
rivers of paradise. Here we enter a whole new field. In the
commentaries of the Fathers no theme recurs more frequently
than that of the analogy between Adam and the catechumen.
Adam, after he had sinned, was driven out of paradise. Christ
promised the good thief that he would be with Him in paradise.
Baptism is the return to paradise, which is the Church.
From the beginning, preparation for baptism was seen as the
antitype of the temptation in the garden of Eden. St. Cyril of
Jerusalem calls the baptismal renunciation of Satan the breaking
of the pact which, since the fall, binds man to the devil. Baptism,
as we all know, is the destruction of original sin. But the image is
not that of the stain that the water washes away, it is the
dramatic contrast between our exclusion from paradise and our
return to paradise.
This theme of baptism as a return to paradise[6] is as essential to
the liturgy as is the paschal theme. Christ is the new Adam, the
first to re-enter paradise; and by baptism the catechumen enters
also, for the Church is paradise. De Bruyne and other scholars
have shown how the symbolism of the ancient baptistries is
concerned with paradise, its tree of life, its four rivers Cyprian
writes: "The Church, like paradise, contains within its walls trees
loaded with fruit. These trees are watered by four rivers, by
which she dispenses the grace of baptism."[7] And Ephraem adds:
"It is here that each day the fruit is gathered that gives life to
all."[8] No theme is more ancient in the Church than this; it is to be
found in the Odes of Solomon, in the Epistle to Diognetus; Papias
got it from apostolic centers.
The prayer of consecration then alludes to the rock in the desert.
We have come now to the cycle of Exodus; and first we have to
consider a theme not mentioned in the prayer of consecration,
but in the "Exsultet." This is one of the most important of all: that
of the crossing of the Red Sea. The first Epistle to the Corinthians
sees here a figure of baptism. This figure has recently been the
subject of a lengthy study by Martelet.[9] I shall do no more than
quote one of the most ancient patristic witnesses, Tertullian:
"When the people, leaving Egypt without hindrance, escaped from
the power of Pharaoh by passing across the water, the water
destroyed the king and all his army. What clearer figure of
baptism could we give? The nations are freed from the world;
they are freed by water; they leave the devil, who once
tyrannized over them, annihilated in the water."[10]
Here again we must be careful not to stop at the images but to
discover the theological analogy. Tertullian points it out to us.
What is the essence of the great work that God accomplished at
the crossing of the Red Sea? The people were in a desperate
situation, in imminent danger of destruction. By the power of God
alone, a path was opened up through the sea, the people passed
through and came to the further shore, there to sing the hymn of
the redeemed. This was not a work of creation, nor a work of
judgment, nor a work of sanctification; it was a work of
redemption, in the etymological sense of the word. It was God
who delivered the people, and He alone.
Now the catechumen is in an analogous situation just before he is
baptized. He is still under the domination of the prince of this
world and so given up to death. Then, by an act of the power of
God alone, the water of the baptismal pool opens and he passes
through. And when he has arrived at the other side, he also sings
the canticle of the redeemed. In both cases we are in the presence
of a divine act of salvation. And between the deliverance of the
Red Sea and the deliverance of baptism, here again intervenes the
deliverance of Christ, who made Himself the prisoner of death
and who, on this same paschal night, by the power of God, broke
the iron bolts and the bronze locks of death's prison and arose to
become the firstborn from the dead.
The figure of the rock from which living water gushed forth
introduces us to a new and equally essential perspective. St. Paul
makes this also a figure of baptism: "Our fathers...all drank the
same spiritual drink (for they drank from the spiritual rock which
followed them, but the rock was Christ)."[11] In the Old Testament
the outpouring of living water, united with the effusion of the
Spirit, is a promise for the end of time, and the texts of Ezechiel
and Isaias referring to this are part of our present liturgy of
baptism. Now it is very probable, as Lampe has shown,[12] that the
baptism of St. John referred to this prophecy, for he also
connected water and the Spirit. His baptism signified the fact that
the eschatological times of the outpouring of the Spirit had now
come. (And we know how clear was this theme to the community
at Qumran.) But John baptized only in water. It is Christ who
gives water and the Spirit.
Christ said this same thing of Himself: "If anyone thirst, let him
come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture
says, 'From within him shall flow rivers of living water.' He said
this, however, of the Spirit whom they who believed in Him were
to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given" (John 7:37-39).
We may, with Cullmann, discover an announcement of baptism in
the texts of John concerning living water, that of the Samaritan
woman in particular.[13] And certainly we must, with him and with
the whole of tradition, recognize in the water and blood flowing
from the side of Christ the image of water united with the Spirit,
for the blood is the figure of the Spirit. And so Christ crucified is
the eschatological Rock from whose pure side flows the water
that refreshes us for everlasting life, the baptism that gives the
Spirit.
We should notice in this connection that the gift of the Spirit is
essentially connected with the outpouring of water. In the third
century we find a tendency to distinguish the rite of water, which
purifies, from another rite, the anointing or imposition of hands,
which gives the Spirit. Gregory Dix makes use of these texts to
distinguish within Christian initiation a sacrament of the Spirit,
distinct from baptism, which would be confirmation. But this is
contrary to primitive tradition and to tradition as a whole. It is
the water, and it alone, that gives the Holy Spirit. The
accompanying rites are illustrative only. Confirmation is a
different sacrament, connected with spiritual growth and with
participation in the ministry.
The Biblical themes that we have been considering up to this
point have been concerned with water. But, once again, this is not
the essence of their relationship with baptism. In a theme such as
that of the return to paradise the mention of water is secondary;
the emphasis is much more on the restoration of Adam to the
realm of grace for which God had destined him from the
beginning and to which baptism restores him. Moreover, in this
theme of paradise the Eucharist appears as well as baptism, and
both are closely associated. In the same way, the rock of living
water is related to the Eucharist and to baptism as well.
It is the theological analogy that is essential in every case. This
appears also in the other Biblical themes which tradition relates
to baptism and the Eucharist. For example, let us take that of the
covenant. Gregory Nazianzen writes plainly: "We must call the
grace of baptism a covenant, diatheke."[14] The covenant is the act
by which God promises, in an irrevocable way, to establish
communion of life between man and Himself. Christ realizes the
new and eternal covenant by uniting in Himself for ever the
divine nature and a human nature in such a way that they will
never be separated. We should not forget the fact that "the
Covenant" was one of our Lord's names in primitive Christianity,
following the text of Isaias: "I have made you: Covenant of the
peoples."
Baptism is our introduction into this covenant. Baptism
establishes it by the pledge of God and that of man. When
baptism was given in an interrogative form, this pledging formed
part of the very form of baptism, which was given in faith and in
water, as Justin says.
Later on this aspect was connected with the pre-baptismal
profession of faith: "You also, you catechumens," writes John
Chrysostom, "should learn to know the meaning of this word: I
renounce Satan. For this word in fact is the covenant (syntheke)
with the Lord."[15] This pledge is called symbalon, "pact," and it is
from here that the term came to be applied to the profession of
faith preceding baptism. John Chrysostom emphasizes the
unconditional and irrevocable character of this engagement of
God's: "God does not say: If this, or, If otherwise. Such were the
words of Moses when he poured out the blood of the covenant.
And God promises eternal life."[16]
We should take note of the allusion to the blood of the covenant
poured out by Moses. The Old Covenant was sanctioned by a
sacrament, by the sprinkling of the same blood on the people and
on the altar, signifying and bringing about a communion of life. It
is certainly in reference to this gesture of Moses' that Christ,
when He took the wine and blessed it, declared: "This is My
Blood, the Blood of the New Covenant," before giving it to His
disciples, a sign of the communion of life brought about between
them and Himself. The Eucharist is truly the new rite which
succeeds the Old Covenant and which at once witnesses to and
brings about the covenant made by Christ with mankind in His
incarnation and His passion.
Here again we can see the irreplaceable value of the Biblical
analogy. It enables us to see the full significance of Eucharistic
communion as participation in the life of God, the participation
that mankind has irrevocably gained in Christ Himself and that is
now offered to each man. It connects the Eucharist with Scripture
by showing us that the Eucharist continues, in the era of the
Church the divine actions which took place in both Testaments. It
illuminates the symbolism of the sacramental rites by showing us
the partaking of the Blood as being the supreme expression of
communion of life, for blood is the expression of life itself.
And again, as the covenant is our bond with God, it is also our
incorporation into the people of God. In the Old Covenant, this
incorporation was expressed by circumcision. Cullmann, Sahlin,
and many others have shown the connection of circumcision with
baptism and the valuable elements which this connection brings
to the theology of baptism.[17]
"The baptism of the Christian was expressed in the circumcision
of the Hebrews," writes Optatus of Milevis.[18] But the Epistle to
the Ephesians had already brought out the parallelism:
Wherefore bear in mind that once you, the Gentiles in flesh, who
are called 'uncircumcision' by the so-called 'circumcision' in flesh
made by human hand--bear in mind that you were at that time
without Christ, excluded as aliens from the community of Israel
and strangers to the covenants of the promise...But now in Christ
Jesus you, who were once afar off, have been brought near
through the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:11-13).
It is baptism itself that is the new rite of incorporation into the
people of God in the Church. But, as other aspects of the
sacrament are expressed by particular ceremonies, such as the
clothing with a white garment and the anointing, so with this one.
The expression of our incorporation into the people of God by
baptism is the ceremony of the sphragis, the sign of the Cross
marked on the forehead of the candidate.
Ezechiel had prophesied that the members of the eschatological
community would wear on their foreheads the mark of the taw,
the sign signifying Yahweh, the Name of Yahweh. It seems
probable that the Sadocites of Damas actually bore this mark.
And the Apocalypse of St. John shows us the elect as marked with
the Name of Yahweh, that is, with the taw. It is very likely that
this was the sign with which Christians were marked originally as
the sign of their incorporation into the eschatological community.
Now this sign is in the form of a cross. This is why, in the Greek
communities which no longer understood the meaning of the
Hebrew letter, it was interpreted as being the sign of the Cross of
Christ. But Hermas still says: "Those who are marked with the
Name."[19]
This leads us to another theme akin to that of the covenant, that
of the dwelling, the Shekinah. Yahweh had caused His Name to
dwell among His own. This is the mystery of the Tabernacle. This
Presence abandoned the people of the Old Covenant when the
veil of the temple was rent. Henceforth its dwelling-place is the
humanity of Christ, in whom the Name has set up its tabernacle.
And this dwelling-place is in our midst in the Eucharist. We have
already seen the Eucharist as communion, covenant. Now we see
it as presence, Shekinah. As the Eucharistic prayer of the Didache
expresses it: "We give Thee thanks, O Father, for Thy holy Name
which Thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts" (X, 2). Here the
Name is the Word, as Peterson has pointed out. But the
expression "the Name" is the older and the more fitting. For in the
Old Testament it is the Name and not the Word which is
connected with the dwelling.
As for the last great aspect of the Eucharist, sacrifice, which is at
once adoration, thanksgiving and expiation, the liturgy of the
Mass itself invites us to seek its prefiguring in the sacrifice of
Abel, in that of Abraham, and in that of Melchisedech. Here again,
the prophets had proclaimed that at the end of time the perfect
sacrifice would be offered by the obedient Servant, the new Isaac,
and the true Lamb. It is this priestly act, by which all glory is
forever rendered to the Blessed Trinity, which the Eucharistic
sacrifice makes perpetually present in all times and all places.
Thus we have brought out the traditional teaching. The
sacraments are conceived in relation to the acts of God in the Old
Testament and the New. God acts in the world; His actions are the
mirabilia, the deeds that are His alone. God creates, judges,
makes a covenant, is present, makes holy, delivers. These same
acts are carried out in the different phases of the history of
salvation. There is, then, a fundamental analogy between these
actions. The sacraments are simply the continuation in the era of
the Church of God's acts in the Old Testament and the New. This
is the proper significance of the relationship between the Bible
and the liturgy. The Bible is a sacred history; the liturgy is a
sacred history.
The Bible is a witness given to real events; it is a sacred history.
There is a profane history, which is that of civilizations,
witnessing to the great deeds done by men. But the Bible is the
history of divine actions; it witnesses to the great deeds carried
out by God. It is all for the glory of God. And so it is the proper
object of faith. For "to believe" does not mean only to believe that
God exists, but also that He intervenes in human life. Faith is
wholly concerned with these interventions of God: the covenant,
the incarnation, the resurrection, the diffusion of the Spirit. And
the Old Testament in particular is already essentially a sacred
history.
This point needs to be emphasized today. For in Bultmann and
his disciples we find a tendency to see in the Old Testament, and
in Scripture in general, only a word that God addresses to us here
and now. Under the pretext that the divine events are presented
in a stylized form, their very historicity is questioned.
Demythization has become dehistorization. But Cullmann and
Eichrodt[20]--the latter precisely in connection with the problem
that concerns us here, that of typology--have brought out the
primacy of the event over the word, of the ergon over the logos.
The object of faith is the existence of a divine plan. It is the
objective reality of the divine interventions which modifies
ontologically the human situation, and to the reality of which
faith causes us to adhere.
This history is properly the history of the works of God which are
grasped only by faith. It does not consist in reconstituting the
historical and archeological context of the people of Israel or of
the primitive Church. This is a part of the history of civilizations
and is of a different order. Sacred history reaches, beyond the
order of bodies and minds, what Pascal calls the "order of
charity"--which term meant to him, good Augustinian that he was,
the supernatural order. It is concerned, therefore, with the
supernatural history of mankind, the most important history
ultimately, since it is concerned with the final questions of the
destiny of man and of mankind, the very depths of human nature.
Thus the Old Testament has as its purpose to recall to us the
great deeds that God did for His people. But this represents only
one aspect. It includes the Law, but it includes also the prophets.
Prophecy is part of its very substance. We must give this word its
true meaning; it is not merely prediction, not merely
proclamation. Prophecy is the announcement of the fact that at
the end of time God will accomplish works still greater than in
the past. Here the movement of the Old Testament is quite
different from that of natural religions. These are essentially, as
Eliade and van den Leeuw have shown, the effort to defend
primordial energies against the destructive action of time.
It is with the Bible that time acquires a positive content as being
the setting in which the design of God is being carried out. But
this orientation toward the future is an act of faith, founded on
the promises of God. The great Biblical figure Abraham is quite
different from the Greek hero Ulysses. The title of Homer's poem
is Nostoi, "the returns." The outstanding characteristic of Ulysses
is nostalgia, and finally after his long journeying, he returns to
the place from which he set out. Time destroys itself. But
Abraham leaves Ur of the Chaldees for ever and sets out on a
journey to the land that God is to give him. For the man of the
Bible, paradise, the state of innocence are not the point of
departure; they are the end of the journey. Such a man cannot
help having an eschatological attitude.
But, wonderful to say, these hoped-for future events are not
unrelated to the events of the past. The promises of God remain
unchanged. God said to Isaias (43:16-29): "Remember no more
what is past; behold, I will make a new wonder. I will make a path
through the sea."
One of the deeds of the past was the crossing of the Red Sea, the
act of deliverance by which Yahweh delivered His people from
their hopeless condition. The eschatological event will be a new
Exodus, a new deliverance, a new redemption. And so we begin to
see what is the real basis of typology--as Goppelt and Eichrodt
have pointed out--the analogy between the divine deeds carried
out in the different epochs of the history of salvation.
Prophecy announces to us eschatological events. The New
Testament is the paradoxical affirmation that these events have
taken place in Jesus Christ. We have lost sight of the importance
of the expression that continually recurs in the New Testament:
"so that the prophecies might be fulfilled," and this is because we
have lost the understanding of what prophecy really is. It is
because prophecy announces the end of time--and not some one
event to come--and because Christ Is the end of time that Christ
fulfills prophecy. What is essential, then, is the fact that Christ is
proclaimed to us as being the end of time. This is the meaning of
John's gesture: Ecce Agnus Dei. Not: There is a Lamb of God. But:
The Lamb of God is here.
We should remember here that the phrase, "the end of time," is to
be taken in its full meaning: not only the end in the sense of the
conclusion of time, but also in the sense of the goal of time, the
definite and decisive event, that beyond which there is nothing
more because there can be nothing beyond it. The paradoxical
Christian affirmation is, as Cullmann has well shown, that the
decisive event is already accomplished. No discovery, no
revolution can ever bring about anything as important to
mankind as is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, in fact, in the
resurrection of Christ two things were accomplished beyond
which nothing further is possible: God is perfectly glorified; man
is perfectly united to God. We can never go beyond Jesus Christ.
He is the final goal of God's design.
But did sacred history stop with Jesus Christ? This is, indeed,
what we usually seem to say. And this is because we do not place
the sacraments in the perspective of sacred history. We forget
that, although Jesus Christ is the goal of sacred history, His
coming into the world is only the inauguration of His mysteries.
In the Apostles' Creed, after the mysteries of the past, we speak
of a mystery still to come: "unde venturus est," but between the
two there is a mystery of the present: "sedet ad dexteram Patris."
For Christ's enthronement at the right hand of the Father is only
the definitive installation of the incarnate Word, who at His
ascension entered into the heavenly Tabernacle, in His functions
as King and Priest. The glorious humanity of Christ, during the
whole era of the Church, causes every grace, every illumination,
every sanctification, every blessing. And these divine works
carried out by Christ in glory are, above all, the works of the
sacraments. These constitute the deeds properly divine being
carried out in the heart of our world, the deeds by which God
accomplishes our sanctification and builds up the Body of Christ.
It is in their radiance that all holiness, all virtue, all ministry is
developed.
Thus the nature of the sacraments is made clear to us in the
perspective of the history of salvation. They are the divine acts
corresponding to this particular era in the history of salvation,
the era of the Church. These divine acts are the continuation of
the acts of God in the Old and New Testaments, as Cullmann has
already shown.[21] For the ways in which God acts are always the
same: He creates, judges, saves, makes a covenant, is present. But
these acts have a different modality in each era of the history of
salvation.
What characterizes the era of the Church is, on the one hand, the
fact that it comes after the essential event of sacred history, the
event by which creation has attained its purpose in such a way
that nothing can be added to it. The sacramental acts are,
therefore, only saving actualizations of the passion and
resurrection of Christ. Baptism plunges us into His death and
resurrection. The Mass is not another sacrifice, but the unique
sacrifice made present in the sacrament; in this sense it is true
that the sacraments add nothing to Christ and that they are only
the sacramental imitation of what has already been effectively
accomplished in Him.
On the other hand, the era of the Church is that in which what
has already been accomplished in Christ, the Head, is
communicated to all men, who form the Body. The era of the
Church is the time of the mission, the growth of the Church, and
the sacraments are the instruments of this growth, incorporating
into Christ His new members. As Gregory of Nyssa says: "Christ
builds Himself up by means of those who continually join
themselves to the faith" by baptism.[22] And Methodius of Olympia
shows us how the sacramental life is the continual espousal of
Christ and the Church.[23] We can understand why Cyril of
Jerusalem made the Canticle of Canticles the sacramental text par
excellence.[24]
But the last characteristic of the era of the Church is that the
transformation carried out by Christ actually reaches mankind,
but it is not yet made manifest: "You are now the sons of God, but
it has not yet appeared what you shall be" (1 John 3:2). Thus the
sacraments have a hidden aspect. They are a veil as well as a
reality. "Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio...ut te revelata cernens
facie...."
And this shows us one more aspect of the sacraments in the
history of salvation. They are not the final stage. After the
mysteries of the past, there are the mysteries of the future.
Prefigured by the realities of the Old Testament and the New, the
sacraments are themselves prefigurations of eternal life. Baptism
anticipates the Judgment; the Eucharist is the eschatological
banquet already made present in mystery. And so the sacraments
recapitulate the whole history of salvation: "Recolitur memoria
passionis, mens impletur gratia, et futurae gloriae nobis pignus
datur."
Thus, we see the sacraments as being the acts of God in the era of
the Church. As we have said, God's ways of acting are always the
same. This is what finally defines the right of the Church to bring
out the analogies between the sacraments and the divine events
recorded in Scripture. It is here that we find the ultimate basis of
what we explained in the first section of this chapter. The
universe of the liturgy is a marvelous symphony in which appear
the harmonies between the different eras of the history of
salvation, in which we pass from the Old Testament to the
sacraments, from eschatology to spirituality, from the New
Testament to eschatology, in virtue of these fundamental
analogies. Knowledge of these correspondences is the Christian
wisdom as the Fathers understood it, the spiritual understanding
of Scripture. And this is where the liturgy is the mistress of
exegesis.
To conclude. One of the greatest difficulties for many minds is to
understand the connection between Scripture and the Church.
They hold to Scripture, but they do not see the need for the
Church. It is of the utmost importance that such people be shown
the strict continuity between Scripture and the Church. And it is
precisely this continuity that appears at the climax of the history
of salvation. It is here that the realities spoken of by Scripture
and the realities that constitute the Church appear as being
various stages of one work. And, furthermore, by employing a
unique language, which is that used by the Word of God, and by
causing us to discover the Scriptural categories in the
sacraments, the continual reference to Scripture found in the
explanation of the sacraments manifests the fact that they belong
to the same universe.
Thus Bible and liturgy illuminate one another. The Bible both
authorizes and clarifies the liturgy. It authorizes it by the
authority of the prophets and the figures of which it is the
fulfillment, and by thus placing it in the whole pattern of God's
plan. It illuminates it by giving us the forms of expression by
which we can understand the authentic meaning of the rites. In
its turn, the liturgy illuminates the Bible. It gives us its authentic
interpretation by showing us how it is a witness to the mirabilia
Dei. And, much more, as these acts are continued in the
sacraments, they actualize the Word of God by authorizing us to
apply it to the present acts of God in the Church in virtue of the
analogy between these acts in the different phases of history.
ENDNOTES
1. I have given a survey of this teaching in my book, "Bible and
Liturgy" (Notre Dame University Press, 1956).
2. De Sacramentis, III, 3.
3. "Donat. V," 1; PL, 11, 1041.
4. "Div. Inst." 11, 10, PL, 6, 311a.
5. "Sp, Sanct. I," 6, 76, PL, 16, 722d.
6. See "Catechese pascale et retour au Paradis," "La Maison-Dieu,"
45 (1956), pp. 99-120.
7. "Epist. LXIII," 10.
8. "Hymn. Par. VI," 9.
9. "Sacrements, figures et exhortation en 1 Cor. 10:1-11," R.S.R.,
44 (1956), pp. 323-359, 515-S60.
10. "Bapt. 9."
11. 1 Cor. 10:4
12. "The Seal of the Spirit," pp. 27-28.
13. "Les sacrements dans l'Evangile johannique," pp. 51-55.
14. "Or. Bapt.," 8.
15. "Cat.," 2; PG 49, 239.
16. "Co. Col.," 2, 6; PG 62, 342.
17. See "Circoncision et bapteme," "Theologie in Gelchichte und
Gegenwart" (Mel. Schmaus), pp. 755-777.
18. "Donat.," V, 1; PG 11, 1045a.
19. See "La Theologie du Judeo-christianisme" (Desclee et Cie.,
1958), pp. 384-386.
20. W. Eichrodt, "Ist die typologische Exegese sachgemasse
Exegese?," "Theol. Literarturzeitung," 81 (1956), pp. 641-653.
21. "Les sacrements dans l'Evangile johannique," p. 85.
22. PG, 1397c.
23. "Conv.," III, 8.
24. See "Bible and Liturgy" (Notre Dame University Press, 1956).
CHAPTER 3: GOD HAS SPOKEN IN HUMAN LANGUAGE
Rev. Hans Urs von Balthasar
BY THE LITURGY the priest reaches Catholics only, and, among
them, only the practicing believers; the liturgy has become a
domain seemingly reserved to an elite. Since the purpose of this
book is to show the close bonds between the liturgy and the Word
of God, the liturgy and preaching, the liturgy and meditation on
the Bible, it might seem as if the Word, to be truly understood,
must be confined within the same closed, almost esoteric limits.
Since, in spite of ourselves, we adopt with regard to the liturgy
something like the discipline of the arcana practiced by the
Fathers,[1] should we not make people feel that the Word of God
also creates a sacred domain, accessible only to the believer in
the act of adoration?
In this conclusion, which is not entirely chimerical but
corresponds to a real tendency today, there is an element of
resignation which in the Christian context is quite unsound.
Christianity has no tendency to limit itself, but rather to expand,
to become universal. Psychologically, an esoteric attitude often
contains an element of fear.
If we are to combat this fear--which easily disguises itself as a
proper reverence for the sacred--we must not be afraid to submit
the data of the Christian religion, supernaturally revealed, to the
examination of the anthropological sciences, such as philology,
sociology, psychology. If, in Christ, God made Himself man, if He
assumed a human nature into His personal and trinitarian life, He
did not do so by violating human nature. If He founded a
community around His incarnation, still less did He do so by
violating the laws of sociology, particularly of religious
sociology. From this point of view, it cannot be denied that the
religion which we consider to be the only true one has an aspect
which puts it sociologically on the same level as the "other"
religions.
The Bible is the sacred Book par excellence, but it is also one
sacred book among others, and each religion has its own.[2] And
not only does each religion have its own liturgy, but it is a known
fact--which corresponds to an easily understandable
anthropological tendency--that the liturgy of each religion loves
to justify the most minute positive prescriptions of its worship
by attributing them to the revealed, formal will of the divinity.
The priestly code of the Old Testament, which attributed the
temple worship in all its details to an explicit institution of
Moses, thanks to his supernatural vision of all the details of the
sanctuary on the holy mountain (Ex. 25--31; 35-40), confirms this
common law of anthropology.[3] And, in the same way, each
religion has a tendency to become esoteric.
We should not be disturbed by these parallelisms, which are not
vague resemblances, but are founded on a certain identity: that of
the nature of man. We should rather rejoice in them, because they
are a proof of the real incarnation, that is to say, the
"inhumanization" of God.[4]
If God has made Himself man, then it is man as man who has
become the expression, the valid and authentic translation of the
divine mystery. True, man will have need of supernatural faith in
order to grasp what God, supremely free in His spontaneous
revelation of Himself, wills to make known to him. But, on the
other hand, the divine meaning will not remain exterior and
foreign to the man who is chosen to express it. God is love; but it
is as man that He has demonstrated this fact; and this is why it is
uniquely in Christ that the two precepts of love can be fused into
one single precept.
This is equivalent to saying that God, in revealing His face to
man, has also revealed to man his own proper human likeness.
There was no need for God to make use of man in order to reveal
Himself; but if He determined to do so, and did so by an in-
humanization, then all the dimensions of human nature, known
and unknown, are to be assumed and utilized to serve as means
of expression for the absolute Person. And so the Christian
religion, while remaining sociologically only "one" religion among
others, should necessarily also coincide with total humanism,
and it is only by this title that it can be recognized as fully
catholic.[5]
Humanism in Christianity: here indeed is the central theme of our
era. It preoccupies us all; it is of passionate concern to our lay
people because of their need to communicate with their non-
Christian or non-practicing brothers; it calls for a solution at once
vast and courageous in the face of world unity in the making. And
it is brought out also, in a striking paradox, by those very
discoveries of modern Biblical studies that hold us in suspense.
Let us consider for a moment this last aspect. On the one hand,
our age is discovering continually clearer analogies between the
religion of revelation and the cultures that surrounded it,
continually clearer evidence of the influences of these cultures
on that religion; many an aspect which to our ancestors seemed
purely supernatural now appears to us as being part of the
religious patrimony of mankind.
But it is precisely these discoveries which, in an entirely
unforeseen manner, have brought us nearer to the mystery of
revelation. Possibly we can understand the mystery of Israel
better than could any Christian age in the past, better even than
the apostolic age itself in its context of Judaism and Hellenism.
The more the concrete and historical human element is precisely
defined, the more the revealed truth is seen to be profound, the
more it stands out clearly; this is one of the great laws opposed
to gnosticism, a law of the incarnation. The more Christ is seen to
be one with mankind in word and thought and action, the more
He is also seen to be the Unique who comes from on high,
authorized to utter (without insanity or blasphemy) those
unheard-of phrases that no mere man would dare to utter: "Which
of you will accuse Me of sin?"; "My words shall not pass"; "I will
come on the clouds of heaven."
Let us choose the simplest way. If we are to understand how God
has spoken to man in human language, we need to consider, at
least briefly, the structure of human speech. To understand
human speech we need to consider what it expresses, that is,
human experience.
We shall, therefore, first consider human experience; next, human
speech; and finally, the eternal Word incarnating Himself in man
and in his speech in order to transform it into God's language.
What is the specific form of human experience?[6] Man is
essentially an historic being: his spirit perfects itself in time,[7] in
the course of a unique and irreversible journey that leads him
through successive stages--childhood, adolescence, maturity, old
age--in such a way that the achievement of each one of these
stages in no way assures the realization of the one that follows.
There is an existential logic in this series of stages, even though,
for St. Paul, it is bound up with an illogical element--death. Time
seen as a descent toward a final catastrophe implies an element
of futility and nothingness, but this element is inserted in a
superior logic of grace, since God has abased Himself to this
abyss made by the creature, not the Creator.
This fact only accentuates the devouring stress of our existence:
each age of life, each situation requires that we abandon it and
that we go beyond it; yet each means for us a gift never to be
given again, a mirror of the absolute and of the duration of
eternity.
Maturity can never replace or even preserve that first vision of a
world fundamentally new, innocent, like paradise, filled with
marvels of nature and supernature; everything is possible,
everything is close to God. The incurable nostalgia of childhood
is not mere romanticism; it can have, as with Peguy and
Bernanos, profoundly Christian causes. It is true that the
Christian miracle consists in a renewal of the whole time-
sequence; the entrance into the Church by the door of baptism is
a new admittance into paradise, accessible only to children, by
the "little way" that allows us once again to climb the slope of
bygone time.
But this Christian miracle does not destroy the historic nature of
man, "non tollit naturam." The losses caused by time and futility
are not done away with, and it is only in living both these
aspects--apparently contradictory as they are--that Christian
existence, with its experience of childhood redeemed in growing
old, is to be achieved.[8]
But man is not only the child. He is also the adolescent, with his
enthusiasms, his fears and depressions, his discoveries of the
depths of human nature, with the pathetic moment of the call
heard and understood, the decisive hour in which the man,
seemingly still too young, chooses his lot in life, his work, his
state--a moment which will never return. What gain, what loss! To
choose presupposes freedom, but it also presupposes
confidence, hope, the unreserved gift of self.[9] It is human to
believe, to hope, to love. And it is human also for the mature man
to give himself wholly, to sacrifice himself to a task, to find the
whole in the part that is given him. It is human for him to know
the joy and danger of responsibility, and even the bitter
consolation of defeats which prove to him that he has not really
gone astray, that he is still a man among his fellowmen.
And in each human state there is the same looking forward and
the attempt to retain, at least in memory, everything that has
irretrievably fled away and to incorporate it into our onward
flight. Thus the present becomes a kind of qualitative synthesis
of time as a whole, modified by the continually changing
relationship of the past and the future.
Time is, therefore, in no way a uniform stream; it knows
mysterious moments of concentration, climaxes in which man
frees himself and chooses himself. At the appointed hour of his
existence he meets his own true image, his vocation and the
grace destined for him. If he adheres to it, this decisive moment
fills his whole life with a companioning presence which gathers it
all up in a meaningful form, if he refuses, his whole temporal
existence degenerates into time lost. Faith, hope, and love
together make up the form of time-bound man. This is the
starting-point he must use in each effort to understand his
existence; we have nothing to work with beyond hope that seems
so tiny, faith that is self-abandonment, love that gives itself and
loses itself. Any attempt to go beyond the glory and misery of
these three, tria haec--and every non-Christian religion would like
to go beyond them--leads us astray into gnosis.
The life of whole peoples follows a similar pattern. They only can
grasp what they are by projecting it into the future, aided by the
mirror of memory. The measurable part of their existence, their
history already lived through, in some way justifies their hope; in
it they recognize certain landmarks, certain promises realized in
part. It is because this fragment of being offers something like a
meaning (however fleeting) that the hope that all the generations
making up one people form a hidden continuity through time
cannot be entirely a vain one.
This law of peoples as such is also a law of all history, the past
and the future of a man or of a people cannot be cut off from the
universal destiny of mankind. And this is necessarily true also of
that sacred history which summarizes the dialogue between God
and His chosen people.
What Gregory of Nyssa calls the diastema of our existence, the
fundamental separateness and non-identity of our experiences,
the transition from one point of view to another--why should we
not find it also in the Bible?
Since God Himself has sought out the glory and the humiliation
of existing in time, it is impossible to take away from revealed
truth its temporal form so as to keep only a system of supra-
temporal truths.
Let us recall some notable examples. "The days when Israel was a
child" (Osee); what nostalgia throughout the sacred Word for the
memory of that childhood--not only for the paradise before
history began but for those days in which everything was young,
pure and perfect between Israel and its God!
If mankind did not remember its lost origin, how could it search
for it throughout all the disasters of history? If Abraham had not
possessed at least that tomb in the Holy Land, how would his
descendants have allowed God to persuade them to leave
prosperous Egypt and bury themselves in the desert of Sinai?
Certain psalms preserve so vivid a memory of the primitive grace
of those times that even the events of the Covenant are not
mentioned: everything is pure gift, the Law does not yet exist. Or
else, when they do sing of that prodigious event, the conclusion
of the Covenant made in the face of the flaming mountain, by the
blood sprinkled on the people and altar and by the absolute
decision of primordial faith, how clearly this Law appears as
itself a grace, as a Law that is absolutely true, priceless,
necessary, and possible for man to obey!
We must measure the distance that separates this experience of
the beginning (which is no dream or myth) from the later theology
of Deuteronomy, of Judaism, and finally, of St. Paul, to experience
in this difference the inevitable aging of the idea and of the ideal.
A thousand years' experience of sin has intervened; the virgin of
Sion has gone astray, not only into single acts from which she
could be raised up, but into a condition that is permanent and
insurmountable. Is it ever possible to observe such a Law? Does it
truly come from God and not rather from various mediators?
Good "in itself," is it still really good "for me"? The center of
experience is displaced, even in the times of the kings and
prophets, still more during the Exile, in the age of the sapiential
books and the apocalypses.
We must have the patience to leave their value at once "absolute"
and "relative" to all these experiences to which sacred history
bears witness. We must do so because these experiences
presuppose one another in their very difference. Change from
one condition to another is indispensable if each one is to be
understood; but this change is itself ambiguous: on the one hand,
temporal existence is understood in reference to the future, like a
book whose pages are turned as we read it. And so the final
synthesis, that of Christ, made explicit by Paul and John, will be
more complete, more extensive, more limitless than, for example,
that of the Pentateuch.
But, on the other hand, every temporal gain infallibly implies
certain losses. There are texts in the Old Testament that are
greater, more fully experienced in themselves than they are in the
use made of them by the New Testament and in the way in which
it understands them. And Christ was careful to send believers
back to the greatest and most unconstraining origins.
We see, therefore, how this human law applies to sacred history
and to its witness, the Biblical Word: a present experience is true
and valuable only insofar as it is bound up with a certain vision
and interpretation of the past and the future, with a projection of
our ruling ideal in the memory that guides us. The Bible is filled
with such projections toward its own historic past. Without them,
it would not possess a truth that was fully human. And the truth
of the Bible loses nothing because it must undergo these
inevitable divergences between modes of interpretation. It would
be too facile, and even false, to say that the Jews composed their
own past and pre-history to suit the experiences of much later
times and that it is the task of scientific research to disengage
the original and real events from this mixture of poetry and truth.
We must rather acknowledge the fact that the interpreters in the
era of the kings, of the great prophets, and of the "furnace" of the
Exile felt themselves entirely capable of interpreting history
objectively, of proclaiming the true meaning of past events,
which were more comprehensible to them than to those who had
lived through them. And the more Israel learned in faith to know
and to hope for a future with absolute qualities, the more clearly
it was able to see, through the images of its own past, both
historic and poetic, that absolute beginning from which it had set
out on its course.
It is fully in conformity with the structure of human truth that a
historic past (and not some myth to be de-mythologized) can
orient a people towards its future through projected images (as in
the account of paradise, of post-Adamic and patriarchal times),
and that a primary intuition, a primary contact with the living
God, such as no other people had experienced, could determine
for the people of Israel their historic, messianic and
eschatological history.
Biblical truth is, therefore, to be grasped only in its full context.
This ancient law of spiritual and Catholic interpretation is here
rediscovered from an unexpected angle. In each word the whole
is echoed; each word sends us back to the whole. But the
particular text may have been conveyed to us through successive
and different experiences. It has been proved, for example, that
certain episodes from the age of the patriarchs and previous
periods have been uprooted wholly or in part from their original
and living context and have been incorporated by the Yahwist or
one of his successors into a wholly new context of religious
experience.
Or again, a certain psalm (as Albert Gelin has shown in the case
of Psalm 21) may have been composed by one of the "poor ones
of Yahweh" among the followers of Jeremias. It may then have
passed into liturgical use, in which the individual's hope of
liberation took on an ecumenical, social significance. This
significance finally became messianic when a majestic but later
addition to the text came to polarize the whole text toward the
future. The poor man who cries out to his God becomes that Poor
Man who is the People itself, and this becomes the eschatological
Poor Man, to become concrete once more in the Poor Man who
died on the Cross with Psalm 21 on His lips.
All these harmonies, these relationships, these correspondences
that are the result of the passing of time do not imply any
diminution in the absolute truth of the Bible. On the contrary,
they are assumed by the divine Word in order to make them the
decisive proof of His truthfulness. For the truth of a living being
is always contained in its whole reality. A man who must make a
decisive choice is aware of being asked: If you act in this way, are
you being faithful to your first vision and to your deepest hope?
Are you thus being most fully your best self?
In the same way, the most abrupt pronunciation of the divine
Word addressed to Israel always includes the relationship
between the past and the future; it creates history while
establishing the truth in history; it promises nothing for the
future without giving proofs of its truthfulness from the
accomplishments of the past. The logic of the invasion of the
Word from above into human history is always a logic that, in
order to show its legitimacy, makes use of the historical life of
the people.[10]
This fact is evident in the harmony between the two Testaments,
a harmony which, for the men of the Bible, for Jesus Himself, and
for the Fathers of the Church, remained the fundamental and
inexhaustible proof of the truth of the Word of God.
But this magnificent harmony is only the greatest example among
innumerable other relationships, connections, encounters,
recognitions and reverberations: between the religion before and
after Moses, between the Law and the prophets, the institution
and the event, the historic books and the sapiential books,
earthly history and apocalyptic vision, the Gospel and the history
of the apostles or that of the Church. The entire Old Testament
(and not merely in some texts that are called messianic) is
prophetically opened out toward the New, in such a way that
Christ and the apostles continually referred to the Old Law to
find the justification for its undreamed-of extension by God made
man.
The sacred texts often, as it were purposely, allow us to discover
disparities, seeming contradictions in order to call our attention
to the fact that certain words or events come to us from far away,
charged with much meaning,[11] with innumerable reflections,
stratum upon stratum. From a human point of view, no text of
secular literature presents such a bewildering wealth of
perspectives as does the Bible; one single word may have
hundreds of echoes. The religious experiences of many ages are
accumulated in such a word; and these unwearying meditations,
in responding to the immensity of the divine Word, have finally
given to its human instrument a kind of corresponding infinity.
And we understand how tradition is, in a decisive aspect, anterior
to Scripture:[12] Scripture confirms and completes that living
history of revelation brought about in the experience that men
have had with God.
Here I would add a corollary: following St. Paul and the Gospels,
the Fathers of the Church considered the Old Law only as being a
stage preparatory to the New, as being something essentially
imperfect which future revelation was to go beyond, even apart
from the rejection of the Messiah, the rejection by which Israel
ceased to be the living people of God. Let us never forget,
however, that Christ had to bring to perfection the age-old
experience of faith of the Jewish people. The faith of His
ancestors lived in Jesus, just as in their faith the Word of God had
lived from the beginning and had been, as it were, incarnated in
advance. But if the faith of the people of old was oriented toward
the messianic future, it remained immovably rooted in its origins:
in Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets.
As Man and as God, Jesus by a supreme piety brought the religion
of His people to perfection. The faith of Abraham, the exemplar
of all faith; the faith of Sinai embracing the Law, sign of the
promise and of the concrete commitment of Yahweh; the faith of
Amos and of Isaias in the rights of the poor, the peacemakers, the
persecuted; the faith of Jeremias and of Job--all this was the faith
of Christ, leader and guide of our faith, who brings it to
perfection, "the author and perfector of faith" (Heb. 12:2). His
vision of the Father could not hinder Him from knowing and
perfecting that fundamental human attitude of all true servants
of Yahweh; otherwise, how could we, the faithful, imitate Christ
by our faith?
This faith, then, did not begin with Him and does not find its
unique object in Him. It is not only faith "in" Jesus, it is also faith
together with Him--if we take the word in its full Biblical sense of
faith in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who now
reveals Himself as the God and Father of the Word, His Son.
The dreadful sin against the chosen people of which Christianity
has been guilty for two thousand years comes in part from a
misunderstanding of this unity which characterizes existential
Biblical truth. Youthful Christianity was like a young man who
thinks that he can turn away from his childhood and look only to
the future; but the mature man looks back once more. The chosen
people, in spite of everything, tried to choose God for us; they
suffered for doing so--through the centuries before Christ and
through how many more since Christ--for us. We are grafted on
the sacred stock in a living and spiritual union more intimate
than any other in the world.
The dialectic unity of love and jealousy, as St. Paul describes it
(Rom. 9--11), is also the mystery of the total redemption of
mankind in Abraham, the father of all who believe, in an age
when there was as yet no Scripture, no tradition, no dogma, no
liturgy, no law, no priesthood, no hierarchy. All this flowed (Rom.
4) from that initial self-abandonment of this man simply as man,
to God simply as God. This aloneness of man in the presence of
the only God was perfected on the Cross where the dialectic
between Jew and pagan, between tradition and nontradition was
definitely consummated and surpassed (Eph. 2:11ff.), but in an
eschatological perspective.[13]
We must always return to the final fulfillment. Arrival in the Holy
Land was certainly a first achievement of the journey across the
desert, but also of the Exile and of the great dispersion of the
people. And so of the Son, sojourning on this earth, of the Church
wandering through the desert of the centuries (Apoc. 12:14), of
each believer in his hope. The whole of Scripture remains "on the
way"; it is always a departure, a journey through the desert, a
journey from the image to the truth, from the promise to the
fulfillment, from the Word to the Word-made-flesh, but also from
physical death to spiritual life, a journey from the physical
presence, through the absence caused by His death and
ascension, toward the eschatological presence. All this truth is
made up of tension, diastasis; it is the truth of the cor inquietum,
of hope and longing love.
Now it is within this human experience that the divine Word has
placed Himself; this fragile web of temporal relationships is solid
enough to contain the absolute Truth, which is itself a truth of
eternal Relationships in eternal life.
Never has revelation fallen from heaven in order to communicate
transcendent mysteries to man from without and from on high.
God speaks to man from within the world, the starting-point of
his own human experiences, penetrating His creature so
intimately that the divine kenosis was already announced in the
Word of the Old Law and was no more than completed in the
incarnation.
Let us go on now to our second question: What kind of
communication corresponds to this human experience? How does
man speak? Let us first give a brief description of the essential
phenomenon.
"To speak" signifies for man to manifest freely his intimate and
personal being to someone else by means of the perceptible sign
of sounds. This contains three elements. First, the self-
possession of a spiritual person, present to himself, who
moreover knows and understands his own truth. This is why true
human speech is not a kind of babbling, a vain attempt to express
some obscure interiority, but an exact and precise procedure.
This, indeed, is what characterizes also the Word of Yahweh, in
contrast to the mystical babblings or the impotent silence
surrounding the summits of other religions. "It is I, Yahweh, who
speak with precision, and I express Myself in true words" (Is.
45:19).
Next, to be oneself means perfect freedom. This is why the
expression chosen by a free man is not necessitated. The
language of man presupposes a choice of his means of
communication that is fundamentally free. The risen Christ has,
even in His physical being, become spiritual, that is to say, free.
He is no longer to be known in a natural and passive way; He
reveals Himself spontaneously, at the moment when He wills it.
The Verbum caro here attains its perfection, flesh has become
wholly a word at the disposition of the eternal Word.
Lastly, by truth and freedom the person is all-embracing and self-
determined; that is to say, it tends to go beyond subjectivity
toward a Thou (in principle toward each Thou). It exists insofar
as it is intersubjective. It implies communion and interchange,
and it is so in its very source.
To speak is, therefore, not an epiphenomenon of man's nature. It
is an integral part of his being, and even of being as such. The
recent philosophers who take the phenomenon of language as
their starting point are actually taking the most direct route to an
understanding of man and of being. They tell us that the verbum
mentis, which springs from the depths of the spirit in the love
that causes it to rise and that accompanies it, does not confine
the person in himself in any solipsistic way (as a superficial
interpretation of St. Augustine's Trinitarian image might suggest),
but rather reveals in love the mystery of being itself in the
reciprocal interpenetration of consciousnesses.
The human word, if it is a true one, manifests what being is; it
participates in being from its origin, illuminated from the
beginning by the spirit; and by this it participates in that Word
eternally pronounced in the heart of being by absolute Love.
Everything was created by that Word, everything subsists in it
and for it; for the nature of man, which bears within itself an
inexplicable promise, has always been destined to attain its final
fulfillment in the free and gracious revelation of the eternal
Word.
Human language, however, is not as yet characterized by truth,
freedom, and love. It must go beyond itself in two directions:
toward its origin and toward its goal.
The free and spiritual language of man emerges from those deep
sources with which biology and paleontology have made us
acquainted, in virtue of which man is united with material
creation, its summit, its spokesman before God. The spiritual
man inhabits the totality of being, by his body he dwells in the
whole of nature and cannot detach himself from it. His language
is that of natural sounds and gestures. Thence comes that
wonderful interplay in our speech between nature and spirit,
those interweavings, those slow transitions from the image
(imitating nature) to the symbol (already free in part) and to the
sign (deliberately chosen), those transitions from the speaking
body (as in dancing) to language and writing, from physiognomy
to abstract logic and grammar. This richness shows us how man
is limitlessly open.
Nor should we forget what present-day biology tells us about the
language of the animals--the unbelievable exactitude of their
communications and their signals, the prefiguring of abstraction
and schematization in their mimed play, which often consists of
long and complicated rituals, astonishingly close to the gesture
and image language of primitive man. One whole area of the
familiarity between man and nature which produced this was not
lost until the present time, until the technical age. Romanticism
attempted to recover, in extremis as it were, this dimension of
human language; but it was too late. Nonetheless, man remains,
whether he wishes it or not, a being in nature, and he can never
completely detach himself from this world of natural signs.
Symbolic logic can never be the whole of human logic and cannot
replace it.
Here is the place to speak of the sacraments and the liturgy. Both
are in harmony with this attachment of man to nature; both are
not so much arbitrary and positive institutions set up at the
divine good pleasure as adaptations made by God to His pre-
established laws of creation. Guardini has brought out clearly the
element in the liturgy that is related to sacred play, a function
common to man as an individual and to all peoples.[14] We now
know that Christ did not invent any one of the sacramental signs:
He took baptism from John, bread and wine from the devout
gatherings of His time;[15] confession from a situation common to
all men, found in all religions, even in Buddhist convents.
Anointing with oil, the imposition of hands form part of the
Jewish ritual, in which also the liturgy of the Mass was
preformed.
There is also a second transcendence of language, toward its
goal. Speech does not achieve perfection in itself; it is ordered to
life. Language wishes to act and to create. It is itself the
beginning of action, it goes beyond itself in work and in self-
commitment, "engagement." The moment comes when words are
not enough, when the witness of the whole person is required, as
in the love between man and woman, in political action, in the
apostolate, in martyrdom. Truth is not human without the
property of truthfulness which alone proves that the true and
right word has reached being itself and has not fallen short of it.
Thus in the Bible, the various aspects of truth (veritas, veracitas
fidelitas) are all expressed by the same word, emeth. God Himself
is bound by His Word, no less than man. The Word of God, like
that of man, is open to existence; it bears within itself the witness
and the force of the presence of the living God, in contrast to the
mute idols of the nations, incapable of a true word, without
fidelity or reality.
The Word, having exercised His prophetic mission, entered into
His definitive phase through the Eucharist and the passion. St.
John calls this "to the end." What speaking, discourse, could not
bring about, since it provoked only growing resistance, the
immolated Word could accomplish--the Word who spent Himself
drop by drop on the Cross, the Word that finally resounded in
that terrible and inarticulate cry in which everything was
summed up, everything that had been said, everything in the
divine communication that was incommunicable.
No man would ever finish speaking ("...all the books in the world
could not contain it"); it is action alone that brings it to an end.
But actions themselves would never end either; the last word is
suffering and death, in which man sums up his whole being
before the Father. This is the word that is his testament, the
witness and seal he puts to his whole life. Human time and
human speech became in His death that unity which God Himself
willed in His kindness, since He chose as the final expression of
His divine unity the expression of His revelation and of His
trinitarian essence.
We mentioned the sacraments and the liturgy in connection with
the first way in which human language must go beyond itself:
toward nature and the organic sign. We must mention them also
in connection with this second way. In the liturgy and the
sacraments the Word of Christ makes itself act; the truth
witnessed and assured to us becomes truth efficacious and
victorious in us. This second transcendence--let us never forget
it--is attained only by the total gift of self; there is no Christian
liturgy without the sacrifice of the Cross. We might say, indeed,
that fundamentally the two are identical.
This is the way, then, that man speaks: a free spirit who knows
truth, he at the same time expresses nature and he expresses
himself in his existence. And it is such speech that God has
chosen for His revelation. This comes back to saying that
revelation presupposes a fundamental analogy of being in the
order of creation, but that this analogy is precisely described
(according to the Fourth Lateran Council) as being "in tanta
similitudine major dissimilitudo."
Free human speech, indeed, presupposes, as we have seen, a
natural speech which is not a matter of free choice, since man is
a corporal organic being. Between God and the world no such
necessary link exists--creation, revelation, redemption are all His
free choice. But there is nonetheless a true analogy: as the
spiritual speech of man presupposes a natural speech, so the
speech of revelation presupposes the speech of creation. It
presupposes precisely this analogy of being, and therefore the
natural knowledge of God, or, in religious terms, the natural and
existential contact of the creature with the being from which it
comes forth, cognitio per contactum (St. Thomas), all during his
individual existence and throughout the whole historical duration
of peoples and civilizations.
And this analogy is continued. As the free word of the spirit
represents, in relation to natural speech (like that of animals or of
a baby), a completely new degree, in the same way when God
reveals Himself in human history, He acts as a sovereign who
proclaims, acts, chooses, reproves, judges, and has mercy
according to laws known to Him alone, laws that are in no way to
be deduced from existence or from history. And yet, that such a
free word of the spirit exists is already a matter of human
experience, even before God reveals Himself. God takes hold of
that experience in which man freely raises himself above the
level of nature and attains to the Word--and it is in this way that
God shows that He is the free Master of mankind.
From this let us draw three consequences which will lead us to
our conclusion. First, God speaks by man. Not only what man
says, but everything that he is becomes God's instrument.
Obviously, what he is and what he could be is manifested in all
its fullness only when God makes of man His alphabet, His
expressive and intelligent instrument.
If ever God in His supreme liberty decided to make Himself man,
to adapt Himself to the modes of expression of His creature in
order to reveal His divine depths, to pour out the abyss of His
fullness into this other abyss of emptiness and need, to find His
glory in the abasement of the Cross and the descent into Sheol--if
God ever took this decision (and He did so before the creation of
the world, and the creation of the world was the first step along
this road), then from the very beginning His Word must have
chosen human existence and experience as its mode of
expression.
Man, even in revelation, therefore, will never reach God otherwise
than in man. The curtain of secondary causes is not torn apart;
on the contrary, the more God radically reveals Himself, the more
He deliberately hides Himself in a human nature. The Word which
at one time seemed to resound from heaven in a certain "in itself"
has clothed itself in the flesh of Jesus Christ, in the sacraments
of the liturgy, in the Word of the Church, in the writings of
Doctors and theologians, in ritual, in imagery, in the conduct of
the hierarchical activity of the Church. It is always man who is
there, and more and more man.
He is called to meet God; he knows Him in living faith, in those
secret touches in the depth of the soul that make His presence
and His action evident. But we approach the Father in no other
way than in the humanity of His Son, and we participate in Their
Holy Spirit only in the real and mystical Body of Christ. To love
God we must love our neighbor; in the humility of fraternal love
we learn to know the eternal I and Thou.
But if man is the speech of God, still he never becomes God. In
order to know God, man must at the same time realize himself
and deny himself. He is what God says; he is never He who says
it. In order to reveal God, he must in turn hide himself, forget
himself, efface himself. He will never succeed except in
sacrificing all his experiences and his positions, his abilities and
his arrangements, so that God can use him, as a typesetter uses
the letters laid out at his disposal.
Secondly, the particular Word of God which we call Biblical
revelation, which remains the center of the divine speech,
necessarily transcends itself toward a word of all mankind by its
referring itself back to creation and forward to the coming of the
Kingdom, the day of Yahweh, the resurrection of all history in
God. Christ, at the center of history, reveals its origins and its
goal; He includes what is called natural religion[16] just as much
as eschatology. The religion of the patriarchs has certain roots in
that of Canaan; Abraham bows before Melchisedech, that pagan
ancestor of David at Salem, later exalted to become the type of
Christ. In the Bible there are holy men before Abraham, brought
before us by the sacred writers: Abel, Henoch, the triad of Noe,
Danel and Job recalled by Ezechiel. Others remain on the margin
of sacred history.
The God who was to be the God of Israel and who was to call
Himself Yahweh was already--under strange and even
disconcerting names names of Canaanite divinities, of gods of
mountains and storm, of that cloud of divine forces which must
have originally made up the Elohim--the God the revelation to
come. In the name and at the command of the God of Israel, the
sacred writers made themselves responsible for this
identification and responded to it.
And the more the messianic vision enlarged the religion of Israel
and opened out to its gaze a universalist horizon, the salvation of
all nations, the more also the theological reflection of the priestly
code became capable of composing a correspondingly
universalist account of creation, and even (an astounding thing!)
of anticipating the covenant with Abraham in the covenant with
Noe formally concluded with all mankind, with all flesh, with all
living things, and this for "all generations to come"; and the sign
of this definitive reconciliation between God and the world is
simply a natural phenomenon--the rainbow. "When the bow
appears in the clouds, I will see it and I will remember the eternal
covenant that exists between God and all living beings, that is, all
flesh that is upon the earth" (Gen. 9:16).
From where else, the priests of Israel asked themselves, comes
that wonderful stability of the cosmic order in spite of the fall of
the human race? They understood the mercy of God, who
revealed Himself to Israel but who also supports and protects the
whole universe and all the families of mankind with their idols
and their false religions.
And, thirdly, from the fact that the Word of God wills finally to
unite itself with all mankind born of God, nothing human can
remain foreign to it. Each human situation will be utilized: the
relation between I and Thou, between man and wife, father and
child, mother and son, king and people, priest and layman,
prophet and temple, personal religion and ritual religion, the
political community and the religious community, love, hatred,
jealousy, generosity, severity and kindness, justice and mercy,
faithfulness, the gift of self even to the vow whereby a man binds
his liberty forever, even to the martyrdom in which he renounces
his physical life.
But there is still more. The Word of God took hold of the people
of Israel in their place in history, in the context of a universal
development--not only in a political situation, that of the great
powers of the Near East, with their dependence on the culture of
the Phoenicians (whose architects built the temple of Solomon
and whose poets inspired the poetic forms of many inspired
psalms), but also within a framework of a different order, that of
their "image of the world" (Weltbild), of their "outlook on life"
(Weltanschauung), of their interpretation of life, of wisdom, of
philosophy, of metaphysics, and of religion. And all this
developed, particularly in the ancient world, according to certain
uniform laws that ruled the whole development of human nature
and of the self-consciousness of mankind.
Thus we see the various dimensions of man unfolding
themselves one after the other and placing themselves at the free
disposition of the Word of God. Each degree of the total
development of mankind could, if God willed to make use of it,
present a prerequisite condition for a new unfolding of
revelation. Thanks to this bond between the historic experience
of Israel and that of all mankind, the laws of political history are
in a certain way subject to the laws of revealed history.[17]
The fact is undeniable: because God wished to speak in human
language, the revelation of the one true God waited, so that it
might be understood in faith in a manner worthy of man, for a
certain syncretist monotheism to be established in Egypt and
Babylon; it presupposed the system of amphictonies (alliances of
twelve tribes) as already established. The idea of a God who was
the leader of His people had to acquire a certain universal value,
to form a framework of pre-existing thought in order later to be
surpassed, when Yahweh in His assembly (in medio deorum)
confounds every other divinity.
The theme of the anointed king as the visible image of the
invisible God, the vision of the world and of the state underlying
a sacred statecraft, the portrait of the wise man, of the man
endowed with the gift of prophecy, of the seer of supernatural
things, of the mediator, of the Messiah, the upward flight of a
wisdom literature magnetized by eschatology--all these themes
go far beyond the domain of Israel. In His revelation God not only
"utilized" all this, He not only adapted Himself to it in an exterior
way; the question here is not only one of literary genres.[18] God
in some way espoused each new experience.
Without wishing to interpret secular history as being a sacred
history, we must nevertheless admit what the Fathers of the
Church called the preparation of the Gospel, the logos
spermatikos, the development of which now appears to us in a
new and much more positive light. But the solution is now found
in reverse; it is no longer Plato who is dependent on Moses, but
Moses on Plato, or rather, on the ancient wisdom of Egypt. Holy
Scripture affirms this in so many words (Acts 7:22). Let us repeat
it: even if the total development of mankind is reflected in the
Bible, we should never have the right to deduce from it a
systematic theology of secular history and civilizations. We can
only conclude that this development of the total consciousness of
mankind--what we are accustomed to call "progress"--should also
have its own positive relationship to revelation.[19]
We would risk, with Albright and others, one last statement which
will doubtlessly seem to the many enthusiasts for thinking along
Hebraic lines to verge on heresy, but which seems to us
inevitable and which the Fathers of the Church emphasized in the
first place. The new stage of Western mankind attained by the
Greeks with the discovery of being, of the abstract and necessary
concept of the universality of reason, seems to present one of the
last "conditions" required on the part of man for the incarnation.
Without it, the human foundation for the universally valid human
proclamation of the Gospel would have been defective. There
would have been lacking not only the appropriate means of
expression, but also certain human experiences, certain
structures of thought needed for grasping the meaning and
import of the Christian universal.
Here again we see the synthesis of revelation, the unity effected
by Christ, being in a certain sense prepared and (in the domain of
preparation) anticipated in relation to Christ. The synthesis of
Judaism and Hellenism preceded Him, doubtless in order that the
peace which He brings about in His own Body between the two
parts of mankind (Eph. 2:16) should not be made outside of and
beyond history, and in order that Christian faith should find
ready the appropriate elements for the understanding of the
mystery.
Yet human wisdom is never dispensed from the necessity of
wholly dying to itself if God requires it for the use of His
revelation. The wisdom of this world must admit itself to be folly
to become the wisdom of God. And even in its human structure,
the Biblical Word becomes an integral part of the Word that
judges and has mercy. Job, the Qoheleth, the Proverbs were
doubtlessly composed on the model of the Egyptian and Accadian
wisdom books. But how greatly this complaint of forsaken man
and his resignation in the face of the uncertainty of existence
changes in tonality by the fact alone of its being admitted into
the body of the sacred Scriptures, without mentioning the
internal transformation!
How many advances and progressions are realized in the course
of sacred history, how many things are abandoned along the way!
We need only think of the path followed by Elias which led him in
the footsteps of Moses, but in reverse. He left the Promised Land
behind to find the desert, and once again he came to the terrible
mountain, the manifestation of the Holy by tempest, earthquake
and fire. But time has advanced. God is no longer in all this. He is
now only in the pneuma, the spiritual breath.
The Word can, if it wills, adapt itself to a certain degree of
culture, and then it goes beyond it. Even in its adaptation it
avoids any compromise. God always shows Himself as being the
free and absolute Person. Man must always find God by a
conversion, by an avowal that is repugnant to him; God is never
to be found in the projection of man's own desires and his own
ideals any more than in any projection of Him based on some
system of asceticism or mysticism. All human experiences must
serve God; He has need of none of them, and He never makes use
of one without transforming it by His burning touch.
His Word is freedom; it is power. It was mighty enough to draw
the people ruthlessly through the desert; it was mighty enough
also to draw them, in the course of many centuries, recalcitrant,
stiff-necked, adulterous as they were, from the primitive
consciousness of a nomad tribe up to the threshold of the Gospel
by the road of humiliations. What a miracle in the midst of the
Old Testament are the songs of the Servant of Yahweh! This
whole work was accomplished by the living Word alone, who like
leaven worked from within.
In this refractory matter was progressively revealed, not only the
greatness and majesty of the transcendent God, emerging above
immanent divinities, but also, more secretly, the humility, the
vulnerability of the divine tenderness, the solicitude of the divine
Heart manifested in the humiliated heart of man. Blessed are the
poor, for in all His riches God is eternal poverty. Blessed the
humiliated, for God Himself in His ascension, ascendit Deus, is
eternal abasement, eternal descent, quia et descendit primum. In
the forsaken--Job, Jeremias, the captives in Babylon, the poor of
Yahweh who cried to God and obtained no response--in all these
nights, here is the revelation of the forsaken Heart of God.
After the great light of the religion of the Word, after the
revelation of the true God, of His true existence and His true
essence, here again is what man knew from the beginning and
what the Areopagite reminds us of--the absolute Mystery can only
be adored.
God manifests Himself in man to lead him to the adoration of
Him whom no eye has seen. God sends even His Son, so that He
may interpret God to us in human actions: we hear the Father in
His human echo; in this human obedience even to death we learn
who He is that commands. In the response we receive the Word.
The Son made-Man, at the summit of the universe, carries out
before the Father the liturgy of the Church and of the cosmos. In
Him, Word and liturgy coincide.
Of Him, Jesus Christ, we must say still more. In Him alone, but by
Him for all, the divine Word is hypostatically united to man. In
Him the temporality of human experience (of which we first
spoke) and the eternal truth are united. Between the human and
the divine nature of Christ there is no divergence; what God
wishes to say of Himself He says in a human way, fully and
exactly. Consummatum est: this is not limitless and without
bounds; it has arrived at its goal. Homo capax Dei.
Human language (which we next spoke of), which includes
progressively the whole nature, the whole moral existence, the
whole history of mankind, now is seen to be united with the
eternal Word of the Father. Here every ideal has become real;
those who build on this foundation establish their ideal on what
has already been realized in fact. The pleroma is attained, all the
dimensions of time are fulfilled. And this by a humble human life
distinguished by nothing except its ardent love of the Father and
of men, the life of a Workman and Preacher who willed to fulfill
Himself in poverty and ignominy. His glorification after death is
attested by a few witnesses only. There is nothing here of which
world history would have been aware. Only a man, the Son of
Man.
In Jesus, the Unique, the Incomparable, aware of His oneness, the
Word of God has nevertheless reached man. It is no longer a law,
an abstraction; it is this very Man. All the objective spirit of
religion, of the Law, of the rites, is identified with the subjective
spirit of this Man who is a man like ourselves. Here is the religion
of freedom. When this Man gave everything to God, obeyed Him
even to death, He yet gave obedience to no other than Himself, to
His own filial love of the Father. He has gone beyond all
heteronomy as beyond all autonomy; the heteros, the Father, is at
the same to auton, the same concrete nature. Whoever believes in
the Son is free, for he has attained to total humanism.
The Word of God, which resounds in our liturgies, abundantly
overflows the domain of the Church. It dominates secular history,
offices and factories, science and politics. It includes all this, and
this is only a small part of the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge that it contains. The liturgy of the Church pays Him
loving and conscious homage, while the world ignores its Master
and crucifies Him anew. But this liturgy prostrate at His feet must
at the end rise up to bring about in the secular world that which
it has proclaimed and promised in the holy place.
ENDNOTES
1. Eucharius Berbuir, "Der Weg zum Glauben" (Einsiedeln:
Johannesverlag, 1955).
2. J. Leipoldt and S. Morenz, "Heilige Schriften. Betrachtungen zur
Religionsgeschichte der antiken Mittelmeerwelt." (Leipzig:
Harrassowitz, 1953). Gunter Lanczkowski. "Heilige Schriften,"
Urbanbucherei 22 (Europaverlag).
3. We could also mention the tendency, now outgrown, to
attribute all the details of the New Testament sacramental rites to
a positive institution by Christ.
4. Max Weber, who is considered by many to be one of the
greatest modern German philosophers, has inaugurated in a
masterly fashion the study of the sociology of religions. Up to the
present time, Catholics have made very little use of his work.
5. We do not question this assertion, but rather confirm it when
we add another: the tendency to universalism which we have just
attributed to revealed religion also has its sociological aspect.
Every religion (above all, if it claims to be revealed) must
necessarily tend toward totality and toward unity. We shall never
succeed in distinguishing the divine and supernatural unity in
the religion of Christ from this universality that includes at the
same time every human universal, "abstract" as well as numerical.
6. The question here is of the form. It would be impossible to
describe in one chapter either the content of this experience, the
existent being against the background of being, or the reach of
the spirit in its grasp at once of itself and of the other.
7. Here also, we must resign ourselves to what is possible. The
unfathomable mystery of temporality can only be approached
here from an aspect that is relatively simple and accessible to
everyone.
8. See the very valuable book of Mouroux, "The Christian
Experience" (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954).
9. This is one of the favorite themes of Gabriel Marcel.
10. The most sublime example, the annunciation to Mary, Queen
of patriarchs and prophets, is also the clearest, the mystery of
the divine decision is announced three times in a manner that is
absolute, abrupt, from above (Luke 1:28, 31, 35), and is then
placed in the course of the history of salvation, making
comprehensible to Mary the complete and unheard-of obedience
required of her (Luke 1:32-33, 36). The eschatological vision
cannot be lacking (1:33), nor the revelation of the divine triune
life (1:28, the Father; 1:31, the Son; 1:35, the Spirit).
11. Here we see the reappearance, from the angle of textual
criticism, of the old debate concerning the plurality of the senses
of Scripture. Gerhard von Rad, in his "Commentaire sur la Genese"
(1953) has clearly shown how the Yahwist, while transposing
various experiences into his new context, has nevertheless
refrained from any delimitation; he leaves in doubt, he points up
what is incomplete; he leaves the work of synthesis to the reader.
Speaking of Gen. 22:1-19, von Rad writes: "In such an account,
which has manifestly gone through many stages of internal
reworkings, the content of which was, so to say, fluid up to the
last, we must renounce from the outset the idea of wishing to
elucidate one sense as the definitive one. It has many strata of
thought, and he who believes himself to have reached the last
will find that there are still more beneath it. A narrator of so ripe
a culture as this never has the intention of exactly delimiting the
sense of such an episode and of fixing the reader therein. On the
contrary, such a history is basically open to interpretation;
whatever may be the reflections in which the reader finds himself
engaged, the narrator is not opposed to them, since he is only
recounting an event and not giving a lesson. To the interpreter,
there is only one barrier, but this is an absolute one: the narration
cannot be understood as being the a-historic representation of a
religious reality common to all" (p. 208).
12. As L. Bouyer has shown in his masterly book, "The Meaning of
Sacred Scripture" (Notre Dame University Press, 1958), the
subtitle of which in the French edition sums up the course of this
chapter: "From the God who speaks to God made man."
13. In connection with all this, see the "Cahiers Sioniens," also
"The Bridge" (annually published since 1956 by Pantheon, New
York), the Judeo-Christian weekly published in Berlin (noted in
"Herderkorrespondenz," June, 1957).
14. R. Guardini, "The Spirit of the Liturgy" (New York: Doubleday,
Image Book edition).
15. See Gregory Dix, "The Shape of the Liturgy" (London: Daire
Press, 1945); L. Bouyer, "Liturgical Piety" (Notre Dame University
Press, 1955), p. 122.
16. Or, more precisely, the religion derived from creation in the
concrete, a religion touched by primal grace and charged with a
hope secretly supernatural. But this historical modality does not
call into question the existence of a truly natural religion.
17. Since it is the sovereignly free God who chooses what He wills
to engage as an aid and material condition for His revelation, our
theory could satisfy the strictest requirements of the analogia
fidei as conceived by Karl Barth. It completes (without denying) it,
by the fact that it is the same God who as Creator prepares in
advance in human history the materials which He will use as
Revealer. The distance separating general cultural and religious
history from supernatural revelation is ruled by the law of the
analogia entis (between creation and God)--a fact which does not
call into question our first point of view.
All this has always been affirmed in the classic apologetics of the
Fathers and the manuals by their introducing, for example, the
treatise on the Sacrifice of Christ by general considerations on
the idea of sacrifice common to all peoples, as a ritual sacrifice, a
propitiatory one, an interior one, etc. The new Biblical
discoveries, however, allow us to demonstrate the concrete and
historical bond within the Bible itself between "natural religion"
(with all its deformities, due to sin and severely judged by the
Word of God) and "supernatural religion," a bond which allows us
to go beyond the always abstract juxtaposition of the traditional
treatise de religione in genere and the treatise de revelatione
supernaturali. Our conception in no way leads to a kind of
evolutionism run wild or to religious liberalism. It does nothing
but take seriously the law of the incarnation of God in man who
himself is inseparable from the "numerical universal."
18. We would be underestimating the problem if we considered it
only from the aspect of redaction and spoke only of literary
genres, as if only this external relationship existed between the
Word of God and its human expression, as if God could have
expressed Himself equally well in another adapted literary genre.
Anyone who thinks along these lines should also think that God
could as well have become incarnate in St. Paul or St. Augustine
as in Jesus Christ. Such "extrinsicism" has not grasped the fact
that God does not gather His words from the mouth of men in
order to take them on His own, but rather makes of the whole
man the Word of God.
19. In the final analysis, there can be no question of many kinds
of progress in total history that remain foreign to one another.
One will admit the more willingly a convergence (but never
identity) between "natural progress" and "supernatural progress"
the better one has understood the implication of human
reflection--meditation on the past, prayer, suffering for God and
by God--in the course of sacred history, in the Old as in the New
Testament, in the synagogue as in the Church.
In fact, there are not two but three modalities of progress: that of
revelation (ended with the death of the last apostle), that of the
development of dogma (or of the Church's reflection on
revelation), and that of secular history. The fact that a certain
"supernatural progress" continues throughout the duration of the
New Law precludes a possible objection, i.e., the development (if
there was any) of mankind during the two thousand years before
Christ is so small compared to cosmic evolution that its
implications in sacred history can prove nothing either about the
meaning of evolution as a whole or about the relationship
between the two forms of progress.
It should be noted, however, that the points of view which we
have developed allow us to grasp certain internal analogies which
we must refrain from making into identities. On the one hand,
there is an internal analogy between the progress of revelation
and that of dogma, an analogy in which the resemblance bears on
two points: (1) in both cases, it is the obedience and the religious
reflection of the believer that brings about in a decisive way the
new interventions of the divine Spirit (which is obvious for the
era of the sages of Israel and of Judaism, but also for the time of
the prophets); (2) in both cases, it is, in the final analysis, this
divine Spirit who freely guides history and its developments.
On the other hand, there is an analogy no less internal (but that
of instrumental causality) between "natural progress" and
"supernatural progress," since progress in both cases means
interiorization and universalization, the power to dominate a
wider field of data by a spiritual elevation. The decisive progress
of the Old Testament led from an awareness of the tribe to an
awareness of the kingdom, and finally, by the experience of the
Exile, to an awareness of all mankind (embracing in sacred
history the salvation of all peoples by the mediation of Israel).
The New Testament reflects an equally universal outlook in the
unfolding of the Synoptics, in Paul and in John, and the progress
of dogma, in turn, can be nothing other than a continual
deepening by insights always more total and inclusive.
But let us not forget, for the three domains, the existence of the
great law of losses and of senescence, so forcefully experienced
and expressed by a St. Augustine or a St. Gregory the Great. But
these losses, so evident in secular progress, should not render us
blind to a certain real ascent which it would be unjust not to be
willing to admit. Ultimately there are not two progresses because
there are not two kinds of universals merely existing side by side;
the ("abstract") human universal of the natural order remains
subject to the ("concrete") universal of Christ, in whom all things
are recapitulated.
CHAPTER 4: THE WORD OF GOD LIVES IN THE LITURGY
Rev. Louis Bouyer, Cong. Orat.
ONE CERTITUDE we can never doubt is that the Word of God
always has been and always is living in the Church. This means
that the Church would cease to be the Church if the authentic
Word of God ceased to be proclaimed therein or if this Word
ceased to find its mysterious realization in her sacramental life.
From which fact flows this conclusion, which from many points
of view is only another way of saying the same thing: it is
impossible, without misunderstanding and tending to distort the
very reality of the Catholic Church, to separate in fact the
proclamation of the Word of God and sacramental life. We believe
that the Church is infallible; we believe, therefore, that this vital
connection has never disappeared, can never disappear.
But we know also that the Church is made up of men who as
individuals are fallible, and of local or particular communities
which to some extent also suffer from this sad weakness. We
need, therefore, to face the situation as it is and see clearly that
the concrete realizations which we have given in the past or
which we still give at the present time to these great
unchangeable principles, have been or still are more or less
deficient. This examination should lead us to meditate more
profoundly on the principles of which we are convinced, to try to
make them more visibly and more efficaciously operative in
everyday reality--in our personal spiritual life, as well as in our
pastoral work.
So far as the proclamation of the Word of God and sacramental
life are concerned, and more particularly, the relationships
between them, what then was the state of affairs in our parishes
yesterday? What is it still today?
The Latin liturgy, and particularly the Roman liturgy, has, without
doubt, always remained an admirable presentation and carrying
out of the Word of God, surrounding and permeating the
sacramental celebration. We need say nothing about the Office--
which since the end of the eighteenth century has become almost
exclusively the concern of clerics--except to remind ourselves
that we should immerse our personal prayer in the inspired
prayer of the Psalter, nourish our personal meditation on the
cycle of readings from holy Scripture, explained by the Fathers of
the Church and, above all, illuminated by the great perspectives
of the Christian mystery as the liturgical year causes us
continually to return to them.
Let us speak only of the Mass, the heart of the liturgical life of the
faithful. Its entire first part is a reading of the Epistles of St. Paul
and the Gospels, prepared by and, as it were, expanded in a
prayer which itself is drawn above all from the Psalter, but which
at the same time is organized and guided by the living perception
of the Christian mystery learned in the school of Catholic
tradition.
And its second part, with the Roman canon which is so directly
Biblical in inspiration and texture, introduces us into the
sacramental mystery by the very ways in which it was developed
in the history of the people of God: the Eucharistic preface still
cast in the forms of Jewish prayer contemporary with the origins
of Christianity; the recalling of the sacrifices of the Old
Testament, "of Abel the just, of Abraham our patriarch, of
Melchisedech Thy high priest"; the anamnesis of the great deeds
of salvation, from the Supper to the Ascension; the great
blessings flowing out from the Cross to all creation; the great
doxology ascending from the Cross to the heavenly sanctuary in
which we finally present ourselves, following our divine
Precursor there to say with Him: "Our Father, who are in
heaven...."
But how much of all this--even a short time ago--really went
through the minds of the good people who "assisted at Mass"?
The priest certainly read the Epistle and the Gospel, but to
himself, turning his back on everyone else, in a language that
nobody understood, and without taking any pains to be heard by
anyone. While he was doing this, the most devout of the faithful
were reading pious fantasies about Christ going from Caiphas to
Pilate when the altar-boy changed the book, or beautiful flights of
fervor about Christ speaking through the Church--flights which,
however, never suggested that it might be well, when His Word is
being spoken in the Church in its own inspired phrases, actually
to listen to it.
After this the priest, according to the formula of such pious
books as these, entered into the secret of the Canon." Then the
faithful nourished themselves on profound thoughts about the
infinity of God and the nothingness of man, or else on
sentimental pictures of "gentle Jesus," until the moment when the
sound of the bell caused them to bow down before the mystery.
This is not to say that in the life of the Church the Word of God
was reduced to this material survival alone, a survival almost
entirely rubrical for the clergy and, for the ordinary faithful, an
almost impenetrable formality. Rather, to remain living, it carved
out new paths for itself, but paths that were artificial, indirect,
and often strangely remote from its primitive channels, which
were either directly inspired or traditional. The living truth in the
Church was in the same case, one might say, as is the circulation
of the blood in surgical patients whose essential organs have
been put into a state of hibernation to preserve them from the
effects of shock, while the vital fluid is temporarily routed
around through an apparatus of glass and rubber and plastic.
Indeed there was, in the Sunday high Mass, one organ at any rate
through which some drops of real blood still coursed: the sermon
after the Gospel. But this sermon had itself developed in such an
autonomous way as to have become almost cancerous. It was no
longer a part of the Mass, but an entre-acte between two parts of
the Mass.
Anything could be spoken of as well as and besides the Gospel,
and no allusion was ever made, ordinarily, to the other Scriptural
texts of the liturgy. Moral exhortations, political comments,
financial appeals, and sometimes, but less frequently, a sort of
catechism lesson for adults had long since taken the place of the
homily; while in large parishes or on great occasions, this was the
time for one of those rhetorical exercises (with appropriate
gestures and vocal inflections) which have always delighted the
crowd and which, like some works of art, exist "for art's sake"--
that is, in this case, for the pleasure that good people take, as
they say, in listening to "a man who can speak well."
The Word of God, therefore, passed rather through other and
newer channels which were developed little by little in modern
times and were decidedly extra-liturgical. There were still,
related to the liturgy at least materially, the great Lenten
conferences; between Vespers and Benediction during six weeks
of the year large doses of instruction, covering perhaps the whole
of Christian doctrine, were administered. There were, above all,
the catechism and religious instruction given in the schools.
There were also retreats for men and even more for women who
were able to make them. And then there were the "good Catholic
books...."
But in all this, the divergence from the liturgy and from its
basically Biblical text was more than a purely material one.
Undoubtedly it was always the revealed truth that was taught to
the faithful. But it had carefully been stripped bare of everything
that characterizes its presentation in the documents of revelation
themselves and in its traditional exposition by the liturgy. It had
been carefully taken apart and put together again as a
metaphysico-moral system; then, no doubt because the sickly and
unattractive aspect it now wore seemed vaguely frightening, it
was dressed up with "literature" and adorned with a make-up of
sentimentality so as to attract the educated without losing the
masses.
We need not dwell on all this. It now seems very far away, though
it would not be difficult, even now, to find traces of it surviving
all about us. What, during recent years, has taken its place? I
would say that we have, above all, brought the liturgical
celebration closer to the proclamation of the divine Word, while
we have modernized this proclamation itself. But in spite of
many efforts, I do not believe that we have yet made a decisive
effort, except in very rare instances, fully to reintegrate, to make
one whole of the sacramental mystery and the proclamation of
the Word, nor to restore to them all their richness and all their
clarity.
We concerned ourselves, first of all, with giving our faithful exact
and complete translations of the Biblical readings in their
missals. Then, in low Masses for ordinary congregations we
duplicated the Latin readings of the priest with the reading of
these translations; and in some high Masses we have had them
follow the chanted reading.
But it is just here that the best-intentioned practice often reveals
the distance still separating us from our goals. This new reading
was meant to be a real reading; but we have not as yet found out
how to incorporate it fully into the celebration. It remains
"marginal," and because it is marginal, it easily degenerates into
fantasy.
Recently I assisted at Mass in a cathedral in which the
distinguished Chapter obviously had the pious idea of applying
the prescriptions of the "Directoire" of the Bishops of France for
the "Pastorale" of the Mass. The deacon had just chanted, or
rather hummed, the Gospel for the sole benefit of the pillar,
which the subdeacon was comfortably leaning on. Then, while
the latter was carrying the book to be kissed by the celebrant, I
saw the minister of the Gospel desperately pulling at his
vestments and rummaging around to extract from his trouser
pocket a dirty little missal which he proceeded to leaf through by
wetting his finger. Finally, having found what he was looking for,
he stammered out, almost inaudibly, a translation that had been
carefully emasculated--stripped, in particular, of all its allusions
to the Old Testament.
Here before my eyes was an example, not unlike many others, of
the proclamation of the Word of God in the Mass of the twentieth
century. The lesser ministers, apparently, were not quite sure
whether this reading was or was not part of the sacred rite, the
acolytes and incense-bearer had dispersed, leaving the reader
alone; seemingly they had not been able to believe that this
reading in the vulgar tongue could be anything more than a
pleasant make-believe, quite marginal to the real liturgy.
In fact, the reading in the mother tongue, the reading that is
understood, continues so successfully to look like a secondary
and facultative appendage that we have far too little sense of its
seriousness. In printed missals and, still more, in reading aloud,
there have been permitted under the guise of translation all sorts
of transpositions, amputations, modifications, and these are
sometimes doubly peculiar because they have been improvised
on the spot. Priests themselves, when they proclaim the Word of
God in the vernacular, often seem to forget the fact that it still is
the Word of God--in French, in English, in Turkish or Japanese,
just as it is in Latin. They seem to think that they have the right
to make it their own word, revised and corrected according to
their own tastes, their habits of thought, or quite simply, a
momentary whim.
It is true, nonetheless, that along with making the Biblical
readings once more understandable, a happy effort is being made
to make the sermon, or rather the Sunday homily, once more an
integral part of the proclamation of the divine Word in the
readings. But here again, though progress has undeniably been
made, it is not yet so great as to leave little to be done. Instead of
allowing the readings of the Mass, in all their authentic reality,
set as they are in the enlightening context of the whole
traditional liturgy, themselves be the source of the homily, do we
not all too often find the homily, inspired by the ideas current
everywhere today, itself determining the translation of the
readings and even what shall be translated?
Furthermore, the readings and homilies thus restored to their
proper place--in spite of present drawbacks which we may hope
will prove temporary--are being complemented by an apparent
innovation which is actually the revival of a traditional custom--I
mean the use of "comments."
"Comments" are brief formulas by which the celebrant himself, or
preferably the minister who assists him, normally the deacon,
informs the faithful when necessary of what is to be done next
and interprets its meaning for them. Nothing, certainly, can be
more effective in showing actively how the divine Word, the Word
addressed to our faith, not only has its place in the liturgy but
constitutes its very texture. Yet we can say of these "comments"
what Aesop said of the tongue: it can be the best and the worst of
things.
How beneficial is the prompting which is discrete, precise, exact,
which maintains and renews whenever necessary the intelligent
and prayerful contact of the congregation with the divine Word
that is, as it were, the motive power of the whole liturgical action!
And how unfortunate is the "comment" that turns into a torrent of
words, drowning everything! Such "comments" (and we see too
many examples of them) drive prayer away from the liturgy and
finally substitute for the liturgy a kind of night-school course for
retarded students on the liturgy. For comments are felicitous only
if they really aid the liturgy and do not rather cause it to be
forgotten, concealed behind a kind of sermon-flood that
duplicates it.
I have just said the word that germinally contains what is
perhaps the most severe criticism which the coming generation
will make of our best efforts it we let them slacken and sink in
midstream. For the characteristic of the present liturgical
movement, a stage which, perhaps, we must go through but
which we must certainly not get bogged down in, is what I shall
call the Mass in duplicate.
My criticism of the past has been severe enough so that my
colleagues today will not be scandalized if I now try to imagine
what a liturgist of the twenty-first century, who perhaps is not
yet born but who will surely not object to our speaking about
him, might well say of us all some day. I imagine the young and
rash Aristarchus saying something like this: "In the middle of the
twentieth century, some worthy men, filled with good intentions,
who erroneously thought of themselves as eminent liturgists, had
substituted for the old Mass with three priests of the preceding
centuries a Mass of their own invention with two priests. The first
priest said the rubrical Mass, the Mass said so as to conform to
the rules, the Mass of which almost nothing was audible, but
which they tried to make a little more visible than in the past by
means of those devices which were the favorite liturgical
playthings of those days long ago: the altar versus populum, the
"podium," etc.
"While this Mass was going on, and approximately in
synchronization with it, another priest went on talking, talking,
usually the more untiringly the less he had prepared what he was
going to say. At certain moments he read, out of a missal
designed for the faithful, a mish-mash of periphrastic
translations which he garnished according to his own taste. To
vary the figure, between these membra disiecta he spread out a
flood of comments and exhortations on which floated in disorder
all the conventional phrases then current: 'Mystical Body,'
'Catholic Action' (specialized or not), 'helping the worker,'
'presence in the world,' 'the Christian family,' 'responsibility of
the laity,' etc.
"Since nobody can talk continuously, he occasionally took a
breath, giving the faithful time for a fine unanimous "Et cum
spiritu tuo." Or else he had them sing a Gelineau psalm (always
one of the most popular two or three). When the first priest had
finished his Mass and retired with his paraphernalia, the second
priest was seized with the vague notion that there had not been
enough praying. And so there was an Our Father and a Hail Mary
for the Chinese babies, for missionaries, for our dear departed
..And the show was over."
I will cut short here the words of our liturgist of the twenty first
century, which are as impertinent and also as profoundly unjust
as those generally are of people who get involved in writing
about the life of the liturgy with insufficient respect for the great
figures of the past. Naturally, he exaggerates. But, among
ourselves, future fossils of the twentieth century, is there not
some truth in his criticisms? They present a caricature; but would
we dare deny that they contain some elements of truth?
What, then, prevents things from going as they should in spite of
all our touching good will? The trouble is, it seems to me, that we
have tried to make something new out of old materials. We have
changed our methods, but we have not really changed our habits
of thought.
We have kept our rubrical, formalistic notion of the sacred rites.
We have kept our old way of proclaiming the Word of God, a way
little in accord with tradition and therefore lacking in freshness
and vigor, as a result of our not having lived the Word ourselves.
We have thought it sufficient to color the Word of God to suit
modern tastes and then to apply it in large strokes, like cheap
varnish, to a ritual simply piled up in layers and poorly
camouflaged as an up-to-date spectacle. Hence the hybrid that we
now possess, in which the large pieces of new cloth are in danger
of finally tearing and pulling apart the old garment they have
been unsuccessfully patching.
The first thing to discover is, therefore, how the Word of God,
springing from its source and kept living in the very life of
authentic liturgical tradition, is naturally connected with the
sacramental rites, and how behind this native bond between rite
and word, there is an interior connection between the most
profound idea of the Word of God and the Christian sacraments.
Then we shall at long last be able to do away with this business
of superimposing on a word that is simply ritualistic, reduced to
the formulas required by the rubrics and hurried through as
being incidental to living worship, a word that is living and
intelligible but of a more or less whimsical form and with a
content that is left up to the arbitrary decisions of almost anyone.
The first truth that a study of the liturgical tradition of the
Church should impose on us is, in fact, that in Christianity there
are not two kinds of sacred words: on the one hand, words that
are meant to say something to somebody, words that are said in
order to be heard and understood, but which, for all that, are not
bound up with the liturgy, are not part of it; and on the other
hand, words that are bound up with the rites, words that must be
said (no matter how), some of them simply because the rubrics
order us to say them, and others, because in addition they have a
quasi-magical power of giving the rites their sacramental content.
I hasten to add that, of course, nobody in the Church has ever
upheld such a concept. But I maintain that everything that is
illogical, unfruitful in our preaching and in the way we carry out
the liturgy is unconsciously oriented by such a view,
unconsciously flowing from all sorts of routine actions, defective
practices, inadequate realizations, which tend in fact towards the
obviously heretical idea that I have just formulated.
In contrast, if there is anything which has become self-evident
ever since the liturgy of the Mass has been studied in its origins,
it is that its first part was made to be, in the clearest possible
way, the most intelligible way, the most assimilable way, a
proclamation of the Word of God as a living Word, seeking the
attention, the adhesion, not only of our mind but of our heart. Let
us only glance at the old Roman churches--St. Clement or St.
Mary-in-Cosmedin. Here the subdeacon did not chant the Epistle
at the foot of the altar, carefully turning his back on the people
for fear that somebody might hear him; the deacon did not
solemnly go off to bump his nose on the north wall of the
sanctuary. Each climbed up into high tribunes where they were
visible to everyone, right in the middle of the congregation so
that all could see them and hear them.
And if they chanted the texts, on tones that were simple but
brought out the main accents, it was not to drown these ritual
readings in the rumblings to which they are usually reduced in
our times; quite the opposite, it was to make sure that every
syllable could be heard clearly. The psalm chants connecting the
readings, by the choice of words as well as by their melodies,
aroused and prolonged the meditation of the faithful on what had
just been heard. Silent prayer was the natural effect; and then the
brief Collect of the president of the liturgical assembly resumed
in one phrase the central theme of the previous reading before
going on the next.
Thus they went on, reading, meditating, praying, from the
traditional readings of the synagogue, the Pentateuch and the
prophets, to the reading of the apostolic teachings, and finally to
the Gospel, the proclamation of Christ in His own words, for
which they stood up, chanting ritual acclamations, convinced
that He whose words they heard was present to speak to them, as
is signified by the lights and the incense carried before the
Gospel-book as before a first epiphany of the heavenly Imperator.
Under these conditions the homily given by the bishop did not
come as an entr'acte or an hors-d'oeuvre. In the person of the
successor of the apostles, of him who in the midst of the
assembled Church was the very locum tenens of Christ Himself,
all the apostolic teaching of this liturgy was made present,
reunited hic et nunc with this local assembly gathered together
on this particular day, in such a way that everything the people
heard was received by them as a living Word, always present,
destined for them, addressed to them by Christ Himself present
among them.
This whole service of readings, indeed, progressing up to the
Gospel between the meditative chants of the ancient people of
God, awakened better than any explanations the sense of what
the Word of God is; and after this the word of the man chosen by
Him to be His minister could not appear to be or be anything
other than His true and apt medium.
The Word of God in the celebrations of the ancient Church
remained the saving event, the personal intervention of God in
the history of men, choosing and setting apart for Himself a
people, then forming them little by little and enlightening them
at the same time, to lead them to what St. Paul calls the
intelligence of the mystery. The "mystery," in the sense that Paul
gives to this word in the First Epistle to the Corinthians and in
the Epistle to the Ephesians, this is what the proclamation of the
Word of God in His Church opens out on.
The "mystery"--that is to say, the proclamation of Christ and of
His victorious Cross coming as the achievement and the key of
human history, as also the fullness and the core of all divine
words which little by little and step by step were communicated
by the prophets. The "mystery"--that is to say, the saving event
sketched out and prepared by the first Pasch, the first
deliverance; more profoundly approached in the sorrowful and
radiant experience of the exile in Babylon and the return of the
captives, that first resurrection after death hailed by an Ezechiel;
finally carried out in the "passage" of Jesus through death, His
"exodus" to the Father, containing in Himself in advance our own
victory over sin and death, our own accession to the freedom of
sons in glory.
The "mystery"--that is to say, the proclamation of Jesus as always
living, not only in the heavenly sanctuary in the presence of the
Father to intercede for us with the all-powerful pleading of His
Blood that speaks with an eloquence quite other than that of the
blood of Abel the just; but here also, in the assembly of His own
to reproduce in us what was already accomplished in Him once
for all.
To say this is already to go from the first part of the Mass to the
second, from the proclamation of the Word of God to the
sacramental celebration. But, as now seems obvious, the
transition comes about of itself. In passing to the Eucharist
properly so called, the proclamation of the Word of God does
nothing more than expand, fulfill itself. And this is precisely why,
inversely, St. Paul says: "Whenever you eat this bread and drink
this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes."
The sacrament is but the focus of the actuality, of the reality
always renewed, toward which the proclamation of the Word of
God in the Church tends of its own accord. On the one hand, in
fact--and here is the "mystery"--the Word of God is, finally, not
only what Jesus said in the Gospel, but Jesus Himself--everything
that He was and is everything that He did, and above all, His
Cross. And on the other hand, Jesus in His Church, through the
apostles and their successors, has willed to be present forever
with His whole redeeming work, with His whole risen being,
drawing us all toward Himself as if by an invincible gravitation,
to make of us all one single Body, one Christ, Head and Body, to
the glory of the Father.
He has, therefore, given to His apostles and to their successors,
the bishops, and to their collaborators, all priests, the work of
proclaiming His Word, not as simply expressing ideas or merely
giving the account of past events, but as having the power, the
actuality, that it has on His own lips: the Word of Christ in His
messengers as in Himself, the Word of God that does what it says,
that brings about what it proclaims.
And so, at His command and by His power, making once more the
signs that He Himself has given, announcing the meaning,
proclaiming the content that He Himself has given these signs,
the representatives of Christ, by His all-powerful Word, do again
what He did. Or, better, it is He Himself who through their hands
and their mouths gives us again today the sacred signs of His
"mystery," gives us its whole hidden reality.
In particular, in the Eucharist, taking bread and wine, the
nourishment of our earthly life, at the height of the proclamation
of the Gospel, the good news of salvation, and repeating the
words of Christ: "This is My Body...this is My Blood...Do this in
memory of Me," the messengers of Christ give us in all reality,
under the sign in which He Himself wished to give it to our faith,
the very content of His "mystery." The Christ who proclaimed is
made present. The proclamation of His life-giving Cross becomes
the proclamation of what is mysteriously accomplished among
us, in order to be fulfilled in us, to perfect us all together in Him.
Thus the sacramental Word is in no way a kind of magic word,
any more than the other ritual words are mere formalities which
we must pronounce in order to obey the rubrics but which have
nothing to do with the real proclamation of anything intelligible
and vital to our understanding and our heart. The sacramental
Word appears, on the contrary, as the climax of the personal
revelation, of the living announcement, of the actual present
proclamation that Christ, always present in His Church, has just
made of His own mystery.
We might say that when the divine Word has awakened, aroused,
formed, fully enlightened our faith, prepared it in advance to
receive the "gift of God," to recognize in the Word that God says
to it the creative Word, the Word of life, then this same Word
speaks the final word, the decisive word, the word in which it
gives itself, that is to say, in which it is Christ who gives Himself
to us with all His gifts; this, then, is the sacramental Word, the
consecrating Word.
Under these conditions we see how the Word proclaimed is not
complete, loses its end and meaning without the sacrament. For,
once more, it is proclaimed in the Name of Christ, by the apostles
of Christ, as His Word, as the Word in which He promises us and
gives us, hic et nunc, the "gift of God." Inversely, it appears also
how the sacrament is fundamentally denatured if it is no longer
the gift made to faith fully formed, fully enlightened, the gift of
what is announced by the Word, the gift made by that Word itself,
recognized as the Word of Christ, of Christ who is Himself the
living Word of God and who remains always present, always
living in His Church.
This is what is stated with supreme clarity in the very prayer in
which and by which the Church consecrates the Eucharist, that
prayer which is the Eucharist properly speaking, prayer in which
the Word of God to man and the response of man to God are one.
The Christian Eucharistic prayer is, in fact, the perfect realization
of a type of prayer which flourished in the last ages of Judaism
and which was, as it were, the sign of the highest developments
of the Word of God itself in His people. It is the prayer of the man
who welcomes the Word of God and understands it with the
intelligence of a faith wholly permeated with love. As we see in
the great prayer of Esdras, the Jewish eucharist already
recognized in the Word of God, in His creative Word, not only the
revelation of the meaning of human history, but the great
creative and redemptive force that leads that history towards its
blessed goal by the decisive events in which God Himself has
intervened.
The Eucharist is thus the act of gratitude par excellence: man's
recognition that everything is finally God's mercy, and on this
foundation, the upsurge of faith that gives itself to Him, that
abandons itself completely to Him who has given us everything.
But already in the Old Testament, as it approached the New, the
eucharistic prayer became fused with a new ritual, which might
be called the ritual of messianic hope. In the Jewish communities
which the discoveries of Qumran have made better known to us,
we see how already the common meal of those who waited for the
"consolation of Israel," as St. Luke says, had become the superior
equivalent of the ancient ritual sacrifices. It became this by the
eucharist, the prayer of thanksgiving that the head of the
community pronounced after the bread had been broken, over the
cup shared by everyone.
In the giving of thanks for these foods, in the giving of thanks for
the coming together of these chosen ones whom God nourishes
with His own hand, these elements were seen as the first fruits of
the new Manna which God will give to His own in His kingdom,
and the gathering itself was seen as the preparation for the
messianic banquet in which all the saints will sit at table with the
Son of Man in the company of the patriarchs and the prophets.
When Jesus was present on Holy Thursday at a reunion of this
kind, He consummated the hope which actuated the Jewish
eucharist by proclaiming the definitive Word of God, the Word of
crucified love, and by producing thereby the definitive
intervention of God in the history of His people.
And so, henceforth, under the earthly food His own recognize the
Food of immortality. Celebrating the Eucharist of Jesus, the
Eucharist of the Word of God-made-flesh, in which the divine
Word itself, fully revealed and fulfilled, now makes but one
reality with the response of man, fully open to the love of God
shed forth in his heart by the Spirit of Jesus, the Church thus
"proclaims" the death of the Lord, the mystery of the life-giving
Cross, in the "proclamation" par excellence, in which she
"recognizes," as well, in the breaking of bread, the definitive "gift
of God" which is given to her, the gift in which it is God Himself
who not only gives but is given: for us on the Cross, for us always
and to us in the Mass.
And now, let us come back to earth. Or rather, let us come back
from the primitive practice, a practice immediately expressive of
its meaning, to our practice today.
Here is the first thing we should look to: that the true reading, the
reading of the Word of God which is made so as to be heard, may
once more become for us priests, and through us for our faithful,
the ritual reading, a visibly sacred act, an act in which religious
dignity and the truth of the reading go together. And for much
greater reason let us never allow ourselves in reading the Word of
God to stumble over it, to hurry through it. Let us honor it by the
very way we read it; let us respect it in its text; let us transmit it
without having the impudence to lay dirty hands on it.
This, obviously, requires that we have a translation of the
liturgical readings of the Mass made to be read aloud publicly
and solemnly, in which the fidelity to the text will be equalled by
the clarity and dignity (that is to say, above all, the purity) of the
language. But even when we have such a translation, we shall still
need to know how not only to accept it passively, but to apply
ourselves to it intelligently, so as to bring out its value simply
but fully. Our habitual use of a language that nobody
understands has made us unaccustomed to the effort needed for
making ourselves heard and understood, the effort needed for
reading while thinking of what we are reading and for helping
others to think of it. This is the first thing that we priests have to
relearn.
Some people will say: But to restore to the proclamation of the
Word of God in the Church its reality and therefore its
intelligibility, must we not have very bold liturgical reforms,
particularly in the use of the vernacular? Possibly this is to be
hoped for. But these reforms will not come--and even if they did,
they would remain sterile--so long as we ourselves do not make
ready for them. And it is not by tinkering at random with the
present liturgy that we shall prepare for them. It is by respecting
the liturgy in itself, though not with the respect of rubricists,
which is like that of conscientious undertakers for a corpse. It is
by understanding it better and trying intelligently to make the
best of it. It is by giving to our faithful, in our preaching and also
in all other forms of religious instruction, a doctrinal formation
directly drawn from the Word of God read in the school of the
Church, as she instructs us herself in the traditional liturgy
rightly understood.
Above all, we ourselves need to learn to pray a prayer nourished
by Scripture, inspired by the prayer which is itself inspired by
God the Psalter, guided by the liturgical orations and especially
by the great Eucharistic prayer and by the whole praise of the
mystery that makes the fabric of the liturgical year.
Thence we shall come to form our faithful in the same prayer, not
only by theoretic teaching, but also by those vigils made of
prayer and meditation on Scripture which we now see being
revived according to the example of the ancient liturgy. And so
we shall re-create, in our parishes and in our Christian
gatherings, the spiritual atmosphere, the profound reactions of
thought and of heart, in virtue of which the liturgy will be able to
revive, because we shall have harmonized the rhythm of our
interior life with the very rhythm of the life of the Church when
she created the liturgy.
In this connection, just as it is urgent to react against the abuse
of a "liturgy in duplicate," which superimposes on a Mass that is
liturgically correct but buried under a hermetically sealed cover,
a pseudo-liturgy of our fancy, so it would be false passively to
await the solution to our problems to come about by means of an
act of authority, through which the hierarchy would solve them
all by heaven knows what deus ex machina in which we would
have no part.
Recently in an English magazine, a Catholic writer with the
assurance of an ultramontanist wrote that it is a waste of time to
study the ancient liturgy in order to prepare for a liturgical
revival. After all, said he, the supreme authority of the Church is
not bound by anything and could freely give us an entirely new
liturgy, answering to today's needs, without any further concern
for the past. We need only, therefore, wait for this grant with
confidence. A strange way, indeed, to exalt the authority of the
Church, and one which strongly resembles, however little it
might seem to at first sight, the apologetic approach of the
modernists who said that the Church was above the Gospel, since
it was her own fabrication. The logic of such a position exalting
authority for its own sake, is the same as that of the cynical
Anglican bishop of the eighteenth century who said that the
Anglican Church did in fact teach the Trinity, but that only an act
of Parliament would be needed to make it unitarian.
Authority in the Catholic Church is very far from accepting such
flatteries which, in reality, do it injury. In a document which the
Holy See recently sent out to the bishops to ask their counsel on a
possible reform of the liturgy, it was made quite clear, on the
contrary, that there could be no question of the Church's
fabricating a new liturgy, but rather of going back to a more pure
realization of the traditional liturgy, a realization which would
allow it to be adapted to modern needs without losing anything
of its original vitality and of its unchangeable foundation.
This is exactly why any liturgical restoration carried out by
authority requires of us that we rediscover that traditional spirit,
which is not a spirit of passive obedience, entirely external and
indifferent, but a filial spirit, a spirit of respectful and loving
understanding.
It is in hearing again the voice of the heavenly Father, as our
Mother the Church teaches us to do, in the living treasure of her
liturgical tradition--and not only to hear it, but to understand it,
to respond to it in faith, to give ourselves to it in obedience--it is
in these advances of a faith reborn at its source that liturgical
life, that sacramental life, that Eucharistic life itself will once
more become for us what it is: the mystery of faith.
CHAPTER 5: THE WHOLE MASS PROCLAIMS THE WORD OF GOD
Rev. A. M. Roguet, O.P.
THE LITURGY of the Word is commonly thought of as being
distinguished from the Eucharistic liturgy, even as being opposed
to it. Many factors favor this regrettable dichotomy. We still use
the term Foremass to designate the first part of the Mass, which
suggests that it is not part of the Mass properly so called. Or we
use the term Mass of the Catechumens, in contrast to the Mass of
the Faithful, although this contrast is, as we know, rather foolish
since the faithful assist at the Mass of the Catechumens.
This contrast has historical justifications, certainly: the liturgy of
the Word originated in the liturgy of the synagogue, while the
Eucharistic liturgy goes back to the Last Supper. But we must not
forget two facts: first, that the liturgy of the synagogue was
formed during the epoch of the Exile, far from the Temple and its
sacrifices while our liturgy of the Word ends in the Sacrifice of
the New Covenant; and secondly, that the celebration of the
Supper included proclamation, catechesis (the washing of the
feet with its explanation, the discourse at the Supper), and
chanting (the hallel).
It is true that in ancient times the celebration of the Eucharistic
liturgy was in some cases not preceded by the liturgy of the
Word, as in the Mass in coena Domini, the Mass of Holy Thursday,
in Rome; and aliturgical synaxes were celebrated which were not
concluded by the Eucharist. But it is only by archeologizing that
these established facts can be projected into our present Mass, in
which, for centuries, the liturgy of the Word and the Eucharistic
liturgy have been inseparable and have constituted one single
celebration.
A perfectly legitimate kind of liturgical casuistry in resolving the
problem posed by accidental lateness in getting to Mass has been
unduly generalized in the minds of the faithful, to the point of
their thinking that only the Eucharistic liturgy is important, for it
alone "counts" for obeying the precept of assistance at Sunday
Mass. This generalization of a casuistic solution has been
crystallized and, as it were, institutionalized in certain places by
the sound of the bell rung by the server at the moment when the
celebrant unveils the chalice.
Again, the appearance and the way in which we carry out our
celebration of the Mass can contribute to strengthening this
distinction in the people's minds. The first part of the Mass is
taken up with reading and singing: readers, the subdeacon, the
deacon take the place of prominence. During the second part
silence reigns; here the priest appears as the chief actor, isolated
in an action which thus seems more concentrated and more
important. Again, many priests who read the Foremass very
quickly seem to put much more recollection, deliberation,
solemnity into the consecration (and then feel free to recite the
second part of the Canon with a speed suggesting that, the
consecration being taken care of, the words which follow have
only the importance of accessories).
The present liturgical renewal is, certainly, already reacting
against this division which ends up by making of the liturgy of
the Word a kind of prelude, a catechism lesson coming before the
celebration, or an edifying preparation with which more fervent
spirits may occupy themselves while waiting for the carrying out
of a sacramental mystery which is infinitely more valuable than
all this complex of words and chants. We are all convinced of the
fact that the liturgy of the Word is truly a liturgy, is truly a
celebration, that the Mass is a single, homogeneous action from
beginning to end. We need, however, to find ways to establish
this unity solidly in the minds of everyone. To this end, let us
consider the Eucharist in its most specific and central
characteristics.
I think that it is necessary at this point to advance a theological
thesis which might, moreover, be described as very nearly de
fide. This is that the sacramental act of the Eucharist consists
wholly in the consecration. All the other sacraments are carried
out in the application of their matter to the subject: there is a
baptism when the catechumen is plunged in the water,
confirmation when the candidate receives the anointing. The
consecration of the matter is only a preliminary sacramental and
one which, in the case of baptism, is not indispensable.
The Eucharist, by contrast, is entirely accomplished in the
consecration of the bread and wine. The distribution of the gifts
is the normal completion of the Eucharist, but it is not
constitutive of it. This is what theologians mean when they say
that while Communion is an integral part of the Mass (without it
the Mass is mutilated incomplete), it is not an essential part
(without it the Mass would be nonetheless a true Mass).
This is because the consecration of the Eucharist does not only
accomplish transubstantiation; if this were true, then the
consecration would have the sole purpose of producing the Body
of Christ, which then would be used to carry out a sacrifice and
Communion. The consecration, which certainly accomplishes
transubstantiation, accomplishes at the same time the whole
Eucharistic mystery: it is thanksgiving, sacrifice which
consequently includes offering; it is even communion inasmuch
as it re-presents the Sacrifice of the Cross, which gathers together
all the scattered children of God and gives them access to the
Father and inasmuch as it produces on the altar this one Bread
that unites us in one Body.
But this is the transcendent point of view of faith, a point of view
to which speculative theology is legitimately attached. This point
of view, profoundly true as it is, is almost beyond the reach of
human intelligence, imagination and action, which need to break
up such a profound mystery into successive words and deeds.
The Mass consists precisely in extending in time this indivisible
mystery, contained if one may use the word, all in one point. It
includes, therefore, from our human point of view, which is that
of the liturgy, successive phases, in such a way that when the
Mass has been completed, the Church has laid out as well as
possible all the richness of the mystery. Our mistake consists in
wanting to make these two levels rigorously coincide in such a
way that the Mass would consist of a succession of parts in which
each, as in a mechanical operation, would have its own proper
effectiveness. It is this mistake which breaks up the Mass into
distinct parts, crystallizing to an exaggerated extent an analysis
which is doubtlessly useful from the pedagogical point of view,
but which can end in minimizing the mystery, in making the Mass
seem to consist only in a consecration, to which--in order to
lengthen and give solemnity to the ceremony--trimmings made
up of purely human gestures and prayers almost without sacred
content have been added. This same mistake poses false
problems like that of the epiclesis, in connection with which we
find Bossuet outlining in a very interesting way the doctrine
which I have just been trying to explain.
He has just been giving examples of complex sacramental
celebrations in connection with which one has always the
tendency to ask at what precise moment the sacrament properly
so-called is carried out. And he answers:
"On these occasions, the things that are celebrated are so great,
have so many different effects and so many different
relationships that the Church, not being able to say everything
nor to explain the whole extent of the divine mystery in one
place, divides her operation, although it is most simple in itself,
as it were, into various parts with words fitting to each, so that
the whole makes up one single mystical speech and one single
moral act.
It is, therefore, to render the whole more understandable that the
Church speaks in each place as if she were then carrying out the
action, and without even considering too closely whether she is
doing so, or if, perhaps, she is going to do so; quite content that
the whole is found in the totality of the act and that at the end we
have been given an explanation of the whole mystery which is the
fullest, the most living and the most understandable that could
be imagined.
..And to come back to the Mass, when we ask God now to change
the bread into His Body, now to receive with favor the oblation
that we make of it, now to have His holy angel present it on the
heavenly altar, now to have pity on the living, now to grant that
this oblation may give solace to the dead: do we believe that God
waits to do each of these things for the moment in which we
speak to Him about them? Certainly not.
All this is a consequence of human language, which can only
explain itself part by part; but God, who sees in our hearts with
one single glance everything we have said, are saying, and wish
to say, hears all and accomplishes everything at the fitting times
known to Himself, without our needing to trouble ourselves as to
the precise moment in which He does so; it is enough that we
express everything that happens by fitting actions and words,
and that the whole, even though it is carried out and proclaimed
step by step, represents to us in unity all the effects and, as it
were, the whole face of the divine mystery."[1]
It is the application of this principle that allows us, for example,
to solve the problem of the Offertory. If we see the Mass as made
up of rectilinear, successive actions, we shall be tempted to
consider the Offertory as being the first act of the "drama" of the
Mass, and we shall tend to consider the Offertory as a moral
preparation (we offer ourselves) or a cosmic one (we offer
creation) while waiting for Christ to offer Himself after the
consecration. In reality, the Offertory is not so much a first act,
having already in itself the value of a stage. It is already the
whole Sacrifice, in its preparation. It is not only offering, it is
already sacrifice and already communion. The consecration that
consummates it flows back upon it and colors it in advance.
I have spoken of the Offertory only because the case of the
liturgy of the Word may well be compared with it. In a linear and
successive view, this liturgy could easily appear as a moral and
intellectual preparation, as a prayer-meeting before Mass. Since
the heart, the center of the Mass which irradiates all the rest, is
the consecration, and since this "Foremass" is an organic part of
the Mass, the liturgy of the Word is profoundly connected with
the Eucharistic liturgy it is qualified by it, it is itself Eucharistic.
This may disconcert our imaginations, which represent all
actions, even sacramental ones, on the model of mechanical
actions, that is to say, those in which only efficient causes seem
to be at work and in which the categories of before and after
seem to be unbreakable. But this presence of the end in the
means that make ready for it is constantly to be found in the
domain of the sacramental. It is thus that all the sacraments,
which are ordered to the Eucharist as to their end, draw from it
all their supernatural realism.
For example, baptism only regenerates because it is ordered to
the Eucharist; it is common teaching that a catechumen who
would consciously refuse the Eucharist would receive only a
sterile baptism. It is in this way also that every sacrament acts
even before being received by a person who orders himself to it
as to his end: the candidate for baptism, truly converted, is
justified before receiving the water by "the very thirst that he has
for the faith"; the penitent is absolved before receiving absolution
by the desire that he has for it.
This homogeneity of the liturgy of the Word in respect to the
Eucharist is further explained by the fact that the Eucharist taken
in itself is Word. This is true of all the sacraments. We know the
famous adage of St. Augustine: "Accedit verbum ad elementum et
fit sacramentum." But what is true of any sacrament is always still
more true of the Eucharist, the sacrament par excellence.
Obviously, the Eucharist is effected by a word. As the Office of
Corpus Christi says: Verbum caro panem verum verbo carnem
efficit. "The Word made flesh, by His word makes of His flesh true
Bread." But it would impoverish the Eucharist terribly to see in
this "word" exclusively the sacramental formula, just as it would
be to reduce to this formula alone the verbum of the Augustinian
adage we just quoted, or the verbum that St. Paul joins with the
bath of water to define baptism in the Epistle to the Ephesians
(5:26).
In the first place, the very confecting of the Eucharist (not to
mention the catechesis of faith which precedes it) is carried out
in the context of a thanksgiving--that is to say, of a proclamation
of the blessings of God--and this thanksgiving is so essential to
the sacrament that it has given it its very name.
This confecting of the Eucharist is itself included in a narrative:
Qui pridie quam pateretur; and we should take note of the fact
that the tract "De defectibus Missae," when prescribing a renewal
of the consecration because of a defect of matter, rules that it
should always begin with this account.
Every sacrament is a sign, a profession of faith. The consecratory
act itself has the value of a manifestation, "They recognized Him
in the breaking of bread" (Luke 24:35). "As often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until
He comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). This cup is that of the Blood of the New
Covenant. But the Covenant includes, before the effusion of
blood, the promulgation of a law, a proclamation made in words.
"All these words that Yahweh has spoken, we will obey" (Ex. 24:7).
And this is mysterium fidei, the mystery of faith; that is to say, in
this consecration of the bread and of the wine is recapitulated
the whole economy of salvation, the whole paschal mystery
revealed to men and professed by them in this sacrament.
Finally, Jesus prescribed that it be renewed as a memoria of
everything that He is and everything that He did.
Far from being removed from words, therefore, the Eucharist
requires the Word, the proclamation of the wonderful works of
God, the preaching of Christ, the announcement of His passion
and resurrection, the promulgation of the Covenant. The liturgy
of the Word is required by the Eucharistic celebration; without
the liturgy of the Word, the Eucharistic celebration is incomplete,
it runs the risk of turning into a kind of magic or routine
devotion. "The flesh profits nothing. My Words are spirit and
life."
This connection between Eucharist and Word, the existence and,
in some way, the necessity of which we have just been
considering, is not only a fact which we can be content to affirm.
It illuminates the very nature of the liturgy of the Word, which
must possess certain characteristics of the Eucharist.
In the first place, the liturgy of the Word is Eucharistic in the
proper sense of the word. That is to say, it is not only an
instruction meant for the faithful, but also a thanksgiving
addressed to God. Certainly a word ought to be intelligible, and
we should concern ourselves with this intelligibility. The reader
should turn toward the faithful; the proclamation should be
properly pitched, distinct, audible; the translations should be
clear. But intelligibility should not be the supreme law of the
liturgy of the Word. This is not merely an instruction. It is the
proclamation of the mirabilia Dei made to the honor of God. It
should, therefore, be solemn, poetic. Praedicare is a synonym for
laudare and benedicere.
We are not fulfilling this law when, for example, we read the
Epistle or the Gospel in a merely prosaic fashion; when we
systematically substitute reading for chant; when we silence the
sacred ministers in favor of a mere reader or interpreter. I will
not mention here, although this is part of my subject, the poetic
element of the chants which go with the readings, since this will
be treated expressly in the following chapter.
In the second place, the liturgy of the Word, which expresses the
mysterium fidei, ought itself to share in this mystery. The
Eucharist is not a thanksgiving that strives in a void to sing the
marvellous works of God; it actualizes them. It is not merely a
symbolic memoria addressed to the mind; it is a real Presence, an
actualization of the divine here and now. And so the Word, which
is organically bound up with the Eucharist, beyond its usual
value as an inspired Word bearing a divine message, possesses
an actuality, a reality, a presence of the sacramental order. What
is said, exists; what is proclaimed is done.
Here we encounter the mystery of the liturgical year. The
Eucharist contains the whole mysterium fidei--that is true. But in
some way it unfolds this mystery through the celebrations of the
liturgical year; it is the changing part of the Mass--therefore
chiefly the liturgy of the Word and the Preface--that allows the
one Eucharist to be spread out through the successive feasts and
seasons.
The liturgical year is not a ceremonial variation that clothes an
unchanging Eucharist, like the different embroidered and
bejeweled robes that are put on an old statue, which itself
remains always the same block of wood, more or less roughly
carved; the liturgical year is the redemptive mystery itself,
signified by and contained in the Eucharist, which is celebrated
variously in the Church according to the season. The hodie of our
feasts draws its reality from the fullness of reality belonging to
the Eucharistic mystery itself.
It should, of course, be noted in this connection that the degree
of this fullness varies greatly between the celebration of a great
mystery of salvation, of a simple Sunday per annum, of a "feast of
ideas" (St. Joseph is not more of a Worker on May 1, nor Mary a
Queen on May 31 than on any other day of the year), of a feast of
a saint celebrated with the texts of the Common, of a votive Mass,
etc. In many cases, the actualization of the liturgical texts is
derived solely--though this is to say a great deal--from the reality
of the Eucharist, our daily Bread, and from the liturgical economy
of the Church, which, in providing this text for this particular day
and not for another, gives it a special virtue.
Here we reach the third characteristic which the liturgy of the
Word receives from its connection with the Eucharist: I mean its
communal quality. The Eucharist is not a solitary meal, but a
banquet; the Eucharist necessarily requires the assembly of the
baptized; and the assembly of the baptized calls for the
Eucharist, is ordered to it. Similarly, or rather by way of a
consequence, the celebration of the Word is communal; it is a
proclamation addressed to the Christian people. It is not enough,
therefore, that the various individuals present should be made
aware of the liturgical texts by some means or other (practically
speaking, by reading them in their missal); these texts should be
publicly proclaimed to the assembly, should reach their minds by
way of their ears.
As we see more and more clearly, the missal, although it serves
as the providential means of salvaging our inaudible celebrations
and as an indispensable instrument of liturgical and Biblical
preparation, is not a panacea sufficient to remedy every
deficiency or opaqueness in our celebrations. And even if we
were to grant the impossible--that all the faithful in an ordinary
congregation possessed missals and knew how to use them--it
would still remain true that the Word of God is a word before
being a text, that it should be heard rather than read (which does
not exclude its also being read), and that even if it were perfectly
understood by each individual by himself, it should be
proclaimed to the assembly as such.
The homogeneity of the liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist has
led us to bring out clearly its theocentric aspect and its
connection with the mystery; but it also obliges us to consider its
anthropological and pedagogical aspects. If the sacraments are a
witness to the mirabilia Dei, they are no less propter homines.
The Eucharist is thanksgiving for the gifts of God; it is the
offering to God of the Sacrifice of Christ and of the Church; but it
is also the gift of God to men, food and remedy for men. It is not
only the Lamb immolated for the glory of God and the salvation
of the world; it is also the Lamb eaten at the family table, it is the
Manna that sustains the faithful on their pilgrimage through the
desert, satisfying all their desires and all their needs, omne
delectamentum in se habentem. It is Bread to be broken and
distributed.
We must, therefore, assure a solemn celebration of the Word, but
we must also seek to have this Word assimilated by the Christian
people, taken as a whole and taken as individuals, one by one. We
must not let it be said that "the little children begged for bread
and there was no one to give it to them." It is not enough,
therefore--although this is indispensable--that the Word of God in
the liturgy be religiously and solemnly proclaimed. It must also
be heard and understood by those to whom it is addressed.
Otherwise it would no longer be truly a word: it would be a mere
stimulus to edification and reverence providing a general
impression of beauty and mysteriousness, like that given by the
majesty of the altar, the glow of the lights and ornaments, the
dignity of the sacred actions.
For the Word to remain a word, that is to say, for it to reach
minds and hearts, for it to create a spiritual bond between God
and men, three activities are necessary: reading, catechesis,
preaching.
Reading, first of all. This reading has its own requirements, even
if it is done in Latin. Latin itself (does this need to be said?) is a
language that has meaning. Even a reading in Latin ought to be
heard, to be resonant, intelligible, at least materially. Even when
we are reading in Latin, it is absurd for us to read so that nobody
can hear it, to read facing a wall, to read in such a way that the
text seems to be a sort of meaningless chant or dithyramb. In my
childhood I was greatly impressed by a priest who read the
Epistle and Gospel of the Mass in such a penetrating, intelligible
way that one was certain in hearing it, even without
understanding, that the words constituted, at least for the priest
himself and for those privileged people who knew Latin, a
message charged with meaning.
But there is no need to say that this is not enough. The Word of
God should also be proclaimed in the mother tongue of the
faithful. If the Word is not understood, it is not a word. And if it
is understood only through the intermediary of a missal and
individual effort, it is no longer the Word of God proclaimed in
the official worship of the Church and so received by me. In such
a case, I receive the Word of God, certainly, but by the
intermediary of an instrument which has no authority, and in the
solitude and uncertainty of my personal research.
In the present state of legislation this intelligible proclamation
can be made only by way of duplication, that is to say, by a
reading in the mother tongue coming after, or, as the case may
be, superimposed on the Latin reading of the celebrant. What
inconveniences result from this duplication? Its usual and
immediate inconveniences seem to me quite negligible. So far as
the readings are concerned, the priest is not the normal minister
in any case; the reader who reads the translation from the ambo
in a dialog Mass takes the part of one of the ministers in a solemn
Mass. As to the chants such as the Introit and the Gradual, it is
the celebrant who actually does the duplicating here when he
reads them for himself in the Missal. (I will not mention the
Orations, which are not the Word of God, and which pose special
problems.)
But this duplication has accidental inconveniences which, in
practice, are of considerable importance. For example, when the
priest is alone without the aid of a reader, or again, when the
Mass is solemn and includes long pericopes such as those of the
passion, then successive readings in Latin and the mother tongue
become very onerous, if not impossible.
But the duplication seems to me regrettable, above all, because of
its generally unfortunate effect of setting up an opposition in the
minds of priests, first of all, and then of the faithful, between, on
the one hand, a word that must be spoken not to be understood,
but simply to have been spoken for the sake of obedience, of
following the rules, even for the validity of the sacrament; and,
on the other hand, a word that is spoken only to be understood
and which, as such, seems external to the sacred celebration. And
so may we hope that the Holy See will one day satisfy the desire
which it approved at the time of the Congress at Lugano: that the
celebrant may be able to proclaim the Word of God directly in the
language of the faithful.
If some day the Holy See allows this direct proclamation of the
readings in the language of the faithful, the consequences of such
a permission must be fully evaluated. The reading of the
vernacular translation will cease to be an expedient,
recommended and useful no doubt, but juridically facultative; it
will become an obligation. This reading will no longer be a kind
of parallel or appendix to the liturgical celebration; it will be part
of it. It will no longer be given as a kind of aid in making the
Word of God intelligible; it will be given as being the Word of
God. The qualities of solemnity and of intelligibility, now
separately entrusted to the Latin and to the vernacular readings,
will henceforth both belong to the one reading in the mother
tongue.
We can easily see all that this implies. To deal with such heavy
responsibilities successfully, we must prepare ourselves now. It
would be a mistake to consider the present situation as being so
provisional that it does not matter how we deal with it while we
are waiting for the happy days when the permissions we hope for
will descend on us from heaven. I shall, therefore, close my
parenthesis about the direct reading in the mother tongue, which
is not yet possible, and return to the realities of the present
considered as preparatory to progress--progress which in great
part depends on our efforts, even though we do not possess the
authority that alone can settle the question.
We must, then, say and continue to say that the vernacular
translation of the Word of God is the Word of God. It may be only
a translation, but so is the Vulgate itself, otherwise the Epistle
and Gospel would have to be read in Hebrew and Greek,
something which nobody has as yet required.
If this translation is to be presented as the Word of God, it must,
above all, be a faithful one. Let us admit the fact that during
recent years we have too often allowed our zeal for adapting
Scripture to the understanding of our people to outweigh our care
for fidelity. But what is the use of making understanding of
Scripture effortless if what the people understand is something
other than the Word of God, if it is a Word that has been
arranged, accommodated, its harshnesses softened?
I mean, of course, the harshnesses that properly belong to it.
There is no question of canonizing obscurities that come from
translating without sufficient care or knowledge, or from using
archaic or artificial language. And again, we must not confuse
unusual expressions that are due to lack of skill in translating
with expressions that are truly Biblical, technical, irreplaceable.
Not to go into this subject at length, let me content myself with
illustrating what I have to say with a few typical words. The
words tribulation, magnify, trespass are outmoded, no longer
meaningful, and so should not be used in translating, but the
words glory, bridegroom, thanksgiving belong to Biblical
language as such.
Here, I believe, an important remark should be made. In
translating a text that is not a sacred one and that is concerned
with expressing more or less rationalized and abstract thought,
we may legitimately transpose and adapt. Here, doubtless, there
is a certain value in raising the classic (though all too brittle)
distinction between form and matter. Provided that the thought
of the author is rendered exactly, the phrasing of it does not
particularly matter.
But such latitude does not exist in translating Biblical texts. First
because the Bible uses concrete language in which the thought is
incorporated in the images. Next, because in the Bible it is the
words themselves that are inspired. Mallarme said that one does
not make a poem with ideas, but with words. This is true also for
the Bible, a poetic Book and a divine Book as well; we cannot
allow ourselves to translate the Bible with any kind of words. To
take an example at random: we have no right in translating a
Biblical text to replace a passive form with an active one, or a
personal form with an impersonal one which, while it seems to
say the same thing in different words, in reality does not say the
same thing at all, and, moreover, muffles certain sacred
resonances of the original text.
We feel all these requirements more acutely than we did a few
years ago by reason of the progress of Biblical theology itself.
Now we attach an importance to certain key words, to certain
themes which we did not perceive, or at least did not perceive
with the same clarity when we had a more superficial knowledge
of holy Scripture.
Certainly, the Bible is difficult. To be understood, it demands
initiation, catechesis. But we must resist the temptation to
incorporate this catechesis in the translation. What may be all
right in a missal meant for individual reading and initiation--for
example, the introduction into the text of glosses put between
brackets--is not permissible in a text designed for public
liturgical reading. In vocal reading, the brackets cannot be heard;
and so the gloss seems to be an interpretation, that is to say, an
adulteration of the Word of God.
Such glosses, such interpretations are doubtless indispensable.
But they must be left in their proper place--in catechesis--and not
be introduced into the Word of God itself. Otherwise this Word
will no longer have objectivity, fixity. We end up with a multitude
of translations which may shake the people's faith in the Word of
God, for they may imagine that it can be indefinitely remodeled,
remade, transformed according to situations, hearers, or the
fancy of the translator. As things are, the faithful hear a Word
that changes from priest to priest and from parish to parish, and
is not the same as the Word he reads in his missal. And from the
pedagogical point of view also the drawbacks are great, for it is
impossible to memorize so protean a Word.
It is, therefore, highly desirable that for public proclamation we
arrive at a text which will be as faithful, as objective, and as
uniform as possible. The Word of God will remain difficult,
because, in a certain way, it really is difficult, but it is the task of
catechesis external to the Word itself to bring in the needed
clarification of it.
The reading of a Word which is faithful, beautiful, solemn,
intelligible, should then be completed by catechesis. This, it
seems to me, should be carried out in two principal ways, by
"comments" and by preaching.
By "comments" I mean brief, illuminating statements given by the
reader just before or after the reading. Such statements are
necessary, and they differ from preaching on other scores than
that of mere brevity. A comment is not a short homily; a homily is
not a long comment. These two adaptations of the Word differ in
their purpose.
The comment is necessarily brief, since it is inserted in the
celebration itself, the rhythm of which it should not interrupt. It
has a twofold purpose: first, to make clear the meaning of the
Word of God in itself by some information placing it in its Biblical
context; secondly, to point out the timeliness of this Word in the
celebration and at the precise point in the celebration where it
comes.
Preaching, on the other hand, consists in explaining and
developing what has been proclaimed by the Word of God and in
applying it to the present community, to its moral and social
needs, to the sentiments with which it should be carrying out the
celebration. I have no intention, obviously, of giving a treatise on
preaching during the Mass, on what is called the homily. If I did
not at least mention it, however, I should risk giving the
impression that the homily is a foreign body, an importation into
the liturgical celebration. We must affirm, on the contrary, that
the homily itself is a liturgical act that belongs to the celebration
as such.
This statement has its basis in all the preceding considerations.
In fact, does not the temptation to consider the homily as being
an entr'acte, or rather an interlude, flow from the false idea of the
Mass as being made up of two semi-independent parts between
which a neutral period can be set up? If we are convinced of the
unity of the celebration, we shall be less inclined to call this
unity into question by interpolating a heterogeneous element.
And, placed precisely at the point where the liturgy of the Word
is joined to the Eucharistic liturgy, the homily derives from this
organic situation some of its special characteristics.
These remarks may perhaps be of some use; for if today the word
"homily" has come back into fashion, it is by no means certain
that all those who practice it are sufficiently certain of its true
nature. The Larousse of the twentieth century defines the homily
as "a familiar instruction on religion, and chiefly on the Gospel."
"Familiar," certainly, in the sense that it should be common,
pastoral, in contrast to an "occasional" sermon such as might be
given at a funeral, or a panegyric. But not "familiar" in the sense
that to give a homily one can speak without preparation, casually,
without any plan. Given normally by the celebrant clothed in his
priestly vestments, coming after the solemn proclamation of the
Word of God, being itself, in a derivative but nonetheless real
fashion, the Word of God, the homily must never be "familiar" in
the sense of vulgar or common.
And, like the liturgy of the Word and the consecratory liturgy, the
homily also should be "Eucharistic," that is to say, leading to
praise, prayerful, filled with the sense of the mystery, charged
with the divine.
Unquestionably, the liturgy of the Word is not a scholarly
exposition; it belongs to an order more poetic than rationalistic.
But this is no reason for giving a homily, meant to interpret and
make personal the Word of God, that has neither head nor tail. We
often hear homilies which too closely resemble notes from the
missal or the "Liturgical Year." The homily cannot simply present
or reproduce liturgical texts; this only duplicates them and is
boring. Rather, it should order, clarify, adapt the contents of the
liturgical texts so as to make them more assimilable.
On the other hand, though it should be in continuity with the
liturgy of the Word, it does not have to be enslaved to it. Except
for the great feasts in which the theme of the homily is imposed,
there are many Sundays per annum on which the preacher can
freely pursue some one subject and connect his homilies so as to
give methodical instruction in it. If the homily is reduced to
being never anything else but a commentary on the pericopes
proposed by the liturgy, it can hardly avoid a great deal of
sameness from one year to another and is likely to leave
untouched important sections of Christian doctrine. To be
homogeneous with the liturgy and the Bible, the homily is not
obliged to take its material from them; it is enough--and this is
already a great deal and is not so easy to do--that it be faithful to
their manner, which is concrete, historical, and fitted into the
economy of salvation.
When it is successful, when it binds together and crowns the
liturgy of the Word, the homily introduces the people into the
Eucharistic liturgy. And this imposes on it another characteristic
which I might define, for lack of better terms, by the words
"timeliness" and "self-commitment." A homily which is merely an
exposition, even a Biblical and liturgical one, could be the same
in this parish and in another, could be as appropriate today as in
the times of St. Augustine or St. Vincent de Paul. But every good
homily ought to be of the present time, that is, adapted to the
people actually present, here and not somewhere else, today and
not yesterday.
This does not call for journalistic up-to-dateness, but pastoral
awareness. It is essentially connected with the fact that the
pastor has the care of his flock, puts himself in their place and
says to them the words which they need here and now, just as the
Eucharist he celebrates is not the Eucharist in general or the
Eucharist of the fourth century, but the Eucharist of today: "Give
us this day our daily bread."
And again, if it is a simple exposition or a chapter from a Biblical
or liturgical manual, the homily will be deficient in its function of
leading to self-commitment. Just as the Eucharist is received by a
man to bear fruit in his daily life and ultimately to bear fruit in
eternal life, so the homily should lead to action, to conversion, to
a more realistic and effective charity. To repeat, the homily is not
a more or less pleasant intellectual interlude; it is a vital stage in
the celebration. It should aid those who hear it to celebrate the
Eucharist better, to participate better in the Sacrifice.
All this is much easier said than done. I should like, therefore, to
point out some obstacles to a true proclamation of the Word of
God. I will limit myself to those on the pastoral liturgical level,
which is that of this report, since those other fundamental
difficulties which are of the pedagogical, catechetical order and
those related to the general mentality of priests and faithful
today will be dealt with in later chapters.
First of all, I must repeat that good readers are extremely rare,
both among lay people and among priests. I have often had the
opportunity to organize liturgical celebrations, especially during
Lent. I have never found a really good reader, either among lay
people or curates or seminarians. I have often found that pastors
are the best readers. Does this come from the difference of age,
of generation, of authority? I do not know. In the celebrations of
which I am speaking, I have never been able to obtain anything
but feeble, unintelligent, uninspiring readings. This throws the
celebration into disequilibrium: the preacher having more
authority, more conviction, more naturalness in his personal
word than does the reader charged with presenting the divine
message, which is primary.
It is absolutely necessary, therefore, that our seminarians take
some good courses in reading. Certainly there are such courses in
seminaries here and there, but they are not very effective
because our seminarians do not take this question seriously. I
often have the impression that seminarians and young priests
who believe so fervently in personal devotedness, in the direct
apostolate, in Catholic action, feel that the art of reading aloud is
rather frivolous, something connected with the theatre.
I tell them that we have two commanding reasons for making
ourselves understood when we speak, two reasons that flow from
natural law. First of all, we have a duty in justice towards those
who hear us and who have the right to understand what we are
saying. Next, we have a duty in professional conscience, the care
we should have for doing our job well. A priest whose words are
hard to understand is a workman who does not know the
fundamentals of his craft.
We must also acquire the habit of giving a slower rhythm to our
reading, as to all our ceremonies. Most readers go too quickly,
without taking the necessary time, without paying enough regard
to the punctuation, without knowing how to vary the tone or to
emphasize and stress important words. The readers haste often
is caused by that of the celebrant, the reader is afraid of finding
himself left behind.
Yet it is inevitable, other things being equal, that the vernacular
reading should take longer than the Latin. Latin is more compact
than most modern languages; moreover, the celebrant, in the case
of a simultaneous reading, does not want to make himself heard.
We might at least hope that the celebrant be patient enough to
wait for the end of the vernacular reading before going to the
middle of the altar after the Epistle, and before kissing the book
after the Gospel. But would it not be still better if the celebrant
formed the habit of reading the texts, even when doing so in a
low voice, always slowly and appreciatively, not of getting
through them as quickly as possible, and when his reading is
being duplicated by that of a reader, of regulating his pace by
that of the latter?
There is one particular difficulty of the liturgical order here
which we should respectfully submit to the proper authorities--
the poor choice and poor distribution of liturgical pericopes.
Certainly, the fact that the present choice of pericopes has been
approved by the Church ought to inspire us with a great respect
for them and with the desire to make the best possible use of
them. But this does not prevent us from hoping that certain texts
might be eliminated--among the Epistles particularly--that have
little bearing on the present, for example, some of St. Paul's
expositions concerning charisms and ministries that are of
interest only to historians, and others substituted which would
be more nourishing for Christians of every age.
Considerable reformation is also needed in the way the pericopes
are cut out of the complete text. Certain extracts from St. Paul
begin with the conclusion of developments without which the
extracts are unintelligible. Certain Gospels also would be much
clearer if they began one or two verses earlier. And some Epistles
and Gospels would gain by having one or two verses cut off,
verses which seem to be conclusions but which, in fact, are only
accidentally connected with what goes before.
For all this, we submit our hopes confidently to the highest
authority; we can do nothing by ourselves.
In conclusion, I am not going to enumerate precise remedies for
these various difficulties. I have mentioned some in passing;
others belong to reports concerned with the liturgical apostolate,
which has not been my concern here. I would like, above all, to
avoid concluding with the kind of recipes that provide a refuge
for laziness. I have, I trust, sufficiently shown that the
proclamation of the Word of God, far from being a detail or a
section of the Mass, is coextensive with the whole Mass; it is easy
to understand, then, how our whole effort at liturgical renewal
must be directed toward a re-evaluation of the liturgy of the
Word.
In order not to leave such a general conclusion vaguely in the air,
I would like to tie it down to two points: we must rediscover the
sense of the community; we must rediscover the sense of the
sacred.
We must rediscover the sense of the community. If too many
priests proclaim the Word of God poorly in the Mass, it is because
they have lost the sense of their function with regard to the
congregation, the community. The priest is the celebrant--the
very word itself implies an assembly, a congregation over which
he is to preside. The more priests are concerned with addressing
their people, the more they will understand that they are not
celebrating for themselves nor for God alone, but also for their
people, and the more they will feel the need to make themselves
heard, to make themselves understood, to give their people the
Word as nourishment, not as a ceremony.
And as for the faithful, the more they forget their individualism,
the more they will let themselves be formed by the chant and
actions carried out in common, the more they will understand
that they are to communicate also in the hearing of the Word of
God. The more they get into the habit of answering and
responding to this Word by their attitudes, their acclamations,
their singing of psalms, the more they will understand that this
Word is not only proclaimed in their presence, but addressed to
them. The more they act and communicate in the liturgy of the
Word, the more they will understand its homogeneity with the
Eucharistic liturgy in which they communicate in the precise
sacramental meaning of the word, and the more they will
perceive that this Word addressed to them should engage them in
action and reaction.
And finally--but here liturgical pastoral care opens out into
pastoral care in general--the more this liturgical assembly
becomes the privileged expression and meeting-place of a real
community of charity, of mutual devotedness and evangelization,
the more this assembly will become sensitive to the Biblical
Word, which is the Word of God addressed to each one of us,
certainly, but to each of us inasmuch as we, each and all, form
part of the people of God.
Secondly, we must regain the sense of the sacred. This
rediscovery has certainly begun. But it is, perhaps, as yet too
limited to what is without doubt the center and summit of the
sacred: the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the altar.
The liturgical renewal is real and profound in many souls. But it
is not yet sufficiently concrete. I mean that the convictions
derived from it have not yet sufficiently permeated daily
behavior. With many people--as happens in all conversions--truly
liturgical ideas and intentions still coexist side by side with
routine and uninspired ways of acting.
Our sense of the sacred must be manifested at every moment by
the way in which we treat the Word of God, giving it a respect and
affection comparable to that which we give to the consecrated
Bread. This will manifest itself in many ways: by the solemn and
also intelligent way in which we read the Word of God in our own
language, in which (we cannot repeat it too often) it is also the
Word of God; by the respect for the vernacular reading, during
which the priests or the servers should not be found talking,
moving about or even praying. We should not find the missal
lying on the floor behind the altar; nor missals that are dirty and
torn and have never been cleaned and mended; nor readings that
are meant to be solemn proclamation made from miserable little
pocket reprints.
Our sense of the sacred will also manifest itself by our respect
for the often rude authenticity of the texts, by the discretion and
dignity of our comments, by the religious, contemplative,
apostolic character of our preaching, which should avoid all
academic pretension and frivolity, all moralistic banality, all
pietistic unctuousness.
The sense of the sacred, the sense of the assembly--we should
point out again that the two go together. If solemnity and
intelligence reign in the sanctuary, the assembly will be much
more attentive, much less wandering. At the end of a slow re-
education, perhaps the congregation will even become more
punctual, because they will realize that to arrive late for Mass is
to commit a twofold profanation: profanation of the assembly
and profanation of the Word being proclaimed, from which one
runs the risk of profanation of the Eucharistic banquet, poorly
prepared for because of this lateness.
The Fathers were accustomed to say that it was as culpable to
treat the Word of God with negligence as to let some particles of
the consecrated Bread fall to the ground. Let us hope soon to
have priests--and, as a result, lay people--who make the Word of
God, after the Eucharist, together with it, and because of it, the
first of their devotions.
ENDNOTES
1. "Explication de quelques difficultes sure les prieres de las messe a un nouveau catholique," ed.
Garnier, pp. 617-619.
CHAPTER 6: THE CHURCH RESPONDS TO GOD WITH THE WORD OF
GOD
Rev. Joseph Gelineau, S.J.
THE BIBLE AND the liturgy have both been given us to lead us to
the same goal of the new creation in Christ: unity in love. The
Bible and the liturgy are, as it were, the two hands of the Spirit in
carrying out the work of salvation, hands that take hold of us in
our fallen state and draw us, by the "apparatus of the Cross"[1] into
the heart of the mystery of the Trinity: "The glory that Thou hast
given Me I have given to them that they may be one as We are
one: I in them and Thou in Me" (John 17:22-23). The Bible and the
liturgy find their fulfillment in the mystery of Christ: the Word of
God given to men and given back by them to the Father.
How the Word that comes from God should return to Him has
been described by Isaias in incomparable terms that we needs
must quote here:
"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not
return thither without having watered the earth and made it
fruitful and caused growing things to spring up, without having
given seed to the sower and bread to him who eats it, in the same
way My Word that comes forth from My mouth, says the Lord; it
does not return to Me without effect, without having executed My
will and accomplished My designs (55:10-11).
The Word of God was made flesh (John 1:14) so that flesh might
become Word. God, in His Son, has revealed His Name to us so
that we may confess it and so that we ourselves may receive a
"new name" that no one knows but him who receives it (Apoc.
2:17). And this name is that of the divine adoption, the name that
is to be given to those who become sons in the Son: "The proof
that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of His Son into
your hearts crying: Abba, that is, Father" (Gal. 4:6).
God desires that the Word He speaks to men be effective; it
awaits a response. But this response is that which God Himself
has willed: it is still His Word. This mystery is realized fully in
the Person of Jesus. As the Prophet on whom rests the Spirit, the
Christ, the Word-made-flesh, He announces to the world in
human words the good news of the design of God's love. But as
sovereign Priest, He offers to the Father the sacrifice of
thanksgiving: in His death the homage of total obedience and in
His resurrection the praise of a new and holy race of men. Thus
the work of Christ is the perfect speech of God in this world, the
definitive appeal of God to men and the total response of
mankind to God.
Now, what was visible in the Word incarnate has passed into the
mysteries of the Church. Because Christ lives in the Church, it is
in her that God's call reaches each of us, and it is in her also that
a response is given to the Father by each of us. The Bible and the
liturgy continue in the Church the speech of God in this world
restored and realized by Christ. The Church is primarily, as her
name signifies, a calling, a convocation to bring together all the
children of God who have been dispersed: ceaselessly
proclaiming the good news, she converts men lying in the
shadow of death and illuminates them by the Word of salvation.
But the Church is also Eucharistic communion: she unites in the
love of Christ those whom the Gospel has gathered together so
that they may offer themselves through His sacrifice in
thanksgiving to the Father.
The Bible and the liturgy, then, signify for us, members of the
visible Church, the two terms of the divine-human dialogue: at
the point of departure is the inspired Word; at the goal, the
sacrament of unity. Like Christ the Prophet, the Church is always
in the act of prophetic proclamation. But she is also the Bride,
who, like John the Baptist, recognizes the voice of the Bridegroom
(John 3:29). As the Bride, she must re-echo the word of love that
is spoken to her and realize the nuptial mystery prophesied by
Osee: "Therefore, behold I will allure her, and will lead her into
the wilderness and I will speak to her heart . . And she will sing
there according to the days of her youth, according to the days of
her coming up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be in that
day, saith the Lord, she shall call Me: My Husband!" (Osee 2:16-
18).
Of this dialogue of the Bridegroom and the Bride carried out in
the Church, only one aspect is to be dealt with in this chapter.
Not the call, but the response; not the Word given to men, but the
Word given back to God by men. Furthermore, we are only to
consider this response as it is expressed in the liturgy. Doubtless
the response to the Word of life is the whole life of the new man
in Christ, as will be pointed out later. But every holy life must be
nourished at the source of the sacraments, and the perfection of
thanksgiving is the Eucharist. Nowhere does the response of the
Church to the Word of God appear more clearly and powerfully
than in the liturgy. To know the Church rightly, we must see her
living and expressing herself in her mysteries of worship. Here
we understand how she responds to the Word of God.
The most perfect expression of this response is primarily the
Eucharist itself, the song of praise and thanksgiving which the
Church gives to the Father in the sacrifice of Christ. We hear this
response also in the hymns and supplications that fill the liturgy
and that all speak "the language of God." And finally, we shall
consider at greater length this response as it is to be found in the
psalms, which are at once and perfectly both the Word of God
and the prayer of the Church.
THE EUCHARIST: THE WORD OF CHRIST GIVEN BACK BY THE
CHURCH TO THE FATHER
No sacred action shows us more clearly how the Church responds
to God with His own Word than the summit of the liturgy, the
Mass. The Mass appears, first of all, in its present two-part
structure, the liturgy of the Word and the sacrificial Eucharist, as
the expression of a dialogue between God and His Church. In the
first part, the good news is proclaimed; but in the second, the
Church, sacrificed with her Head and sanctified by His Word,
offers her thanksgiving to God. Word coming from God, Word
returning to God. In the Sacrament, proclamation becomes
achievement. In Communion, the dialogue finds its fulfillment.
It is indeed in the Supper of the Lord, around the holy table, that
the dialogue of the Bridegroom and the Bride attains its greatest
intensity and that the voice of the Bride most perfectly echoes
that of the Bridegroom. That the response of the Church in the
Mass is the very Word of God is made clear to us by everything
about the Mass: the very name "Eucharist" and the reality that it
signifies; the course of the great Eucharistic prayer and its
mystery; and finally, even the words which express this mystery.
The name "Eucharist" given to the Mass in the first Christian
centuries already expresses the idea of response. Eucharist
means gratitude, thanksgiving, confession, sacrifice of praise. But
what can we give back to God except what He Himself has given
us? What blessings can we be grateful for except those with
which He has showered us? What grace can we return to Him in
our thanksgiving except all that He has given us in His Son, full of
grace and truth? What name is there for us to profess and
proclaim but the Name that has been revealed to us in Jesus our
Savior? What is our sacrifice of praise, finally, except Christ
Himself, the High Priest, the Mediator between God and men, "by
whom," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, "we continually offer to
God a sacrifice of praise, that is the fruit of lips confessing His
name" (13:15).
He Himself who has been for us the grace of God is still our
action of thanksgiving, our Eucharist, our song of praise and our
spiritual sacrifice. "All this," as St. Paul says, in relation to the
work of resurrection in which God causes us to participate in His
Son, "is for your sake, so that a more abundant grace may cause
thanksgiving to abound in a greater number to the glory of God"
(2 Cor. 4:15).
And also, when the Church carries out her giving of thanks in the
great Eucharistic prayer at the heart of the Mass, she does
nothing more than give back to God, in confession and praise, the
sacred Word that she has received from God. Two words in the
liturgy express this dialogue: memores, offerimus.
Memores: it is in memory of the graces we have received, it is in
commemorating the events of our redemption that we offer the
holy Victim. The Eucharist is founded on the history of salvation.
First, the Preface sings the mysteries of the Savior, from His
incarnation to His glorious return, thus solemnly proclaiming the
good news. And then its song effaces itself before the very words
of the Lord, signifying and accomplishing the mystery: "This is
My Body delivered for you." And finally, it is made clear that it is
in memory of the passion, the resurrection. and the ascension of
the Lord that the Sacrifice is offered.
Offerimus: this is not only the Sacrifice of Jesus, it is henceforth
that of the whole Church: "We and all Thy holy people." The Word
of God does not return to the Father without having
accomplished all that He willed. By Christ, with Him, and in Him,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, His holy people offer to the glory
of the Father the sacrificium laudis, the sacrifice of praise. In
union with the paschal canticle of the Lord, who gave thanks at
the Last Supper and who intoned the Alleluia on the morning of
His resurrection, the great voice of the Church is raised, the echo
of her mystical oblation.
This exchange of a Word of God given and a Word of God
returned in response is expressed still more clearly in the liturgy
in the form of a dialogue properly so called. While the echo of the
readings of the first part of the Mass is still resounding, the
recalling of the historic events of our salvation and the
foundation of our faith, the celebrant intones the Preface, the
festal chant of thanksgiving. But he assures himself first that the
whole assembly is one with him in heart: Sursum corda, Gratias
agamus Domino Deo nostro. Having received the unanimous
reply: Habemus ad Dominum, Dignum et justum est, he lifts his
voice in praise. Then the whole assembly responds to the voice of
the celebrant by the Sanctus, a song of praise that desires to
include all the united voices of earth and heaven: "Heaven and
earth are filled with Thy glory! Hosanna!"
Then, in response to the voice of Christ, who in the heart of the
Canon seals the New Covenant in His Blood, all the chosen people
give their solemn ratification, their "yes" and their signature by
the Amen that concludes the sacred action: Amen, that is to say:
"This is true and unshakable." And finally, the dialogue of speech
is consummated in communion. Then Word and reality are fused.
Sacrifice, reciprocal presence and love of the Bridegroom and the
Bride are here expressed by union in one spiritual flesh which is
that of the Body of Christ.
In the Eucharist, her supreme Word, the Church can say nothing
other than Christ, the true and faithful Word of the Father. Her
song of thanksgiving is that which God Himself has taught her:
the song of self-sacrificing love.
THE LITURGY PRAYS IN THE LANGUAGE OF GOD
That the word of the Church to the Father is the echo of the Word,
as we have seen in the Eucharistic action, is true not only of the
mystery hidden in the liturgical rites, but is shown in the very
expression of this mystery. When the Church prays, God not only
prays in her, but she prays, if we may so express it, like God; she
speaks the human language of God, even preferring, when
possible, to use the words that God has inspired.
One privileged example from the liturgy will show us that this is
true. The first part of the Mass, centered in the proclamation of
the Word, at once causes a dialogue to break out: the responsorial
psalm of the Gradual following on the Epistle. The movement of
the sacred action, which has as its center the table of the Word, is
initiated from on high; it begins by the reading of holy Scripture
and the proclamation of the good news. But as soon as the first
reading is finished, the community at once expresses in song its
collective adherence of faith to the message it has received.
This chant could have been a composition of the Church and
have been presented as a continuous hymn sung by the
congregation, on the order of the Gloria in excelsis. It is nothing
like this. Liturgical tradition shows us without question that this
chant, the most ancient and the first of the chants of the liturgy
of the Word, in the Mass or in the vigils, is a psalm, and a psalm
sung responsorially, that is, a song in dialogue form. We shall
return later to the subject of the choice of the psalms as the
prayer of the Church; it is the form of this chant that should here
hold our attention.
The reader of the Epistle at the ambo is succeeded by another
reader, a chanter, who intones the responsorial psalm. The
Church is about to respond to God with His own Word; but this
inspired Word does not come first from the assembly: it is given
to it as if from on high. At one time this psalm was often called a
"reading," just like the Epistle and Gospel. But here the whole
assembly is invited to respond to the chant-lector by a
unanimous acclamation, often drawn from the psalm itself. By
this cry, repeated again and again between the verses proposed
for meditation, a marvelous dialogue is set up between God and
His people. The dialogue of the Bridegroom and the Bride is
taking place; the exchange of words is only the image of the
exchange of hearts. The responsorial psalm is the "yes" given to
the Word of God by the Word of God.
But now the intimate and confident exchange of the responsorial
psalm turns into prayer and supplication. In spite of its impetus
of faith toward the Word of salvation, the Church knows that the
hour has not yet come for the new Song face to face with God, she
is still a pilgrim, she is still composed of sinful members. She
must plead. This is the time for the great "prayer of the faithful,"
always kept in use in the Oriental liturgies, which is preserved
for us in the liturgy of Good Friday in the "universal litany," and
of which a vestige remains in the Kyrie of our Roman Mass. And
our Roman Orations also now gather up the needs of all to have
them rise, by Christ and in the Church, to the throne of the
Father.
It would seem at first sight as if the Church, in contrast to what
she does in the case of the psalms, is here using her own speech
and her own words. But, if we go beyond the verbal appearances
to consider the interior movement of this prayer, we shall
understand that it is still a response made to God by His own
Word. When the Church prays, it is always in reference to what
God has done for men and in the awareness that He can do the
same things again. Thus Israel prayed when it represented to God
His past actions in favor of His people, and when, in distress, it
implored His grace for the present moment by recalling His
fidelity to His covenant:
And yet, O God, my king from the beginning,
You have wrought saving deeds in our midst:
By Your might You rent the sea
crushed the head of the dragon in the waves...
You made fountains and brooks gush forth,
You dried up never-failing rivers...
Remember how the enemy insults You, O Lord...
Think of the covenant...(Ps. 73:12-20).
God Himself was the first to speak and to act; will He now remain
silent, or is His arm powerless? No, His Word remains as firm as
the heavens; we can rely on it and remind Him of it with perfect
confidence.
This is how the Church still prays, not only at the central moment
of the Eucharistic action by the anamnesis and the consecratory
prayer, but throughout her liturgy. When, during the Easter vigil,
before celebrating the bath of baptismal rebirth, she confidently
awaits God's sending His Spirit on the waters to make them
fruitful, she reasons in the same way:
O water, created by God, I bless you...by the God whose Word in
the beginning separated you from the dry land, and whose Spirit
hovered over you, by the God who caused you to spring forth
from the fountain of paradise and commanded you to water the
whole earth by four rivers, who in the desert changed your
bitterness and made you sweet and wholesome to drink....
Explicitly or implicitly, this logic of Christian prayer is to be
found everywhere, from the prayers commending the departing
soul to the litany prayers of the Oriental liturgies, which begin
with the words: "In peace, let us pray to the Lord." The prayer of
the Church is strong with the Word of God. "The effectiveness of
Christian prayer," writes Divo Barsotti, "extends as far as the
effectiveness of the creative Word; better, it is itself that Word, it
continues creation, it carries out the redemption of the world."[2]
Indeed it carries on the prayer of Christ before the tomb of
Lazarus: "Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me. Yet
I knew that Thou hearest Me always" (John 11:41-42). The prayer
of a Christian is never the cry of a man abandoned to himself; it
is the ineffable groaning of the Spirit of Jesus, already laden with
all the graces given by God to men. In the inspired words that
reveal our vocation to us, our response to that vocation is
contained. "The Bible has not truly taught us to believe as God
wants us to believe unless at the same time it has taught us to
pray as God wants us to pray to Him."[3] Thus the liturgy calls God
by the names He has given Himself; she bestows on Him the titles
which are His by right; she asks Him for favors He has already
granted; she thanks Him with the very words of thanksgiving
which He Himself sang while on earth.
Let us consider again her most sacred acclamations. At the heart
of the Eucharistic action, the thanksgiving of the Preface chanted
by the celebrant breaks out from the whole assembly. This is the
Sanctus, the most solemn chant of the liturgy of the faithful.
Here, in the greatness of the mystery, the most lofty lyricism of
the Church fades away. It gives place to the hymn that Isaias
heard sung by the angels in the vision which he saw prostrate in
the temple of Jerusalem, and in which, as St. John would say, he
contemplated the glory of Christ: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts" (Is. 6:3). The Church adds to this chant the Biblical and
messianic acclamation fulfilled in Jesus: "Blessed is He who
comes in the Name of the Lord."
When she wishes to ratify the New Covenant, she does so with the
word with which the Hebrew people sealed the first covenant:
Amen. To give thanks at any time, but especially during the
season of the resurrection, her preferred expression is the
Hebrew cry of victory, the song of the paschal deliverance: Allelu
Yah!, "Praise the Lord!"
Her prayer par excellence is also the prayer of the Lord, reported
by the Gospels: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
Name." She says this prayer before Communion, she repeats it at
the end of the nocturns and the Hours, she uses it again in her
table prayers, for this is the way that God Himself has taught us
to pray, and furthermore, it is in strict continuity with His own
prophetic language, the first part of the Pater being like a psalm
of praise, and the second like a psalm of supplication.
And when the Church lets herself be carried away by her own
lyric enthusiasm to create "psalmi idiotikoi," or songs of her own,
she only wishes to echo the divine Word to which there is nothing
more to be added. The most ancient of our Christian hymns the
Gloria in excelsis or the Te Deum, speak, directly or indirectly, the
language of Scripture.
THE PSALMS--WORD OF GOD AND PRAYER OF THE CHURCH
How holy Scripture impregnates all Christian prayer has been
already brought out in previous chapters. Let us, then, dwell at
greater length here on the phenomenon we have already
mentioned more than once: the jealous preference that the
Church accords in her prayer to the psalms. Certainly the Church
has never been lacking in singers inspired to compose hymns and
canticles in honor of Christ. Although we know very little about
the liturgy of the first three centuries, any number of Christian
hymns have been preserved from that era, some of which are
masterpieces of poetry and of prayer. And following the lead of
Ambrose and the Romans, this lyric vein has never died out in the
history of the Church. However, periodically, and above all in the
Latin Church, we see the will to return by preference, and even
almost exclusively, to the inspired texts for use in liturgical
prayer.
Various reasons have been given for this preference: the mistrust
felt by the Church of new hymns, which have often served to
propagate the fantasies of heretics, her prudence in the face of
individual lyricism and of private and less trustworthy devotion;
but, above all, the fact that the word of man, however pleasing
and holy it may be, can never be compared to the Word inspired
by God.
Behind this general affirmation must be seen the resolve of the
Church to be faithful to the history of salvation. Since what was
announced in the Old Covenant is realized in the New, is it not
natural that the book of prayers of the old economy should
become also the book par excellence of the prayer of the Church?
Are not the same cries pleading for salvation, the same chants of
praise and thanksgiving for deliverance as valid today as
yesterday, since they are addressed to the same Savior and have
the same redemption in view?
Of old, among all the Books of the Old Testament, the Book of the
hymns of Israel occupied a place apart connected with its special
destiny. Before expressing the prayer of the chosen people,
individual and liturgical, it is presented as being the lyrical
resume of its whole religious experience, a glorious summary of
the whole Word of God, given and returned. It contains, first of
all, in striking epitome and in typical characteristics, the whole
history of Israel, not only by recalling the great works of God in
favor of His people, but also by the present and future
significance of this sacred act. The Psalter is the proclamation of
the creating and redeeming Word, at once in its visible efficacy,
past and present, and in its eschatological bearing.
Founded on this sacred history, the psalms also translate it into
confession and supplication, into praise and prayer. But
otherwise than with ecclesiastical prayer that gives back a Word
revealed and accomplished, in the psalmist the Spirit is at work.
Here praise and prayer are still the revealing and prophetic Word.
Relying on a past, expressing a present, the psalms tend toward a
future--the messianic fulfillment.
For the ultimate truth of the psalms is the mystery of Christ.
When Jesus came, He declared openly that the psalms spoke of
Him: "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet
with you," He said to His apostles at the time of His last
apparition, "that all things must be fulfilled that are written of Me
in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms" (Luke
24:44).
During His public life Jesus frequently applied to Himself psalms
that were well-known to His hearers. For example, recalling Psalm
22: "The Lord is my shepherd," He said: "I am the Good Shepherd"
(John 10:14). And again, basing His argument with the Jews on
Psalm 109: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand," He
asked: "If David calls the Messiah his Lord, how then can He be
his son?" (Matt. 22:45), indicating thereby that He Himself was
the fulfillment of the prophecy as Messiah and Son of God. And
finally on the Cross, it was again from the psalms that He took
His last words: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
(Matt. 27:46). "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Luke
23:46).
The psalms speak of Christ. They are the very prayer of Christ.
This is the unique and final reason why they are the prayer of the
Church par excellence. The Bride can prefer nothing to the voice
of the Bridegroom. So the apostles understood it as they
recognized in Jesus the Kyrios, that is to say, the Lord whom the
psalms implore or praise. Henceforth the Church will no longer
name the Yahweh of the Old Covenant, but Jesus, whom "God has
made both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), giving Him the Name
above every name.
To mention only one witness, Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana in the
fourth century, expresses the unanimous tradition of the Church
when he writes:
"The psalms sing the most beautiful of realities: the mysteries of
Christ. His generation is expressed here, His rejection by His
unbelieving people and the inheritance given over to the pagans
are here mentioned; here the power of God is sung; here the
passion is depicted; here the glorious resurrection revealed; nor
is there lacking the ascension to the right hand of the Father.
Then the coming of the Lord by fire is made manifest; the terrible
judgment of the living and the dead is here declared. What more?
The very mission of the Creator Spirit and the renewal of the
earth is here revealed, after which in the glory of the Lord will
come the eternal happiness of the just and the endless
punishment of the wicked."[4]
If this is the conviction of the Church, who chants the psalms in
nearly all her sacred ceremonies, at every Mass, at every feast of
the mysteries of Christ and the saints, in many sacraments of the
Christian life, every day and every hour of the day in the Divine
Office, if such was the thought of the Fathers of the Church and
the piety of the monks, who found in the psalms the immediate
and spontaneous expression of all the situations of their
Christian life, why is it that the same thing has become so
difficult for us? We find no difficulty in admitting that certain
passages of the psalms, obviously messianic, refer to Christ, such
as that line of Psalm 2 which we sing on Christmas night: "The
Lord has said to Me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
Thee."
We admit still that the Psalter taken in its entirety is messianic
but we often stumble when we go further along this road. A way
of applying certain texts to Christ, to the Church, to the Virgin or
the saints, which we meet in the liturgy itself, disconcerts us and
seems to us often very artificial. We find repugnant precisely the
play of allegory and what is now called the accommodated sense.
How can we agree, for example, that the poetic description of the
course of the sun given in Psalm 18:
There He sets up a tent for the sun,
who comes out of his chamber like a bridegroom
exulting like a champion to run his course...
can express also the virgin birth of Christ? The inspired author
certainly never thought of such a thing, and the literal sense
orients us in quite another direction. Briefly, all this kind of thing
does not seem "real," nor apt to enlighten our faith or sustain our
prayer.
Furthermore, how can one still put into the mouth of a Christian,
after the Sermon on the Mount and the teaching of the Lord on
the forgiveness of injuries, the terrible cries for vengeance and
the frightening maledictions contained in the Psalter:
O Babylon, devastator,
happy he who pays back to you
the evils done to us
who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock! (Ps. 136)
Is this truly the prayer of the Church? Are these the feelings of a
disciple of Christ?
Let us pause for a short time to consider these entirely legitimate
difficulties, for this will aid us to penetrate further into the
prayer of the Psalms as it is practiced by the Church. To
recognize, with the whole of tradition, the mysteries of Christ
and His prayer, not only in a few more obviously messianic
psalms, but in the Psalter as a whole, is to accept the force of two
facts: the first belongs to the theological order and is addressed
to our faith--Christ has fulfilled the psalms; the second belongs to
the literary order and is addressed to our human intelligence--the
language of the psalms is poetic.
First of all, Christ fulfilled the psalms because He is God and
because He is Man. Being God, the Creator, the Judge, the Savior
and Friend of men, it was He in whom there shone forth clearly at
last all that God willed when He created, when He judged, when
He saved men and made a covenant with them. Everything that
was said in the psalms concerning Yahweh's intervening in favor
of His people can henceforth be said of Him whose Name is
"Savior," and of all that He has done for His Church.
Since the resurrection of Christ, for example, is the total and
definitive victory of God, it alone can give a full and definitive
sense to many of the affirmations in the psalms, as for example:
God reigns, He is clothed in majesty,
the Lord is robed in power.
With good reason, the Church has understood this Psalm 92 in a
paschal sense: God the Conqueror is the Christ the King, the Lord
Jesus risen in power, as said by St. Paul. In the same way,
whenever the psalms call upon the Lord and speak of God, this
can be understood of Christ as God. My Creator, my Judge, my
Savior, my Friend is henceforth for us the Lord fully revealed to
men in the Son of God, Jesus.
But Jesus is also the Son of Man. In the mystery of His incarnation
He took upon Himself everything that belonged to man, his
sufferings and his joys, his anguish and his hopes, his mortal
state and his faith in deliverance. The psalms, then, not only
speak of Christ whenever they speak of God, whenever a man is
speaking in them, it is again Christ who speaks. As human history
only finds its meaning in the paschal mystery of Christ, so each
particular situation of every human being only finds its full truth
in the light of the mysteries of the Lord.
Let a poor man bewail his destitution, let a sick man make his
moan, let a persecuted man express his loneliness--what other
human being on earth has ever known better or felt more
profoundly this poverty, this suffering, this solitude than He who
took upon Himself all our sorrows and climbed the hill of Calvary
in loneliness: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Or
let a man chosen by God sing the grace that has been given him
and the victory that has been granted him--in whom has this
human blessedness been more fully verified than in the only Son,
the object of all the Father's good pleasure?
Whether it is a question of the people of Israel or of one of its
members, every historical situation, every human sentiment finds
its ultimate truth only in the human life, death and resurrection
of God-made-man. Since nothing divine and nothing human is
foreign to Christ, there is nothing that the psalms say of the
action of God in man that cannot be referred to the incarnate
Word.
Nonetheless, this theological principle would be ineffective so far
as we are concerned if the language of the psalms were not
presented in such a way as to speak to us continually of Christ,
as it were naturally and of its own accord. The literary genre of
these prophetic writings is, in fact, what allows us to find in them
a concrete expression of the mysteries of Christ. The Church
preserves the psalms, not as mere monuments of the past which
might serve as the basis of a historic science, nor as masterpieces
of the literary culture of antiquity. She seeks in them the figure of
mankind, sinful and redeemed, suffering and glorified. She finds
in them the signs of what God began to bring about in His chosen
people of old, what He achieved in His Son, and what He
continues to accomplish in all those who believe in Christ.
Now, this lengthening of perspectives corresponds exactly to the
interior movement of poetic expression. When Baudelair cries
out:
"Oh, how large is the world in the bright light of a lamp
How small, to the eyes of remembrance!,"
it makes little difference whether we know on what particular
evening in what dark room, under the light of what lamp this
intuition came to him, or what memory haunted him. But the poet
has given such a universal expression to his individual
experience that these lines are, as it were, really our own
whenever an analogous situation causes us to relive the reality
they refer to. It is not only one unique moment that the poet
captures in his verse, but his whole life as well, and that of all
those who can make his expression their own. The symbolism of
poetic language is based on analogies of situation and of
experience.
It is analogies of situation also that allow the psalms to include in
their lyric form everything that men can live and feel in an
experience of salvation, and to include particularly the life and
the feelings of Him who has gathered in Himself all human
history, not only in its passing appearance but in its truth--Christ.
He alone has entered into communion with the world beyond
signs and language, the world into which every poet wishes to
lead us by his magic.
In whom, for example, has the eulogy of Psalm 1 ever been more
completely fulfilled:
How blessed the man
who does not walk the way counselled by the wicked
but delights in the law of the Lord.
He is like a tree planted near running water,
that brings forth its fruit in due season,
whatever he does, prospers....
than in Him who was the one just Man whom no one could
convict of sin, who always did the will of the Father and was
pleasing to Him, who was planted with the tree of the Cross to
bring forth the only pleasing fruit that God has ever gathered in
the garden of His creation, when His due time, His hour had
come, and who achieved the final victory, since death has no
more dominion over Him?
It is of only relative importance to determine what persecuted
man was the author of Psalm 68, or in what circumstances of his
life, on what date of universal history he uttered this lament in
the presence of Yahweh:
It is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
that shame has covered my face...
Wretched am I, and in pain,
may your help, O God, set me free.
I will praise God's Name with a hymn,
give Him glory by a song of thanksgiving.
Since the Church has put these words in the mouth of Christ,
rejected for the sake of the holiness of God and the salvation of
His brothers but risen again for His glorification and singing the
alleluia of His paschal victory, they find in Him the fullness of
their meaning; and each Christian who is rejected because of his
faith but sure of his deliverance can make these same words his
own.
We could multiply examples. It is one of the miracles of the
psalms that the images by which they express poetically the most
fundamental sentiments of mankind and describe the social and
personal situations of the religious soul are still expressive for
each of us and verified in Christ Himself.
And yet, are there not certain passages in the psalms which
refuse to become a truly Christian prayer and wholly our own?
The maledictions and the imprecations, particularly, continually
seem to spoil the marvellous cries of love and faith in the
inspired texts.
Let us recall, first of all, the fact that the Bible can only be
darkness and scandal for the earthly man, but that it is light for
the spirit illuminated by faith in Christ. For, St. Paul reminds us,
in the new economy, "our struggle is no longer with flesh and
blood, but with invisible enemies" (Eph. 6:12). The dramatic
struggle between the persecuted just man and the triumphant
godless man, between the chosen people and the pagan nations,
the struggle which is perhaps the very heart of the Psalter, is
henceforth the combat of Christ against Satan and of the Church
against "the world." The enemy whom I must hate and whom God
will enable me to triumph over is sin and death. And this enemy
is not only in other people, it is first of all in myself. This enemy
is never my neighbor, it is myself.
Still more, it would be impossible to erase these imprecations
from the Psalter without seriously falsifying the mystery of
Christian existence. Love is never so great as when it is victorious
over hatred and evil, and no one is capable of true love if he is
not capable of hate, in the Biblical sense of the word, the sense in
which the Lord said: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate
his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and
sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." No
compromise can be made between the kingdom of God and the
world. Nothing can stand before the holiness of the living God.
This is the enduring significance of the choices of love and of
hate which the psalms invite us to make: "Let sinners vanish from
the earth, let the wicked be no more" (Ps. 103:35). This word was
fulfilled when the very Son of God, taking on Himself the sins of
men and their death, perished in His own flesh in the fire of the
holiness of God.
Do we need to add, finally, that it is necessary and consoling for
us to find in the psalms these cries of men who are still
unbelieving, still in revolt, still violent? With a whole part of
ourselves, we still belong to the time of preparation for the
Gospel. While the psalms find in Christ the accents of perfect
faith, perfect hope, and perfect love, they also preserve, in the
preparation for Christ carried on in the midst of a stiff-necked
people whose fidelity was short-lived, the image of everything
that belongs to our meannesses and our weaknesses. Thus the
psalms save us from pharisaism.
But they also keep us from remaining satisfied with our
mediocrity by offering us protestations of innocence and holiness
that express the loftiest justice. This justice is less that which we
already possess than that to which we are called and which is
always verified in the mouth of Christ and of His holy Church.
No, nothing of sinful man, as well as nothing of man sanctified by
the Spirit of God, is absent from the psalms.
Thus the images of the psalms, which, because of their literary
poetic genre, always transcend the concrete situations which
caused their birth, and which, as the inspired words of a sacred
history, have an eschatological bearing, these images can always
open out on the mystery of Him who assumed all the figures of
this world. Bound up with the history of the salvation
accomplished by God in a people chosen by Him, these images
still remain the preferred ones when we wish to express our
situation in faith and our relationship to the Savior. This is why
the Church holds to them in her liturgy and her prayer. The
Church has recognized a play of symbolic correspondences
founded on the analogies of situation between Israel and Christ,
between the sacraments of the Old and the New Covenants.
To take only one example, the psalmists sang of Sion as the
meeting-place of the tribes of the chosen people and even of all
peoples. Since it is the Church of Christ which realizes this
mystery of convocation and unity, what was said of Sion can be
said of the Church, the new Jerusalem, in a way which is even
more true than it was of the old:
Jerusalem built like a city
into one perfect whole!
Up here come the tribes,
the tribes of the Lord (Ps. 121).
And since Sion and the Church reveal to us a mystery of
motherhood, what is said of one and of the other can also be said
of Mary, figure of the Church, Mother of grace:
Sion--each man may call her: Mother
for in her one and all were born (Ps. 86).
In the mystery of liturgical worship, the same Lord is living and
acting who was living and acting in the flesh some two thousand
years ago in Palestine, and who had already been living and
acting through prophetic signs in the history of the people of
Israel. This is why the psalms, which prophetically express the
mysteries of Christ realized in the deeds and the words of His
earthly life and continued in the sacraments of the Church, are
always present, always of today. If the same figures are applied
to the successive events of our visible world, their reality is
unique: Christ.
This reality transcends human history. Whenever a psalm verse is
addressed to us, God is speaking to us; the mystery of the Son of
God is proclaimed to us. Whenever we take the psalms to make
them our prayer, it is Jesus, the Son of Man, who in them prays to
His Father, or it is the Church who prays to her Lord and Kyrios.
Such are these words of man and this Word of God, for the
Church and for believers. Since the Bride has no other life than
that of the Bridegroom of whom she is the very flesh and bone,
she has henceforth no other language than His. His Word is hers.
In Him it is the human Word of God.
The Bible and the liturgy, as we said at the beginning, have been
given to men only to lead us to one goal, the purpose of the work
of redemption--unity in love. If, going beyond the sign of holy
Scripture and of the sacraments of the Church, we seek the
source of their efficacy, we see the Holy Spirit at work, the Spirit
of unity and love, sanctifying the world by the twofold mystery of
a Word given and a Word given back.
The Word of the Father came down to us in Jesus the Prophet,
and men who heard this Word with their own ears of flesh have
transmitted His message to us; then the Word returned to the
Father to present to Him the sacrifice of mankind obedient to His
voice. It was the Spirit who caused Him to come down and take
flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary; it was the Spirit who
revealed Him in glory, taken up into heaven. But the Spirit has
gone before Him since the beginning of the world, and, with Jesus
departed, He dwells with the Church until the end of the world to
accomplish His work.
The Spirit has no face, but we hear His voice. It is He who spoke
by the prophets; it is He who prays in the Church. He inspired
holy Scripture, the Word of life; present in the water and the oil,
consecrating the bread and wine, He makes the sacraments signs
of life; He is the voice of the Eucharist.
And henceforth He who in the bosom of the Blessed Trinity is the
song of love which is eternally exchanged between the Father and
the Son is also in us as the dialogue between the Bridegroom and
the Bride. The Spirit of Jesus is the voice of the Bride. Together
the Spirit and the Bride say: "Come, Lord Jesus!" (Apoc. 22:17).
Together, the Bridegroom and the Bride say in the Spirit, "Abba,"
Father.
ENDNOTES
1. Cf. St. Ignatius of Antioch, "Ephesians," ix.
2. Divo Barsotti, "La Parole le Dieu dans le mystere chretien," Lex
Orandi (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1954), 17, p. 348.
3. L. Bouyer, in "Bible et Vie chretienne," n. 10, p. 22.
4. "De bono psalmodiae," PL, 68, 371.
CHAPTER 7: THE BIBLE AND THE LITURGY IN CATECHESIS
Rev. Francois Condreau, S.S.
TO TRANSMIT TO our fellow men the twofold wealth of the
Church--the Bread of the Word and the Bread of the Sacrament,
the Bible and the liturgy, the message of Christ and the life of
Christ--is not this, in its twofold aspect, the unique and basic
objective of pastoral work? The pastor's task is, indeed, to lay
hold of these two realities, to lay hold of them where they are to
be found, to bear them with the greatest care without altering or
perverting them in any way, so that they may reach those who are
to be taught, both children and adults. What a formidable
mission, completely bound up with the very mystery of the
incarnation, deeply stamped with its transcendence and its
humility!
In transmitting the Word for the sake of the Life, catechesis unites
man with God through a world of signs. It must enable him to
read these signs, it must open out their meaning, it must propose
to him their content.
In order to gain a better understanding of our mission, we shall
use a threefold approach--a starting point: the destitution of a
catechesis that has lost the sense of the living Word of God; a
stage: the benefit, but the insufficiency, of a catechesis
integrating the Biblical renewal; a perspective: the priceless,
irreplaceable "accomplishment" of a catechesis "situated" in the
liturgy of the Church.
This statement of the plan of this chapter indicates of itself the
significance and the limits of this study. There is no question of
dealing with the problem of catechesis in all its dimensions, or of
showing the importance of the pastoral context which conditions
its effectiveness, still less of recalling the necessity for a living
presentation of Christianity and its requirement of Christian self-
commitment in concrete living. Here we are dealing with one
particular aspect of the catechetical ministry, the aspect defined
by the theme of this book: to show the doctrinal authenticity and
the spiritual wealth of a catechesis close to its Biblical and
liturgical sources. We ask our readers to keep this "formality" of
our discussion in mind in order to give to our analysis its true
meaning, and their true bearing to the orientations we shall point
out.
THE DESTITUTION OF A CATECHESIS THAT HAS LOST THE SENSE
OF THE LIVING WORD OF GOD
A twofold fact obliges the catechist who is conscious of his
mission to question himself about the value of his pastoral
activity. Almost all children who have been baptized receive
some catechesis; between the ages of twelve and fifteen years,
some 80% are unfaithful to their baptismal promises renewed on
the day of their "solemn Communion"; a recent inquiry revealed
the same percentage of infidelity among baptized adults. This is
the first fact. The second is the profound lack of interest in
religious instruction, particularly among adolescents; even in
Catholic schools the religion class does not hold the students'
attention.
There are, of course, many causes for this relative lack of
perseverance and of interest: the break-up of families; the
immorality of street-corners and places where young people
spend their leisure time; the dechristianization of our society and
of its institutions; secularism, etc. Without denying the role of
these causes extrinsic to our teaching, must we not question
ourselves about our teaching itself: its content, its spirit, its
method? The catechesists of every country, of every society, of
every age today are asking themselves the same question: is
there not too often in our present-day catechesis (not, certainly,
in the teaching of Christian doctrine itself, but in the pedagogy
that presides over its transmission) a formal defect which
compromises its effectiveness?
To answer this question means to undertake an investigation; this
is the origin of the present catechetical renewal. The first years'
work along these lines brought about an improvement in the
method and the techniques of religious instruction. The
catechetical renewal began on the pedagogical level; this was the
first wave. The second gained greater depth; without abandoning
the study of the devices of transmission, it applied itself to the
study of the presentation of the subject transmitted.
From this viewpoint we cannot help saying that for many decades
catechesis has frequently been defective in its form, and this fact
often prevents it from being a real initiation into the faith. If we
must give it a name, we might call this defect the division of
catechesis into three parts.
Christian doctrine is actually presented to children under three
aspects, and often in three books, or in three parts of one book:
the catechism manual, sacred history (the Bible, the Gospel, the
history of the Church), the liturgy. Whether we consider these
three elements in themselves, or whether we consider the
connections that should exist between them, we must admit that
such a method of catechesis if it is not necessarily a total loss,
yet normally leads to an impasse.
The program of religious instruction includes first of all the
catechism manual. Obviously we are not criticizing the value of
such a manual of religious instruction, nor casting any doubt--
even the slightest--on the need for using it. Such a systematically
organized presentation of doctrine, explained, memorized,
recited, is indispensable to the orthodoxy of the faith and is
required by the mode of apprehension of all objects of knowledge
by a human being. The manual and its didactic study has, then,
its due place in catechesis.
But the catechetical method cannot and should not be reduced to
the explanation of a manual. Such a method suffers from two
evils: abstraction and dispersion.
The simple explanation of formulas leaves the student on the
level of the abstract, of mere concepts; it gives ideas addressed
to the intelligence; it puts them in order; it is the indispensable
backbone and skeleton of the faith. But an effort of
contemplation is needed to grasp through these forms, true signs
and carriers of revealed truth as they are, the dogmatic realities
themselves, the mystery. What the eye has not seen, what the ear
has not heard, what language has never expressed, this is the
Christian mystery and this is the authentic nourishment of faith.
In the manual, moreover, revealed truth is presented piecemeal,
as a mere sequence of facts laid out one after the other. The
student cannot grasp by this means the unity of Christian
teaching, all centered on the Person of Christ, in whom God
reveals Himself, in whom alone we can find the final textbook of
our faith. The manual, therefore, does not reveal the Person of
Christ, living and present, the fullness of the living and present
Word of God.
Programs of religious instruction also include the study of sacred
history. The Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the
history of the Church--these are the books of Christians; they
ought to know them as we know our family papers and family
treasures. Here is usually the motive for this study; this
perspective is true enough, but insufficient. Thus conceived, the
study of sacred history does not become for our students a true
entrance into the faith.
The face and the presence of God in the Bible are revealed to us
by His whole activity and perceived in events considered as signs
of what God is to His people, also in the interconnection of these
events, the reciprocal link and causality of which reveal His
design. Now, too frequently our sacred histories are mere
collections of anecdotes and accounts, and so do not reveal this
face and this presence. The events follow one another without
being connected with one another, without the essential being
brought out in relationship to the accidental.
The jawbone of the ass, the hair of Absalom, the trumpets of
Jericho are put on the same level as the departure of Abraham,
the deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the Law on Sinai.
Presented without connection and without evaluation, the events
of the Bible, if they are history, are no longer the history of
salvation, the living expression of the living God.
And further, our books of sacred history often present a
mutilated Bible; certain riches, and not the least important, are
often missing. Ordinarily, the prophets, the books of Wisdom, the
psalms, the canticles are all left in obscurity. All this spiritual
wealth which makes up the soul of the people of God escapes the
students; yet what would be more nourishing for their faith?
Programs of religious instruction include, finally, the study of the
liturgy. But, alas! Just as doctrine is studied from without, both as
to its formulation and its conceptual expression, just as the Bible
is studied from without in Bible history books, so also the liturgy
is studied from without, in the details of the rubrics, without any
true perception of the inner realities expressed by the signs.
The students, for the most part, learn to place the various feasts
correctly in the calendar of the liturgical year, but they do not
discover the mystery of Christ lived here and now by Christians;
they learn to find their way through the Mass and its successive
parts, but they do not comprehend the Eucharistic and paschal
action of the Mass; they learn a repertory of liturgical rites,
objects, and words, but they do not know how to go from the sign
to the thing signified.
Thus the liturgy remains external to their Christian life: they
know the road, so to speak, because they have read the map, but
they have not learned to admire the glorious view; they have not
learned to nourish themselves on all the spiritual riches of the
liturgy, spiritual riches which, although hidden, are nonetheless
the true food of their faith.
This is the first difficulty with our three-part teaching. But there
is a second to be noticed also: the absence of dynamic
connections between these three elements--manual, Bible, liturgy.
From this point of view, our trichotomy is still more disastrous.
Are not the Bible and the liturgy the two living sources of the
doctrine formulated in the manual? Are they not the privileged
dwelling-place of the presence of the living Word of God, giving
to catechesis its concrete character and its personal unity. It is
through the Biblical and liturgical signs that the Credo is to be
studied. But, in the majority of cases, catechism and sacred
history are studied as if they were two separated sciences,
foreign to one another. with two subject-matters to be examined
on, and often two different teachers. What happens when a river
is cut off from its source?
Furthermore, what gives meaning to the liturgy if not the Bible?
What are the sacraments but the deeds of Christ, announced and
prepared in the Old Testament, accomplished in the New,
represented in the liturgy of the Church as the efficacious sign of
the realities by which we are saved?
And even when Bible and liturgy are not treated in separate
classes, they are usually presented as appendices, or
illustrations, or applications or extensions of the chapter of the
catechism under consideration, without organic connections,
without shedding light on one another from a moralizing and
superficial point of view, which does away with any presence and
any action of the living Word of God in Jesus Christ.
Should we, then, be so greatly astonished at the relative
ineffectiveness of our religious instruction and the lack of
interest in religious teaching shown by our students? We must
realize clearly this sad fact: a too exclusive systematization, a
narrow spirit of keeping things separate, a departmentalization
of mind have ended little by little in degrading the Word of God.
My readers could certainly reproach me, in this first part of my
exposition, for its quality of slight caricature and of negativism,
since it shows only the shadows in the picture. I am quite aware
of this fact. Certainly, in practice, many pastors have already
made the needed reorderings and syntheses. But should we not,
in a book such as this, denounce with some vigor the evil with
which we are afflicted, the sickness from which we are suffering?
Only a true diagnosis makes it possible for the sick man to be
cured.
At the end of this analysis, however, we must answer two
objections, objections which are heard too frequently to allow us
to pass them by in silence.
Is it not an exaggeration, people say, to find a relation of cause
and effect between this trichotomy and the leakage from the
Church that we have mentioned? There are many reasons for this
leakage and some of them, perhaps the most important, are
completely outside the domain of catechesis as such. This is
quite true; we have evidence of it. We know well, alas, that the
best instruction often results in failure because of the absence of
factors, familial, academic or pastoral, that determine its
effectiveness. But this realization does not reassure us in the
least; it leaves our problem untouched, the problem that is
occupying us here: how to give back to catechesis its true
dimension as the living Word of God.
But, people also say, the catechesis that you criticize is
traditional in the Church and has proved its worth. It has brought
forth generations of believers. Was not this the kind of catechesis
that we ourselves received, and when we look at ourselves, with
all due modesty, might we not say that it has proved its merit?
Here we need to dissipate a misunderstanding. In the first place,
it is not quite exact to say that this tripartite catechesis is
traditional. It is even relatively recent; in any case, it is later than
the sixteenth century. The catecheses of the Fathers have quite a
different tone; they show, by contrast, how the history of
salvation and the Credo are united and how religious instruction
is bound up with liturgical initiation.
Furthermore, to remedy the imperfections and the lacunae in this
catechesis which we ourselves received, supplementary factors
used to be at work, and it was to these factors that this
catechesis, when it was successful, owed and still owes its
success. We are all familiar with the two principal ones: a
Christian family atmosphere and Christian institutions.
The Christian family is and always will be the great educational
force; this is the "good ground" of perseverance in the faith; the
tree that is rooted therein will normally resist all temptations. But
at the present time this family life is under attack. Truly
Christian homes, of truly militant quality, may be growing in
number, but yet we know by experience the feeble mediocrity of
the Christian life in the families of most of our students. And if
the family atmosphere is less Christian today, as the Holy Father
recently reminded us, is this not, at least in part, due to the fact
that the poor quality of our religious instruction is beginning to
make its effects felt?
As to Christian institutions, they too were and still are a
supplementary factor. We know their value and their necessity;
both have been recently reaffirmed. But experience shows here
also that they will not be able to ensure that people will
persevere in faith who are no longer nourished by the living Word
of God.
No, let us look neither for justifications nor consolations. Let us
look the evil in the face, the more boldly since the remedy is at
hand. The Lord is faithful, He the Shepherd of His flock. The
pastures are ready--the Bible and the liturgy--to give His people
the food they need.
THE VALUE, BUT INADEQUACY, OF A BIBLICAL CATECHESIS
One of the major orientations of the catechetical renewal has
certainly been the return to the Bible, in its profound reality, in
Christian catechesis. Efforts along this line are being multiplied
today, and recent works have made a decisive contribution to this
field.
All the same, we should get rid of an outlook which has been and
still is that of many catechists and which can keep them deluded.
This is the method called "the Gospel as the catechism." The
method consists either in following the evangelical narrative step
by step and thus replacing the catechism manual by the Gospels,
or in illustrating the various aspects of dogma or morals with
quotations or examples taken from the Gospels.
Although the context of the Gospels is that of Christian initiation
although the concrete and inductive method of the Gospels is
that of religious teaching, it is still true that a systematic and
organized presentation of revealed truth centered in the Creed is
required for the orthodoxy of the faith.
And to reduce the role of the Bible to that of illustrating doctrine,
is not this a real betrayal? It is not for us to say what faith is and
then to show it realized in Abraham, but rather to look at
Abraham to say what is faith. The Bible is not to be reduced to a
collection of arguments to justify doctrine and of examples to
illustrate it; it is the privileged witness of the Word which is
expressed by doctrine. The abuse here is the more regrettable in
that the applications are frequently extrinsic ones which grasp
only a secondary or accidental or anecdotal aspect of the Biblical
phrase or example.
The values given to catechesis by the Bible are of an entirely
different order. The Bible is not a teaching outline, a collection of
illustrations, a reservoir of stories, a ground of applications.
What, then, is it?
It is a presence which expresses itself through events, deeds,
acts. It is the special dwelling-place of revelation; it is the Word
of God. It is God drawing near to man, approaching him in order
to speak to him, to reveal Himself to him. What we cannot
dispense with in catechesis is the Biblical method, which is
respectful of the very mystery of God that it is to transmit and of
the human being who is to be united to this mystery.
Let us try to grasp some of the characteristics of this method in
order to define Biblical catechesis.
1) It is a catechesis made up of deeds and events; it is, therefore,
a return to the concrete. The teaching given in the Bible is not
given in an abstract form. When the Lord speaks, He does so in a
concrete way, starting with what is sensed with an immediate
experience that is quite simple and connected with life. Whether
it is the message of the books of Wisdom, the language of the
prophets, the teaching of Christ, or the language of the parables,
the whole of the Bible is marked by this same concrete character
and this same care to remain close to concrete reality.
But the Lord does not speak in words only; the Word of God is all
the mirabilia Dei, the interventions of God in the world which
culminate in the event that is Jesus Christ Himself. The Biblical
events are the progressive revelation, through these
interventions by God, of His face, of His presence, of His
message; in a word, the Biblical events are the "epiphanies" of the
Word of God. In the Bible, everything that God wants to say to us
about Himself or about ourselves He tells us by means of actions.
The teacher will notice the value and effectiveness of such a
method. It is the inductive method, the one which arouses
interest, which sustains attention, which inspires to a course of
action. But the teacher of the faith will also notice the special
quality of Biblical concreteness. It is not that of a picture or a
story; it is that of fact, of experience, of the real. Here is a
valuable directive for the teacher of religion who is anxious to get
away from "representations" and to approach "realities." The
image leads to the idea (leaving us still in the realm of
abstraction), but the fact leads to the reality of which it is the
sign.
This is why it seems very true to say that the Bible is not made
first of all to be "represented" but to be "proclaimed." The
representation, or the "concrete as visualized," is in danger of
keeping the student on the plane of the image, while the
proclamation or the "concrete as spoken" allows him to go from
the Biblical fact which is the sign to the reality of the Word of
God which is signified.
2) But let us now define the second characteristic of Biblical
catechesis: it is a catechesis of signs and symbols. While the
Biblical facts are concrete and therefore close to men, they are
also signs that reveal an invisible reality. The sign subsists on
two planes, that of the visible and that of the invisible in such a
way that in looking at what is visible we discover the invisible
reality.
Each Biblical event, in fact, is the bearer of a revelation of the
Lord, of a Word of God: the call of Abraham, Moses, the covenant,
the exile.... In the New Testament, the mystery of the Trinity, of
the incarnation, of the redemption, is expressed in deeds; the
unfolding and interconnection of the events themselves are also
the bearers of revelation. Thus, the stepping-stone to lead us to
the mystery, or the casket that encloses it, or the shell that
protects it like a fruit, is not primarily or only the concept
addressed to the ratio, the conceptual intelligence, but primarily
the event which challenges and obligates the whole man.
The Biblical events as signs are thus akin to the knowing powers
of man--be he child or adult--for whom the concrete rather than
the abstract is the natural starting point. These signs are also
nearer to the process of the act of faith in simple people, in its
human root--adult faith does not suppress this "spirit of
childhood"; and they are, finally, nearer to the mystery itself into
which we are introduced by the reading of the signs. The
pedagogy of the faith is at the basis of religious symbolism.
3) While the Bible causes us to enter into a world of actions and
of signs, it also causes us to enter into a world of persons and
personal relationships; here is the third characteristic of Biblical
catechesis in virtue of which it also causes the religious world to
appear to the students in its true light.
The mystery of God is, in fact, a personal mystery. God is not an
academic course; He is a living Being, Someone and not
something. His message is not a system of ideas, but the
revelation of His mystery. God is a "community" of living Persons
in which each Person is a subsistent relation to the two Others.
And the Bible causes each of the divine Persons to be revealed to
us in the specificity of His proper dynamism, as also the divine
Being in the unity of His action.
To meet the Bible is also to meet a world of persons in
relationship to God. From Adam and Abraham to the apostles and
the saints, the definition of the religious life is the same: to stand
in a personal relationship with God. Nothing is more valuable for
the Christian catechesis which wishes to be both revelation and
initiation than this Biblical viewpoint, which allows the students
to discover religious reality in its most fundamental essence.
4) The fourth characteristic of Biblical catechesis is that it
introduces us into a world of acts.
The Bible puts us into contact with persons who are in act. Here
we find a world in movement, in dramatic activity. God calls, He
awaits our response; He offers His security, but He must have our
trust; He pardons, but we must repent. Throughout the Bible we
find the spiritual combat, temptation and struggle, the active and
militant life.
Nothing is closer to the mystery of the faith than conversion, self-
commitment, decision, choice. Nothing is closer to the mystery of
life in the Church, in which the Christian finds peace and life
only in apostolic work for the kingdom of God. And nothing,
finally, is closer to the profound needs of children, of
adolescents, of young people, of those at the age of action, of
choice, of commitment.
5) The Bible, again, is a whole spirituality which permeates our
catechesis insofar as this draws from it its content and its
method. Truth and challenge, interiority and peace, loyalty and
hope--is not this the spirit that we find on each page, in deeds, in
maxims, in prayers? Who could deny, henceforth, the
incomparable value of familiarity with the Bible in forming the
souls of our pupils? "Tell me who your companions are and I will
tell you who you are."
We could analyze at length the characteristics of the spirituality
of the Bible, the common denominator of all true spiritualities
since it is that of the People of God, but this has been excellently
covered in recent books. It is enough to recall here how children
love the personages of the Bible, how their interior life awakens
at contact with them, to be convinced of the value of such a
method.
6) And, finally, the Bible is the history of a people. Biblical
catechesis facilitates the students' entrance into the community
of believers; here is the last characteristic that we wish to note.
From the creation of the People to its triumphs or its failures, the
same sense of solidarity always shines out in the great events of
its history; thus to live the Bible in catechesis is already to live
with the Church and to find ourselves united with those who
share the same faith. It is no small good to give very early to our
students the sense of the Christian community and of the inter-
responsibility that unites Christians with one another, and by and
through them, with all men also called to salvation.
A great work of education, certainly, still needs to be done to
have our catechists discover these riches, to convince them of the
value of this Biblical pedagogy for their teaching and to initiate
them into the method that it inspires.
But we should note also the limits of such a catechesis. We have
mentioned already, and we repeat here, that a Creed is absolutely
necessary. The dogmatic and moral formula is indispensable to
catechesis. Doubtless, in the light of the directives of the Church,
psychology and pedagogy will make more precise our knowledge
of the best age at which the formulas should be presented and
the best order of presentation. In any case, conceptualization is a
function of the intellect which has its place in the knowledge of
faith, and the study and the formulation of revealed truth is an
integral part of catechetical pedagogy and is indispensable to the
orthodoxy of the faith. It is the Church who, in the formulation of
revealed truth, gives the Bible its final significance; she is the
rule of faith.
The Bible proclaimed and the Credo explained are, then, both
irreplaceable; and primitive catechesis is defined by the
interaction of, on the one hand, a study of the sources, the
events, the history of salvation, and, on the other, a study of
doctrine formulated and explained, of truths systematically
organized: "Haec oportuit facere et illa non omittere." To affirm
the need for the first is not to deny that for the second. But to do
without the first is frequently to make impossible the learner's
entering into a true faith.
The second limitation is summed up in one word: however
present may be the Word of God announced and proclaimed in
the Bible, the acts in which it is expressed are acts of the past.
From the pedagogical point of view, this is an obvious difficulty:
the child as such faces the future and is not interested in the
past. But there is another difficulty. To speak only of Biblical
events is to isolate the sign from the thing signified, the
proclamation from the reality. The first chapters of this book
have made abundantly clear the unity between the Bible and the
liturgy, the second making present what the first announces and
begins to realize in figure in the men of the Old Testament.
And so it is that the events and saving deeds of the Old
Testament are only fully perceived, discovered and understood
in the reality of the saving deeds of the Church.
To say this is to point out the inescapable need for the liturgy in
catechesis. A catechesis has no right to become Biblical if it does
not become liturgical at the same time. Concerning this profound
unity between the Bible and liturgy in catechesis, then, we now
need only to analyze the why and the how.
THE INDISPENSABILITY OF A CATECHESIS GIVEN IN THE
CONTEXT OF THE LITURGY OF THE CHURCH
The liturgy confers on Biblical catechesis a threefold benefit: (1)
it gives the Bible its authentic interpretation. Very early our
students, both children and adults, need to gain the conviction
that it is only in the Church that one can read the Bible with
certainty Biblical circles which leave room for a certain
"prophetism" of individual interpretation have led to grave
disorders from the point of view of the faith. It is the liturgical
realities, in fact, which give to the Biblical realities their true
meaning. This mutual clarification is basic in catechesis. As
Father Danielou has clearly shown, this is the way in which the
sign is not separated from the reality signified, the proclamation
from its realization.
2) In the second place, the liturgy gives to the Bible its quality of
present reality. The history of salvation is not a thing of the past;
it is going on today. It is not enough to state this to our students;
they must experience it. It is, without doubt, the whole Christian
life which gives the Bible its present reality, engrafting the life of
the baptized into that of the people of God on their pilgrim way,
engaging them to be witnesses to God in today's world, to make
the choices dictated by their faith. But we might say that the
liturgy of the Church constitutes, as it were, the living vital
structure of this history. The liturgy gives, so to say, in an
accentuated rhythm their present actuality to those major events
that marked the life of the men of the Bible and of the people of
God. The Bible shows us a drama; the liturgy causes us to live it.
By it, from the liturgy of baptism to the liturgy of the dead, we
ourselves live here and now, in reality, the history of salvation.
3) And, finally, the liturgy indicates in a special way the passage
from revelation to initiation which should take place during a
course of instruction. To transmit the Word is not enough; we
must cause our students to enter actively and personally into the
mystery. We must set our students "in act" in the Christian life.
Prayer, charity, the apostolate in all its forms are certainly true
responses to the Word of God and true Christian commitments.
The fact remains that a liturgical catechesis, starting from the
rites of the Church, clearly shows the necessity for this passage
from "saying" to "doing." It realizes to perfection what we might
call, on the methodological plane, the vital connection between
instruction and education, revelation and initiation.
The catechism manual reveals and explains; the Bible invites and
calls; the liturgy introduces us, takes us by the hand; it exposes
us, it causes us to understand by having us act. To use a very
material analogy to bring out a spiritual reality: in learning to
swim, it is useful to have the various motions explained; it is
better to have them also demonstrated; but it is absolutely
indispensable to try to perform them oneself in the water. So, too,
for an apprenticeship in Christian life and action, carried out by a
liturgico-ritual catechesis.
This strictly catechetical utilization of the liturgy is not intended
in any way to conceal or to diminish the proper function of the
sacraments as administered and received, their power of
transforming a man from within so that he can welcome the
teaching he has received and live by it. The rites of the Church,
valuable as they are in showing the wealth of the Credo, are not
to be reduced merely to outstanding illustrations of doctrine.
They are this, but they are much more: the intervention of God in
the life of man. They enlighten him from within, transform him,
in some way place him at the height of the journey that God
wishes him to travel, by engaging him in the liturgical rite.
The fact remains that, in addition to the sacramental action itself,
the catechetical action, if I may call it that--a true discovery of the
Credo through the rites of the liturgy--gives to each student a
better chance to approach more nearly to Christian being and
action--in a word, to Christian existence.
THE ROLE OF THE LITURGY IN CATECHESIS
But it is now time to go from the domain of principles to that of
applications of the role of the liturgy in catechesis, limiting
ourselves to four: (1) the celebration of the liturgy as the method
of using the Bible in catechesis; (2) the liturgical year as the
context and the global object of catechesis; (3) the sacramental
liturgy as the principle object of catechesis; (4) the Eucharistic
liturgy as the special expression of catechesis.
Space does not allow us to go into all the developments of these
topics which would be useful to catechists; we shall content
ourselves with a few summary indications to give the necessary
filling-out and defining of our line of thought.
The Celebration
The Bible can be used in catechesis in various ways: (a) it can be
"represented"; this is the whole field of images, of Biblical films
and albums, sometimes very valuable, but difficult to use well;
there are many abuses here; (b) it can be "explained"; the
catechist presents the Biblical passage and explains it in order to
have the doctrine shine out from it, (c) it can be "meditated"; this
is the personal work of reflection which must be carried out by
each student; (d) it can be "celebrated"; this is the liturgical way
of using the Bible in Christian instruction.
From the pedagogical point of view, we must, in our teaching,
respect the hierarchy of values that puts the Word above the
representation, meditation above explanation, celebration above
meditation. This indicates the importance we must attach, it
would seem, to the liturgical way of using the Bible in catechesis.
The liturgical celebration of the Bible is a profound proclamation
of the Word in the community in a ceremony similar to that of the
liturgy of the Word in the Mass, with an insistence on the
catechetical elements to be brought out, in order to nourish faith,
inspire prayer, lead to self-commitment.
The purpose of such a celebration is, very simply, to cause the
mystery of the faith contained in the event to be relived in its
actuality. Students are always tempted to be satisfied with
learning facts and knowing doctrine; educators must always be
concerned with having their students go from the event to the
mystery, from doctrine to life.
Let us take an example: a child might be quite familiar with the
parable of the pharisee and the publican and be capable of telling
it. He might even, which would be better, be able to find the
lesson contained therein. But the concern of the educator
primarily is to lead the child to contemplate in faith this mystery
of the poverty and the true condition of every sinful man in the
presence of God; next, to go from the contemplation of the
doctrine explained and assimilated to the contemplation of the
mystery meditated on and appreciated (recta sapere); then to
enter into this disposition and interior attitude, to relive for
himself here and now (hodie) the parable; and, finally, to give a
personal response to the Word of the Lord, and thus to go from
contemplation to a course of action, at once the conversion of
heart and the self-commitment to Christian living presupposed in
every act of faith.
Let us take another example: the child can have a very exact
knowledge of the effects of baptism, which have been explained
to him by means of the parable of the vine, our Lord's
conversation with Nicodemus, or the appropriate texts of St. Paul.
But the concern of the educator is that all this "doctrine" should
become "present reality" to the child, that he should actually
advert to his own baptism and that this discovery should
illuminate his whole life. The "celebration" of these texts will give
them their value as the Word of God, living and acting,
enlightening the spirit, transforming the heart, and putting the
child in the state of living the life given him at baptism.
Here is an unequalled source of catechetical wealth, and
experience shows its irreplaceable value. Doubtless, let us repeat
it once again, Biblical "celebration" in catechesis in no way
removes the need for the necessary didacticism, the value and
the urgent necessity for which we have frequently recalled. Such
celebration has only one place in the pedagogical context of
catechesis; yet this place must be respected. And, furthermore,
such celebrations are entirely traditional in the Church, deriving
from the Biblical and liturgical tradition inherited from the
worship and the teaching of the Synagogue. One can find many
examples of it in the Old Testament, e.g., Deuteronomy, and also
Nehemias 8; the sacred text is presented and explained in a
celebration that leads to self-commitment.
We have defined the purpose of such "celebrations" in catechesis.
Their technique is twofold: evocation by word and action, and the
creation of the liturgical atmosphere.
The central technique on which everything else converges is the
proclamation of the Word, which should be done with solemnity,
by a lector--wearing an alb if possible--from the missal, with
incensing procession, dialogue, etc. To the evocation of the event
by the Word may be added evocation by actions. The child is, as
we all know, visual-minded; the Church knows man's needs, she
who in every sacrament unites action to words. But this evocation
in action needs to be sober.
In contrast to a mime or a dramatic presentation, and still more
to the theatre in which various parts are played, celebration has
neither actors playing parts nor spectators looking on. Belonging
as this does to the genre of the liturgy, it has only celebrants with
various functions to carry out. Words and actions are the
supports, human vehicles that are accidental and transitory, of
the mystery of the Word, which itself is central and permanent.
The liturgical atmosphere gives the celebration its fundamental
character, that of an action, an action that people carry out
together. What is then expressed is, indeed, not only the Word of
God; but, through the liturgical act of the assembled participants,
their chant and prayer, their silence and their actions, it is also
the response to this Word.
To analyze some of the elements of such celebration is to show
its advantages. That the class which has listened to, studied,
understood and recited Christian doctrine should become a
community assembled in an act of faith expressed in the Church--
is not this the sign of a catechesis that has attained its properly
theological dimension?
Here we have not only the advantage of shared enthusiasm in the
access to faith due to the religious atmosphere. But, as we know,
the Christian community is the locus par excellence of the action
of grace even before any particular sacramental action is begun.
The presence of Christ in the mystery of His Word as proclaimed
is "realized" in the mystery of His Word heard by the members of
the assembled community. It is Christ present in their midst who,
by His power to transform from within, brings souls into
harmony with the teaching that is received and disposes them to
give an active response in Christian living.
It remains to say that to carry out such a liturgical celebration of
the Bible requires competence; a celebration cannot be
improvised. This technique, like all others, follows certain quite
simple laws, but to list them would go beyond the scope of this
chapter. The essential thing for our purpose here is to show the
place of such celebrations in the effort we are making to give its
proper liturgical "realization" to Biblical catechesis. Many efforts
have been made along these lines. Let us mention only the
booklet "Montons a Jerusalem" of the C.P.L., which gives a schema
of such celebrations, and No. 157 of the review "Verite et Vie,"
which makes the application to catechesis.
The Liturgical Year
The liturgical year also makes religious instruction effective by
giving it, not only its context, but also, "in some way," its object;
this is the second point of application of the role of the liturgy in
catechesis.
The liturgical year is, first of all, the concrete presentation of the
Credo, in recalling the great events of our salvation; nothing is
more obvious.
It recalls to us the coming of Christ: this is the season of Advent,
of Christmas, and Epiphany. Thus the mystery of the incarnation
is presented to our faith as being the echo of the first
manifestation of Christ in creation, and as the announcement of
His glorious return at the parousia. It recalls to us the life of
Christ, His teaching, His miracles, His struggle, His passion, His
death, His resurrection and His ascension: this is the season of
Septuagesima, Lent, Passiontide and Easter. Here are presented to
our faith the divinity of Christ, morals, sin, redemption,
salvation, glory. And, finally, it recalls to us the presence of
Christ in the Church by grace and the sacraments: this is the
season of Pentecost, of Christ the King, of All Saints, of the
dedication of the great basilicas.
Here the mystery of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ and
our life in the spirit are presented to our faith. But the liturgy is
not only a reminder; it expresses a living reality of which it is the
efficacious sign. It is a Credo "in act." This mystery of Christ,
lived in former times in these various events by Christ Himself,
the Head of the Mystical Body, is lived here and now by Christ in
the members of His Mystical Body. Thus the liturgy reveals to
those receiving instruction--and this is the important point--both
what Christians believe and what they live. It teaches them that
the Christian mystery is not some thing, but Some One. It
convinces them that in Christianity what we believe in is what we
must live by.
Who, then, can deny the twofold value of the liturgical year as
being both the plan and the global object of catechesis, the
concrete presentation of the Credo, and the Credo in act? Happy
the students who have the liturgy as the context of their
instruction, as the guide of their initiation!
The Sacramental Liturgy
In penetrating into the more specific domain of the rites of the
Church, and particularly of the sacramental rites, we discover an
even greater wealth and effectiveness for catechesis.
The sacraments, bringing together dogma, morals and
spirituality, are the most complete and unified expression of
Christian doctrine. Presented in their institution, their effects,
their movement, and, above all, as the actions of Christ giving us
salvation, they cause the object of our faith to appear, not in a
logical and abstract exposition, but in a concrete and present
form.
The pedagogy of the sacraments is inductive: it is by means of
the sacred signs that the learner is led to the realities of the faith.
This is what is called the catechesis of the rites. By means of the
persons, actions, words and objects that are shown to us by the
signs and symbols of the liturgy, nearly every aspect of the
Christian mystery is expressed, to become the object of
knowledge and the nourishment of the life of faith.
This pedagogy respects at once the transcendence of God and the
psychology of the child. By an intelligent study of the signs we go
from the visible to the invisible, from faith that is knowledge to
faith that is adherence. What a vast difference there is between a
catechesis that explains the effects of baptism abstractly on a
blackboard, and one that slowly reveals the riches of baptism by
means of the rites of the sacrament and the Easter Vigil! This
revealing is not only richer and more coordinated with the whole
of the Christian mystery, but far more respectful of the divine
and transcendent character of that mystery.
This pedagogy is inductive and also active, not only because it
leads the child to an attitude of mind, but because it causes him
to enter actively into the actuality of the saving mystery. The
sacramental signs are efficacious: they express what they
contain, they accomplish what they signify. They do not merely
recall the saving deeds of Christ; they re-present them, that is to
say, they render them present, they make them events of the here
and now. In the sacraments it is, indeed, always Christ Himself
who carries out in the members of His Mystical Body what He
accomplished on earth as Head of the Mystical Body. The
sacraments are the abiding and actual presence of the saving
deeds of Jesus Christ.
The study that children make of the sacramental rites leads them
not only to knowledge, but to a course of action. They are formed
by salvation from within; they let themselves be taken up by the
deeds of Christ; they enter into the mystery. If the catechetical
manual, which is a didactic exposition of Christian truths, is
indispensable to the orthodoxy of the faith, the sacramental
liturgy, which is the revelation of Christ and of His action while
He is accomplishing His work of salvation, is indispensable to the
life of the faith.
The Eucharistic Liturgy
Finally, at the very heart of the life of the Church, the center of
the whole liturgy, the sacrament towards which all the others
converge, there is the Eucharist. We need to treat only briefly of
this as the supreme expression of catechesis.
The Eucharistic liturgy brings to the student, first of all, the
wealth of its many signs. It presents a universe of objects and of
persons of actions and words whose symbolism is priceless. Alas,
all this liturgical wealth is frequently ignored, left to seem
heterogeneous and archaic. It is accepted because it must be,
without understanding. Yet here is a language that is very
concrete and therefore very close to the students, very rich since
it is the revelation of the mystery of salvation. Is it not a serious
mistake and a great pity to neglect such riches? For anyone who
has made a serious effort to study these signs knows well that
thereby he has brought new life to his teaching. And he has also
enlivened the manner, the style of his teaching--not the content,
because doctrine does not change, but the presentation.
The Eucharist is the summary and the center of the whole
Christian mystery. It constitutes the "framework" of catechesis, in
the sense of regrouping all the elements of revealed truth in a
synthesis that accords with the true hierarchy of the different
truths that compose it. The motif of this unique value of a
Eucharistic catechesis has often been described. Let us state it
briefly.
The fundamental act that sums up, that underlies, that animates
the whole life of Christ is His transitus. He came into this world
only to return, to "pass" from this world to the Father, Himself
and all His brethren, both Head and members of the Mystical
Body. One obstacle alone stood in His path to prevent Him from
gathering all men together to bring them to God--this is sin. This
is why the "passage" of Christ had to be painful: "It was necessary
that Christ should suffer in order to enter into His glory." This
was carried out in the three events that sum up the great paschal
act of Jesus: His death, resurrection, ascension.
But this "passage," carried out by Christ as the Head of His
Mystical Body, must also be carried out in His members, that is,
the Church. Christ has, therefore, left to His Church His "passage"
as a permanent reality, so that all men can "go from this world to
the Father"; and this is the Eucharist, the "passage" of the whole
Christ: the death, the resurrection and the ascension of the Head
and of the members. The rites of the Eucharistic celebration are
the simple expression of this doctrine; better still, they are the
dramatic expression of this movement. The Eucharist is,
certainly, a presence and a communion; but it is, above all, an
action and a movement: the act, the movement of the paschal
Sacrifice.
The great value of a catechesis that is, in each of its lessons, truly
Eucharistic, based on or extending one of the aspects of this
mystery, is that it causes the students, during the whole course
of their initiation, to discover this act and this movement, and to
introduce them into it. Is this not the central mystery of the
Credo? Is this not the fundamental course of action of the
Christian life? Thus the Credo is found to be revealed through the
living wealth and variety of the signs of the Eucharistic
celebration and to be revealed in its actuality. In this celebration
it finds its summary and its realization. A precise study of the
themes, the prayers, and the actions of the Mass shows it to be
the most unified and the richest synthesis of the Christian
mystery.
A comparison may help us to understand this quality of the
Eucharist, at once simple and complex, which justifies the
pedagogy we are proposing. If I want to become familiar with the
great mountain Mont Blanc, there are two possibilities. One is
that I might climb it myself. But I realize that people who have
made this climb found that at the top of Mont Blanc they could
see everything except Mont Blanc itself; they dominated it, but
did not become familiar with it. Or I might make, one after the
other, the ascent of the various peaks around Mont Blanc, from
Brevent to Mont Joly and to the Aiguille du Tour. Then I would
have a series of partial views of Mont Blanc which, when they
were put together, would give a knowledge at once analytic and
synthetic, unified and global, of the glory, the greatness, the
beauty of the great mountain itself.
So it is, analogically, with the mystery of the Eucharist, the
summary and center of all Christian doctrine. The contemplation
of the different mysteries of our religion is like so many
revelations of the Eucharistic mystery. When, therefore, our
classes in religion are given in close connection with the mystery
of the Eucharist, they are like so many glances at its liturgy,
lights on its celebration, approaches to its mystery. While our
instruction should be centered on the Person of Christ, it should
be on the whole Christ in His Mystical Body, realizing here and
now for us His paschal action in the Eucharist.
And so, week by week, month by month, year by year, to the
rhythm of the lessons of the catechism as to that of the liturgical
feasts, the student, like the catechumen, will at the same time
and with the same movement penetrate to the interior of the
Christian mystery, known and summed up in the doctrine of the
Eucharist, while he is being initiated into the Christian life whose
fundamental act is the Eucharistic celebration. Taking part in the
Mass, then, no longer seems merely a law of the Church imposed
from without, but the central reality of Christian life.
This point of view, furthermore, invites us to develop, to "scan,"
as it were, the doctrinal formation and the religious education of
children in relation to the rhythm of their Eucharistic life.
The "Directoire pour la Pastorale des sacraments," while it hopes
"that the profession of Christian faith might be broken up into
various commitments made over a period of time and in a
progressive way, so that children and adolescents would be given
only those formulas to repeat which do not go beyond their true
convictions," asks further that each of these self-commitments be
bound up with the Eucharist. "The profession of faith is a renewal
of the baptismal vows and should, therefore, retain the character
of a paschal celebration, of a completion of Christian initiation
which essentially includes the Eucharist."
These statements are in line with our concern for a catechesis
which will be at once teaching of doctrine and Eucharistic and
liturgical initiation.
Children from six to eight years old, arriving at what is commonly
called the age of reason, should be given a religious training
wholly oriented toward the full celebration of the Eucharist to be
achieved at first Communion, the Eucharist surrounded by the
two sacraments given at the same age, penance and confirmation.
A catechesis that makes use of this sacramental richness--will it
not certainly possess, together with a unique character of
integration, the two essential characteristics of revelation and of
initiation?
The period between nine and twelve years of age, that of mature
childhood, is the time for the study of the Credo. We have already
shown how the Eucharistic liturgy is valuable as the concrete
presentation of the Credo and the pedagogy of the Credo in
action.
The catechesis received from the age of twelve on, during the
periods of pre-adolescence and adolescence, should be the
disclosure of the Christian meaning of the profane realities that
force themselves on the attention of young people when they are
first confronted with the great problems of life, and should lead
to a commitment to serious and active Christian living. Here,
again, it is in the course of a Eucharistic celebration that the
adolescent should renew his baptismal promises, in the
consciousness of what the three sacraments he has already
received actually mean to him, the sacraments which he must live
by. But, here also, this Christian teaching should be understood
as a requirement of his Eucharistic life.
Thus, the Eucharistic liturgy should appear clearly as being the
structure, the resource, the soul of all catechesis. The most
valuable guide of the educator, it allows him to carry out his
teaching in the atmosphere of the catechumenate. The children in
our catechism classes have already been baptized, but they have
to discover the riches of their baptism and to live by them. When
they have been baptized, confirmed, and "Eucharized," they still
have to become day by day more fully what they already are. Is
this not the same progress as that of the catechumenate?
There is nothing novel in this point of view. "Nihil innovetur nisi
quod traditum est." All our proposals here are, in fact, in the line
of the great catechetical and catechumenal tradition of the
Church. (It is, undoubtedly, in order to bring together all the
efforts of the present time to return to the catechumenal tradition
of the Church that the word "catechism," now too narrowly
associated with the explanation and memorization of a manual,
has been replaced by the word "catechesis," which better
expresses in Christian terminology a religious formation
organically united with the Biblical and liturgical sources of
doctrine.)
CONCLUSION
And now, to conclude with an answer to the objection always
aroused by any study designed not only to convince but also to
lead to action. How to do it?
It is obvious that it is difficult to carry out this program under
the conditions actually obtaining in religious instruction today.
The manuals that we have to use, like the techniques, are hardly
oriented to such perspectives; the mentality of parents, like that
of their children, is foreign to such a unified conception of
Christian formation.
Yet we must not give way to discouragement. And so I shall
conclude by making three positive recommendations:
1) Let us say, first of all, that the primary need is for us to change
our own mentality. Having become aware of the deficiencies of a
catechesis that does not sufficiently assure a true evangelization
and a true entrance into the Church, we need first of all to take
time to reflect and meditate. Let us not say too quickly that we
agree and are convinced of all this but that it is impossible to do
anything about it. Let us rather seek always to perceive more
clearly the objective to be attained, and we shall then find the
means to attain it. An effort to reflect is at the basis of all
progress.
2) In the second place, we are suffering in our apostolate from a
kind of divorce between education and pastoral care. Each of
these two activities of the Church often seems to become a "Lone
Ranger." Educators should arouse their pastoral spirit in order the
better to integrate their educational action in a pastoral effort
that forms one whole; pastors should not be content with
administrating and directing, but should also become educators.
One cannot be a catechist without being a pedagogue of liturgical
initiation. One cannot be a celebrant of the Eucharist without
appreciating the educative riches of this celebration. This effort
to understand, to coordinate, to incorporate is one of the
conclusions of this book.
3) And finally, the witness of a living parish community, the
people of God on their pilgrimage to God, assembled about the
Eucharist, is the condition of the success of our enterprise. It is in
the parish community that the synthesis is realized, the
synthesis of doctrine, Bible, liturgy which our catechesis is to
demonstrate. For those under instruction, it is in the living parish
community that doctrine becomes life; the Bible, the history of
salvation; the liturgy, the deeds of Christ.
Let us not forget that in a world in which the secular Credo
imposes its own ukases, the conscience of children is often
profaned even before they hear the Word of God. Under these
circumstances, only the force of a Christian witness that is both
mature and powerful can remove this hard shell of paganism, can
free souls from this domination and render them permeable to
the message and the grace of God.
Meditative reflection and change of mentality, the coordinating of
education with pastoral care, an adult Christian community--this
is the environment necessary for the catechetical effort, the great
lines of which we have attempted to describe here, taking into
consideration also the stages necessary to bring this about in
various concrete situations. May both Catholic children and
catechumens under instruction for baptism soon benefit from our
efforts. The signs of this renewal are now all around us. More
than ever before, there is reason for hope.
CHAPTER 8: IS IT POSSIBLE, IN THE 20TH CENTURY, TO BE A
"MAN OF THE BIBLE"?
Rev. Charles Moeller
THE QUESTION IS perhaps, badly put. It is God who judges us, not
we ourselves. His Word saves us, not man's. The problem is,
therefore, not to find out if one can be a "man of the Bible," but
how one can be. The only force capable of conforming us to the
"man of the Bible" is the power of God. Only God can make us
men of God the real question is, therefore, what are the human
preparations to be made in the Biblical and liturgical apostolate.
THE PROBLEM
The union between the Bible and the liturgy is intimate and
indissoluble. It is not the secondary elements of the Bible that
have been taken up into the liturgy, but its living heart, the
history of salvation. It is not the peripheral aspects of the liturgy
that are found in the Bible, but its very life-current, that
proclamation of the Word which created the people of God as
they heard it and were nourished by it. The "man of the Bible" is
also the "man of the liturgy," as can be seen from three
examples.[1]
Three Aspects of "The Man of the Bible"
Baptism implies the return of the baptized to paradise. The
garlands of leaves and flowers adorning the baptistry of the
Orthodox at Ravenna, the four rivers flowing from the mount on
which stands the Lamb depicted in many Roman mosaics,
symbolize the mountain of paradise.[2] Although the dialectic of
baptismal faith orients us toward the eschatological coming of
the Lord--for Christianity is no nostalgic "return" of "the exiled
princess"[3]--nevertheless the bond with the paradise of the first
Adam can never be broken.
The re-creation is certainly to be "still more wonderful"
(mirabilius reformasti) than the first state of man (mirabiliter
condidisti); the transfiguration accomplished by the redemption
surpasses everything that man has heard, everything that he has
seen or imagined, "everything that the heart of man could
conceive," yet his roots in the Adamic past still remain, for the
stuff of sacred history is all of one piece, and God does not
destroy what He has created. To put it in another way, the
dialectic that we shall frequently note in the course of our
discussion, maintained between the Old and the New Testaments,
never means that the Old Law is abolished; Jesus has not come to
destroy, but to fulfill. The ritual of baptism, the blessing of the
water, of the oil of catechumens, of holy chrism speak
continually of the Adamic paradise.
Next, there can be no question of doing away with the exorcisms
that fill the ritual and the blessings of the holy Triduum[4] as
being embarassingly out of date. All liturgical functions proceed
in the same way: the impure, satanic spirit is driven away to
make place for the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier; still better, it is the
power of the Spirit that drives the demon away. Certain
apologists would like to edit the texts and rites so as to relieve
them of these "indications of a bygone past." But one cannot leave
in obscurity this presence of demons which is taken for granted
by the liturgy, any more than one can in the Gospel narrative.
The Spirit "drives" Jesus into the desert; Christ, the new Adam,
refusing to obey the devil, wins a first victory over him, an
antithesis of the defeat of the first man; the expulsions of
demons narrated by the Gospel are wrought by the power of the
Spirit. The sin against the Spirit is precisely to attribute to the
prince of demons what is the work of the power of the Most High.
If Jesus drove out demons, this was precisely the proof that "the
kingdom has come among you." The hour of the passion is also
that of "the prince of this world," for in the desert the devil left
Christ "until the appointed time," that of Gethsemani and Calvary,
as John and Luke both show; the resurrection is, therefore,
victory over Satan.
To try to diminish the importance of this struggle in the life of
the Lord would be to destroy its whole economy, to remove its
very backbone. The same is true for Christian baptism: the
victory over sin and death that we must win is equally a victory
over the demon. The last request of the Pater certainly also
means "deliver us from the Evil One."[5]
Finally, while we must turn our backs on any naive progressivism
since the essential event of history has already taken place in the
resurrection, we must give as precise a content as possible to this
truth: "If Christ be not risen from the dead, then is our faith vain."
the essentially paschal character of the whole liturgy has been
emphasized in recent years, especially that of the Christian
Sunday; we must "cry out with joy to the Lord." This is the major
rediscovery of the first part of the twentieth century, given in
germ in the decrees of St. Pius X and developed in those of Pius
XII: it is time that all Christians be invited to the feast: "tempus
erat dapibus, sodale...!" But it is still necessary that the guests
know something about the feast in which they participate.
Doubtless, we can never have an adequate comprehension of this
mystery; but we can and should strive to gain that rudimentary
understanding which St. Paul refers to in speaking of gnosis and
epignosis.[6]
These Three Aspects Are As Many Obstacles
The reader of Sartre and Malraux, of Hegel and Merleau-Ponty; the
"pagan" overcome with the sadness of purely sensual love
described in the novels of Francoise Sagan; young people
intoxicated with a belief in nature or with the idea of giving their
whole being to help underdeveloped peoples; and finally, those
who allow themselves to be fascinated by the mystique of Marxist
efficiency--all these, who represent various aspects of modern
man, if they wish to become "men of the Bible," must accept these
three aspects of Biblical and liturgical man.
If they wish to be converted to the faith, they must accept their
descent from Adam; they must realize that their deepest being,
according to the divine likeness engraved therein by the Creator,
cannot "develop" or "expand" except at the end of a struggle with
Satan; finally, they must turn to the risen Christ who is, in His
glorious humanity, the Man, not "classic" or "medieval" or
"modern" man, but simply Man, that is to say, the keystone of the
Bible and the liturgy.
Now these three aspects arouse in men of any age, and so also in
modern men, a fundamental opposition, or, at least, an
uneasiness which paralyzes religious commitment.
For how many Christians, even those whose education has been
on the university level, is not the problem of human origins
summed up in "the story of the apple"? The difficulty seems still
more deep-rooted when we confront the vision given by the Bible
and the liturgy-man as first "constituted" in a state of justice and
holiness, later to fall (in deterius commutatum, says the Council
of Trent)--with that of science, which, rightly or wrongly, discerns
in human history an ascending line, at least in what is of the
essence of man: from a state close to that of animals, man has
raised himself to that of homo faber and then to that of homo
sapiens.
This last state--if we must believe certain extrapolations, the
scientific character of which is much under discussion--is
growing progressively more profound in the universe, leading
mankind to a state of concentration, of unity and of spiritual
communion, the call to which was implicit from the beginning in
the "human phenomenon." On the one hand, we have a fall, a
"descent," followed by a re-ascending; on the other, an ascent
which, so far as the fundamental line of evolution is concerned,
is progressive and homogeneous, in such a way that if we can
still see how Christ is the "Omega" of creation, it is hard to see
how He can any longer be the "Alpha."[7]
Similar difficulties arise concerning the devil.[8] Modern man is
fascinated by all forms of the irrational; the devil, who passes for
a master in such matters, greatly preoccupies him, if one can
judge by the frequent use of such terms as "demonic,"
"demoniac," "satanic." At the same time, he is skeptical about the
existence of the devil, for he would willingly agree with Valery's
Faust that men no longer need a devil in order to be damned,
since they are the most wicked animals in creation and the most
evil.
In a more general way, modern man attributes to psychic or
physiological causes phenomena that the "ages of faith"
attributed to the influence of the prince of darkness. In the
Middle Ages it was thought, for example, that impure dreams and
their physical consequences were due to "incubuses" or
"succubuses," or again to "kobolds" who weighed down the breast
of the sleeper to smother him in a spasm in which sensual
pleasure and the agony of death would mingle. But today we
know that these phenomena are quite normal; too frequent
occurrence of them might call for some examination, but it would
be that of the doctor, not of the confessor or exorcist. Yet the
Church still has us sing in the Office of Compline: "Hostem
nostrum comprime, ne polluantur corpora--Repress the power of
the enemy, so that our bodies be not soiled."
Must we eliminate this strophe, certainly connected with these
monastic terrors by which the twelfth century, as described by
Emile Male, was haunted, but which we still find incredibly
widespread in the milieu of the monks of Athos? Or should we
recite this text and put in a kind of parentheses the words that
displease us, or "transpose" them or "adapt" them, as we are fond
of saying? Or again, how can we take seriously the belief,
affirmed in many passages of the Bible and in some important
liturgical texts, concerning the presence of devils in water? Is it
possible seriously to believe this, for example, in connection with
the bathing and swimming so widespread today, all of which are
not, I imagine, "satanic pleasures"?
And, finally, a last example which sums up the preceding by
generalizing them: the book devoted by the "Etudes
Carmelitaines" to "Satan" is a witness, probably involuntary, to
this dualism between the "Satan of psychology" which is
discussed in a remarkable series of medical, literary, and artistic
studies, and the "Satan of theology" who can easily be pushed
back among the imaginative myths created by a "primitive
mentality." Doubtless, the psychological facts must be analyzed;
the problem must be posed, but I fear that this book does not
contribute to clarifying it.[9] Yet, how can a modern man
participate wholeheartedly in the baptismal ceremonies or how
can he live the Easter Vigil with his whole being, if there remains
in him any uneasiness, any hesitation concerning the reality of
this devil who, as the whole liturgy declares, has been
vanquished by the resurrection of Christ?
I have myself verified the fact of this uneasiness. During the
academic year 1956-57, I devoted a course to the resurrection,
not as a fundamental point of apologetics for our faith in the
divinity of Jesus, but as a "mystery of salvation." And I soon
observed that my audience, composed for the most part of
student assistants in medical laboratories, were not following me
at all. The problem raised by the ignoring of the mystery of the
resurrection both in religious instruction and in Christian living
apparently did not strike them. (And here I am anticipating my
third and last example.) And my developments of the work of
redemption as a victory over death and the devil seemed to them
to depict some mythological combat, absolutely unreal; all this,
which still forms the heart of the paschal mystery, remained
completely closed to them.
Now it is not permissible to surround the deeds of the Savior with
a more or less prudent skepticism, limiting ourselves to only
those passages of the Gospel that are immediately accessible--or
at least are believed to be--to twentieth-century man. If the
Synoptics distinguish Christ's works of healing from His
exorcisms, it is because they attribute to Him a singularly acute
power of "discernment of spirits"; to say that sickness alone
really exists would be to state that Jesus was deceived on a point,
the importance of which we have already mentioned. And to say
that the Church should also shade discreetly, or even hide in her
storehouse and never bring out again, the texts of her exorcisms,
would be to attribute to the Spouse of Christ a possibility of error
in a matter in which her power is one which the Savior Himself
communicated to her.
Everything is all of one piece: the life of Jesus, His messianic
mission, His resurrection, Christian baptism, the paschal liturgy,
all presuppose a struggle with the Evil One and a complete
victory over him.
Concerning the resurrection itself, with its corollaries, the
ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit, the reaction of a pious
Christian lady, recounted to me by her pastor, will save me any
lengthy commentary. When this good lady on her deathbed heard
her pastor say: "And consider, my child, that you are going to rise
with Christ," she answered quickly: "Don't bother me with all that,
Father." Then, after a moment's silence, she added: "Obviously
Christ had to rise from the dead, He merited it after His suffering
and death on the Cross; but as for me what need have I to rise
again? What is important to me is that my soul should be saved
and be as soon as possible with the good God, the resurrection of
my body would add nothing to this."[10]
Approaching a Solution
Our problem is that of every age. The threefold procedure which I
am about to sketch--to believe and proclaim the Word that saves,
but also to distinguish the various kinds of obstacles that keep us
apart from it, and to explain it profoundly so as to reach man in
his most fundamental vocation--has been gone through in each
historic era. What was done by the Fathers of the Church--and
they have a privileged position here, which is the reason why
they are read in the Breviary--has been continued by theologians;
the fortunes and misfortunes of theology should not make us
forget its essential mission. We should not, therefore, think of the
present age as being any more removed from the Bible than any
other, nor, on the contrary, as being particularly close to it; in
any time, good or bad, the obstacles and the stepping-stones are
more or less equal.
To regain our belief in the effectiveness of the Bible and the liturgy
and so truly to proclaim the Word that saves.
We need, first of all, to believe in the effectiveness of the Word of
God precisely because it is the Word of God; the words of Karl
Barth "The preaching of the Word of God is itself the Word of
God," "praedicatio verbi Dei est ipsum Verbum Dei," are in point
here.[11] But I am acquainted with priests, and they are not among
the least eminent, who certainly know that the Bible is the Word
of God and that the liturgy is one of the privileged proclamations
of the Church; when necessary, they say as much in their answers
to questions or when their instruction outline leads them to
speak of the Bible once a year in their Sunday preaching; but I
fear that these same apostolic men do not sufficiently believe in
the Bible on the practical level.
They prefer humorously but skeptically to "your old Bible" to
those of their colleagues who extol it as useful in the
presentation of the Christian message--as, for example, in
presenting this message to visitors at some great exposition.
When the question comes up of how best to give a concrete image
of human anguish, such men would prefer to exhibit the more
than life-size photograph of a young woman at the wheel of a
luxurious Jaguar, dreamy-eyed, smoking a cigarette, one hand on
the half-opened door--in a word, a kind of "Bonjour Tristesse."
Although the Book of Proverbs might inspire various images
along the same lines, I would prefer a good reproduction of a
fresco or a picture representing the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from paradise, or perhaps, since Christian hope goes beyond
anguish, an image of Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees; for I
am afraid that the young lady with the cigarette would not strike
the man in the street very much more than would the covers of
some sporting magazine or "True Romances."
And there are priests who do not believe any mare firmly, at least
on the practical level and even when "adapted to the people," as
they say--those poor "good people" whom we would so often
saddle with the burden of our laziness and our routine ways of
thinking--in the instructive force of the liturgy when it is
celebrated as it should be.
It was once suggested that to help people understand that the
resurrection is not merely a past event, an apologetic argument,
but the present reality of the glorious Christ in whom and also by
whom we believe and are saved from death, a photographic
montage be made representing the risen Christ, with a paschal
candle in the same vertical line but a little higher, and the whole
framed with small pictures representing various aspects of the
Easter Vigil and the Mass. This project was turned down, because,
it was stated before any serious experiments had been made, that
the symbolism of the paschal candle was out of date, at least so
far as its effectiveness for the man of today was concerned,
whether farmer or city worker. And it was said that in any case
such a photographic montage would be a meaningless puzzle.
The objectors had forgotten two things: first, the man in the
street is much more skillful at deciphering such "composed"
photographs than nine-tenths of the clergy, who, since they
seldom frequent bars, small restaurants, night clubs and the like,
are not in a position to unravel the complexities of such "non-
sulpician" art; and secondly, that the symbol of the paschal
candle may be out of date, but if so, then the Easter Vigil is out of
date also, since it is all carried out around the candle as the
center of the action, in the middle of the choir.
But no, it was considered preferable to run no risk of forcing the
millions of visitors to the exhibition to ask one another questions
about the pictures or to search for the meaning--better to inspire
them with something "modern" along the lines of exhibits put on
by manufacturers of ceramics; better for the visitors to find
themselves in the familiar atmosphere of a kind of Christian
bargain-basement than in the unfamiliar landscape of Biblical
imagery.
Such mistrust too easily passes for down-to-earth realism or
worldly wisdom; it is more widespread than one would think
possible; it is a younger brother to that craze, now fortunately
extinct, for replacing certain Biblical symbols with objects taken
from the world of machinery: tractors instead of sheaves of
wheat; a radio tube instead of the flame of a candle. Why not,
then, instead of a composed photograph showing around the
hand of God reaching toward the hand of man as painted by
Michelangelo, the splendor of the world from nebulae to the
flowers of the field, from mountains to the faces of newborn
children--why not instead of such a picture, simply present a real
"life size" aquarium?
The reader will put into my examples, where necessary, the
required grain of salt. And there are exceptions: for example, a
brochure published by the J.O.C. of Brussels for their world
conference in Rome. In the center of a page meant to show in
concrete form the hopes of men and also their sufferings and
trials is a reproduction of Michelangelo's Jeremias. The editors of
this brochure certainly wanted to be "popular," at least I presume
they did, for if the "good people" were not the readers that these
pages had in view, then one would have to look for them in the
moon. Yet these editors did not think that an image taken from
the "old Bible" would, because of its lack of modernity, escape the
understanding of the thousands of young workingmen to whom
this brochure was addressed.
If I have pushed this point a little too far and not brought out
very clearly as yet the nuances of which I spoke, it is because
everything else comes down to this same question. Pastors who
have celebrated the liturgy with care and fidelity, preparing for it
with the same care, the same faith, and the same love that they
would put into the production of a play, know its supreme
effectiveness. Here the drama is sacred; it is real; it contains what
it represents and communicates it. The "backstage" of this
"religious theatre" is no damp, chilly, slippery little alley from
which we are, as it were, separated and protected by the tawdry
finery of the actors, the lights, the tatters and boards of the
theatre as summoned up by Kafka; it is the power of the living
God raising us from our spiritual death.
Those who have prepared their voices by learning how to read
well--we must neither declaim nor weaken the Word of God, but
proclaim it--those who have trained their voices to sing the
supple and living chant, those who have accustomed their bodies
to carry out the hieratic gestures which are just as much a
language as are words, which are themselves "words" to
understand, texts to decipher, to spell out, to read; those who
have with their whole being made ready for and lived an Easter
Vigil know how truly the liturgy is the Word of God, efficacious,
"converting" hearts, piercing like a sword even to the division of
soul and spirit.
To Distinguish Among the Obstacles
Next, it is important to distinguish from one another the three
kinds of obstacles that present themselves; many mistakes would
be avoided if care were taken to exert our efforts in the right
direction here.
The first obstacle is that of the "man according to the flesh," "who
can understand nothing of the things of the Spirit." If, for
instance, a man thinks of himself as "without father or mother," if
he wishes to find his greatness in launching defiance at a
universe that he declares absurd, as Malraux believes, if human
truth consists in the arbitrary choice of a liberty that is radically
autonomous, left to its own choice alone, with no transcendent
reference to a divine absolute, as Sartre believes,[12] this is a new
form of the will to make oneself God without God, to "will
infinitely without willing the Infinite," as Blondel says.
To this attitude there is no answer except, "Not to us, O Lord, not
to us, but to Thy Name give glory."[13] In the same way, if one
denies the sacredness of the universe in which we live and which
we are transforming[14] if the primacy accorded to technique is
radical to the point of excluding all forms of symbolism, the way
is closed to the world of the Bible.[15] To the extent, therefore, to
which men of the twentieth century pretend to identify
themselves purely and simply with its technical achievements
and with its radically autonomous and anarchic idea of liberty,
they close the way to becoming "men of the Bible." To accept
being transformed into such a man is to be converted; it is to
cause the "old man" to die.
Here the Word judges us; it causes the vein of our "unutterable
personal absurdity" to show itself in order to fill us with the
power of God, that God whose service is a royal rule, cui servire
regnare est, according to the phrase of the liturgy.
But there are also obstacles arising from the difference between
two modes of thought and expression, both of which seem
legitimate, but which seem hard to reconcile--if one even should
or could do so, carried to its conclusion, this "difference" can
become real opposition.
Here we face the problem of the "categories" of Semitic thought,
which are distinguished today in a way that is probably
exaggerated from those of "Hellenistic' thought.[16] This age-old
dialogue is conveniently defined by the words Athens and
Jerusalem, chosen by Leon Chestov as the title of a famous essay.
Let us say from now on that we must no longer separate and
oppose, but rather distinguish in order to unite; this is, if I am not
mistaken, one of the meanings of those celebrated words of Pius
XI: "We have to remake ourselves spiritually as Semites." These
terms indicate the following twofold course of action, while they
allow us to express various shades of meaning in the words, "man
of the Bible."
First, to the extent to which the New Testament is rooted in the
Old,[17] it is necessary to disengage the "originalities" of Hebraic
thought.[18] Thus the psychology and, consequently, the
anthropology of the Old Testament ignore all dualism: the word
"flesh" (basar) does not mean the body (for which there is no
word in Hebrew), but the whole created being ("body and soul," if
we are thinking of man as envisaged by our Hellenistic way of
thinking) in his basic weakness, both ontological and moral,
before the living God; the word "spirit," then, does not mean
primarily something which is discarnate, but life in its aspect of
power, which exists supremely in the living God, the Lord of
"spirits" and of all "flesh.[19]
Furthermore, the vision of the Bible gives value to historic time.
While Hellenistic thought (as also that of many religious systems
of philosophy outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition) seeks to
save man from the cycle of the eternal recommencement of time,
Biblical man knows that history has a meaning, is oriented
toward the realization of the kingdom, for this history is holy.
God has "entered" it, never to leave it, for by it is realized the
design of salvation. From this point of view, creation is the first
stage in the history of the covenant, just as, inversely, the new
covenant of which Jeremias speaks is also a recreation.[20]
This very fact indicates another essential aspect of Biblical
Semitism, typology: the events of the history of salvation are
types of a divine action which, in a manner always similar but
also progressively more profound, saves His people from
situations which, humanly, are equivalent to death, but which the
power of the Lord transforms into instruments of liberation.[21]
This is why the deluge, the exodus, the passage of the Red Sea,
the crossing of the Jordan, the exile in Babylon, as types of the
action of God upon His people, have been taken in a definitive
way into the Christian liturgy.
And, finally, certain peculiarities of Hebraic style--parallelism,
the parable genre, accounts which seem to make the role of
secondary causes evaporate into thin air, a language that is
concrete and dynamic (every Hebrew verb expresses a movement,
an act; the "word," dabar, is a reality, a creative force), as also,
and perhaps above all, the literary genres of which we are going
to speak at greater length--are enough to indicate the originality
of this vision.
The ancients, Celsus, for example, called this originality barbaric;
a spirit formed by Greek culture could not admit that God had
"entered" into history and that the "flesh" could rise again.[22] Here
we see a dividing line, a parting of the waters in universal
religious thought.
On one side there are the religious systems centered on the
repetition of (always identical) phenomena, of which "myths" are
the "pseudohistory"; they preach release or the return to
primitive indetermination; all the heretical gnoses, whether
dualistic or monistic, finally, do away with time and ignore any
"sacred history."[23] On the other, there is the Judeo-Christian
tradition, according to which the world created by God is the
place in which a hope is being realized; the "cosmos" exists for
the "chronos," for the time of God;[24] the incarnation of the Word
in human flesh represents the climax of this historic pedagogy.
The greatest originality of Hebraic thought culminates in the
"scandal" of the incarnation.[25]
Yet the "Platonism of the Fathers" and the Aristotelianism of St.
Thomas Aquinas show that there are secret paths facilitating the
dialogue between Athens and Jerusalem. If we must distinguish,
then, we must also "unite."[26] We may remind ourselves
continually that the Hebrew way of thinking knew "nothing about
purely material realities, that it did not separate the visible from
the invisible world, that the man of the Bible is a person united
with other persons in an active commitment and that his God is
Someone to be listened to";[27] but we must also discover the
possible harmonies with the philosophy and the humanism that
still make up a good part of the classic education of the West.[28]
Secondly, we must remake ourselves as Semites, but we must do
so spiritually. The words "man of the Bible" do not only mean the
humanity that God educated progressively in the course of the
old economy; they signify also, and above all, the man who has
appeared in Jesus, born from on high, "of water and the Spirit,"
according to the new Law.
In Jesus, the economy of salvation has passed from the flesh to
the spirit; it has put off everything in it which attached it too
closely to a particular physical ancestry, that of Abraham,
brought about by physical generation and by circumcision, not of
the heart but of the body, to use St. Paul's words. It has
transcended everything that would risk its being imprisoned in
any particular culture, however privileged, in any country, even
the "land of promise"; the economy of salvation has in Christ
become universal, "catholic"; for "there are no longer either Jews
or Gentiles, Greeks or barbarians, but all are one," and this is the
"freedom with which Christ has set us free." In Him, all cultures
are called to be evangelized; all, in a sense mysteriously willed
by God, can aid men the better to understand something of the
mystery of salvation.
One most remarkable indication of this fact, I think, is the
sovereign liberty with which the writers of the New Testament
used one or another form of culture. Christianity is, from this
point of view, a crossroads of cultures; this aspect of being a
meeting-place, a kind of estuary where sharply contrasting
cultural visions flow into one another, already realizes something
of that uniting which, as we have said, is as important as
distinguishing between Athens and Jerusalem.[29] We should,
therefore, emphasize not one or another type of thought, Semitic
or Greek--or Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian--but God's sovereign
freedom in using them; the final word here is the risen Christ
who "makes all things new."[30]
A twofold dialectic, then, begins to be indicated: of integration
and of transcendence. Of integration first, because we can never
reject the Old Testament; the history of Israel is our own because
the still imperfect phase which it represents is not located in the
bygone past, but, on the contrary, is one level--inferior, no doubt,
but indispensable here on earth--of our own spiritual edifice.[31]
At every moment mankind must be going from the flesh to the
spirit, from the race born of the flesh (in the Biblical sense) to the
new birth; thus initiation into Biblical thinking remains
indispensable. Marcionism is always a heresy. So long as we are
pilgrims to the kingdom, we are the Israel of God--Israel
according to the spirit, certainly, but still Israel.
And then, transcendence, or, better, transfiguration.[32] We must
ceaselessly continue to enter into the liberty of the children of
God; we must, with St. Paul, make the painful transition from a
vision too narrowly Judaic to the discovery of justification in
faith and in the Spirit, renewing us "day by day to the image of
our Creator." Thus we rejoin the first Adam; we find in the Old
Law what goes beyond it and rejoins its universal design, man,
the image of God, before and beyond the promise made to
Abraham. The man of the Bible, then, is in tension between an
Old Testament pole and a transcendent one, that of the Pasch;
this man, according to the promise of the Old Law, according to
its realization in the Lord, the Master of the new economy, is our
judge.
In addition to the obstacle of the "man according to the flesh" and
that set up by different modes of thought, there is a third series
of seeming and unnecessary obstacles which negligence and
routine, and ignorance as well, have heaped up in our path.
We cannot ignore the essential fact of how the books of the Bible
were composed. For example, when the existence of at least two
documents (J and P) put together in the Pentateuch is explained,
many false problems vanish; the only elements common to the
two (or three) documents are, in fact, positively pointed out by
the sacred writer. Or again, the framework of the six days of
creation served the purpose of inculcating among the Jews (and
indirectly among Christians) respect for the weekly day of rest;
but the essential truths stated here in Genesis concern the
creation of the whole universe, "matter and spirit," space and
time (the ta panta of St. Paul) by the all-powerful Word of God. In
the same way, what is stated in Exodus is the reality of the great
prodigies connected with the going-out from Egypt under Moses,
and not the exact number of "ten" plagues, no more and no less.
Certainly we cannot eliminate the literary framework of each of
these documents, the symbolism of the garden of paradise, of the
four rivers, and many others, since they are at the origin of a
whole theological and iconographical tradition; but we must
arrive at the meaning of these images and these accounts.
And then, we must remember to take into account the various
literary genres used in the Bible. Judith, Tobias, Esther certainly
seem to belong to the class of "inspired romances"; the
apocalyptic writings obey very precise literary laws, and we need
to understand clearly the bearing of images, such as those of the
heavens rolled up like a book or of the stars falling down to
earth; St. Augustine gives us an example of this. In the same way,
we have no right to put the trumpets of Jericho, Josue causing the
sun to stand still, the shadow going back on the sundial, etc., on
the same level as the course of the history of salvation, the great
prophetic vision of the deliverance from the Babylonian captivity
as a second Exodus, the image and the foreshadowing of the
paschal "passage" of Jesus in our midst.
Without speaking of "de-mythization," (for Bultmann seems to
forget that the message of Christ always comes to us enveloped
in human representations--inspired, doubtless, but this fact does
not change their nature--) we must classify the sacred texts
according to their literary genres, we must "take the shell off," to
use a happy phrase of Msgr. Chevrot's, in order to find the
transcendent meaning.[33] Although, for example, the geocentric
representation of the universe is that of the Bible (as well as the
most spontaneous for the imagination of men of all ages), it is in
no way guaranteed by revelation or bound up with the essential
truths of revelation: "heaven," "the ascension," Satan "thrown
down into the depths" and present in the "waters of the great
abyss," etc.--all this and much besides must be explained by
taking into account the heliocentric vision of antiquity.[34]
And, finally, we must keep before our eyes the fact of the
progress of revelation from the Old Testament to the New: the
practice of herem; a conception of the sacred which is sometimes
very formalistic as, for example, in the episode of Ozias touching
the Ark; polygamy, the very "human" desire to be avenged on the
enemies of God (who are also our enemies)--all this and many
other phenomena are an imperfect phase in the history of the
people of God. To forget that the purpose of revelation is
precisely to teach us how God uses "the things that are not, the
weak, the unworthy, the despised," how He makes use of our
weaknesses to mould this lumpish human material, to cause it to
"rise" by the leavening of the Word, to lead it progressively to
form the new man: to forget all this would be to miss the
dynamism of the Bible seen as a whole.
We must get rid of those little books of Bible stories which go
from Esau and Jacob to Joseph sold by his brothers, from there to
David and Goliath by way of Samson and his jawbone of an ass,
to end with Jonas swallowed by the whale. Nine-tenths of the
"ineptitudes" with which Krouchtchev, for instance, taxes the
Bible and which have caused millions of working-people to lose
their faith, so easy is it to spread propaganda on this point, are
found in this third category of obstacles.
The theologians have already said all this in the silence of their
studies and even in congresses and conferences; but nine-tenths
of those who take part in our Latin liturgy are still no further
along than the Bible of Ecker (even revised) and are deeply
troubled by the fog that surrounds them. The people want from
their priests, far more than the organization of "dramatic" and
"musical" concerts or the setting-up of various activities,
enlightenment on these questions. The continuous reading of the
Bible in parish services would provide a convenient opportunity
for affording such enlightenment; the homily could be given
along the lines of such explanations.
Certainly, the story of that hermit in the Egyptian desert who
believed that God was a sort of an august old man with an
enormous beard and white hair, and who was very much upset
when he was told that God was "incorporeal," shows that we must
go about this work with prudence and indulgence; but there are
too many impertinent young people who have "pulled the beard"
of God, thinking that it will remain in their hands, for us to put
off any longer giving these explanations.[35]
To Explain Profoundly
If we really believe in the effectiveness of the Word, if we
distinguish between the three kinds of obstacles that may
prevent us from understanding it, then we can attempt that kind
of profound explanation which resembles the Biblical and
liturgical catechesis familiar to the Fathers, or the commentary
made by a candidate for a "bachelor's degree in the Bible" in the
thirteenth century. All this is included in that "extremely
profitable kind of understanding which one may have of the
revealed mysteries when, zealously, prudently and piously, one
shows the connections between them as well as their connection
with the last end of man."
In undertaking this kind of explanation, our first aim should be
not to adapt, but to convert. We would do well to banish the
equivocal term "adaptation."[36] We are now happily free of
bowdlerized editions of Shakespeare or of Don Quixote "adapted
for young readers"; let us also, then, get rid of Bibles "adapted for
easy reading"; let us not prevent the queen of Sheba from hearing
the wisdom of Solomon! Furthermore, let us stop trying to adapt
modern man to his Biblical "colleague"; certain poorly inspired
theologians have in this regard abused the sciences of antisepsis
and surgery; by cutting away here and there some unpleasing
growth, veiling some too visible nakedness, they have succeeded
too often in creating a completely "modern man" whose higher
nature is completely existentialist and whose body and emotions
are "authentically free."
The Bible knows only one way of salvation: to be converted,
transformed into the new man. This is something more than, it is
something entirely different from "becoming what one is,"[37] for
the man of flesh has no right to consider himself in any way the
man according to God. Such a man must be re-created by the
Spirit Himself in the Word and the sacraments. The image which
should be placed at the center of liturgical pedagogy is not the
man resulting from some "humanistic" equilibrium to be achieved
by careful adjustments--and, naturally, completely academic
ones--such a man then to be declared "fit for service," the service
of God, because he would be at once ignorant of God's call and
not repugnant to it.[38] The only image is that which the risen
Christ presents to us, as Guardini has said so profoundly.[39]
The baptized man is the man that God wills we should be, that He
creates in us. The East has especially emphasized this point: the
Lord transfigured in the light of Thabor is the image of man par
excellence, which explains the importance of the feast of the
Transfiguration in their liturgical year, and the aspect peculiar to
Byzantine art.[40] This "man of the Bible" is a hundred times
richer, greater, more capable of development than the man
envisioned by any of the ephemeral "humanists" succeeding one
another in the course of history. We shall never finish the
inventory of the unfathomable riches of the Bible; humanisms of
the present and of the future will be dead, and very dead, while
the sacred Word will continue to reveal to us new aspects of man.
It cannot be otherwise, since it presents him to us "according to
God," who is Life.[41]
While profound explanation is not "adaptation,"[42] still it should
facilitate the conversion of the whole human spirit. All the
domains of our being must be evangelized; those black clouds
which have nothing to do with the cloud that covered the tent of
witness must all be dissipated. We must not confuse what is
mysterious by reason of its essential being, because it is beyond
the reach of discursive reason, with what is mysterious because it
has not yet been sufficiently developed or elucidated.[43]
For this reason, the need still exists for Biblical apologetics, there
is, perhaps, a tendency to forget this today. This kind of
apologetics does not consist merely in distinguishing carefully
between different kinds of obstacles--this is its negative aspect,
that of clearing away--it consists also in bringing out, from
within, the harmonies between the man of the Bible and certain
valid aspects of man in the twentieth century.[44]
Our second aim in undertaking to explain the Bible profoundly
should be to bring out the kind of "human nature" implicit in the
Bible.
1) One theme runs all through the Bible, that of God seeking man
before man seeks Him. From the "Where art thou, Adam?" of
Genesis to the parable of the lost sheep in the Gospel, the loving
patience of God is revealed. The Old Covenant is the history of
the strategems of the Father's love, seeking ways to bring the
prodigal son back home, to gather together in the divine fold a
stiff-necked and rebellious people. The final strategem is given in
the parable: "They will respect my son." But they did not respect
Him; Peter himself denied Him with an oath, and, on the eve of
the ascension, none of the apostles had yet understood; even, as
a response of the liturgy repeats "on the day of Pentecost, they
were gathered together in fear of the Jews."
It was necessary, then, that the Spirit, as on the first days of
creation, should come to seek these fearful and obtuse disciples,
no longer in shadow and mystery, but in storm and wind, in the
surge of power from on high, in the shattering and uprooting of
the very foundations of their interior dwelling, in the outbursting
of its incorruptible force.
The same law goes through the history of the Church. St. Paul was
struck down on the road to Damascus, caught by the heavenly
Pursuer of whom Francis Thompson speaks; Augustine was, as it
were, "taken aback" by the "Tolle, lege, tolle, lege" sung by a child
and at last forced to see himself as sinner and as pursued by the
pardon of God; Francis of Assisi, loving life and chivalric
romance, met Lady Poverty coming to meet him and espoused her
with his whole soul.
We are here at the heart of our daily experience.[45] What matters
is not to be worthy of being loved, but to be loved as we are, at
the very heart of our unworthiness; Mauriac has illustrated this
clearly in a work such as "Vipers Tangle." It is easy to love a
person who conforms to the ideal image that we make of him, but
very difficult not to condemn one who does not with a "nothing
but" judgment ("You are nothing but a money-grubber," "nothing
but a liar"), the kind that kills as surely as a sword. Yet we must
love not only in spite of infidelities, but in some way because of
them,[46] in a forgiveness that truly effaces[47] the fault and re-
creates us.
2) The humanity of our divine Savior, He whom the Oriental
liturgy calls "good and the Friend of men," is revealed in another
aspect of the pedagogy of the Old Law. Israel had first hoped for
a temporal kingdom, sign of God's blessing; but each time that
the promise was about to be realized the hand of God seemed to
be gently withdrawn beyond human reach. Hardly had the royal
house of David been established when, beneath the riches and
wisdom of Solomon, an unsuspected hollowness was revealed;
never did the restoration after the Babylonian Exile equal in
visible splendor that known by the holy City under David;
messianic hope then had to project itself in a vision more and
more apocalyptic.
This law of the delaying of the kingdom, which obliged the
chosen people to pass beyond earthly, flesh-bound hope to true
theological hope,[48] is found operative also in the history of the
Church. On the one hand, she must strive to hasten the coming of
the kingdom by manifesting the justice and the charity of
Christ,[49] for the kingdom is to come in this world, but it is not of
this world; as soon as we begin to believe that it is definitely
established, see, it recedes, as if God took pleasure in destroying
His own work.[50]
The Christian soul goes through the same suffering, that of
"prayers unheard." Those who have lost a son, a husband or wife;
those sinners who have prayed that their soul and their flesh
might be delivered from those adulterous loves which have
revealed to them the fire of physical passion, and who have had
the feeling that they remained alone in front of a wall of silence--
all these understand the words of the Bible: "How long, O Lord,
will You be silent? See, our body is stretched flat on the earth;
see, our throats are parched; arise, why are You sleeping, Lord?
Do not forsake us." But God is silent: Jesus autem tacebat; God
sleeps, Jesus autem dormiebat.
It is only by accepting the will of God in prayer that peace will
return to the soul and even a smile to the face, for those who
have faith have gone through the experience of the desert, or
better still, that of the new exodus from Babylon, through the
death of human hopes apparently blessed by God.[51]
What I have just indicated of the history of an individual soul is
also true of all societies. Each political and social development
goes through the same phase of earthly hope,[52] hope of seeing
justice and peace established; it is a strict moral duty to foster
and promote them. Yet the word of Valery, written in 1919, has
lost nothing of its truth: "Our civilizations also now know that
they are mortal"; we might even paraphrase this by saying "Our
Christian civilizations also now know that they are mortal."
What is left of Christian Egypt and its glorious and holy
Alexandria? What memory remains of Antioch, that city in which
for the first time the disciples of Jesus were called Christians?
What remains of Caesarea, the city in which the first baptism of a
pagan took place that from whence St. Paul set out to go to Rome,
that in which Eusebius and Origen studied, in what was one of
the most beautiful libraries of antiquity? There is nothing left.
Alexandria is nothing more than a port; at Antioch the guides do
not even tell "legends"; as for Caesarea, there are only a few
ruined houses, and the blue sea, for nearly two thousand years,
has beat against those scattered columns once set up as the
foundation of a jetty by Herod, the megalomaniac kinglet.
Here is not only an accidental epiphenomenon but a mysterious
law of death hidden in the heart of life; every person and every
society must, then, take this law into account. Whether it is a holy
city or a religious society makes no difference, on the level of the
visible success of justice and peace; sooner or later defending the
city of God as incarnated in temporal institutions leads to a
crusade or a holy war; but, since the transition from the Old to
the New Law, a crusade can no longer be the last word in the
pedagogy of the kingdom[53] We must strive unceasingly to foster
any manifestation of the kingdom in this world, but we must
never forget that it is not of this world, and so be ready to give
ourselves wholly over to God.[54]
Jesus' word to Peter is true for all of us: "When thou wast young
thou didst gird thyself and walk where thou wouldst. But when
thou art old...another will gird thee and lead thee where thou
wouldst not." The delaying of the kingdom, without ever
justifying any abstentionism on the earthly plane, teaches us
hope, for it teaches us to die in order to rise again.
3) The image of Jerusalem allows us to grasp the interlinking of
the two dialectics we have mentioned. Jerusalem is the humblest
of cities compared to the ancient capitals of Egypt, of Assyria, or
of great Rome; but it was consecrated by the divine promises; at
the same time, the Lord punished it for its infidelities. Jesus, the
Man-God, wept over Jerusalem, for He loved it as only a Jew could
love his City of David, and He also was a son of David. He loved
its walls and its beautifully fitted stones, as a man can love the
work of his hands; He loved it as only God could love this temple,
which, towering above the brook Cedron and the valley of
Josaphat, seemed to be proclaiming the hope of the resurrection
of the dead; He loved to contemplate it and to walk in it, as God
"found His delight in walking in the Garden in the cool of the
evening."
It was from the heart of this love, at the climax of that long
imprecation which also seems like a kind of sob turning into a
tempest, that a few days before His death, on His way back to
that kindly Bethany in which He found His friends, He spoke
those words which tear our hearts each time the liturgy brings
them back to our lips: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that dost kill
the prophets and stone those that are sent to thee! How often
would I have gathered thy children together, as a mother-hen
gathers her chicks under her wings, and thou wouldst not! Lo,
your house will be left to you desolate."
The city today, torn apart by the absurd "frontier," divided among
Christian Churches on the very place where Jesus died that all
might be one, remains the mysterious symbol of her whom God
loves even in her sins and of her who carries out unceasingly the
passage from the hopes of earth to true hope in God, theological
hope. This image is Biblical and liturgical, for Jerusalem is the
figure of the Church, and if "the Church makes the Eucharist, the
Eucharist also makes the Church";[55] it reminds us that it was in
His city-temple that Jesus died and rose again, and that it was
there that He saved His people. Jerusalem, at the heart of the
Bible and the liturgy, incarnates some of our most ineradicable
hopes.[56]
Our third aim in undertaking a profound explanation of the Bible
should be to bring to light all the potential stepping-stones
between the mentality of modern man and the Bible. The search
needed here is not some variety of concordism; the harmonies
that we are going to suggest have neither more nor less value
than those which St. Augustine discovered between Neo-
platonism and the Bible.
They are no more valuable, because the man of the Bible is
always beyond the concepts we consider most adequate; neither
are they less valuable, for if the platonic harmonies were
legitimate, then the consonances which we can discover between
certain, quite unplatonic, aspects of the modern world and the
man of the Bible are legitimate and valuable also.[57] Bringing
such stepping-stones to light is a task that is always precarious
and always necessary; the five points that I am going to sketch
out are only chosen to give a general idea.[58]
1) There is, first, the concrete and existential mode of
contemporary thought. Phenomenology "might be in a sense the
union of Jewish realism with Greek idealism";[59] it ignores the
dualism of body and soul, since man is an incarnate
consciousness, in a concrete situation, projecting himself,
expressing himself at various levels--the psychological, the
imaginative, the institutional, and, above all, the historical. In
other words, the whole man appears in act ("la gestualite") or,
more simply, in those individual and collective actions that go
beyond the antinomies of abstract analysis; the liturgy, for this
reason, is a concrete, existential mode of action of the entire
man.[60]
From now on, instead of being concerned with "essences or
abstract natures" in human nature, for example, the philosopher
takes as his starting-point the concrete situation of the person, in
the "human condition," to use the term popularized in 1933 by
the novel of Malraux. This "condition" may be ineluctable--man is
a being made for death (zum Tode, Heidegger says)--but it can
also concern one or another way of being, in good health or not,
rich or poor, intelligent or mediocre.
Man is, then, always envisaged according to a dimension that is
called "historical"; his consciousness must necessarily be
engaged in acts; these, in turn, have their echoes in the behavior
of other people, for man is not only, nor even chiefly, what he
thinks or what he hides, but what he does; and he is responsible
for his acts; he is free, and so responsible also for the course of
events. The primacy of praxis in Marxism, its insistence on the
dialectic of history which at once transcends man and is his own
work, are in the same line (even though the Marxist saying: "We
must consent to necessity, in this is liberty" is worlds away from
the liberty of indetermination of Sartrian existentialism).
We may allow ourselves to find here a consonance with the man
of the Bible. He is the ruler of creation, since he is to "increase
and multiply and fill the earth and rule over it"; he is the image of
God precisely by reason of this rule exercised over the universe.
The vision of the Bible, equally concrete and dynamic, ignores
the dualism of soul and body (at least in most of its texts) but
insists on the responsibility of man with regard to this world (the
sin of Adam has had cosmic effects). Furthermore, it puts at the
heart of the message the history of salvation, and it assigns to
man a final blessedness which is not to be uniquely that of his
intelligence, but is to engage his entire being, since at the end of
time we shall reign with Christ over a new earth.[61]
We must certainly not replace the purely material messianism of
Marxism with some revised version of a millenarianism too
hastily baptized; and certainly also, the differences here are more
important than the resemblances between existential thought and
the Hebraic vision,[62] but these differences do not need to be
stressed here.[63]
2) A second stepping-stone, akin to the first, is the insistence of
modem thought on the values of solidarity and intersubjectivity.
Solidarity is primarily the sense of the collaboration of all
engaged in the same task, political or social. The spirit of the
team is one form of this, but it is found more deeply still in the
sensation of having set out on the same adventure, with the same
human destiny. The famous example of the island of the
condemned in Pascal is a foreshadowing of this in that
seventeenth century which was preparing in France for the glory
of Versailles. The "unanimism" of Jules Romains, Georges
Duhamel and Charles Vildrac examines more thoroughly the
mutual link between consciousnesses, for example at the "death
of someone," according to the title of one of the most beautiful
novels of the author of "Men of Good Will."
But, above all, according to the view of a Gabriel Marcel, man is
transformed in his very being by one or another encounter:
Orpheus is not truly Orpheus until he has found (or refound)
Eurydice, for we are the bond that we have with another being,
truly welcomed in authentic exchange, just as truly as we have
caused this bond to be tied. Here is one of the aspects of what the
author of "Homo Viator" calls "the mystery," that is to say, a
problem that goes beyond its own data and cannot be resolved
from the outside.[64] Between solidarity and the communication of
consciousnesses we can discern a whole gamut of human
relations following the line of a growing interiority.
And solidarity expands equally on the horizontal plane. The
intercommunication of world cultures becomes a condition of
their development: we are on the eve of a new era in the sciences
of comparative religion and civilization. While this obviously
implies the danger of syncretist relativism, the potential wealth
of this world-wide humanism (according to the phrase of
Malraux) is certain. Equally, the social dimension spreads, like a
film of oil, over all problems, not only on the national level but
on the planetary. And, finally, the immense interest awakened by
the underdeveloped countries creates the sense of responsibility
for our whole planet.[65]
Here again, taking due account of differences, a harmony may be
discerned with the theme of the people of God. Beginning with
the call of the personal God to which man may respond by
obedience (or refusal), the community, the qahal, the ecclesia is
built up. It is God who owns the land of promise and it is to Israel
as a people that He confided its development, which excluded the
ius utendi et abutendi of Roman law. Just as Biblical man only
fulfills himself in obedience to the Word, so the people of God
arrive at their fulfillment only by hearing and obeying; the
reading of the Law is, in fact, always communal; the acclamations
and prayers that accompany it are communal also.
Finally, not only does the planetary dimension of human
solidarity find an echo in the increasingly universalist preaching
of the prophets, for example in the famous chapter 60 of Isaias;
not only is the message of salvation universal because it implies
the material and spiritual cosmos (to use Hellenistic terms), ta
panta, says St. Paul, but also because it envisages all times and
all places, all the cultures of the past and present and because,
very precisely, as I have said, Christianity appears here as a
meeting-place of world cultures. Biblical man should rule the
world in its entirety; he can only do so in and by the people of
God, who, grown as numerous as the sand of the seashore or the
stars of heaven, should fill the earth. "In your name," God said to
Abraham, "all the tribes, all the nations of the earth, shall be
blessed."
One achievement dear to our contemporaries is that of
reintegrating woman into the building-up of society and the
realization of world-wide humanism. Now, it is to the human
couple that the Bible promised rule over the world; taking up, in
fact, the theme of man as the "image of God," that is to say, the
ruler of the universe, the sacred writer deepens its meaning by
saying that God "created them male and female," saying to them:
"Increase, multiply, fill the earth and rule over it." In the same
way, in the second account of creation, the woman is "bone of the
bone" of Adam, and "flesh of the flesh," for she expresses what is
most intimate in him. But she is also "a help-meet like unto
himself" this image of him is also his aid, precisely the aid which
he must have in the carrying out of his task as king of creation.
The love of man for woman is, then, bound up with the dialogue
of each with him or herself, and also with motherhood, with that
rejoicing that breaks out in the Bible each time a woman becomes
aware that a young life is awakening within her. This maternity,
this family, is not ingrown; it does not deserve the "Families, I
hate you," of Gide, for it opens out upon the infinity of the world
that is to be filled and ruled. The Biblical family, far from the
being the enclosing nest in which germinate the complexes,
prejudices and pseudo-principles which the child inherits, is, on
the contrary, the cradle of the great human adventure, that of the
peaceful conquests of technique, and the cradle also of baptism,
according to the word of Bernanos that was developed, as if in
advance, in the "Five Great Odes" of Claudel.[66]
3) These last lines lead us to a third stepping-stone, that of
human love. It is meeting that achieves the communication of
consciousness; the body here takes on a new significance well
brought out by contemporary phenomenology. The body is,
indeed, our means of acting on the world; we know the word of
Bergson concerning technique as being "a human body
immeasurably enlarged." But, among the various kinds of action
on the world, there is one which attracts attention in a very
special way because it signifies to each person the presence of
another or others; the body is, then, also the means whereby
human consciousnesses manifest themselves, communicate
themselves. Doubtless, by the same title, the body is as much an
obstacle as an instrument, but the phenomenology of perception
is endeavoring to describe the "reading" of this complex language
which the body is.
One would, therefore, tend to leave aside the distinction between
carnal and spiritual love; the attempt is rather to unveil the
meaning-the Sinn, as the Germans say--inherent in the gesture of
the whole being, for example in the mutual giving of the marriage
act. In an almost unhealthy mistrust of all "Platonism" or of what
is called by this name, present-day psychology strives to describe
the phenomenology of the body as sign, as language, as the
means of presence to someone else. So in art, the language of the
senses, the word of the whole person, as, for example, in
dancing; so in friendship, in which the least flick of an eyelash
becomes communion; so in wedded love, finally, in which the
humblest, most secret and most intimate gestures strive to
"express," in a definitive self-commitment, what the
consciousness of each person is.
In other words--and this approach is important--modern
phenomenology unceasingly carries out that return to the
concrete individual being which St. Thomas made a necessity for
all critical thought. The attempts of phenomenology are bold
ones, certainly, but they are fundamentally healthy and
enriching: thus the progress of love between husband and wife
witnesses to a growth of "spiritual," altruistic sentiments, but
these are registered in simpler and simpler gestures, which are
more and more sensory and concrete.[67]
The vision of Biblical man also emphasizes in its own way the
unity of the person in his being and his action. The most
concrete, the most colorful language, that of the Canticle of
Canticles for example, expresses the love of God for Israel His
bride with a realism that scandalizes only the puny natures that
have been stunted by three centuries of pious hypocrisy. The
Bible is neither puritanical nor "jansenistic,"[68] as is shown by the
famous chapter 16 of Ezechiel, one of the most beautiful but also
one of the crudest. The same word means "to wed a wife," that is
to say, to possess her carnally, and "to know"; we see to what
point the "body" is, in the vision of the Bible, "language" and
communication; it will be fully this in its glorious state, at the
resurrection.
The dialectic of the Bible, without ever disuniting man from his
corporeal and sensory way of acting, leads him by a divine
pedagogy which delivers him from the chains of his "carnal"
condition to orient him towards pure language, perfect
communication, reciprocal transparence, analogous to that of the
Persons of the Blessed Trinity among themselves.[69] Biblical man
is responsible for the destiny of this world; he is thus responsible
in solidarity, as a people, and also as a married couple; finally, he
is to develop himself progressively, under the breath of the
Spirit, into a kind of language, a word that he is becoming and
that finally he will be, in a love open to the infinity of God and of
the world.[70]
4) Depth psychology, our fourth stepping-stone, dear to the man
of the twentieth century, reveals, beyond our reflexes and beyond
our explicit consciousness, the role of the unconscious and the
subconscious; without denying the danger of the irrational,[71] the
contact with that mysterious world "below" can nourish what J.
Monchanin calls the "supra-consciousness" which puts us in
relation to God.[72] The most vital core of man does not consist in
the solitary and hardened affirmation of his individual autonomy,
but in availability, welcome, receptivity. Here is an original
experience, in which the affirmation of self goes along with the
discovery of a reality that transcends us at the very moment in
which the consciousness projects itself into it.[73]
The psychology of art helps us to grasp this articulation in which
liberty and love, affirmation of self and welcome are all joined
together. The Claudelian distinction between animus, the
discursive intellect, and anima, the faculty that is moved when
the poetic "current" runs through it, causes us to perceive this
union of acting and being acted upon. Such "passivity" is a
privileged form of action; we take in, then, as if it were our own
life, what the poet summons up; we have a real knowledge of it,
by a mysterious contact with life itself.
Thus, for example, the solitude of Christine of Pisan is ordinarily
one more fact lost in the ocean of the past; but when we read the
poem "Seulette suis, sans ami demouree," she comes near us, she
fills our heart to such a point that the tears she sheds seem to be
our own, her loneliness seems to be ours; we find ourselves
"inhabited" by someone who is at once a being other than
ourselves, the mysterious Christine of Pisan who lived in the
fourteenth century, and ourselves.[74]
This faculty is found again on a supreme level, that of mysticism.
What certain Biblical passages call "spirit" and distinguish from
the soul and body, what St. Thomas calls intellectus and
distinguishes from ratio, what spiritual writers call the "fine
point of the soul," the "holy of holies," the summit of the spirit,
and which they distinguish from the surface faculties of man--
this is the possibility of welcoming the visitation of the divine
Spirit. The personality of the saints and mystics shows that man
is at the height of his being when he accepts the gift "of loving
men with the very love with which God loves them." These words
of Bergson remain true; psychoanalysis itself confirms this since
the majority of neuroses are brought on by the fear of taking root
in the "not I," that is to say, the fear of renouncing our anxious
attachment to ourselves.
Furthermore, we must not identify what French classicism calls
the "character" (think of La Bruyere, for example) with the whole
man;[75] the view of romanticism already orients us more directly
toward the fundamental availability that we have mentioned.[76]
The "humanistic" ideal here would be to unite the precise
characteristics of classic psychology with the lyric flexibility of
romanticism; thus we approach, mutatis mutandis, "Biblical
man."[77] So the personages of the Old Testament are not
described with any help from the psychology of character; to put
it better, the characteristics that individualize them--for example,
Sara's laugh, Moses' stammering, the rather artful transparency of
David, the noble power of Isaias' word, the quivering
sensitiveness of Jeremias--are at every moment, as it were, swept
away by the visitations of the Word of God.
The men of the Old Testament suffer from weakness and
fragility, but they are continually raised to a level of sovereign
greatness when the hand of the Lord transports them. They
realize the paradox of being at the same time quite different from
one another--it is impossible to confuse Amos with Osee, Ruben
with Joseph, Samuel with David, etc.--and profoundly akin,
communicating on the heights each time that the Spirit makes
use of them: from Abraham to Jesus a continuity thus becomes
visible through an incredible diversity of "characters."
In the same way, the humanity of the Savior is marked by a range
of characteristics that make Him concrete, recognizable among
all others: a kind of unsparing gentleness, a sensibility
extraordinarily perceptive of the humblest realities, giving place
to outbursts of indignation. At the same time, the man Jesus
passed whole nights in prayer; He called Himself the Son of God;
He was, even He, subject to disturbance of spirit, for example at
the tomb of Lazarus, or at the time of His great thanksgiving to
the Father for having "revealed His mysteries to little ones." And,
finally, His humanity was transfigured before the eyes of the
apostles, and His human nature, at the resurrection, seemed to
escape from the laws of space and time.
In other words, Jesus realized this paradox of being continually
"acted upon," driven, led by the Holy Spirit, the power of God
which anointed His humanity, and also of imposing Himself by a
gift of presence on daily realities, in a tranquil transparency,
nettezza, as Grandmaison calls it, a clarity, calm at its very
source.[78] All this was achieved because His humanity is
"substantially" consecrated by its unutterable union ("hypostasis,"
as theology calls it) with the second Person of the Trinity. In
other words, His human nature is integrally true, because it is
indwelt by, because it subsists in a living union with, the all
powerful torrent of life of the Logos.[79]
5) Finally, the fifth stepping-stone is the return to the values of
symbolism by certain contemporary humanists. Works such as
those of Rimbaud, Larbaud, Peguy, Claudel, Saint John Perse,
Eluard, Supervielle, Eliot, Faulkner, Kafka, make use of concrete
symbols, meant to make perceptible the bond between man and
nature, between nature and man; the cultures most foreign to our
own in space and time, the colors and scents of continents and
even the gravitational pull of the stars, appear in a cosmic vision
at once shimmering with light and echoing with music, and also
mysteriously in harmony with "what is not seen." Since the
famous sonnet of Baudelaire's:
Nature is a temple, and its living pillars
From time to time give forth obscure words,
these hidden "correspondences" have been rediscovered, for
"perfumes, colors and sounds re-echo one another." "Amers," by
Saint-John Perse, is one of the most recent examples of this sacral
poetry which, going beyond the consecrated lyricism of
Baudelaire, is akin to the cosmic lyricism of certain psalms.[80]
An approach to symbolism may be found in the more and more
marked interest of the man of the twentieth century in
conventionalized forms of art: Byzantine art, for example, with
its slightly barbaric quality, now attracts visitors to Ravenna, to
Palermo; sculpture of the Roman, hieratic kind is now gaining in
the public taste over that Gothic imagery which we find too close
to common daily humanity, not sufficiently charged with that
meaning which carries the glance of the spirit beyond
appearances; modern painting inspires us by its capacity to
suggest "a beyond, present" in colors and lines--for example, the
embracing flames of the landscapes by Van Gogh of Saint-Remy
in Provence, or the architecture of Mt. Sainte-Victoire in the
canvasses of Cezanne.[81]
In a more general way, "existentialist" thought, of which we have
already spoken, seeks in events themselves a significance more
important than any possible speculations about them. The
interest of ethnologists in religious symbols and myths should be
noted: the "cahier posthume" of Levy-Bruhl shows that philosophy
has rediscovered in primitive "myths" one of those "stages" of
which I spoke earlier, following Alain, and not at all a "prelogical"
type of thought; the works of Mircea Eliade have succeeded in
unveiling in the religious "myth" one of the necessary
incarnations of human consciousness.[82]
FROM THE EARTHLY ADAM TO THE NEW ADAM
May we now be allowed to sketch out an answer to the three
questions posed at the beginning of this essay as examples of
some of the major difficulties facing modern man in the Bible.
The First Adam
Concerning the state of Adam in paradise, the first chapters of
Genesis contain essential truths, but these are exclusively of the
religious order. Paradise, the garden in which God loved to walk
in the cool of the evening, helps us to understand how, before
sin, man lived in familiarity with God. Since sin came into the
world, however, "to see God is to die"; this is why Adam hid
himself; this is why the Cherubim were stationed at the gate of
the blessed garden; this is why, finally, from Genesis to the
Apocalypse, God is at once concealed and revealed by the cloud;
in the same way, the humanity of Jesus, the mysterious and
substantial sign of His divinity, both hides it and manifests it.
Furthermore, while we should look neither for antinomies nor
harmonies between science and Genesis, the problem still
remains of the co-existence of two schemes, that of an ascent, on
the one hand, that of an initial fall on the other. First of all, we
must abandon the idea of infused knowledge as proper to the
first man; this is only an opinion of the Middle Ages which has no
necessary connection with revelation.
And then in connection with the "perfection" of Adam, the idea of
"the childhood of a royal humanity" will be found very
enlightening-on condition, obviously, of taking away from the
idea of childhood any connotations of infantilism. This remark of
Fr. Labourdette, who proposed the comparison in question,[83] can
be illustrated by the precociousness of certain children in the
order of art or in that of holiness. While sexual precocity is
always monstrous, that of the moral faculties is not; on the
contrary, there is in the precocious moral purity of a child an
inexhaustible wealth which represents in its own order a singular
perfection. But this perfection is that of first fruits, the starting-
point of a growth in profundity, through an indispensable trial,
which is essential to all spiritual life.
The Adamic state of perfection, then, may be thought of as an
enormous progress over what had gone before, as it were, a sort
of leap into a new state; but, in comparison with what should
have come after, it had within itself the promise of further
development. We find here again, therefore, a law of Biblical
pedagogy: the attainment of full growth in one stage is at the
same time the starting-point of a new one; thus, Abraham, Moses,
David, are at once climaxes and foundation-stones. Whatever the
degree of technical development that Adam might have reached,
he had in the gift of God a fullness belonging to the moral order.
But, just as the holiness of a child is not recognized by the
Church unless she can prove its heroic character by the victory it
has won over an inevitable trial,[84] so the perfection of Adam had
to be tried, the stabilization of the primitive gift of holiness and
integrity had to depend on the way in which he underwent the
trial. Alas, adolescendo peccavit: these words of St. Irenaeus tell
us how, in the process of growing, the first man could not stand
the trial of his freedom; he then had to begin again, from zero, as
it were, the ascent toward moral perfection.[85]
Satan
In the fall of man, in the infidelities of the people of God, the
devil was at work. Here again, without attempting to fathom the
mystery, we can try to bring to light the correspondences
between the devil "of psychology" and the devil "of theology."
Satan always works by exercising a kind of fascination over the
sensible powers of man; he cannot reach the spiritual faculty
properly so called, but yet, indirectly, he tries to overthrow it by
disturbing the sensible instrument which it must use--for
example, by calling up strange phenomena or dreams which
upset man's sensitive nature, or by making use of the disorders
of society, above all those which are multiplied by war, sickness,
destitution or those "works of the devil," concentration camps.
When the human will lets itself be captured by this fascination;
when it yields to the vertigo that says that "the die is cast," that
life is absurd; when it abandons itself to fear or anguish in the
face of death, chaos, the threats of war; when the intelligence
affirms that life is hopeless and irremediably so, then we are
playing the devil's game. At the very moment in which we affirm
that the situation is "demoniacal," at the precise second in which
we believe that we are discharging our responsibility by throwing
it back onto those satanic forces which, we think, are too great
for us--then we are granting to Satan a power which he does not
have, for it is we ourselves alone who yield, it is our own will that
capitulates.
At the instant in which we yield to the prince of this world, our
weakness, our weariness, our despair in the face of "fatalism" in
some way become separate entities from ourselves; they grow,
they become personified and return, like a boomerang, to destroy
us; we have the impression that events are set against us and
have become the accomplices of our despair. Yet, for the spell to
be broken it is enough for us to know that the devil exists,
certainly, but that "the power of darkness can accomplish
nothing" against us, as Jesus said on the eve of His passion; it is
enough at such a moment that we hear a friendly word, which is
then the reflection of the Word of God, for us to be freed from the
madness of fascination.[86]
We can now certainly understand better the passage in Hebrews
2:14-15; the text speaks of Jesus, our High Priest, who "shared
equally in our flesh and blood so as, by His death, to break the
power of him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil, and
to deliver those whom the fear of death had kept in servitude all
their lives." This passage shows that the resurrection of Jesus is a
victory over the devil, it was by reading this passage to the
students whom I mentioned earlier--after having opened their
minds to the "tactics of the devil"--that I was able to introduce
them progressively to an understanding of the victorious
passion.
Along the same lines, we might give an "explanation" of the
anointing of the sick. In the hour in which death menaces the
organism, fascination grows in the face of the apparent victory of
chaos, in the face of the collapse of all that we are and have loved
into the abyss of "nothingness"; the temptation to despair or to
final unbelief is then terrible.
If the anointing often accomplishes the healing of the sick person
and very frequently a sensible amelioration of his physical
condition, this is doubtless because grace saves the whole man,
but it is also because our organism (that is to say, we repeat, the
sensible instrument used by our spiritual freedom) needs to have
restored to it the equilibrium which will facilitate that act of love
which is especially demanded of us on the threshold of the great
journey. In other words, the amelioration of the health of the sick
person aids him to make the gesture of spiritual self-commitment
in our final "pasch," our passing-over.
For the rest, our sensible organism needs to be wholly
evangelized by grace so that the terrain of Satan may be as small
as possible, so that he can make no use of those deep troubles
that escape the conscious will to lead us into sin.[87] Though here
below the satanic "platform of operations" in us cannot be
completely destroyed--this would be to anticipate our
stabilization in glory--we should yet make use of all means, both
those that are called "natural" and those that are supernatural, to
reduce it to a minimum. The Church gives this anointing to the
sick, but she does not dispense us from taking care of them, she
carries out exorcisms, but she also sees that a doctor is
consulted.[88]
We can understand now why the liturgy has us invoke the Lord so
that the devil will not soil our bodies. Our instincts (our passions,
as St. Thomas says) must be evangelized from within so that even
their reflex motions become moral. Psychological education alone
could not have made Francis de Sales, whose temperament was
that of a violent man, into that model of gentleness who made
people believe that he was such by instinct. In the same way, the
involuntary phenomena of our sensibility, which are often the
most upsetting, are to be made supple, disciplined, "moralized"
from within, only the grace of the Holy Spirit can penetrate
sufficiently into these depths of our instinctive life.[89]
More generally, along these same lines we can see how the
exorcisms of baptism effect a liberation from the sensible world,
deliver us from that ambiguity which fascinates and disturbs us.
The material universe is given back to us in its lustral purity, like
that so well depicted by Walter Pater's hero, Marius the
Epicurean, when he speaks of a dedicated, unworldly life; man is
then delivered from all complicity with "that deaf and dumb part"
of himself which Satan strives to utilize.[90] The lyricism of Easter
is made up of the certitude that the most desperate situations,
those which are death and annihilation, are precisely those from
which the power of the Spirit delivers us. The resurrection is
victory over the power of darkness.
The Resurrection of the New Adam
The resurrection is victory over Satan; it is also entrance into a
new life. The glorified Lord realized in His humanity the most
perfect mode of presence to the world. His body is no more than
the sign of the coming of divine love amongst us; His humanity,
become "subtle," gives itself to us as He wills and when He wills;
it is transparence and presence. Just as love tends "to multiply
itself" so as to be everywhere that its help is called for, so the
risen Jesus, become "the Son of God in power, by the Holy Spirit,
in virtue of the resurrection of the dead," comes wherever His
bride the Church calls Him; this is the Eucharist.[91]
This transparency of the risen Christ is bound up with His victory
over sin. We can perceive something of this connection between
the communicability of a being, its profound availability and
moral purity, in our experience of the virtuous life. As Bernanos
has seen, the expression of the man who desires impurely
becomes fixed, like a mask, in a kind of mysterious and restless
sleep; egoistic love is allied to a kind of withered opacity, which
can be discerned in the face and even in the bearing of such a
man, who seems to be silently becoming duller and heavier.
But to give welcome to others, to forget oneself, above all to
accept death, gives back to the human being both his flexibility
and his availability; a kind of restrained impetus then marks his
bearing; the joy of expressing his love to everyone is evident; it
continually renews him. It is because Jesus has conquered sin,
because sin has never had power over Him, it is because He
accepted death and its terrors that He could manifest in His
human nature--which is also ours--that indescribable paschal
liberty, that abounding joy, that transparency which makes Him
present wherever He is called on, which revealed Him to the
disciples at Emmaus at the moment of breaking bread.[92]
Furthermore, this transparency and this communicability are
allied to the gift of childhood. Of himself the child is all
sympathy, welcome, rebounding, springing up. When the Lord
told us that we must "become like a little child, for the kingdom
belongs to such," this means that something of the transparency
and availability of childhood is restored to us. Beyond our
"wisdoms," which are often only obstinacy in clinging to our
disillusionments and bitternesses, beyond our prudence, our
scleroses and hardening, beyond that shell of ourselves which at
each moment tends to close up and shrink in on itself, beyond
that growing dullness of physical old age and psychological old
age, beyond that ineluctable weight, that quasi-immobility, like a
stone or mineral, which already weighs on us and stifles us, the
grace of Jesus gives back to us the unfailing freshness of our
early years.
This "God who renews our youth" is He of Easter, "He who died on
Friday and rose again on Sunday, as Apollinaris says. It is Jesus
who gives back to us that "childhood of a royal humanity" which
should never have been lost, but rather deepened, stabilized,
ripened, as St. Genevieve of Paris died at "eighty years old, a
young and clear-eyed old woman." The risen Jesus restores to us
that true childhood of which the Introit of Low Sunday sings:
"Like children new born you eagerly desire the pure spiritual
milk, so that it may make you grow, for salvation, if you have
tasted how good is the Lord." This "childhood" which is welcome,
transparency, love (do we not say that lovers regain their lost
childhood?), this desire "to be with" has nothing infantile about it,
nothing in common with "the elements of this world" under which
we were held captive.
And further, the resurrection of Christ manifests the passage
from "flesh" to "spirit." This does not mean some passage from an
"incarnate" state to one of disincarnation in which the humanity
of the Savior would have been dissolved, but from a state of
weakness (at least according to "the economy")[93] to a state of
power, of "catholicity," of communicability of the humanity of the
Lord, of which the Eucharist is the efficacious sign, the
sacrament.[94]
A mysterious link is thus revealed between the risen state and the
perfection of agape; more profoundly still, the transparency of
the divine Persons among Themselves and the communication of
the life of the incarnate Logos to the world, in a humanity become
perfectly permeable by it (always according to the "economy"),
are providentially allied: the redeeming work of Christ is to
render "present" to the world this mutual presence of the Persons
of the Trinity.
This profound link between passion-resurrection, on the one
hand, and the communion of the divine Persons among
Themselves and with men, on the other, is found in almost every
line of the discourse after the Last Supper. It can be read also in
the third chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, in the Latin
Breviary on Low Sunday. In the same context, the Apostle speaks
of those who are risen with Jesus, the baptized who should think
of the things above; but he speaks also of perfect charity in daily
life. The risen Christ realizes in His humanity the perfection of
this being "with us" which He promised to His disciples.[95]
This is why the theological locus in which the Bible, the liturgy,
and the man of the twentieth century can meet and unite with
one another is the account of the pilgrims at Emmaus. The two
disciples are men like ourselves: "But we were hoping--nos autem
sperabamus--that in Jesus the salvation of Israel would be
accomplished"; they are on the edge of that despair by which
Satan triumphs. A mysterious passer-by joins them; He explains
the Scriptures to them, shows them that the Messiah must suffer
and so enter into His glory. Then, during this "liturgy of the
Word," the hearts of the travellers begin to burn within them;
they do not know Him as yet; they have not yet recognized Him
who is speaking with them; they have not yet become aware,
explicitly, of the victory of Jesus over the devil and over sin.
When the Visitor makes the gesture of breaking bread, then their
eyes are opened; they recognize what they knew already, and at
once Jesus disappears. The pilgrims of Emmaus understand then
that the resurrection is henceforth present to the world, in the
power of the Spirit, in that Eucharist of the Body of Jesus who
draws all men to Himself.[96]
CONCLUSION
The man of the twentieth century must be converted into the man
of the Bible. This conversion can (and should) be made less
difficult by taking the measures that I have suggested or,
perhaps, by some entirely different methods; but it finds a
foothold in us that I have not as yet brought out.
One theme that dominates both the Biblical and liturgical
movement is that expressed in the word "today," hodie. The man
of the Bible is of "today"; he is always "of the present time," he is
always close to us, because he is always close to God, created
according to God, and the "today" of the Bible opens on eternity.
It is enough to penetrate into the soul of twentieth-century man
in order to cause that deep water to spring forth from which will
be reborn, recreated by grace, the man of the Bible, the new and
eternal man, in Jesus.[97]
Hodie: the man of the Bible is of today because God, "as young as
He is eternal," has so completely entered into the temporal, has
become so "internal" to him that He continually recreates him,
raises him from death. He gives us back our youth and that of the
world. He renews it "like that of the eagle."
ENDNOTES
1. Other examples may be found in my book "Mentalite moderne
et evangelisation," coll. "Cahiers de Lumen Vitae," n. VII, (Brussels,
1955), which attempts to analyze contemporary states of mind in
relation to Christ, Mary, the Church, but which brings out at the
same time the Biblical and liturgical aspects of catechesis.
2. Doubtless the golden cross surrounded with stars in the center
of the cupola of certain baptistries indicates that paradise
regained is not "behind us," but that it is merged with the
regenerated universe, the new heaven and the new earth. In the
same way, the octagonal shape of the majority of these buildings
reminds us that the day of the resurrection, with which the
baptized are mystically united, is "the eighth," that which has no
evening, for it is fullness; but this "eighth day" is also the "first,"
the re-establishment in glory of the first creation. Cf. "Le jour de
Seigneur," ed. Robert Laffont, (Paris, 1948).
3. I am here paraphrasing a text of J. Danielou, "Espoirs humains
et esperance chretienne," in "Atti del quarto convegno per la pace e
la civilta cristiana," (Florence, 1956), p. 70. Here also (p. 64) can
be found some considerations by the same author on the Greek
term nostos (return), which is also at the root of the word
nostalgia.
4. See L. Bouyer, "The Paschal Mystery" (Chicago: H. Regnery,
1950) and by the same author, "The Two Economies of the Divine
Government: Satan and Christ" in "God and Creation," Vol. II of
"The Theology Library" (Chicago: Fides, 1955).
5. L. Bouyer "Le probleme du mal dans le christianisme antique,"
in "Dieu Vivant," n. 6, (Paris, 1946), pp. 17-20.
6. Bultmann tries to rediscover Christianity by putting in
parentheses the historical reality of the resurrection and its
content, which is said to be unintelligible to the man of the
twentieth century; by doing this he destroys Christianity itself
and substitutes for it a dialectic of moral decision which more
nearly resembles a religious philosophy than a message of the
living God. "Holy Week" is holy only because it culminates in the
resurrection of the Savior.
On Bultmann, read L. Malevez, "Le message chretien et le mythe,"
coll. "Museum Lessianum," n. 51, (Paris, 1954); R. Mable,
"Bultmann et l'interpretation du nouveau Testament," coll.
"Theologie," n. 33, (Paris, 1955); H. Dumery, "Philosophie de la
religion," t. II, (Paris, 1957), pp. 73-96 (on the resurrection), pp.
239-249 (on "demythization"), L. Malevez, "Exegese biblique et
philosophie," in "Nouvelle revue theologique," 78 (1956), pp. 896-
1042 (comparison between Barth and Bultmann). Bultmann's own
work, "L'interpretation du nouveau Testament," coll. "Les
religions," n. 11, (Paris, 1955) contains the fundamental text,
"Nouveau Testament et mythologie," pp. 139-183.
7. The attempt of Teilhard de Chardin, "Le phenomene humain,"
(Paris, 1955), is well known. It was completed by "L'apparision de
l'homme," (Paris, 1956) and "La vision du passe," (Paris, 1957). A
good introduction to his thought is furnished by C. Tresmontant,
"Pierre Teilhard de Chardin His Thought," (Baltimore: Helicon
Press, 1959); in an unfavorable sense see A. Frank Duquesne, "De
Schweitzer a Teilhard de Chardin," in "Construire," 10 (1955), pp.
487-497.
One of the best commentaries on "Le phenomene humain" is that
of D. Dubarle in "La Vie intellectuelle," (March, 1956), pp. 6-25.
The problems raised by this hypothesis (which is a bold
extrapolation) are, from the theological point of view, the
following: In this perspective, is there a place for the initial
"break"? Where can be placed the final, eschatological "break"? Is
not the liberty of the person practically subsumed and absorbed
by this kind of "physics of the spirit," which is the essence of the
system? Furthermore, as L. Malevez remarks in "La methode du P.
Teilhard de Chardin et la phenomenologie," in "Nouvelle Revue
theologique," 79, (1957), pp. 579-599, there is a marked antithesis
between the vision of the phenomenologists (freedom, the risk
inherent in the human adventure) and the evolutionistic
optimism of Fr. Teilhard; in this last article, on p. 579, a more
complete bibliography will be found.
8. Cf. my article "Reflexion en marge du 'Satan' des etudes
carmelitaines," in "Collectanea mechliniensia," 19 (1949), pp. 191-
203, used as the introduction to the English edition of "Satan"
(New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952).
9. "Satan," in "Etudes carmelitaines," (Paris-Brussels, 1948). This
work is extraordinarily interesting; it should have finally
presented a synthesis which would at least sketch out this
meeting between psychology and theology; but from every other
point of view one can only rejoice in this courageous effort that
the "Etudes carmelitaines" have been carrying on for several years
to inaugurate the necessary dialogue between modern science,
especially of the psychological order, and theology, especially of
the mystical order. (The English edition omits some of the essays
included in the French, and includes some other essays; the
introduction by Fr. Moeller helps to remedy the defect noted
above. Trans. note).
10. Cf. the excellent book by F. X. Durrwell, "La resurrection de
Jesus mystere de salut," 2nd ed., (Le Puy-Paris, 1954); cf. also P. de
Haes, "La resurrection de Jesus dans l'apologetique des cinquante
dernieres annees," coll. "Analecta Gregoriana," vol. 59, (Rome,
1953), and the excellent study by K. Rahner, "Auferstehung des
Fleisches" in "Schriften zur Theologie," t. II, (Einsiedeln, 1955), pp.
221-227.
11. Cf. my article "Predication de la Parole et oecumenisme," in
"Irenikon," 25, (1951), pp. 313-344.
12. Cf. "La foi en Jesus-Christ," in my essay "Litterature du XX
siecle et christianisme," t. II, (Paris-Tournai, 1957), 5th ed., the
study on Sartre; in t. III "Espoir da hommes," 3rd ed., (Paris-
Tournai, 1958), the study on Malraux.
13. This attitude does not imply passivity in the bad sense; nor
does it presuppose that the existence of God reduces human
history to a "commentary" or a "thanksgiving" of a submissive and
infantile sort, as A. Camus seems to think in "The Fall" (New York:
Knopf, 1957). H. Dumery, in "Philosophie de la religion," Vol. 1,
(Paris, 1957), pp. 50-91, tries to show that the liberty of man
remains intact (conscience, as described by phenomenology, is
"act-law," this last term being made up by the author), for God is
beyond determinations and essences; He is "trans-ordinal" (on
this view, which attempts a synthesis between Biblical materials
and a very Dionysian theodicy, see, by the same author, "Le
probleme de Dieu en philosophie de religion," (Paris-Brussels,
1957), especially chapters III and IV; this last work is practically
the first part of "La Philosophie de la religion").
Dumery's work perhaps pushes too far the use of purely
philosophical reflection on the categories of Biblical thought- one
frequently has the impression that he neglects the privileged
character of revealed images, implying, in certain cases, the
transcending of the human spirit by the mystery of the living
God; in other words, the reaction against the insistence on
emphasizing the "Semitic" aspect of revelation often goes to
extremes along the lines of a "Hellenization" which is equally
dangerous; but this does not prevent this book from raising very
clearly some of the problems sketched in this essay; it is for this
reason that I give some references.
14. The fact that man can "transform" the universe, and, in this
sense, dominate it, implies in no way that it thereby loses its
sacred character; it is only the hypertrophy of technology that
causes this aspect of reality to be lost to view; cf. H. Dumery, op.
cit., pp. 114-130.
15. The religious sense is founded on the certitude of the
presence of a "second" reality in what we see, hear, breathe or
touch, giving them a mysterious significance. This sense of the
sacred has nothing to do with the affirmation that there exists
somehow in a kind of "metaphysical heaven," an "intelligible
duplicate," an invisible duplicate of this world; it is a question of
the same reality, unique, known by science or philosophy, but
also illuminated by a significance wholly projected on the real
and rediscovered in it. These terms, familiar to modern
phenomenology, simply mean to say that the sense of the sacred
is nothing other than a new dimension that illuminates the visible
world and orients human vision toward the transcendent God.
Who does not see that the liturgy is nothing other than the
"sacrament" of the divine Word in gestures, colors, sounds? The
idea that Malraux has made up of Christian art is an example of
narrowness due to agnosticism: he sees art as sacred but, since
there is no God, no "land of promise" to journey to, the
sacredness of art is identified for him with the defiance launched
at an absurd world, hope also is defiance accusation of the world.
It is true, certainly, that it is man who unveils the sacred
character of the universe, since he is greater than the world, but
while it is he who projects this sacred aspect on the world, he
discovers it at the same time, on all this see H. Dumery, op. cit.
16. Here are some titles: O. Quick, "The Gospel of Divine Action,"
(London, 1933) A. Festugiere, "L'ideal religieux des Grecs et
l'evangile," (Paris, 1932), K. Prumm "Christentum als
Neuheitserlebnis," (Freiburg, 1939); C. Tresmontanr, "Essai sur la
pensee hebraique," (Paris, 1953) and "Etudes le metaphysique
biblique," (Paris, 1955); E. Rust, "Nature and Man in Biblical
Thought," (London Lutterworth Press, 1953), T. Boman, "Das
hebrasische Denken im Vergleich mit dem griechischen,"
(Goetungen, 1954) J. Hessen, "Griechische oder biblische
Theologie," (Leipzig, 1956); G. Azou, "La parole de Dieu," (Paris,
1956); P. Christian, "Humanisme occidental et pensee judeo-
chretienne," in "La Revue nouvelle," 24, (1956); J. Giblet,
"Orientations de la pensee biblique," in "La Revue nouvelle," 24
(1956); H. Dumery, "Philosophie de la religion," v. II, p. 92 n. 4
(this long note contains some important comments).
Having rather exaggeratedly "hellenized" with the generation of
Reitsenstein, today we are "judaizing" perhaps a little too much;
the Old Testament itself "hellenizes" in certain parts; Palestine at
the time of Jesus was permeated with Alexandrine influences.
The problem indicated here should be dealt with in two ways:
first to bring out in theology and in catechesis the originality of
Hebraic thought; then to study more closely the problem of the
connections between the two types of thought. Let us not forget
that the first scholar to bring out the contrasts between these two
types of thought was R. Bultmann in "Das Urchristentum im
Rahmen der antiken Religionen," (Zurich, 1949), and earlier in "Die
Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition" (Goetnngen, 1921).
17. See L. Bouyer, "The Meaning of Sacred Scripture," (Notre Dame
Univ. Press, 1958) and "Liturgical Piety," (Notre Dame Univ. Press,
1954); Anglican theologians, whose work Fr. Bouyer knows well,
have often brought our this continuity.
18. The question is that of distinguishing the categories of
thought implied by the Biblical texts from revelation properly so
called, which makes use of these categories but always goes
beyond them; this does not mean that this revelation can be
separated from the Semitic vehicle of which it makes use.
19. Cf. P. van Imschoot, Theologie de l'ancien Testament, coll.
"Bibl. de theologie," III series, v. 4, "L'homme," (Paris, 1956); and E.
Jacob, "Theology of the Old Testament," (New York: Harpers,
1958). As I shall show further on, the term "spiritual life" too
often connotes the idea of a "discarnate" life, while it really
means a life that is, above all, interiority, certainly, but
incarnated (projected, structured, as phenomenology would say)
in a condition of life become, in the spirit, participative in the
power of God.
20. E. Jacob, op. cit., this point of view must be harmonized with
that of the complement time-eternity which also underlies the
Biblical scheme of things: creation and the covenant lead man to
the eternal; they manifest the eternal in the temporal. (H. Dumery
in "Philosophie de la Religion," v. I, pp. 131-138, carries the
philosophic transposition too far.)
21. J. Danielou in "The Lord of History," (Chicago: Regnery, 1958)
shows clearly how allegorism (of a dimension mainly vertical)
and typology are quite different things. See also C. Charlier, "The
Christian Approach to the Bible," (Westminster, Md.: Newman,
1959).
22. In this connection, we must certainly be on guard against a
naive realism which would purely and simply project into the
divine reality the spatio-temporal images implied in the Biblical
themes which I have just mentioned; through "temporal" history,
it is, finally, the union with the eternal God that is realized. But
man is an incarnate being in a world, a place, a time, a history; he
expresses himself on all the levels of his consciousness:
psychology, imagination, ritual and social institution, and finally,
history (to say nothing of the "conceptual" level to which all
theologies strive to raise themselves).
Moreover, the vision of the eternal divine does not imply the
rejection of these concrete "projections"; there can be no question
of leaving them aside once the eternal vision is attained; they
cannot be considered as mere scaffolding to be destroyed when
the house is built. Man is primarily an "incarnate consciousness"--
the vocabulary of phenomenology here comes rather near to the
Biblical vision. His religious life can never be released from these
roots in the concrete material world willed by God, so that he can
raise himself into a purely a-temporal heaven of metaphysics; it
is always in time and through time that He is reached whom the
Bible calls the Eternal, the Lord of hosts.
Furthermore, the Biblical images are privileged by reason of
divine revelation, they are not, as it were, illustrations of purely
human origin, the value of which would be more or less
interchangeable from the moment that their end was attained;
they are eternal types of God's action, symbols whose choice was
aided by inspiration. In a word, the vision of the Old Testament--
and therefore, that of the New to the extent to which it is rooted
in the Old--is to be safeguarded because it is guaranteed by the
special protection of the revealing God granted to the sacred
writers.
Of course, as the third series of obstacles shows, we must not put
on the same level all the literary procedures of the Bible. But,
according to their basic viewpoint, according to their permanent
centre of gravity, easily recognizable, the originality of Semitic
thought is to be respected. Here should be read the celebrated
text of Celsus, with a pertinent commentary, in de Labriolle, "La
reaction paienne," (Paris, 1942), pp. 117-126.
23. On the content of the gnostic manuscripts recently
discovered at Nag-Hammadi see J. Doresse, "Les gnostiques
d'Egypte, in "La table ronde," n. 107, (Nov. 1956) which gives a
good orientation; one can see here clearly the antithesis between
the Judeo-Christian tradition and that of the gnoses on these
points (in the "gnosis" of certain texts of Qumran, the dualism
comes from Iran, cf. J. Danielou, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and
Primitive Christianity," (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1958).
24. H. Azou, "La parole de Dieu," (Paris, 1956), pp. 161-162.
25. And therefore in the "scandal" of the resurrection; cf. in L.
Cerfaux, "Christ in the Theology of St. Paul," (New York: Herder &
Herder, 1959) the wonderful pages on the Greek opposition to the
message of the resurrection. When "Hellenistic" thought pretends
to be exclusive of any other mentality and, consequently, of
religion, when it is hardened to the point of not being willing to
recognize its natural incapacity not only to discover but to
understand the incorporation of the plan of salvation in human
history, then it unites with the pride of the carnal man and thus
becomes an obstacle of the first kind we have mentioned, that
which the Biblico-liturgical Word has to break up by its power of
converting.
I should add that all purely human thought (including the Semitic
vision insofar as it is a thought of man) which pretends to stretch
on the Procustean bed of its natural categories the unimaginable
fact of the incarnation of God in history, condemns itself by that
very fact; Semitic thought, cut off from the light of revelation,
becomes ingrown as a purely earthly messianism, which
becomes, finally, idolatrous--the various "millenarianisms" of
history are a degradation of theological thought on the level of a
"carnal" Judaism, prisoner of space and time; "Greek" thought,
pretending to be self-sufficient, lacks the discovery of the central
event in the history of the world, God amongst us. The majority
of heresies have not had very different causes.
26. H. U. von Balthasar, in Chapter 3 of this book, states that the
maturation of Greek thought along the lines of the discovery of
the notion of being was providentially willed by God as a
necessary stage in the understanding of the mystery of the
incarnation.
27. H. Azou, op. cit., pp. 161-163.
28. The ancient civilizations in which we instruct school-children
are reduced more or less to two, the Greek and the Roman, to the
neglect of the third, here the most important, the study of which
was united with these others until the sixteenth century--the
Hebrew. Young people must be familiarized with Biblical history
at least as much as with the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey"--about
which, in any case, if things continue in the present direction,
they will no longer know anything in two or three decades. By
"Biblical history" I mean, not a collection of isolated anecdotes
the miraculous character of which can hardly be distinguished
from that of fairy stories, but the history of that divine pedagogy,
traced out more and more clearly in a real history, running
parallel to, but also interwoven with, that of the Near Eastern
Greek and the Latin West.
Children must enter fully into this sacred realm. If the reaching
of the plastic arts architecture, sculpture, painting is brought in,
by way of surplus, to illustrate this dialogue of the two
Testaments, for example by the study of early Christian painting
and sculpture in which, continually, the figures of the Old Law
are contrasted with those of the New, harmony in distinction, and
also unity, can more easily be brought about between Athens and
Jerusalem; we shall see fewer little "part-pagans" divided between
the humility of the crucifixion, taught in sermons, and various
kinds of Christian humanism, from that of the "muscular
Catholic" to that of the person fascinated by the dream of a
"Christian communism."
While I cannot develop or modify this idea here, yet may I say
that I believe that such an enlargement of academic formation is
necessary, is most urgent. My essay "Bible et humanisme," in "La
Bible et le pretre," coll. "Etudes de pastorale," n. 5 (Louvain, 1951)
gives a series of concrete examples drawn from the climate of the
Greco-Latin humanities.
29. St. Paul, for example, in explaining baptism contrasts it with
circumcision when he is speaking to Jews, compares it to
illumination when he is speaking to Greeks, and identifies it with
the rite of immersion in the Jordan, symbol of the death and
resurrection of the Lord, when he is speaking to neophytes. In
other words, according to the New Law, the major originality of
the inspired Word is precisely to be "new," designed from the
outset to go beyond everything that we call "categories of
thought."
30. The synthesis of the two types of thought is not
syncretization (like Huxley's); in his case the residue that comes
out of the mixer is impersonal and adogmatic; Biblical symbolism
is on the contrary, always historical and personal.
31. Alain, "Histoire des me pensees," 5th ed., (Paris, 1936), p. 294.
32. The term "transcendence" should be understood in the sense
of the paschal "passing-over," not in the sense of something
beyond all formulations.
33. May I take this occasion to thank Monsignor Chevrot for the
valuable remarks he kindly made to me on this theme.
34. On this subject, cf. D. Dubarle, "The Theology of the Cosmos,"
in Vol. II, "God and Creation," of The Theology Library, (Chicago:
Fides, 1955).
35. Is any reminder needed that a great effort of pastoral work
and catechesis is needed to answer this urgent need? More and
more the results of these researches must be made concrete on
the level of school and other texts.
36. The theme of the "Conversations de Saint-Sebastien," in 1957,
was concerned precisely with the language of the Church
confronted with the modern world. It goes without saying that my
remark about "adaptation" does not refer in any way to the
necessity for revivifying a certain sentimental and abstract
phraseology which is still at large, and for going beyond a certain
"chancery style" so foreign to the soundest instincts of modern
man, here we must most certainly "adapt" and even "replace."
37. According to the word of Pindar, used by Goethe, which
serves as the starting point of a whole type of humanism.
38. We can understand how Charles du Bos, in his "Journal," Vol.
1, (Paris, 1946), p. 347, said to Gide that "equilibrium" was the
word, the state which he did not wish at any price; the Greek
element was absent from his "composition," he added, and he saw
in Gide's too refined concern for equilibrium the major
temptation for him to turn back to the purely profane and to
refuse the divine: the "Stimmung" of romanticism seemed to him
closer to Christianity.
39. R. Guardini, "The Lord," (Chicago: Regnery, 1954). We must
completely reconsider man starting with this glorious humanity
of the transfigured Savior. We must not try to put in the shade
what seems to us to go beyond the "human"; we must make of
this a starting-point, for the question is one of a "conversion,"
that is to say, of that metanoia of our heart, of our intelligence
and our spirit which will open them out to the transcendent
revelation of the Man "from on high."
Thus the impeccability of Christ in no way diminishes His
humanity, it augments it; when we say in the liturgical
invocations that Jesus is "true God and true man," the last words
do not mean primarily a "composite of body and soul," but the
image of God according to which we were created. Human
"nature" is also a divine "vocation", it is in conformity with what it
should be as "nature" when it responds to the divine call, when it
identifies what it wills to be with fidelity to its vocation of
sanctity in the love of men and the love of God. The image of God
is fulfilled in us when it is irradiated with this love, when, in the
glory of a life delivered from sin, it is henceforth only presence
to men, in charity.
In other words, if man is the more "man" as divine grace in him
conforms him more perfectly to His Creator, we can understand
how the new Adam, glorious is "the Man." Doubtless, the
impeccability of Jesus flowed from the hypostatic union; but here
we are in the presence precisely of the archetype, of the
sovereign model of all humanity, each man must tend toward it
as toward a limit which is certainly inaccessible--for Jesus is the
Son of the Father, while we are sons by adoption--but which
orients his whole life according to God; there is no other true type
of man.
40. In my essay "Espoir des hommes," (Tournai-Paris, 1958), pp.
125-129, I tried to discover the causes of the complete
misunderstanding of Malraux on this point.
41. Is it necessary to repeat that there is here no trace of
passivity which would alienate man?
42. Cf. supra, p. 136, it is in connection with what is essential in
the Biblical message that we cannot speak of "adaptation."
43. This explanation is that of G. Marcel, in "Positions et
approches concretes du mystere ontologique," (Paris-Brussels,
1933).
44. J. Guitton, "Jesus," (Paris, 1957), and also in the whole of his
work, "La pensee moderne et le catholicisme," maintains this
permanence of apologetics in present-day Christian currents of
thought.
45. While we should not carry too far the celebrated distinction
made by A. Nygren between Eros and Agape, still it brings out the
prior ipse dilexit nos.
46. C. du Bos, "L'amour selon Coventry Patmore," in
"Approximations," Vol. VII, (Paris, 1957), pp. 347-397, illustrates
this theme admirably. See also "What is Literature," by the same
author, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940).
47. The scene in Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in which Natasha asks
pardon of Prince Andre shows clearly the need for a mercy that
will wipe away sin and recreate the sinner.
48. This is the dialectic that I have tried to make perceptible, with
the aid of literature, in Vols. III and IV of "Litterature du XX siecle
et christianisme."
49. It is important to recall that in the twentieth century the duty
is imposed of giving this "charity" institutional forms, since the
needs are so great and since political structures so clearly appear
as the only ones capable of satisfying them on a grand scale (as
also, alas, of imperiling them).
50. The play of Hochwalder, "Das heilige Experiment," admirably
illustrates these "delays" of the kingdom.
51. One would never come to an end in quoting the commentaries
of the Fathers who see in the events of the Exodus or the Exile the
history of the human soul; the best-known example is probably
that of Origen in his "Homilies on the Book of Numbers."
52. This is equally true of the respublica christiana of the Middle
Ages in the West here was a realization of the "kingdom," and one
strongly influenced by the Old Testament climate. However great
it may have been, it was not the less marked by the precarious
quality of this earth.
53. Hochwalder's work, mentioned above, shows very clearly this
inescapable transition to the crusade, with all the ambiguities
that it implies.
54. This does not mean that the Church should abandon without
a struggle the temporal structures of the institutions of a mixed
nature into which she has succeeded in breathing a Christian
spirit; the question is of our having the will, the profound
disposition of which St. Paul speaks when he says that "We must
use this world as If we were not using it."
55. H. de Lubac, "The Splendor of the Church," (New York: Sheed &
Ward, 1956), Chap. IV.
56. T. Maertens, "Jerusalem, cite de Dieu," coll. "Lumiere et vie," n.
3, (Bruges, 1954).
57. They are, moreover, in profound accord with the Aristotelian-
Thomistic synthesis.
58. See my article "Modern Man and the Bible," in "Lumen Vitae,"
X, (1955), pp. 63-76, in which I describe these same stepping-
stones in a somewhat different way.
59. H. Dumery, op. cit, v. 11, p. 94, note.
60. The merit of modern phenomenology lies in this restitution of
the total and concrete dimension of man; but St. Thomas had
already made it the center of his vision.
61. To the extent to which Marxism is "a Christian truth gone
mad," the problem of the Bible and Marxism could well be
studied.
62. C. Tresmontant, in "Etudes de metaphysique biblique" does not
perhaps distinguish clearly enough between Biblical thought and
certain modern systems which have apparently, been inspired by
it.
63. Our purpose here is rather to bring these stepping-stones to
light.
64. G. Marcel, "Homo Viator," (Paris, 1944), pp. 15-38. (Eng. trans.-
-Chicago: Regnery, 1951.)
65. The book of Tibor Mende, "Regards sur l'histoire de demain"
(Paris, 1954) is an interesting index of this.
66. In this connection see the book on "Woman," by F. Buytendijk,
an excellent answer to Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex."
(French translation by R. Micha and A. de Waelhens, Paris-
Brussels, 1954.)
67. Let us repeat that in the Christian vocabulary "spiritual" does
not mean "discarnate," but "filled with power, incorruptible."
68. The quotation marks indicate that I do not mean to describe
historic Jansenism but a kind of deformation along moralizing
lines.
69. However, it is important here to emphasize one difference: it
is not "the face of the world" as it appears to us which is the final
speech of God, for "the figure of this world is passing away"; it is
to be progressively transfigured, thus our bodies will be
conformed to Christ's glorious Body. But, here again, it is
precisely the idea of the body as the sign of presence which can
help us to understand something of what glorious bodies will be
like: does not the glorified Christ, as I shall mention later on,
realize in His being as man transfigured the most perfect
presence possible first to His apostles, then to the Church and so
to each of us, by His Eucharistic Body? Will not heaven and earth
be renewed to the extent to which our bodies, having passed
through death and the resurrection (which is not some kind of
reanimation but a new life) become only a means of knowledge,
play, dance, music language that is artistic as well as loving,
among one another?
Instead of which, as things are now, our words are quite as much
a risk of betraying ourselves, or even a means of hiding
ourselves, of protecting ourselves from others of defending
ourselves against a kind of dissolution which seems to threaten
us as they are our total opening out to charity, to the life of
others in us. Can we not see something of this perfect "speech"
that our glorified bodies will become in those dancing and
musical flames which vibrate in Dante's Paradise: the most
unbelievable presence in the most humble "earthly" realities is
here united with the music of the spheres, with that interior
embrace in which the crystal clarity of water is united with the
power of light and the furnace of charity. Cf. A. Masseron, "Pour
comprendre le Divine Comedie," (Paris, 1939).
70. Yet there will always persist that insuperable limit which
distinguishes creature from Creator, and, also, the bond with
sensible life will always subsist, at least to the extent to which it
will have contributed to the formation of the true personality.
71. See my contribution, "Le retour a l'irrationel et a l'immateriel,"
in "L'homme nouveau," coll. "Etudes de pastorale," n. 1, (Louvain,
1947).
72. T. Monchanin. "De l'esthetique a la mystique." (Tournai-Paris:
Casterman, 1954).
73. I am here purposely using the vocabulary of phenomenology.
74. It is not necessary to quote H. Bremond, "Prayer and Poetry,"
and many other studies on the poetic mystery; it is more
important to attract the attention of modern man to this "prayer
which does not pray but which causes prayer" which can be a
most useful introduction to the discovery of activities of the
mystical order.
75. Cf. my contribution, "Liberte et verite dans la critique
litteraire," in "Werte et verite," (Louvain, 1955).
76. Romanticism, on the European level, represents a positive
value, the role of which was of capital importance in the return to
the religious sense; this must obviously not be confused with the
"desired storms" of Francois-Rene; see my contribution, "Charles
du Bos ou d'un romantism europeen" in "Revue Generale Belge,"
88, (June 1953).
77. What classical wisdom calls "character," therefore, made up of
a series of meaningful characteristics of the social or individual
order which particularize and distinguish such and such a
"character" in a comedy or a tragedy or in a silhouette of La
Bruyere's, easily becomes petrified. If such "characters" pretend
to represent the whole truth about man, they quickly take on a
fixed grimace or "stoic cramp," according to the phrase of
Bernanos, or manifest that love typical of "classic" souls which
Sartre made fun of in "Qu'est-ce que la litterature." By contrast,
when the bond, at least the potential bond, is re-established
between this behavior according to character and a profound
availability to calls from without, whether they be of the poetic or
mystical orders--and frequently they are both at once--the human
person recovers all his dimensions and his flexibility.
An example can be found in Claudel's works in the person of the
young woman in "Tobie et Sara." It shows very clearly this
transition from the level of "character" to that of the poetic and
mystical call.
Now and again, Sara is swept through by a breath from on high,
then she becomes a kind of young prophetess, she is open to the
Spirit come from God; she perceives the future--and here we
think of the scene that Sainte-Beuve calls the Sinai of French
tragedy, the vision of Joad in the third act of "Athalie"--she breaks
out in rejoicing over that child still unknown, who is the child of
Tobias, over that young life not yet seen, which is an image of the
life of God, over that germination of the birth which is growing in
her womb; she is all ecstasy, supple, radiant, indwelt and acted
on by the breath that suffuses her. And then she becomes once
more the young woman, hardly grown out of the mutinous candor
of a little girl, still mocking and coaxing her mother-in-law, the
old woman who is a little difficult, but with a courageous silence.
The two aspects complete one another, for this "character" is
without any inflexibility, precisely because we feel it to be
secretly open to poetic or prophetic calls its roots bathed in that
profound water over which the Spirit hovers as on the first day of
creation. On the other hand, the states of "supraconsciousness,"
those during which the personality expands in the hearing of the
voices from on high and thus attains to a jubilant and ecstatic
humanity, these moments are not lost in some indistinct and
chaotic world, but are bound up with that clearly defined
"character."
J. P. Sartre in "Qu'est-ce que la litterature, Situations," II, (Paris,
1948) has made a critique of the "classical" soul, showing how it
has become hardened and factitious because it is cut off from its
concrete situation in the world, unfortunately, this critique is
incomplete, for it does not integrate the values of poetry, Sartre
rejecting everything that can be truly received.
78. We must not forget that, although the human nature of Jesus
is not a person in the ontological sense of the word, this does not
mean that it is abstract; it is concrete.
79. The human nature of Jesus possesses a series of
characteristics that allow us to say that He was, in the
psychological sense of the word, what we call a "personality"; but
these concrete traits subsist in the second Person of the Trinity.
80. Surrealism represents an unsuccessful attempt along these
lines, because it was paralyzed from the start by a concern for
systematic revolt which dried up the sources of true Poetic
lyricism.
81. In music, the search for new sounds to render perceptible
some invisible architecture is found, for example, in O. Messiaen;
the general public, unfortunately, balks at all this yet the success
of the harmonizations of the psalms made by Fr. Gelineau and Fr.
Deiss is a good sign. This music speaks only to those who grasp
the meaning of the text; and this, in the psalms, is often
symbolic.
82. This last stepping-stone, in which we can see an expansion of
contemporary anthropology toward cosmology, prepares the way
especially for a rediscovery of "vertical" symbolism, which
discovers in things below the shadow of things on high. Biblical
symbolism is, above all, "horizontal," since it is founded on the
typology of past events as being heralds of events in the future.
Consonance with the Bible is here most remote.
We must not be astonished at this, for here we have originality
closely allied with the paradox of revelation itself; the actions of
God to save His people in the past manifest the same power of re-
creation of what was dead, of resurrection of what was
annihilated. No natural symbol can give the idea of this
pedagogy, the cycle of the seasons being an apparent image,
certainly, but an ambiguous one. Yet the fact remains that, in a
general way at any rate, the modern return to symbolism
prepares men's minds for the perception of a hidden significance
in events.
83. M.-M. Labourdette, "Le peche originel et les origines de
l'homme," (Paris, 1953), and the very valuable review by J.
Danielou in "Dieu vivant," n. 26, pp. 146-147.
84. An interesting problem for theologians would be that of the
"canonization of children"; I believe that there has to be some
trial which allows for the heroism of the person's virtues (as, for
example, in the case of St. Maria Goretti), without this
canonization would certainly be impossible.
85. I must admit that this hypothesis is not explicitly Biblical, but
the patronage of St. Irenaeus is a valuable guarantee.
86. See, along these lines, my analysis of J. Green, "Le malfaiteur,"
in "La Revue Nouvelle," 25, (1957), pp. 779-884, and also the
article mentioned in note 8 of this chapter.
87. Hence all the efforts of medicine, hygiene, social legislation,
etc., which contribute to lessening sickness and unhealthful
conditions, contribute also to diminishing Satan's "base of
operations"; this is a beautiful justification of "humanism." But we
must not confuse a "minimum" of well-being with a "maximum."
88. Cf. "Satan," (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952)
89. There are other aspects of "satanism," for example, its
connection with everything of a magical and idolatrous order; I
have only given one example here.
90. I take my inspiration here from a beautiful passage from
Claudel's "Tobie et Sara."
91. See J. Guitton, "The Problem of Jesus," (New York: Kenedy,
1955); R. Guardini, "The Last Things," (New York: Pantheon, 1954);
R. Tresfontaines, "Death: A Test for Love, a Condition of Liberty,"
"Cross Currents," VII, (Summer, 1957), pp. 201-212.
92. C. du Bos, "Journal," Vol. II, (Paris, 1948), p. 200, shows the
connection between imperviousness and desire, between
transparency and the moral sense that causes us to obey our
conscience (in connection with Walter Pater).
93. The word "economy" is used here in the patristic sense, which
distinguishes the order of the incarnation from the revelation of
the life of the Trinity (which is in the strict sense, "theology").
94. The error to be avoided here is that of ubiquitism, which
maintains that the human nature of Jesus has of its own power,
since the resurrection, the same gift of omnipresence as has His
divinity; we are speaking here of His Eucharistic presence only. It
should be clearly understood and never forgotten that it is quite
as much Christ who unites us to Himself as it is He who
communicates Himself to us; moreover, the Eucharistic species
have a connection with the heavenly Christ, but according to His
humanity. The theory of P. Billot is well-known; cf. J. Coppens,
"Miscellanees Bibliques," XXIV, "Mysterium fidei," in "Ephemerides
Theol. Lovaniensis," 33 (1957),
95. I believe that this idea of "with us," coming close to the "being
with" of modern phenomenology, could be a valuable stepping-
stone in the modern mentality. In other words. economy
introduces us to theology.
96. Cf J. Guitton, "Jesus," pp. 433-439
97. This "deep water" is placed in us by God Himself: it is grace.
CHAPTER 9: "HAPPY ARE THEY WHO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD
AND PUT IT INTO PRACTICE"
Rev. Joseph Lecuyer, C.S.Sp.
BIBLE AND LITURGY, liturgy and the Word of God: the essays in
this book have spoken frequently of the close and essential union
between these two realities, and also of the necessity for not
dissociating them in the work of Christian formation and
catechesis.
But a problem still remains to be studied: the Word of God is
meant for all men, while its official proclamation in the liturgy
reaches directly only believers, and, among them, only practicing
Catholics. What about the others: first, the Christians who do not
practice their religion, who may still be believers, but in any case
are outside the reach of the Word proclaimed by the ministry of
the Church in the liturgical assembly? What about the vast
number of members of Protestant denominations, adherents of
various cults? What about complete unbelievers? None of these
take part in the liturgical assembly.
As Father Bouyer wrote not long ago, "The liturgy is not a direct
means of the apostolate to the people nor can it become so, since
this apostolate, by its very nature, is addressed to those who are
outside the Church, and since the liturgy, by its nature, is
addressed to those within the Church.... The liturgy belongs to
the sanctuary in the most precise sense of the term. It is not in
any way made for the non-Christian who is to be converted.[1]
Does this mean that the Word of God which resounds in the
sanctuary is not to go beyond these limits? The source of living
water issuing from the sanctuary described by Ezechiel (47:1)
which, as the liturgy for Eastertide tells us, saves all those whom
it reaches (Ant. Vidi Aquam), is not this the same river which, as
the Apocalypse tells us, waters the tree of life whose leaves are
"for the healing of the nations" (Apoc. 22:1-2)? Is the Biblical and
liturgical movement to be concerned only with a more or less
limited group of initiates? Or should we think that the Word of
God is to reach all those who do not practice or believe in
Christianity only by means that have nothing to do with the
liturgy--conferences, study-clubs, distribution of pamphlets,
books and Bibles?
There should be no question of underestimating the usefulness
of these means nor the merit of those who make use of them. But
then another inevitable difficulty presents itself: in giving the
Bible directly to those who do not believe in or have only
superficially entered into the Christian mystery, we run into the
obvious opposition between the Biblical mentality and, on the
one hand, the pagan mentality which exists in every age, and, on
the other, the special modern mentality which is often
materialistic and positivistic. If the Bible is presented directly to
many of our contemporaries, it can arouse reactions similar to
those of a Celsus or a Lucian of Samosota in the second century:
it seems to be a tissue of fables that are good, at best, only for
the ignorant and for children, even when the grandeur of some of
the ideas it proposes is vaguely recognized.
The difficulty is no less great if we imagine an unbeliever of
today assisting at one of our liturgical ceremonies and there
listening to the proclamation of the Word of God. Canon Bardy,
proposing this hypothesis about a pagan of the first centuries,
describes his reactions in terms that apply equally to pagans of
today:
What would he have heard that was calculated to awaken his
enthusiasm or even to engage his curiosity?...He would have
listened to the readings of the Old and New Testaments, and, if
he had any degree of culture, he would have been struck above
all by the popular character of these books, by their poor style,
their grammatical incorrectness; he would certainly not have got
very much out of the prophecies; he would have been greatly
amused by Noe's ark, Balaam's ass, and Jonas' whale. After this he
would have had to hear a sermon, most frequently an allegorical
or moral commentary on one of these readings, and he would
have been quick to criticize in his own mind a method so well
calculated to remove as if by a juggler's trick, the difficulties of
the story.[2]
Some page of Celsus denaturing and ridiculing the teachings of
the Gospel would not seem out of place in the best anthologies of
free thought;[3] and, at the beginning of the fourth century,
Lactantius preserved for us the reflections of the cultivated
pagans of his time concerning the Christian Books, as written in
an uncouth language, filled with solecisms and barbarisms, a
tissue of lies and contradictions.[4]
These difficulties can be felt all the more vividly and universally
in our own time because of the extension of culture, and of a
culture that is more and more oriented toward the study of the
positive sciences of the controllable fact, of technology. And even
though in our times certain men who keep up with the
discoveries of archeology or the history of religions have been
able to go beyond the difficulties inherent in the material
presentation of the Word of God, the fact still remains that the
Wisdom of the Cross appears as folly to the wisdom of this world;
here is a difficulty of every age which can be removed by no
modernization of vocabulary or of style.
In a society in which everything seems to be organized in
function of earthly well-being to be preserved, acquired or
developed, how can a Word which preaches a crucified God
whom we must follow by carrying our own cross not appear
unbearably anachronistic?
And yet, we know that the Word of God still retains in our time its
power to convince, and this even for those outside the Church.
What I wish to show is precisely that its proclamation in the
liturgy is of invaluable importance in this regard. We shall ask
ourselves first, therefore, how the Word of God received in the
liturgical celebration tends by its very nature to go beyond the
material limits of this celebration to make itself heard
everywhere, in all human activities, to reach all those for whom it
is destined; this will be the subject of the first part of this
chapter. And then we shall see how this Word of God, proclaimed
in the life and the witness of Christians and thus placed within
the reach of all, only obtains its full effect when it leads men to
the liturgical community, to the Christian assembly gathered for
the Eucharist; this will be our second topic.
FROM LITURGICAL PROCLAMATION
TO PROCLAMATION IN DAILY LIFE
It will appear clearly that the proclamation of the Bible in the
liturgy has its necessary prolongation in the life of each Christian
if we recall (a) that this proclamation is part of a covenant-rite; (b)
that this rite is not simply any kind of rite, but an efficacious one.
The Proclamation of the Bible in the Liturgy is Part of a Covenant-
Rite
The liturgical life of the Church is centered in her sacramental
life and especially in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Now, as the
encyclical "Mystici Corporis" teaches, all the sacraments have as
their end and effect to establish or to draw closer the bonds
between the Christian and the Church, the Body of Christ and the
people of the New Covenant. By baptism, by confirmation, by the
Eucharist, the Christian is constituted a member of the new
people of God, and becomes, in his own way, responsible for the
mission of this people in the world, a depository of and witness
to the covenant proposed by God and the Law in which His
requirements are expressed. This point is easily understood
when we consider an aspect of the Sacrifice of the Mass which is
solemnly stated by Christ Himself: the Eucharist is the Sacrifice of
the New Covenant. What does this mean?
We can understand the significance of this New Covenant only in
reference to the covenant it replaces, since it concerns the same
sacred history and the realization of its figures. What, then, did
the Old Covenant mean to the Jewish people? In spite of the
confusion of traditions concerning the covenant of Sinai, the
following elements may be considered certain: (1) at the
beginning there was a divine choice, an election, expressed to
men by the Word of God, which proposed to the people the
acceptance of this choice with the Law which expressed its
conditions. (2) The offer of God was answered by the acceptance
of the people, manifesting their will to obey the Law proposed to
them. (3) Hence there arose a new bond between God and His
people, and a new order of worship: "I will take you as a kingdom
of priests and a consecrated nation...if you obey Me and respect
My covenant" (Ex. 19:5-6).
The rite of the conclusion of the covenant, then, included
essentially, as the 24th chapter of Exodus tells us, the solemn
reading to the people of the laws promulgated by God and
written down by Moses; the acceptance and promise of the
people: "Everything that Yahweh has said, we will put it into
practice and obey it"; a sacrifice symbolically uniting God with
His people by the sprinkling of blood on the people and the altar
and by a communion meal.
In this complex rite, the reading of the Word of God and the
sacrificial action were closely united, and this union was not
accidental, but required by the very nature of the act of alliance
concluded between God who proposed a law and the people who
accepted it. The participation of a man in the cult had no
meaning unless he had given his personal response to the Word,
unless he had accepted the will of God as manifested in the book
of the Law; without this acceptance the liturgical rite lost all its
value: "You required neither holocaust nor victim, then I said,
Behold, I come. At the head of the book it is prescribed that I
should do Thy will" (Ps. 40:7-9).
To participate in the sacrifice of the Old Covenant was, therefore,
to pledge oneself to enter into the people of God in order there to
assume one's personal part in the mission of this people in the
history of salvation, according to the conditions expressed by the
Word of God.
This Word came again and again to remind the people of the
demands of their mission and of the true meaning of their
participation in worship. To those who had allowed themselves
to be drawn into a wholly material "religion of the Book" or into a
kind of worship separated from life, the voice of the prophets
proclaimed the authentic dimensions of the covenant; these
protestations found their most wonderful expression in the
second part of the Book of Isaias and especially in the Servant
Songs.
To a people who had a tendency to isolate themselves in a narrow
consciousness of their privileges, the inspired Word came to
remind them of the universal meaning of their mission (Is. 66:18-
25). To those pious observers of the Law who forgot the true
meaning of their acts of worship and practices of fasting, the
Word protested that true fasting and true worship could not exist
without justice and charity (Is. 58). In the same way, at the door
of the temple Jeremias inveighed against those who had made it a
den of thieves, that is to say, who dared to present themselves
for prayer and sacrifice without first ordering their lives in
accord with the requirements of the covenant (Jer. 7).
If such is the import of the worship and sacrifice of the Old
Covenant, we cannot doubt that the Sacrifice of the New Covenant
must be understood along the same lines. We have, furthermore,
the explicit affirmation of this in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(19:19-21) which applies to the Sacrifice of Christ the details of
the sacrifice which sealed the covenant of Sinai. What was
effected at the conclusion of this covenant was reproduced, but
in an infinitely more perfect way, in the Sacrifice of Jesus and is
renewed each day in the Eucharistic liturgy: the Christian who
participates in it engages himself in a covenant, that is to say, he
makes his own, he undertakes the universal mission of the
people of God.
In the Mass, therefore, are to be found the essential elements of
the rite which concluded the first covenant: the presentation of
the Word of God to the people by those who have received the
mission to do so; acceptance by the believer engaging to obey the
Law with his whole life; the sacrificial rite sealing the covenant in
Christ's Blood.
We can see from this first aspect how great is the significance for
the whole of Christian life of the proclamation of the Bible in the
liturgy: by its union with a covenant-sacrifice, it requires of him
who accepts it a personal commitment to prolong the echo of this
Word in his whole life.
The Rite of the New Covenant Is An Efficacious Rite
This necessary prolongation in daily life of the Word of God
proclaimed in the liturgy appears still more clearly when we
recall the fact that the rite of which this proclamation is a part is
not any kind of rite, but an efficacious one. The Sacrifice in which
we participate does not only signify the covenant exteriorly, it
inscribes it in the believer's heart, in the most intimate essence of
his being, by infusing into him the grace and the charity of
Christ.
Such is the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old. In the
face of the continually recurring temptation to consider the book
of the Law as nothing more than an external code, we see in the
prophets from the period of the Exile on, the appearance of a
nostalgic desire for a Law, for a Word of God, which would be
inscribed directly in the thought and the heart of the chosen
people. This is the New Covenant announced by Jeremias
(31:31ff.) and by Ezechiel (36:25ff.), the concluding of which by
the Sacrifice of Christ is proclaimed in the Epistle to the Hebrews:
"I will place My laws in their thought, I will engrave them in their
heart" (Hebr. 8:8-12).
Henceforth the Word of God, His law, is no longer written only on
tablets of stone, or in a book which remains exterior to man; by
the liturgical proclamation, by the interior adherence of the
believer, by the efficacious rite this Word of God is inscribed in
the deepest essence of man, there to become living and
incarnate. As St. Paul says to the Corinthians, "Clearly you are a
letter of Christ's, inscribed by our efforts, written not with ink
but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but
on tablets of flesh, on your hearts" (2 Cor. 3:3).
Thus Bible and liturgy unite to produce the same wonderful
effect: the Word of God proposed in the first, present and active
in the second, transforms and vivifies the believer: "If the
hierarchy communicates by the liturgy the truth and grace of
Christ, it is for the faithful, on their part, to accept these
wholeheartedly and to transform them into living realities" (Pius
XII).[5]
The hierarchy is, therefore, not content with exteriorly presenting
the truth; by the sacraments, it transforms the believer interiorly
through infusing into him the life that animates the Body of
Christ, the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now, we know from the
teaching of St. Paul that what constitutes the New Law in its
essence is, precisely, grace with the interior dynamism of charity
which sums up the Law and the Prophets, that is to say, which
sums up the whole Bible. The Word of God, of course, continues
to be that written in a book, to be proclaimed exteriorly, but it
depends only on the good will of the hearer for it to become also,
in the most intimate part of himself, a living and divine force. As
St. Paul said to the Romans: "The Word is near you, in your mouth
and in your heart, that is, the word of faith, which we preach"
(Rom. 10:8).
Such is the wonderful efficacy of the Christian ministry: the
bishops, aided by their collaborators, the priests, are the
"ministers of a New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit (2
Cor. 3:3), having received the power not only externally to
present the letter of the Word of God, but still more to inscribe
this Word in the hearts of those who welcome its message; and
these can then leave the liturgical celebration as bearers of this
Word, to render it present in all human activities.
Whenever the Christian, then, comes again to take his part in the
liturgy, the Word of God is presented to him afresh, both in the
Biblical readings and in the official preaching. He is thus invited
to compare his own life with the law which has been written in
his heart, the requirements of which are expressed objectively in
the external proclamation and preaching of it. However little he
may be receptive to this proclamation of the Word, he will be
judged by it; he will be led to an authentic revision of his life in
the face of this mirror which is presented to him (cf. James 1:22-
23). The constant reminder which the Church gives us of the
requirements of the New Covenant is a perpetual invitation to
him to take his part in the mission of the people of God, to
become "not a forgetful hearer but a true doer" (James 1:15).
Furthermore, to him who has become aware of this pressing
invitation, the liturgical proclamation of the Word of God will not
run the risk of seeming to resemble simply, in the phrase of
Ezechiel, "a song of love, pleasantly sung, to the accompaniment
of music" (Ezech. 33:32), like an aesthetic entertainment. "For the
Word of God is living and effective, more penetrating than any
two-edged sword; it penetrates even to the point of division
between soul and spirit, between the joints and the marrow of the
bones, it can judge the feelings and the thoughts of the heart"
(Hebr. 4:12).
It judges, first, the very way in which we take part in worship,
especially in the Sacrifice of the New Covenant; for a man to
bring his offering to the altar, to approach it himself, without
having made the decision to bring about in his life what is
signified by this eternal action, without being reconciled with his
brother (Matt. 5:24), without seeking to overcome the egoisms of
family, of country, of race, of social class (cf. James 2:2ff.) and
sordid concerns (ibid., 4:13ff.) is to deny interiorly the law of
charity that he professes exteriorly in the Eucharistic assembly.
The Word of God also judges the whole life of the Christian. By its
very nature it tends to grow, to produce fruits of justice and
holiness, not only in the individual life of him who receives it but
in his whole activity; it is a talent that he must multiply, the seed
of the parable which only needs good soil in order to produce
fruit a hundredfold.
As bearers of this Word, Christians are, therefore, also
responsible for the mission of salvation of the people of the
covenant. St. John Chrysostom insistently reminds his hearers of
this duty to communicate to others the Word heard in the
liturgical assembly, "each to take his part in my own ministry as
bishop."[6] No personal holiness is possible without this concern
for others; the Word of God become the law of charity in the
Christian's heart is a force within him that tends to expand, a
leaven that is to cause the whole mass of dough to rise, a light
that cannot be left covered up.
But how is this diffusion of the Word to be brought about? We
think first, obviously, of all the forms of individual or family
apostolate, for which we find many practical counsels in the
Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul (1 Pet. 3:1-2; Col. 4:5-6). We think
also of all the other forms of direct or indirect action on human
societies. The Word of God is a leaven that is to penetrate
everywhere as an invincible demand for justice and charity.
But the very nature of the New Law, which is above all interior,
and its intimate association with a liturgy which is essentially
communal should make us think also, and perhaps primarily, not
so much of the external activities of charity, of social action or of
instruction, as of action on the various kinds of mentality which
are obstacles to the formation of a truly Christian community. As
Pius XII said, the question is that of bringing the Word of God to
others "so that they will live by it...to transform them, not from
without by some superficial activity, but from within, so that they
too will begin to see...and to conceive the desire, at first
hesitating, then more assured, of changing themselves, and of
becoming in their turn, in their own surroundings, centers of
Christian life."[7]
Any activity that would transform social structures externally,
without transforming the underlying ways of thinking of the
various human groups, would not succeed in making the people
of God into the true community of life and charity which the
Eucharist signifies and requires. The Word, in judging the
"feelings and thoughts of the heart" judges also, in and through
each hearer, the mentality of his society with its more or less
conscious resistances to the leaven of the Gospel; it imposes on
him the duty to bring everything that is in himself first of all, and
then in others, within the reach of its transforming power.
Many other prolongations of the Word of God in the life of
Christians could certainly be indicated; it would be impossible to
mention them all. But what we must still consider is the course
which this Word should take from the moment when, in some
fashion, it has reached the non-practicing Catholic or the non-
Christian.
FROM PROCLAMATION IN LIFE TO THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATION
As we said at the beginning of this essay, the Word of God
proclaimed in the liturgy reaches directly practicing Catholics
only. Yet this proclamation in the liturgy, by its very nature,
demands extension into every human activity in which Christians
engage, in this way it is to come into contact with all those
engaged in the same activities.
But there remains the other difficulty which we have already
pointed out--the opposition between the message of the Bible and
the mentality of the modern world, or, simply, of the pagan world
in general whether it is a question of the difficulties due to the
material presentation of the sacred Books, or of those more
profound ones due to the nature of the message itself, the
scandal of the Cross.
As we saw in the first part of our discussion, the Word of God is
not only an external message but a living force, a law written in
the hearts of Christians, one which should vivify their whole life;
understood in this way, it is clear that the terms of the problem
are profoundly altered. We are led to consider the problem of the
position of the unbeliever in relation to the Biblical message as
translated into the life of Christians. What might be the advance
of the Word of God in a listener of good will from the very first
contacts until the day when he is finally led to take part himself
in the liturgical assembly gathered for the Eucharist?
Doubtless there is a real danger here--that of a priorism which
does not take into account either the mystery or personal liberty,
nor, above all, the infinitely varied activity of God's grace. Yet
even here, the teaching of the Bible and of tradition does not
leave us without some elements of a solution, and it may be
useful to mention them briefly.
The Presentation of the Message of the Bible
To begin with, taking into account the conclusions of the first
part of this essay, how would the message of the Bible ordinarily
be presented to the unbeliever?
There are, certainly, cases in which a direct presentation of the
Word, written or preached, to men of good will obtains at once its
full effect; in our day there are still men who are seeking God and
whom an apostolic word reaches with no effort, with the all-
powerful aid of grace; so the eunuch from Ethiopia needed only
Philip's explanations to come to the faith; similarly, the centurion
Cornelius.
Ordinary believers also can carry the Word directly to their
unbelieving brothers. After the martyrdom of Stephen, "all, except
the apostles, were scattered abroad throughout the land of Judea
and Samaria now those who were scattered abroad went about
preaching the Word" (Acts 8:1-4). Soon the same scattered
believers "went all the way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch,
speaking the Word to none but Jews only. But some of them were
Cyprians and Cyreneans, who on reaching Antioch began to speak
to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the
Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned to
the Lord" (Acts 11:19-21).
Yet the fact must always be emphasized that, even in such cases
of a direct proclamation of the message, the question is not
simply of contact with a written or spoken word, it is not a dead
letter which is presented to the hearer; to this is added the living
witness, the contact with a contemporary engaged in the same
daily life and work and so witnessing to his certitude and his
faith.
Frequently, moreover, and for innumerable reasons, any direct
witness to the Word is impossible. St. Peter foresaw such cases
when he wrote to Christian wives: "In like manner also let wives
be subject to their husbands, so that even if any do not believe
the Word, they may without the Word be won through the
behavior of their wives, observing reverently your chaste
behavior" (1 Pet. 3:1-2). And, in a more general way: "Behave
yourselves honorably among the pagans; that, whereas they
slander you as evildoers, they may, through observing your good
works, glorify God in the day of visitation" (1 Pet. 2:12). In all
such cases the question is one of the witness given by the whole
of Christian life, a witness which is summed up in one word:
charity.
Charity, first of all, among Christians themselves. We cannot
insist too much on the importance of this witness, for Christ told
us that this is the special sign of His own mission: "That all may
be one, even as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee; that they also
may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent
Me...I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in
unity, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me and
that Thou hast loved them even as Thou hast loved Me" (John
17:21-23).
This unity of Christians in charity should, then, be such that it
arouses the wonder of non-Christians, as being a real moral
miracle which discloses the very presence of the power of God.
Here again, we know that this should be a normal fruit of the
Eucharistic liturgy, as the ceremony of Holy Thursday reminds us
with such insistence.
Charity also to those outside the Church. The unbeliever ought to
be able to see this love at work not only among Christians but in
their attitude toward all mankind, and, here and now, toward
himself.[8] Then the Word of God will cease to seem merely an old
and venerable book, good at most for archeologists and Oriental
scholars. He will hear this Word addressing him personally, as an
invitation or a call. Every real love is an invitation to enter into
communion with him who loves, to accept the good that he offers
us; every love of true Christian charity should, then, appear as an
invitation to participate in the truth and the blessings that give
meaning to this charity "which sums up the Law and the
Prophets," that is to say, as an invitation to enter into Biblical
history itself.
For this is precisely the question--one of a history of salvation, a
history not only of the past but of the present, always living,
always active, tending toward the realization of the true welfare
of all mankind, toward its salvation. The charity of Christians
should be such as to manifest through their whole lives the
infinite Love of which their own love is only a feeble echo, the
Love that vivifies the whole history of salvation and continues to
solicit the love of the human heart, as in the time of Abraham and
of the prophets, and, above all, as it was manifested in Christ.
But this will not come about unless Christians themselves have
truly made the Christian law the law of their deepest being; they
must make it, not simply a code of morals, wholly external, a
collection of observances or customs which have frequently lost
their true significance, but the very love of Christ at work in
them, which leads them in turn to sacrifice themselves for the
salvation of the world.
If only Christians who approached an unbeliever were true
Christians, engaged in their vocation with their whole soul, aware
of their role in the continuing history of salvation, but also
wholly present in the current history of the world, manifesting in
all their actions the invisible power of the charity which is the
soul and the summary of the whole history of salvation--could
the unbeliever help bring profoundly affected? The question is
how to bring about a real contact with the Bible, with that
wonderful history of the people of God, the great stages of which
the Apocalypse describes in advance, which is, finally, the
history of the initiatives taken by Love to save the world.
Thus the presentation of the Word of God, concretely, is infinitely
diversified; each Christian is to translate it into the myriad forms
of his own life. The workman ought to be able to perceive it in his
companion at work, the intellectual in the behavior of his
companions in study. This was the great intuition of Pius XI when
he stated the necessity for the apostolate of "like by like."
And it is also by this means, not only that the Word of God will
reach each man in his own language, but also that with the grace
of God the scandal of the Cross can be surmounted. It is only love
that can make attractive and desirable what is so repugnant to
our nature; sacrifice, mortification, and such requirements can
only seem legitimate if they are understood to be a requirement
of saving love.
It is the task of each Christian to make comprehensible to the
world by his own life that when he refuses impurity, egoism or
hatred, he does not do so out of a kind of superstitious respect
for an external law or out of fear of some punishment, but
because he has chosen freely, following his Master, to be led by
love alone and so to refuse everything that is incompatible with
that love: "The children of God," St. Thomas writes, "are led by
the Holy Spirit freely, under the impulse of love, and not as
slaves are, by fear That man acts like a slave who, from fear of
the law only, abstains from doing what he continues to desire to
do...he is the slave of the law, not its friend."[9]
Catholic life should give the same impression of freedom that it
produced on the Russian thinker Rozanov: "With them discipline
is free: Brothers, you are called to heroism, to a most difficult
life, but remain free....Yes, we are going to carry out great and
hard deeds, but we are going to do so freely....This dialogue
constitutes the soul of Catholicism."[10]
The Presentation of the liturgy
We may hope that many men of good will, led in this way, if not
to understand fully, at least to consider the Biblical message with
esteem and sympathy, may be further led to question themselves.
Here again the Word of God as it manifests itself in the life of
their Christian brothers comes to judge them, to invite them to a
revision of their lives. What would be the normal goal of this
progress of the Word in such persons? Would it be enough if it
led them to repent, to change their lives, or even personally to
read and meditate on the Bible? In other words, would it be
enough to lead them, by example or by the Word, to lead a moral
life, to pray, to carry out to the greatest possible extent the
spiritual worship of a virtuous life, of doing good, or even of
personal prayer in the Name of Christ and through Christ?
All this would certainly constitute a most important step, but we
know that it is not enough; the Acts of the Apostles indicate this
on every page. The Ethiopian who was returning from Jerusalem
was a religious man who made pilgrimages and read the prophet
Isaias; but he still needed to hear the teaching of Philip the
deacon and to receive baptism at his hand. The preaching of the
Bible carried out by the Church leads to the liturgical celebration,
to baptism.
Nor is baptism the final goal. A number of Samaritans had already
been baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus. But then Peter and
John "laid their hands upon them that they might receive the Holy
Spirit" (Acts 8:17). There is no need to mention more examples.
We all know that a conversion is complete only when a man has
fully entered into the people of God which is the Church. And the
Church is not simply an invisible society of just or predestined
men, but the very Body of Christ, prolonging here below, by
human actions that are the bearers of truth and grace, the life-
giving presence of the incarnate Word.
To accept the Bible for what it truly is means to accept it as God's
invitation to enter into the history of salvation, the great stages
of which it describes. And each man who enters into the Church
must relive in his personal life these decisive stages in the life of
God's people, in the mystery of a communal liturgy.
Like the people of God held captive in Egypt, he must agree to
enter into the mystery of the Pasch, of deliverance from sin, to
hear the call that God transmits to him by His official
representatives and, passing through the water of baptism, be
united to those who on the banks of the Jordan sing the canticle
of Moses and the canticle of the Lamb (Apoc. 15:3).
Then, with the people on pilgrimage he must agree to enter into
the mystery of Pentecost, to approach, not to Sinai, "a mountain
that may be touched, and a burning fire, and whirlwind and
darkness and storm, and sound of trumpet...but to Jesus,
Mediator of a New Covenant" (Heb. 12:18ff.), to engage personally
in this covenant and to become the witness of the law of the
Spirit by the sacrament of confirmation.
And, finally, he must seal this covenant and renew it periodically
by participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice and nourish himself
during his pilgrimage toward the true Land of Promise with the
true Bread of Heaven, of which the manna was only an image.
In a word, the only real acceptance of the message of the Bible is
that which leads a man to enter into Biblical history itself,
continued in the life of the Church and especially in its liturgy.
The Epistle to the Hebrews says: "not forsaking our assembly"
(10:28), and these words are to be understood above all, as F. J.
Schierse[11] has recently shown, of the liturgical assembly.
It is here that every convert must finally be united with the whole
Christian people to hear the Word of God proclaimed officially by
those who have received the charge of doing so: "In the liturgical
function," said A. Bea, S.J., speaking to the Assisi Congress, "the
shepherd of souls speaks not as the president of an association
or director of a club or professor in a scholastic chair. Here the
priest speaks as a priest, as teacher and guide of the souls
entrusted to him, deputy of God, appointed and sent by the
bishop, successor of the apostles."[12] And the Epistle to the
Hebrews, again, says of the rebellious Jews: "But the word that
was heard did not profit them, since they did not remain in
communion with those who heard" (4:2).
And it is not only to hear the proclamation of the Word of God
that one must come to the liturgy. Since, as we have said, the
sacraments cause us to enter into the people of God, each of the
members of this people must be united in the community prayer
which is, according to the expression of Pius XII, "the worship of
the whole Mystical Body." And we cannot doubt that this prayer,
itself wholly inspired by the Bible, is the truest means of
rendering us capable of hearing the Word of God as God wishes it
to be heard. For if it is true that "no prophecy of Scripture is
made by private interpretation" (Rom. 8:27) and only the Holy
Spirit can cause us to enter into the true thought of the Bible, it is
also certain that only an interior attitude of docility can give us
habitual entrance to the school of the Spirit: "Take heed,
therefore, how you hear," warns our Lord (Luke 8:18).
Now this attitude of interior docility is the fruit of prayer, and of
a prayer which is "according to God" (Rom. 8:27); there is no more
certain guarantee of true prayer than to unite oneself with the
official prayer of the Church, for of ourselves "we do not know
what we should pray for as we ought" (Rom. 8:26). In this way the
liturgy little by little forms the Christian character, according to
the desire of Solomon for "a heart that knows how to listen" (1
Kings 3:9). The Word of God, falling onto good ground, produces
fruit "in one case a hundredfold, in another sixtyfold, and in
another thirtyfold" (Matt. 13:23).
Here again, to bring the non-Christian to desire and to accept this
participation in the liturgical life of the Church, how important is
the witness of those already participating! How can he
understand that the liturgy is the concrete means of entering into
the people of the New Covenant if he does not see us practice in
our whole lives the charity which the covenant should have
inscribed in our hearts? How can the Eucharistic assembly appear
to those outside the Church as being the sign and the source of
Christian love if we do not manifest this love outside the limits of
the sanctuary, if we do not go out determined to live up to its
requirements? The recent studies of Bo Reicke and certain of the
papers given at the national Eucharistic Congress at Barcelona
have strongly insisted on this essential bond between the
Eucharist and charity: if this bond is not visible, the Christian
liturgy will not show its true face to the world.
And, finally, if Christians seem to have little affection for the
liturgy, if they participate in it only to the extent to which they
are obliged to do so by an external law, what a sad idea they give
of it! If, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says, the people freed from
Egypt approached Sinai in an atmosphere of fear and trembling to
receive the first covenant, the new people of God should
approach the Sacrifice of the New Covenant and all the other rites
connected with it in quite a different disposition. This is a
Eucharist, a thanksgiving which we celebrate, united to "the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of
angels, and to the Church of the first-born who are enrolled in the
heavens" (Heb. 12:22-23).
How can anyone believe that we are risen with Christ, "reborn,
not from corruptible seed, but from incorruptible, through the
Word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23), if we do not show in our liturgical
assemblies and in our eagerness to participate in them that
atmosphere of paschal joy which befits the Eucharist? In a word,
the liturgy of the Church can only show its true face to those
outside the Church if Christians practice in their life what the
liturgical mysteries signify.
CONCLUSION
It has often been remarked that in the New Testament the
technical terms designating worship, liturgy, sacrifices, and even
the priesthood, are almost always used to mean the Christian life
or the apostolate; the fact is so striking that certain exegetes and
non-Catholic theologians have tried to conclude from it to a lack
of all external liturgical worship, or at least of any real sacrifice.
While, of course, we cannot accept this conclusion, the usage of
the New Testament nonetheless remains extremely significant,
for it reminds us that each liturgical celebration has meaning and
value only to the extent to which it is bound up with the life of
Christians united to their Head in carrying out the same work of
the salvation of the world.
If the Word of God has been made flesh, it is to bring back to the
Father, in the unique Sacrifice that gives meaning to our liturgy,
the whole of redeemed mankind. If the Word of God is still
addressed to us today in the liturgy, it is to continue this work of
the Word incarnate, so that we may make up in our own flesh
what is wanting to the sufferings of Christ.
Here we must beware of a certain misunderstanding. It is rightly
said that the purpose of the liturgy is to procure the glory of God.
Nothing could be more exactly true. But there is a tendency to
forget that this glory of God is, according to the expression of
theologians His extrinsic glory, that is to say, the knowledge that
men may have of Him and His wonderful works, a knowledge
such that it expands in praise: clara cum laude notitia. Recent
studies have reminded us of this: no worship, no liturgy, however
splendid or solemn, procures the glory of God except to the
extent to which it leads men better to know and to serve their
God. As St. Irenaeus said long ago and as St. Thomas repeated
after him, it is for the good of men, and only for this good, that
God requires liturgical worship; to lose sight of this purpose
would be to take away from our liturgy all its meaning.
The day will come when the sacramental cult will cease and the
Word of God will make itself heard with no intermediary in the
inmost depths of our hearts. In the heavenly Jerusalem there will
no longer be any external temple, for "the Lord God almighty and
the Lamb are the temple thereof" (Apoc. 21:22). There will no
longer be in it any intermediary to proclaim the Word of God:
"The city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the
glory of God lights it up and the Lamb is the lamp thereof" (Apoc.
21:23).
But, here and now, our Christian worship, by inscribing in our
hearts the Word of the covenant, renders us capable of preparing
by all our good works for the nuptial liturgy of heaven: "For the
marriage of the Lamb has come, and His spouse has prepared
herself. And she has been permitted to clothe herself in fine
linen, shining, bright. For the fine linen is the just deeds of the
saints" (Apoc. 19:7-8).
ENDNOTES
1. "Etudes de Pastorale Liturgique, Lex Orandi," 1, p. 380.
2. "La conversion au christianisme durant les premiers siecles,"
(Paris, 1949), p. 284.
3. Cf. Origen, "Contra Celsum," VII, 9.
4. "Divin. Instit.," V, 1 and 2.
5. Allocution at the Assisi Congress, "The Assisi Papers"
(Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1957), p. 226.
6. P.G., 62:499.
7. Discourse to the "Rinascita Cristiana. Osserv. Rom.," 7 Nov.
1956.
8. In this connection, cf. in H. U. von Balthasar, "Science, Religion
and Christianity" (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1959), the
chapter on "The Sacrament of the Brother." (Edit. note)
9. "Contra Gent.," IV, 22.
10. Quoted by S. Tyszkiewicz in "Nouv. Rev. Theol." (Dec., 1952),
p. 1071.
11. "Verheissung und Heilsollendung," (Munich, 1955).
12. "The Assisi Papers," (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press,
1957), p. 84.
CHAPTER 10: THE LITURGY AND THE WORD OF GOD IN PARISH
LIFE IN THE GERMAN DIASPORO
Most Rev. Otto Spuelbeck
SINCE I WAS INVITED to discuss the Bible and the liturgy as
realities in parish life, I am taking the liberty of handling this
subject, not from the viewpoint of an ordinary German parish,
but of those in the great cities of the "diaspora," that is to say, the
dispersion of a weak Catholic minority among the whole
population. This diaspora in the great cities presents at once
special difficulties and special possibilities, and the exposition of
these will, I trust, help to shed light on our subject.
In the great city of Leipzig, of which I am going to speak and in
which I have exercised the ministry for twenty years, the number
of Catholics is a "negligible quantity," hardly 6% of the
population. A parish in this great city takes on the aspect of a
paroikia, leading a life apart, alongside of the political
community, in which each person individually has the feeling of
being a paroikos, that is, a stranger, in the sense that the word is
used in St. Peter's First Epistle (2:11). The city of Leipzig is part of
the diocese of Meissen, which includes the ancient land of Saxony
and has some 7-8% Catholics in a population of six million. This
diocese is almost as large as the dioceses of Strasbourg, Nancy
and Metz put together.
The situation of the diaspora in such a large city was aggravated
by the attacks of the Nazis; it is characterized today in a special
way by the militant atheism to which the political situation
exposes us. The Soviet occupation forces give complete freedom
of action to Marxist atheism. Our Catholics are a minority as
compared to the Protestants, and their faith is exposed to the
permanent menace of Soviet atheism as taught in all the schools,
universities and professional schools and dominating all the
newspapers. Private or Catholic schools are forbidden.
How, in such a situation, can the life of faith of a parish
community be developed? It is with profound gratitude to God
that we say: Catholic life does indeed flourish, and the tried
fidelity of our Catholics enjoys a special blessing.
To explain this, I will first give an analysis of our religious
situation. Protestantism in central Germany has turned away from
church. In this country, which counts 90% of the population as
baptized evangelical Christians, only 1% in the country and, at
most, 2% in the cities attend Sunday worship. In addition to the
Protestants who do attend their churches, there are some 8%
convinced Christians who take the Biblical Word of God seriously
and call themselves evangelicals even though they do not attend
any church.
As to the religious activity of our Catholics, the situation is
numerically more favorable. At Leipzig we have more than 33% as
participants in Sunday worship. In spite of the great distances
involved Catholics do attend holy Mass. But what does this mean
in the normal life of Leipzig? Out of every hundred people, only
four at the most, Catholics and Protestants included, go to
church; 96% have become strangers, if not actually hostile, to any
church. In the consciousness of the man on the street the Church
plays no part.
At Leipzig, this alienation from the Protestant Church has gone so
far that, according to the superintendent of the Protestant Church
in the past twenty-five years more than a hundred thousand
children have not been baptized; in other words, within this great
city another great city has been formed no longer having any
contact with religion, Christianity, or the Church. The latter has
become a foreign body, a relic of times gone by. And this is
especially true of the Catholic Church. The question of the truth
of the Christian message no longer even arises. Places of work--
the factory, the office and public life-are strangers to everything
religious.
To this is added the massive attack of political atheism. Whoever
desires advancement must declare himself to have no
connections with any church. On one's identification card is
noted the fact of not belonging to any church. Since the Church
does not exercise any attraction on people, nobody hesitates thus
to separate himself from it definitively.
According to Marx, "religion is the opium of the people"; and this
is proclaimed everywhere by propaganda. Buildings of worship
are called "places to meet the fumes of opium" (Boukharine).
Cartloads of mud gathered up in anti-clerical publications are
thrown at the Church. We have neither the right to defend
ourselves nor the possibility of doing so. True, we have a
Catholic publishing house and a weekly religious paper, "The Day
of the Lord," of which we print some 125,000 copies. But the total
number of the faithful who attend church in the Democratic
Republic of Germany is 600,000. All discussion with Marxism is
made impossible. So the environment in which our Catholics live
is wholly poisoned, either by a liberal Protestantism turned away
from the Church, or by a militant atheism of Soviet manufacture.
Up to the end of the last war, our diocese counted 190,000
Catholics, who even then were insufficiently served by the
existing ecclesiastical organization. By the evacuations of the
East, of Silesia, of East Prussia, of Czechoslovakia, and Hungary,
290,000 more Catholics have been added, so that today the
number of Catholics is two and a half times greater than before
the war. These people are scattered throughout the whole
country; worship is celebrated once a month, sometimes in the
dance-hall of a hotel, sometimes in the Protestant church or a
school hall.
How can the life of faith expand in such poverty and in this
poisoned atmosphere? Is it not condemned to perish? Everything
is lacking that might support faith: the living, praying
community, the beautiful church of one's own, the experience of
feasts and celebrations, religious environment, Catholic books,
chant books, prayer books, religious publications. And we live in
surroundings that are foreign and even hostile to the Church.
And yet, certain conditions, certain favorable antecedents have
allowed us to accomplish something in this desperate situation.
1) The Catholics of the diaspora before the war remained faithful.
Our parishes were established from fifty to a hundred years ago
and were composed of fervent believers, originally from Catholic
regions, from Bavaria, the Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia. Coming
into a Protestant society, formerly they preserved their faith.
Since that time many apostatized; a certain number still remained
faithful. Thus years ago a selection had already been made of
those who with unshakable fidelity gathered around their Church
and their pastors. This remnant of some 25-30% had preserved
their faith at the price of many struggles and controversies. They
still bore the scars of the wounds sustained in this combat. It was
an elite--of men, it is true, not of saints--but of tried Catholic
fidelity, filled with an apostolic and missionary spirit.
2) There was the trial of the Nazi era. These Catholics were once
more hardened and tried in the times of Hitler; the chaff was
separated from the good grain. Many weakened; others, however,
went from an indifferent to an active religious life. The trial was
severe but it was salutary. Almost every parish community had a
martyr, men who compromised themselves for the Jews or for the
workers for a foreign power, and because of this they were shut
up in concentration camps and died there. The sufferings of
these valiant men and women bore fruit. Their suffering and their
death drew down God's blessing on our sadly isolated diaspora.
3) Now we are suffering the trial by Marxism. We were prepared
for it by the two previous ones. If we may make any such
summary judgment, we might even say that the Marxist ideology
has gained no ground in the sphere of the Catholic Church. On
the contrary magnificent examples give witness to an unshakable
perseverance in the faith. The massive attacks against the faith
have forced our Catholics to thought and to discussion, and many
have thus come to know their faith more profoundly, to love it
and to practice it.
Under these circumstances, one might think that our Christian
life must have been reduced to a kind of catacomb existence, in
which nothing could be kept but the minimum necessary for
administering the sacraments and teaching doctrine, as if we had
to live on "iron rations." But actually things have turned out
differently. In this hard dialectic and this incessant trial imposed
by the atheistic atmosphere, our faithful have gained a more
perceptive regard for what is essential and fundamental. Our
religious life in the diaspora does not have at its disposal many
rich and varied forms from which one may choose according to
one's taste and for enjoyment. All the same, our faithful demand
religious forms and celebrations; but they want those which will
sustain them and help them to carry the day's burden.
We were all in agreement on the fact that the Sunday Mass is the
decisive function of our pastoral ministry. Its celebration should
be at the same time a fitting form of worship, a school of prayer,
a catechesis in the faith, and a radiant center of life. This is why
our first pastoral task is and always will be the proper carrying
out of the sacred liturgy, but in a way adapted to the parish. What
is primary should also call for the most joyful and intense effort.
To this end, we all took the resolution not to refuse any amount
of work and not to be afraid of any loss of time. Conscious of our
responsibility, we prepared with great care for the celebrations in
our parishes, so threatened in their faith; we were especially
heedful of the choice of hymns, of the selection of readers and
prayer-leaders, of the formation of servers. And in addition to the
servers, very vital groups of young people have been formed, the
choir of readers and prayer-leaders, who became indispensable to
us for a worthy celebration of Sunday Mass.
In this way we succeeded in founding, in the midst of this
otherwise disastrous dispersion, ardent centers of true liturgical
prayer. The work of the Oratorians of Leipzig, who for many
years have carried on the work of the liturgical education and
formation of the Christian people, is well known. Our people
must be able to live from the celebration and the preaching given
at it. This is the "iron ration" that we have to dispense, and this
must suffice for a whole week. There is no room for any
accessory religious decoration nor for any refinements; here the
kind of bread offered must be substantial, a nourishment that
will vivify, fortify and strengthen souls.
We asked ourselves, also, whether we should not first of all
defend the faith against these many attacks. But we refused any
cheap apologetics. The Word of the Lord in St. John's Gospel was
our guide: "If anyone desires to do the will of God, he will know
whether my teaching comes from God, or whether I speak on my
own authority" (John 7:17). Unbelief that is tired, desperate or
skeptical will not let itself be overcome by arguments but only by
actions. We must practice the faith, and then the heart will be
inflamed. Unbelief that is aggressive and enthusiastic, such as is
preached by the Marxists, can only be conquered by a faith that is
more enthusiastic. A heart filled with love and ardor kindles
others also and conquers everything. What is decisive is to have a
heart filled with Christ, full of burning love for Christ.
It was evident, then, that an immediate contact with Christ was
essential and, consequently, that the Eucharistic celebration must
be our first concern, and not didactic and explanatory sermons.
The parish community lives from the Eucharist. We have often
experienced this fact. When we tried to assemble the faithful for
works of charity or for meetings of parish groups, or to gather the
children together for religious instruction, we would never reach
more than a part of the faithful each time. But when holy Mass
was celebrated, and this often in poor and primitive localities,
the faithful came from all sides. We did not know them as yet; but
they knew Christ and let themselves be gathered together by Him.
The Eucharist has the power to build communities. We have
living examples of this fact.
Thus the Eucharistic celebration became of itself the rallying
point for the diaspora. It was necessary for us, then, to arrange
this celebration in such a way that modern man, so active, might
himself be active in it. He must be concerned in the celebration of
the Mass and stimulated to active participation. The man of today
is disposed to assume some responsibility in his social group and
to take part in activity. If this is refused him, he becomes
uninterested and soon is lost in the passive crowd.
There could be no question, therefore, of devoting our effort to
liturgical refinements or to any formalism; the question was to
create a living community, ready to participate actively, not
remaining silent as at a play or spectacle. The parish must grow
in vigor--then it would be capable of missionary action and by its
vitality reanimate dead members. As in certain German dioceses
the Reform was checked by allowing the Latin high Mass to be
celebrated with hymns in the German language, in a similar way
the faith has been saved among us. And the familiarity of the
priests with the faithful people of our diaspora has greatly
facilitated the work.
The custom of the parishioners' taking part in the prayers, the
hymns and the acclamations, the alternation between the prayer-
leader, the reader, the choir are so well established that there are
no more private or low Masses. Even the Gloria, for instance, is
taken up, when an organist is lacking, in a German hymn which
the priest at the altar frequently has to intone himself, but the
community sings a hymn of God's glory. Or else the parts proper
to the people are prayed together aloud.
How often have I celebrated Mass during these last ten years in
prisons, under the most difficult circumstances, with no organist,
no server, no sacristan! And with what intensity have the men
and women present celebrated the Mass with me, praying and
singing together. Only a few words are needed to explain its
structure, so understandable and natural are the dialogue prayers
of the liturgy. It is most important, then, to emphasize the value
of this kind of dialogue.
I experienced this afresh a few weeks ago when at Neue-Zelle,
near Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, I conferred priestly ordination on
three deacons. A great cross, placed on the altar in the open air,
saluted, as it were the country of Silesia across the Oder, which
now belongs to Poland. Around the altar some 2,500 people were
assembled to assist for the first time at an ordination. All of them
had been driven out of that country, their homeland, beyond the
Oder. There I experienced the profound meaning of the sacred
dialogue when the bishop, facing that country that they had left
with so much suffering and addressing these young people with
no homeland, gave the acclamation: Pax vobis, and they all
replied courageously: Et cum spiritu tuo. It is this dialogue form,
this living acclamation, the singing and prayer of the people that
have welded together the community of our faithful.
What always matters is the Sacrifice of the Lord. This Christ who
offers Himself--I must see Him, I must feel Him present, meet
Him and wholly unite myself with Him. To meet the violent
attacks of unbelief requires valiant hearts filled with the love of
Christ. Without Him we cannot withstand the enemy. Our own
miseries and cares, our own sufferings must be poured into the
Sacrifice of the Lord, and this needs to be expressed in a visible
way. It is not enough to explain this and to cause people to
realize it interiorly. It is not enough spiritually to place one's own
offering on the paten of the priest.
Each of the faithful, therefore, without any commotion places in
the cup a little host which represents his own poverty and
weakness; then after the Credo the subdeacon, or the servers at a
recited Mass, carry this cup in procession to the altar in the name
and in the place of the faithful.
This Offertory procession has come to be of capital importance to
us. At the entrance of the church are placed the table of offerings,
a cup with the hosts, a silver spoon to place the hosts on the
paten, which in this case is a ciborium. No great explanation is
needed. The faithful understand its significance at once. Whoever
wishes to communicate places his host in the ciborium on
entering the church, and at the moment of the Offertory
procession everyone present spontaneously stands up, without
needing any command, and thus associates himself visibly with
the rite. The offering is consecrated and changed into the Body of
Christ and distributed at Communion: ex hac altaris
participatione. Then we can sing the song of triumph: Christus
vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!
I consider this Offertory procession, carried out by the ministers
or servers in the name and in the place of the whole community,
as being a decisive act in the Mass. In the principal church of
Leipzig, where I exercised the ministry for a long time, some
4,000 of the faithful come to Mass, and each Mass has this
Offertory procession.
I deny the objection that such a procession is not possible in a
big city parish where the congregation is constantly changing. I
have tried it out during periods of continual change in
membership, when Sunday after Sunday many strangers took part
in the celebration. The regularity of the Offertory procession
formed the community to such a point that even at the solemn
high Mass on feastdays, which could not begin before 11:30, we
distributed hundreds of Communions. To become integrated in
Christ and His Sacrifice--this is what matters but this must be
brought about in a living way with rites and gestures that are
expressive and dynamic.
When the love of Christ inflames the heart of a Christian, then he
is also capable of defending his faith and of perceiving what is
essential. Here are two examples: in the time of the Nazis, when
the Church was being severely oppressed, a young man, about
nineteen years old, came to hunt me up. It was certainly a
moment of grace when he confessed to me, "I am not good. My
father and mother are not happy about me, nor am I about
myself. But I know one thing: I love Christ our Lord."
Another quite recent example, again of a young man about twenty
years old. The Communist organization "Free German Youth," as
well as his comrades at work, had been trying to force him to
leave the Catholic Youth organization and to enroll in the
people's police. For three days he had to keep on answering his
seven questioners: "Come with us. What have you got to do with
priests? It is we who have science; the future is ours. With us you
can get somewhere." At the end he did not know what to say, but
he answered them spontaneously: "Among the Catholic Youth I
find what you do not have and cannot give me: I find Christ, and
He is what I want." After this frank profession of his attachment
to Christ they left him alone.
It is Christ whom we must have. To have recognized this fact in
our desperate situation, does not this justify the course on which
we have embarked? Does this not bring back every kind of
teaching of the faith to the simplest and most direct path? What
is the essence of Christianity? Here is the answer: Christianity is
Christ. The liturgy, when it is dynamic, that is to say, set in action
and clearly dialogued, is the power of the Christian of the
diaspora in his life-and-death struggle for his faith. What we
experience on Palm Sunday during the acclamations to Christ, on
Good Friday during the adoration of the Cross, on the night of
Easter during the acclamation to the new light: Lumen Christi! Deo
Gratias!, only the further confirms us in our convictions. This
confidence in the sacred efficacy of the liturgy sustains,
nourishes and strengthens our faith.
But participation in the sacred action is still not all that is needed
to enter into union with Christ; for faith comes from hearing. We
must, therefore, break the bread of the Word. The mind also
needs to be nourished in the way that is proper to it. It is
necessary not only to receive the bread of life in the holy
Eucharist, but also the bread of the Word in preaching and
prayer. At each Sunday Mass throughout the whole year we have
preaching, although this preaching must always be brief. (Longer
didactic sermons are given only in the afternoon or evening at
special services.) Such continual proclamation of the Word gives
it the weight and the penetrating quality that come from
something carried out regularly. This breaking of the bread of the
Word Sunday after Sunday, and again during the week in Masses
for young people, for women, has opened out hearts and
nourished minds.
In our region the Bible has retained to the present day, thanks to
Protestantism, a high degree of prestige. Even those who have
given up the articles of faith greatly esteem the Bible, if only as
the book of a sublime way of living, full of wisdom and deep
reflection. Thus our faithful are naturally open to the Biblical
Word. There are many people who, while turning away from the
churches, find inspiration in and live by the Biblical sayings for
each day of the year published by the Fraternal Union of the Free
Church of the Moravian Brothers, called the Herrnhut. For such
people each day is to be inspired by a word from the Bible. In the
same way, our faithful are open to the words of the Introits,
Graduals, Offertories and Communions, understanding that the
Church in celebrating the Eucharist does not formulate her own
prayers, but gives us the words of the Bible.
Thus they learn to make use of the Biblical Word for their own
prayer. Our book of diocesan prayer, Laudate, contains for the
Introit and Gradual of each Mass extra psalm verses for use in
community Masses; in the same way, for the Communion chant,
the antiphon alternates with several verses of the psalm proper
to the Sunday. The faithful are glad to be able to use the divine
Word to express the joy or the anguish of their own hearts. It is
by this means that the psalms and the sapiential Books of the Old
Testament have entered into our hearts. With great fervor our
faithful read beforehand the texts of the Sunday Mass.
Our diocesan prayer book contains the Propers of all the Sunday
and feastday Masses of the liturgical year. Many are the people
who have found that in praying these texts they have heard the
pressing call of God which accompanied them all through the day
and even through the following week. In former times our faithful
used at Mass some book of devotions containing exercises
composed by a pious author. Today they love the texts of the
Mass itself. Among our parishioners everywhere there are groups
for the study and reading of the Bible. The majority of the faithful
do not take part in such groups, yet all love their missal, which is
their familiar companion.
Thus the greatness and majesty of the divine Word of the Old
Testament are revealed to us. We have learned to know God the
all holy, all powerful, God the eternal and infinite. We understand
what it means to fear His justice, to await His judgment, to hope
in His providence. The great personages of the Old Covenant, the
prophets, the just men, stand before us in their austerity as well
as in their intimacy with God.
We have done everything possible to bring alive to our people the
imposing and venerable image of the God of the Old Covenant.
The liberal tendency of Protestantism in our land has spoiled and
enfeebled the image of God; this is why we need to bring out the
true majesty and grandeur of God, of God who causes the
mountains to tremble and shatters the forests, who raises up the
waves of the sea and calms its billows, who in our worst
distresses demands of us an unreserved confidence in His
fatherly goodness. We have seen Christians weeping when the
Nazis set fire to synagogues, because a place that was God's had
been destroyed, and we thought of the verse of the psalm: "Tears
flow in rivers from my eyes, because men do not keep Your law"
(Ps. 118).
In such surroundings there is nothing to do but to place oneself
completely on the side of God and His commandments. Our
faithful understand quite well those other words of the psalmist
when Marxism openly scoffs at God's commandments and
opposes a Communist ethic to Christian morality: "Your decrees
have become my songs, in the place where I abide" (Ps. 118:54).
Or another verse of the same psalm: "Just wrath lays hold of me
because of sinners who forsake Your law." "The law of God is in
his heart" (Ps. 88:31). Confidence in God and His protecting hand
permeates the psalms and takes hold of the faithful, who so often
lack consolation and feel themselves so forsaken. In the words of
the Mass they learn that "the Lord is near to all who call upon
Him" (Ps. 144:18), and they say: "Lord, into Your hands I
commend my spirit" (Ps. 30:6; Luke 23:45).
The so-called positive Christianity of Hitler revealed to us the
malice of Satan. Since that time we know how to pray the psalms
containing maledictions, and we would not do without them--not
that we wish to curse other men, but we have seen Satan at work
and we know that one can make no agreements with the devil.
There is only an unequivocal "No" to oppose him with, and an
absolute "Yes" to say to God. These psalms repeat to us that in
our days also the devil "goes about like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour" (1 Pet. 5:8). To resist him, we cannot
remain hesitant, unwilling to commit ourselves. We must call him
by his name. To protect ourselves against the demon we must
frankly protest against his machinations in everyday life.
Our times minimize too much the work of the Evil One; they lack
discernment of spirits. This is why we pray the psalms of
malediction and learn afresh to range ourselves with intensity
and passion on God's side. A heart that trembles but that is
entirely on God's side, taken hold of by God, turned to God, is
expressed in this prayer. One must have seen the malice of Satan
actually at work to realize the degree to which our present world
is threatened, and how supremely important it is to devote
ourselves passionately to God.
This is exactly what has happened amongst us with regard to
Soviet Marxism. Unceasingly it tries to conquer our faithful by
flattery. It says: "Religion is a private affair." We answer: "God is
not a private individual. God is the supreme, most serious reality.
God is the Lord." And when the saying of Karl Marx echoes
continually in our ears: "Religion is the opium of the people, it
stupefies men's minds," we can only protest against it
passionately and confess God with an ardent heart. For us, the
Old Testament, with its obvious struggle for the true God against
the pagan divinities, has become a book of vital importance. In
our editions of the New Testament we give as a supplement a
choice of psalms; our faithful make use of them gladly. And thus
we know to what a point the image of the God of the Old
Covenant and an attachment to Him that is filled with love is
essential to us and helps us.
If the prayer texts of the Mass are food for the soul, if they
guarantee to us the presence and help of God and enable us to
keep our heads in a life filled with cares, troubles and
difficulties, the Gospel is in a special way a meeting with Christ.
His Word resounds. We must reawaken the love of His Word. It is
now, at the present time, that we hear Him, and here and now the
question is: "What would He say today if He were in my place,
what would He do? What would He answer?"
We remind ourselves of the beautiful sentence of Adam Moehler
which he said about a century ago at Tuebingen: "Without holy
Scripture, we should be deprived of the original and special form
of Jesus' discourse; we should not know how the Man-God
actually spoke; and it seems to me that I would not wish to go on
living if I could not hear Him speak." But he added: "Without
tradition, we should not know who He is who spoke and what He
proclaimed, and the joy of knowing His manner of speaking
would disappear."[1] We hear the Word of the Lord which is
addressed not to a bygone age, but to us. He converses with us,
and we wish to answer Him.
This interior dialogue engenders in us an ardent love for Christ.
We reach out to Him, it is He whom we must never abandon! To
possess Him, that is what matters. In the discussions that take
place among us everything has an existential value and is
permeated with a warm breath, that of an impassioned love for
Christ. Christ today! This is the perpetually recurring theme of
our brief sermons: The Lord is our salvation!
Our parishioners insistently ask for books about Christ. The work
of Romano Guardini, although it demands a great effort from the
reader has gone through many editions. Under our
circumstances, it is all the more necessary that the series of
Sunday pericopes be augmented, so that the image of the Lord
may shine out in new ways in our Sunday celebrations also.
What we have just said might perhaps induce our readers to
believe that our services are frequented by congregations entirely
made up of profound and ardent believers. No, our parishioners
have their faults and imperfections like other people. But in our
poverty we have the wealth offered to us by the liturgy and the
Biblical Word. We have tried to arouse in our faithful the joy of
possessing such riches. Our people know what they have to
defend.
The massive attacks of militant atheism create clear and precise
lines of battle and fix our attention on the bridgehead to be
defended. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. In the language of the
Bible, He is the Keystone. Everything depends on Him. If, then,
not only our young people but also our adults wear a small silver
cross on their lapels it is not as the insignia of some large
organization, but a clear and frank profession of faith in Jesus
Christ crucified and risen again. With humble gratitude we dare
confess that this love of Christ has grown among us and that it
does not cease to manifest itself.
Two recent experiences confirm this. First, the pilgrimage to
Rosenthal of our diocesan youth in May 1957. On trucks,
bicycles, on foot these young people came together from the
whole diocese, to the number of 10,000. The pontifical Mass was
celebrated in the open air. 6.000 communicated, and in the
afternoon we went in pilgrimage, singing and praying under a
burning sun, to the old convent of the Cistercians of Marienstern,
some seven kilometers away. All this cost many sacrifices both of
time and money. But: Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus
imperat!
Then the celebration of Corpus Christi at Leipzig in 1957, a feast
which in our country does not fall on a holiday. Each of the
participants in the procession had to ask his employer for a day
off, the children for a holiday from school. Some 12,000 to
15,000 persons came together on this workday morning to assist
at the pontifical high Mass, to communicate and to pay homage to
the Lord by the procession.
What is it that gives us fortitude in such circumstances? It is the
Lord who lives amongst us and whom we meet continually in the
holy liturgy and in His revealing Word.
