Thursday, March 17, 2005
I would agree that we have yet to achieve a better sense of mystery. But my contention is that such a sense was far from universal before the Council. I think the use of Latin and complex rituals were a false prop, an easy way to maintain the veneer of mystery. The 1970 Rite does not exclude them, but as they were before the Council, musicians, architects, and pastors have done little to recover them. A sense of mystery is important as a means to an end (the worship of God and the sanctification of the faithful) and not the end itself. Once we achieve this sense, the work of liturgy will have begun, not ended.
Diekmann would not restore such "false props" as Latin, he said, but during past 30 years people have overemphasized God as eminent and loving, leading to times of "feel good" religion, of "clutching one another at the kiss of peace. That is unhealthy, contrary to our normal instinct of keeping a certain distance between ourselves and others." Have people emphasized God as eminent (does he mean immanent?) and loving? Yes. Has it been an over-emphasis? In some places, it takes on a sense of being false, of people pretending to love and care for others, but in reality things such as gossip, exclusion, or mean-spiritedness rule. In any human habit, there is danger of using the habit to conceal the truth. I know many abused and recovering people. Is not a proper emphasis to emphasize the love of God, rather than the seeming abandonment of God? I think breaking some of the individualist instinct of keeping distance is a good thing. But I can't argue that people have and will take it to unhealthy extremes.God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, and "eminence should be prior," he said, but it makes no sense without the complementary understanding of God as transcendent, "absolutely other." The need today, he said, is to regain "reverence, awe, a sense of wonder" for God as transcendent. "I would say the greatest spiritual danger at the present time is to take God for granted." As a means of restoring transcendence, he recommended restoration of "kneeling, genuflecting, bowing or even lying prostrate on the floor," all gestures that express "making ourselves small before God." Standing for reception of the Eucharist makes good sense because it expresses the dignity of sons and daughters of God, he said, but times for kneeling also are important.
No argument here on any point.
So is time for reverent silence, he said, "time to listen to God in the dialogue we call prayer." Although young people often become impatient with silence, "it is very distracting to be hounded by never-ending talking and singing."
I can assure you that it has been progressives who were insistent on restoring time for silence and reflection, arguing aginst pastors and others who complain the Mass takes too long, silence makes people uncomfortable, we need to get the parking lot emptied for the next Mass, silence is boring, etc.. In other words, the adversary is not the progressives, nor really the traditionalists, but the pragmatists and their false reliance on the pre-conciliar principle that if we only do the essentials of the rite, that is enough for God to work with.
Diekmann would also restore times of fasting: "We've forgotten the importance of fasting, the recognition that all things come from God. It's like the Old Testament tithing: We give our best." Fasting should be linked to almsgiving for the poor, but primarily "fasting meant a recognition of our creatureliness, the recognition of our sinfulness in not using the things of God properly." Diekmann lamented the decline in reception of the sacrament of penance. Many sins are taken away by the Eucharist he said, but "when row after row (of people) come up and receive communion, one wonders whether some are in mortal sin. ... Certainly we've lost the sense of the gravity of sin."
Again, no serious argument here. I think people who have benefitted from Twelve Step Groups and worked steps 4 and 5 are intimiately aware of this, be they Catholic or not. Sadly, I think church leadership has been lacking in the sense of the gravity of sin. Diekmann looks at the people coming to Communion. I think about the prelates who opposed John Paul II's mea culpas.
Because "a mortal sin for anybody with any sense of trying to be true to God is almost unthinkable," he is not disturbed that people no longer frequent confession. Nevertheless, he said, there is still a need for the sacrament several times a year to enable Catholics to recover their sense of God's transcendence, to realize how far they are from fulfilling their vocation to be sons and daughters of God.
Agreed. And I would urge for reconciliation rituals that support and point to the sacrament as other rituals (adoration, benediction, congresses, for example) point to the Eucharist. The Rite of Penance calls for non-sacramental services (as well as form III) but I've never been to a parish that bothered with them.
Whatever course corrections may be in order, Diekmann is buoyant about the future. Schools of liturgy have developed since the council, he noted, and dioceses throughout the nation have liturgy commissions. "Liturgical missions are now headed by people who know something about the liturgy, about its meaning and values," he said. "We have people now who go by not merely what they feel is good or think is good for themselves but what corresponds to the inner dynamics of liturgy and to the best tradition. There was nobody before the council. I, for instance, had no training in liturgy." Diekmann's principal reason for optimism, however, "is the Holy Spirit. If he has seen fit to give us the Vatican Council" with all its benefits, "we must trust him. ... If the council was so unique, we can only spoil it if we are damn fools."
I would share Diekmann's optimism. We're better placed to do good work than we were fifty, or even twenty years ago, despite nearsightedness from the curia. I want to put that quote in bold somewhere on my sidebar.
