Catholic Sensibility

The principal architects of Sacrosanctum Concilium (Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy) were Johannes Wagner, Aimé-Georges Martimort, and Pierre-Marie Gy. Père Gy, a French Dominican who passed away in 2004, gave a rambling Père Marquette Lecture in Theology at Marquette University on the Feast of the Presentation, 2003, on a topic that interests us all: “The Reception of Vatican II: Liturgical Reforms in the Life of the Church.” But, first, a humorous story. When the question of Episcopal vestments was raised at the commission in charge of liturgical reform at Vatican II, a European archbishop, thought to be a well-known liturgist, argued that the vestments should remain “as they always were.” Nobody was willing to question him. Wishing to press his point, the archbishop then noticed that a Japanese bishop was seated opposite him and added, “Episcopal vestments for us are like the kimono is for you” (vestes episcoporum apud nos sunt sicut kimono apud vos). The Japanese bishop replied, “The kimono for us is like pajamas are for you” (Kimono apud nos est sicut pajama apud vos). Anyway, Père Gy begins by noting the direct involvement of Pope Paul VI in the reform of the liturgy, especially regarding the question of the vernacular - of which the then-Cardinal Montini had spoken in favor at the very beginning of the Council. Paul VI was also careful to listen to minorities – Père Gy’s friend and fellow Dominican, Yves Congar, would remember how, when going to Castel Gandolfo, the Pope would bring along the main arguments offered by the minority to whatever conciliar document happened to be the most contentious at the time. Another humorous story. The cardinal and bishops of the liturgical commission accepted, for the Ritual of Marriage, the words, “I, N., take you, N., for my lawful wife (husband), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” Paul VI asked whether it was right to say “for richer or poorer,” wondering, “If these words were adopted and then used in Calcutta, could they be understood to suggest that Christianity wants to make people poor?” Père Gy says, “I agreed that we could safely leave out these two words.” Père Gy also helps us clarify the question of “active participation.” Before Vatican II, it was thought that the sole celebrant of the Mass or Divine Office was the presiding priest or bishop. This was understood according to Canon Law’s incorporation of the Roman notion of a public person – persona publica – who had the power to act in the name of the people, the populus. Furthermore, the first liturgist to apply the word “celebrant” in an exclusive sense to the priest was Lothario di Segni. And he just happened to become Pope Innocent III (1198-1216). A bit later, “the chief novelty of the Tridentine Missal, according to (the great Austrian Jesuit liturgist) Jungmann, was the way in which it considered the private Mass as the fundamental form, the Grundtyp, of all eucharistic celebration.” In a recent article in America, Fr Keith Pecklers, SJ, writes that, “the priest had become such a predominant figure in the celebration of Mass that several bishops at the Council of Trent (1545-63) went on record with a startling proposal. Perhaps it would be better, they suggested, if the laity just stayed at home and let the priest say his Mass without the distraction of a congregation.” At least their proposal wasn’t adopted. Vatican II restored the idea of the Ecclesia, or Christian community, as the integral subject of the liturgy. This restored the importance of the text of the Eucharistic Prayer, in which the grammatical subject has been in the plural - “we” instead of “I.” The new Roman Missal in 1975 consequently replaced the word “celebrans” (celebrant), with “sacerdos-celebrans” (priest-celebrant), a specification that emphasizes that the laity too are celebrating, “offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him” (SC 48). Already, on the First Sunday of Lent, 1964, everywhere in Italy, this “sacerdos-celebrans” had turned to the congregation, and, instead of saying “Dominus vobiscum,” said, “Il Signore sia con voi.” The whole congregation then responded, “E con il tuo spirito.” The growing use of the vernacular - now far past the greeting - has led, Père Gy claims, to greater comprehension of the liturgy. In 1954, he had come to teach at the University of Notre Dame, and was told that American altar boys all thought that at the beginning of Mass, towards the end of the Confiteor, they were to say, “me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a Mexican cowboy.” The use of the vernacular has even benefited those who can translate “Mea maxima culpa” – now, for instance, the congregation can understand the Communion antiphons. The antiphon for the First Sunday of Easter, “Extend your hand and see the places of the nails” (Jn 20:25), can now be heard at the same time as communicants open their hands for the Eucharist, an ancient practice formally approved in the United States in 1977. And, concerning the Divine Office (the “Liturgy of the Hours”), Père Gy points out that in many religious orders, the tradition since the Middle Ages had been that the lay brothers recited the rosary during the choral office, because they did not know Latin. Now, says Père Gy, “the vernacular has opened to them a new and marvelous participation both in the liturgy and in the religious life of their order.” Père Gy cautions us to remember that liturgical reform takes time. At the time of the Council of Trent, the faithful very rarely took communion at Mass. Pope Pius V’s liturgists realized that all post-communion prayers were in the plural and moved to restore communion at Mass for the faithful. The first implementation of the new rubric did not take place until the 18th century, and really had to be encouraged by Pope Benedict XIV. So, patience. Père Gy’s last words in the lecture are, “If we look back to the last half century of the Church’s liturgical life in our various countries, could we not say that, in spite of a few divergences and the lack of sufficient time needed to understand the liturgical reform deeply enough, the main effect of Vatican II on our spiritual life has been our experience of a deeper participation in the liturgy?” Well, could we?