Here is the address given by Liturgical Institute director Fr. Douglas Martis during the anniversary banquet and ceremony on the occasion of the institute’s tenth anniversary on July 7th, 2010. This is a vision of liturgical renewal worth believing in!
Your Excellencies, Reverend Fathers and Deacons, members of the Catholic Faithful:
Ten years is not a long time, and yet this first decade of the 21st century has been full.
In July of the year 2000, two young men, for whom the beauty of this campus had been foreign, arrived as new pioneers, explorers on the edge of a complex ecclesiastical frontier. They immediately were seized, inspired by the vision of Cardinal Mundelein, that this place should be a center of formation for the sake of the entire Church.
Through the leadership, vision, and profoundly theological intuition of Francis Cardinal George, that the rites of the liturgy should be studied from their long-ignored sacramental perspective, these two had the audacity to launch an new liturgical endeavor into the largely sated and settled—might we even say, “stagnant”—landscape of the post- Conciliar Church.
They discovered in this campus a kind of laboratory, where the values of authentic liturgical renewal could be taught, practiced and promoted.
For a newly minted architectural historian, Denis Robert McNamara, this campus was a play-ground in Classicism an opportunity to merge and consociate theological ideas and their expression in brick and mortar. His academic and professional career reached a decisive moment when Providence brought him here. This same Providence preserved the integrity of this campus when it moved the new kid on the block to speak boldly to his superiors against illogical and incongruous architectural building. In his area of expertise he is unrivaled. There is no one in the United States today, who speaks more intelligently, more articulately, more convincingly of the sacramentality of church buildings and the urgent need to be thoughtful and deliberate about construction and renovation of churches. I am proud to call him colleague.
For the Irish-born priest, Michael Francis Mannion, whose adopted home was the territory of Mormons, whose curriculum vitæ shows him notable as pastor and rector of cathedral, as founder of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, as promoter of the Choir School of the Madeleine, as theologian, teacher and author, this endeavor was the realization of a dream to establish a school where the principles of the Second Vatican Council and genuine renewal could get a fair hearing, it was the chance to provide an environment where the rites of the Church could be allowed to speak for themselves and where their logic, truth and age-less beauty would be appreciated and fostered without partisan polemic or edgy liturgical Gnosticism. We all owe an enormous debt to Monsignor Mannion. (He is unable to join us tonight. I spoke with him a few weeks ago, he sends his congratulations.)
I have the pleasure of caring for and carrying on what others have begun.
There are different ideas about what constitutes a liturgical institute. For some, it is a center of higher learning a base of direct assistance to parishes a resource for those looking for real answers. Some have described our Institute as a kind of national (or even international) worship office.
This liturgical institute, the Liturgical Institute was founded to be a kind of next step in liturgical renewal.
Cardinal George established the Liturgical Institute to explore the connection between liturgical expression and sacramental theology. We take as our starting point the liturgical rites as given and then ask the questions about their origin, meaning, and implementation. Our purpose it not to change the liturgy but rather to help the faithful better understand and appreciate the Church’s prayer in its purest form.
Our approach is nourished by the insights of the pioneers of the twentieth century liturgical movement such as Dom Lambert Beauduin, Virgil Michel, Justina Ward: to make the treasure of the liturgy accessible to the people.
We are aware that in the future, another generation will pick up the torch and promote renewal with the same urgency and commitment that their predecessors have held. Liturgical renewal must be done in every age because each generation must claim the Church’s public prayer in the way that is consistent with its proper genius.
As people who deeply love Christ, the Church and the people, and who have been touched by liturgical renewal we must constantly remind ourselves that we are situated in an historical context that none can escape. The reality of our day and time is not that much different from earlier periods: people have perhaps always called for renewal. Folks like Hillenbrand and Hellreigel complained that the faithful were not involved in the liturgy as much as they should be, that they understood little of what was going on, that they needed to learn more and to be more serious about its celebration.
The Liturgical Institute, from its inception, has resisted being categorized as liberal or conservative, progressive or traditional. Rather than saying that we situate ourselves as part of one group or another, I believe it is more accurate to say that the Liturgical Institute is blazing its own trail. At the Liturgical institute, we believe that a return to the original insight of these liturgical pioneers with help protect us from falling into the trap of “liturgical renewal” as a slogan. We want to celebrate the liturgy as carefully as possible, to let its own beauty be revealed.
I would apply Chesterton’s famous phrase to the liturgy: “it is not that liturgical reform has been tried and found wanting, it’s that it hasn’t really been tried yet.” What we would like to see different in the liturgical experience, is not any particular aspect of the reform, but rather people’s intelligence of it. We have been seized by the foundational notions of Liturgical Movement, such as “without intelligence, there can be no worship.” (Dom Virgil Michel) We would like to see people engaged in the liturgy not as a curiosity, not as an occasional, frenzied (or ecstatic) experience, but as something that really grounds their lives as Christians.
Every aspect of the current liturgy has the potential to lead the faithful deeper into the mystery of salvation. It is our conviction, that if the mystery is not tapped into, it is not a lack of the reform, but rather symptomatic of the urgent need for liturgical renewal.
Liturgical renewal is a perennial task because the liturgy continues to reveal her treasures gradually. I like to say that the liturgy is designed for those who are in it for the long-haul, true liturgical expression cannot be reduced to a “flash in the pan” encounter. This is why the Roman liturgy is radiant with noble simplicity.
We tend to say people are participating actively if they sing, and doubt the participation of the who do not sing… but the liturgy is much more complex than that. Regardless of the form of the liturgy, the faithful will always have the ability to participate actively if the notion is correctly understood.
If people do not understand the Christian cultural symbols, even if they know what the words mean, they will derive little benefit. For example if one says “water” or “agua” or “aqua” or “wasser” or “eau” if one only thinks “H20”, then the liturgy will have little effect. The one who is literate in the Christian language will understand any of the terms as flood, and creation, and baptism at the Jordan, and water and blood flowing from the side of Christ. The one with the Christian cultural language will make an immediate connection between the wood of the cross and the Tree of Life and the Tree in the Garden of Eden and Christ as the New Adam. This, I believe, is the urgent task for us. Most liturgist are beginning to acknowledge that understanding what words in a vernacular liturgy denote is not the same as comprehending the rich and expansive nuance that the term offers.
At the Liturgical Institute, we pray in Latin and in the vernacular without stigmas. For us there is no shame in being polyglot (our community is, after all, international!) Rather we see a real benefit in terms of insight and understanding that is brought by celebration and discussion in different languages.
For us, language is not a political statement, but is seen as a natural aspect of our Catholic faith and celebration. What would our communities be like if we worshipped effortlessly in Latin and in the vernacular without hostility or aversion? We see Latin not a archaism but as heritage. Our approach is what Dr. McNamara calls an “easy orthodoxy”. We feel no need to be angry. These are the liturgical rites we’ve been given; they are what we have received. Our liturgical expression is both patristic and scholastic, it is modern and ancient. There is room for Aquinas and Augustine. We don’t have to choose one or the other. We try to balance immanence and transcendence. We see the Eucharist as the body of Christ without compromising our participation in it.
In short, all we need in the liturgy is already available to us, Like grace, as Augustine says, it is always present, but needs to be received. We have no purpose other than the praise of God and imploring the sanctification of the world If we are fortunate, the by product is community, engagement, nourishment.
Thank you for being a part of this vision. The future of liturgical renewal is here.
Rev. Douglas Martis, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Director
The Liturgical Institute