The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Let the beauty and unity of the liturgy astonish us

(En Espanol)

Pope Francis has written an apostolic letter on the liturgy titled “Desiderio Desideravi” (“On the Liturgical Formation of the People of God”).

These reflections come nearly a year after the publication of “Traditionis custodes,” a document issued by the pope on his own initiative and personally signed by him. “Traditionis custodes” restricts the celebration of the Mass which was approved by Pope St. John XXIII in 1962 prior to the Second Vatican Council, sometimes colloquially called the “Traditional Latin Mass” or the “Tridentine Mass.”

“Desiderio Desideravi” describes the Holy Father’s personal view of the meaning and purpose of the eucharistic liturgy. It also flows from his “desire to offer some prompts or cues for reflections that can aid in the contemplation of the beauty and truth of Christian celebration” (#1).

The Latin name of this new letter is a reference to the words of Jesus immediately prior to the Last Supper: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”

(Lk 22:15). The pope writes that “These words of Jesus, with which the account of the Last Supper opens, are the crevice through which we are given the surprising possibility of intuiting the depth of the love of the persons of the Most Holy Trinity for us” (#2).

Thus, like Jesus, Pope Francis earnestly desires to share with us the depth of love that is present to us each time we participate in the eucharistic liturgy. He also strongly desires that we will be united in and by the liturgy, not separated into factions, arguing over which form of the Mass is more authentic.

Of course, a thin line separates diversity in the sacred liturgy—which has been a feature of the Church’s liturgical experience since the beginning—from divisiveness, which stands in opposition to everything that our Lord intended when he instituted this great sacrament and gave himself to us in the eucharistic mystery.

So, the challenge is how to maintain unity while encouraging appropriate diversity.

Pope Francis wants to discourage the ideological view that the older form of the liturgy is somehow more authentic than the form of the liturgy approved following the Second Vatican Council. This point is made powerfully in the following paragraph from “Desiderio Desideravi”:

If the liturgy is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed, and at the same time the font from which all her power flows,” [“Sacrosanctum Concilium” #10], well then, we can understand what is at stake in the liturgical question. It would be trivial to read the tensions, unfortunately present around the celebration, as a simple divergence between different tastes concerning a particular ritual form.

The problematic is primarily ecclesiological. I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council—though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume not to do so—and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” a document that expresses the reality of the liturgy intimately joined to the vision of Church so admirably described in “Lumen Gentium.”

For this reason, as I already expressed in my letter to all the bishops, I have felt it my duty to affirm that “the liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite” (Motu proprio, “Traditionis custodes” #31).

In his reflections on the liturgy, Pope Francis expresses his love for the Mass in its current form. He also argues for a renewed sense of unity among all God’s people as they come together “proclaiming the praises of God and the hopes of the human heart through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit” (#30).

As the Holy Father makes clear:

The non-acceptance of the liturgical reform, as also a superficial understanding of it, distracts us from the obligation of finding responses to the question that I come back to repeating: How can we grow in our capacity to live in full the liturgical action? How do we continue to let ourselves be amazed at what happens in the celebration under our very eyes? (#31).

Pope Francis believes that all of us are in need of a serious and dynamic liturgical formation. “Let us abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” the pope says. “Let us safeguard our communion. Let us continue to be astonished at the beauty of the liturgy” (#61).
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †