Sunday 20 May 2007

Liturgical forms II.

In the Letter "Sacramentum Caritatis", after speaking about Beauty and the Liturgy, the Holy Father speaks about the "art of celebrating". I think that this is a new expression in Magisterial documents. The art of celebrating - ars celebrandi - "is the fruit of faithful adherence to the liturgical norms in all their richness" (SC,38).
The art of celebrating is an art which (in the light of Fr Julian's recent Canadian posts and everything else that we know) we need to recover. Quite apart from false liturgical forms we can say that the new Liturgy tends to be banal and reductionist, many genuine liturgical forms being set aside and forgotten.

This photograph, taken two days ago, shows a moment during the Ritual Blessing of a Parish when we were all facing east towards Jerusalem. Let's face it, how often, for instance, is the Ritual of Blessings used in the UK? We don't even have our our authorised edition.

1 comment:

DrMatthewDoyle said...

Nice Chausable Father. Very Roman.