Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger--"the central actio of the liturgy"

As early as 1967, and upon first witnessing the new "normative Mass" that was to be promulgated by Pope Paul VI, concerns were raised regarding an innovative increase in emphasis on the readings and singing during the Liturgy of the Word. Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, given only 5 minutes to present his observations on the new order of the Mass, put it very concisely:

 

"1. The rule of prayer is the rule of faith. If there is to be more emphasis in the Mass on Bible readings than on Eucharistic prayer, the faith of both clergy and people will be weakened.
2. There is more need than ever today to stress the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. No change in the Mass should be made which might seem to throw doubt on this doctrine." ( I copied these from Fr. Ray Blake's blog)

As recently as 2010, "pew surveys" have provided evidence justifying Cardinal Heenan's concerns. (U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey )

 

Over 30 years after Cardinal Heenan's statement, and having observed three decades of innovations and novelties imposed upon the liturgy, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who would become Pope Benedict XVI) acknowledged a need for restoration of the liturgy in his forward to his book,  The Spirit of the Liturgy: 

 

"In fact (the liturgy) is threatened with destruction, if the necessary steps are not taken to stop these damaging influences...what is imperative is a new reverence in the way we treat it, a new understanding of its message and its reality, so that rediscovery does not become the first stage of irreparable loss. My purpose in writing this little book, which I now lay before the public, is to assist this renewal of understanding."

 

While Cardinal Ratzinger provides instruction on many aspects of the liturgy and "rite" in the pages of his "little book," pertinent to this blog post is his section on "Active Participation" and the necessity of distinguishing the actions inherent to the Liturgy of the Word from those of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. When considering the central action in which we are called to participate during the Liturgy, he offers this:

 

"The study of the liturgical sources provides an answer...By the actio of the liturgy the sources mean the Eucharistic Prayer...

"...But this is only just a hint of the central issue. This oratio—the Eucharistic Prayer, the 'Canon'—is really more than speech; it is actio in the highest sense of the word. For what happens in it is that the human actio...steps back and makes way for the actio divina, the action of God. In this oratio the priest speaks with the I of the Lord—‘This is my Body’, ‘This is my Blood.’ He knows that he is not now speaking from his own resources but in virtue of the Sacrament that he has received, he has become the voice of Someone Else, who is now speaking and acting. This action of God, which takes place through human speech, is the real 'action' for which all of creation is in expectation. The elements of the earth are transubstantiated, pulled, so to speak, from their creaturely anchorage, grasped at the deepest ground of their being, and changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord...

"...The uniqueness of the Eucharistic liturgy lies precisely in the fact that God himself is acting and that we are drawn into that action of God. Everything else is, therefore, secondary.

"...By the same token, participation in the Liturgy of the Word (reading, singing) is to be distinguished from the sacramental celebration proper. We should be clearly aware that external actions are quite secondary here.

"...If the various external actions (as a matter of fact, there are not very many of them, though they are being artificially multiplied) become the essential in the liturgy, if the liturgy degenerates into general activity, then we have radically misunderstood the “theo-drama” of the liturgy and lapsed into a parody." (from pp. 171-5, _The Spirit of the Liturgy_.)

 

I would like to join my prayers to those of many who hope that the re-assertion of fundamental liturgical truths, such as expressed so eloquently by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and others with a similar awareness of the liturgical tradition, will be the catalyst for the liturgical restoration at the parish-level  that, in the end, is essential for the true "renewal of understanding."