Book Review
The Spirit of the Liturgy

by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

The Spirit of the Liturgy is considered by Ratzinger devotees, a profound and beautifully written treatment "of the great prayer of the Church" that will help readers discover the Liturgy in all its hidden spiritual wealth and transcendent grandeur as the very center of our Christian life.

In his own foreward to the book, Cardinal Ratzinger compares this work to a much earlier classic of the same title by Romano Guardini because Ratzinger feels that his insights here are similar with what Guardini achieved in his time regarding a renewed understanding of the Liturgy.

"My purpose here is to assist this renewal of understanding of the Liturgy. Its basic intentions coincide with what Guardini wanted to achieve. The only difference is that I have had to translate what Guardini did at the end of the First World War, in a totally different historical situation, into the context of our present-day questions, hopes and dangers. Like Guardini, I am not attempting to involve myself with scholarly discussion and research. I am simply offering an aid to the understanding of the faith and to the right way to give the faith its central form of expression in the Liturgy."

EXCERPTS FROM The Spirit of the Liturgy:

• Music and Liturgy - The importance of music in biblical religion is shown very simply by the fact that the verb "to sing" (with related words such as "song", and so forth) is one of the most commonly used words in the Bible.

• The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer - The re-shaping so far described, of the Jewish synagogue for the purpose of Christian worship, clearly shows--as we have already said--how, even in architecture, there is both continuity and newness in the relationship of the Old Testament to the New.

The Liturgy and Social Life in Pope Benedict XVI

Once I was giving a spiritual conference to a group of Chinese religious sisters. One of them asked a question regarding the differences of the pastoral approach between the late John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. She said that Pope John Paul II seemed to be more involved and concern about social life and its reform than the present Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI who seems to show more interest in liturgical reforms. In this article I would like to show in schematic panorama one of the striking insights of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, namely the intrinsic relationship between the liturgical life and social life of individuals and groups alike.

A superficial observer can easily characterize a certain polarity between these two aspects of life: liturgical and social life; worship of God and social concern; religion and secular world; spiritual and material life of man; the religious or liturgical order with the social order. This facile tendency is due to the mentality that was brought about by the age of secularization in the last three centuries.(1)

Mount Sinai Covenant

Returning back to the biblical sources, Pope Benedict XVI as Cardinal prefect, traced the development of the people of Israel as a nation and a social institution from the perspectives of covenant and worship of God, hence, liturgically (2). He wrote that one of the primary purposes why freedom is granted to Israel from the Egyptians is to allow them to give due worship of God in the wilderness (3). In this light, freedom is a means to true worship of God, which implicitly finds its point of reference for any political or social consideration of freedom. Moreover, it was in the wilderness that God gave explicit liturgical formation to his people together with the institution of many liturgical feasts of Israel. The profound thought of Pope Benedict XVI on the relationship between social life and liturgical life is based on his exegesis on the giving of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments in Mount Sinai. For him, there is a relationship between Law, ethics and worship(4). It is a relationship of interdependence so much so that the impoverishment of one is due and/or leads to the impoverishment of the other.

This becomes a serious business in the modern times when religion is divorced from legal or political structures; when God is alienated from our social and political life; when we remove the influence of faith from the public square(5). The whole notion of separation between Church and state which originated from the European enlightenment (English and French) is something unheard of in the Old Testament social structure of Israel. Kings and monarchs in ancient Israel were guardians of true worship of God. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Whenever Israel falls away from the right worship of God, when she turns away from God to the false gods, her freedom too collapses.”(6)

Practical Implications

The brief exposition of Israel’s social structure, as something interwoven with their religious cult or worship, leads us to some practical conclusions.

First, that social order and the order of worship of God are intrinsically interdependent to one another. This means that the relationship of men with one another in a social or political community is enhanced or degraded in proportion to one’s proper relationship with God. Since the latter is the province of liturgy and the former of sociology

the relationship of men with one another in a social or political community is enhanced or degraded in proportion to one’s proper relationship with God. Since the latter is the province of liturgy and the former of sociology

Secondly, worship and liturgy for Pope Benedict XVI is not restricted purely to Sunday worship, of rites and prayers. It must bring in man’s life a whole new attitude and mode of being—a way of being “which emerges from the state of separation, of apparent autonomy and of existing only for oneself and in oneself.”(7) This means that liturgy must be translated to life so much so that it creates in man a sense of dependence on God and His primacy in one’s personal and social life. Pope Benedict XVI calls this “God-oriented existence.”

Thirdly, the social order benefits from the liturgy by serving as its model and from which it draws inspiration and serves as its true measure. Pope Benedict XVI expressed it in terms of the liturgical dimension of anticipation(8). Liturgy which is a heavenly experience anticipates that perfect social existence that allows us to evaluate our earthly existence. The absence of this spiritual reality which liturgy draws down to human existence makes us fail to recognize the deficiencies of human life based solely on purely secular goals and blueprint. The order of liturgy as true worship of God speaks what kind of social order man possesses today.

The priest and social order

Based from the aforesaid conclusions, one can see the important role of a Catholic priest. Being the primary minister of the liturgy and one who takes the place of Christ as “alter Christus” he has the principal responsibility for the proper celebration of the liturgy based on Sacred Tradition and handed down to us through Church approved rites. Because of this, he acts as mediator between man and God in bringing them together in intimate relationship. Hence, the priest’s fidelity to the rites of the liturgy allows this spiritual union, for it is God who chose the manner He should be worshiped(9). Man’s social relationship with each other hinges upon his relationship with God and because of this the priest functions as an agent of this social order. He becomes as such to the degree that he becomes a man of liturgy, a man of true worship of God.

Mary and the social order

Among all the officially approved apparitions of Our Lady (e.g. Fatima, La Sallete, Guadalupe, etc.) apart from the message of prayer and penance, one common denominator of Mary’s request is the building of shrine in her honor in the site of apparition. This seems to be quite true in contemporary and modern apparitions in our century suffering many social ills as war, violence, genocide and the like. Mary proposes a solution of building a shrine because she is alluding to the fact that what causes social problems is that we got wrong in our worship of God.

Mary proposes a solution of building a shrine because she is alluding to the fact that what causes social problems is that we got wrong in our worship of God.

Conclusion

The solution to problems in the social order among men is more than just having better economic or social policies in place. History proves that mere sociological strategies are inadequate. Pope Benedict XVI indicated in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate that “a prosperous society, highly developed in material terms but weighing heavily on the soul, is not itself conducive to authentic development.”(10) Moreover, he wrote in the same encyclical that “When he (man) is far away from God, man is unsettled and ill at ease. Social and psychological alienation and the many neuroses that afflict affluent societies are attributable in part to spiritual factors.”(11) It is the proper celebration of the liturgy that fills this void in man, for it brings, in every celebration that which makes man whole again—the fruits of the Redemption of Christ.

Endnotes