THE LITURGY FIRST
In the "Opera Omnia" of Ratzinger the Theologian, the Overture Is All about the Liturgy
And Benedict XVI explains why, in the preface to the volume that he wanted to have published first. He recalls that this is how Vatican Council II began, too. By giving God first place. And about the direction to face in prayer, he writes...
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, October 29, 2008 – Last week, when the first volume of the "Opera Omnia" of Joseph Ratzinger was presented at the Vatican, one question naturally arose: why is it that the first volume printed (volume 11), of the sixteen planned, is focused on the liturgy?
To answer this question, it is enough to read the preface that Benedict XVI wrote for the opening of the volume. There, the pope writes that the selection of the theme to begin with was entirely his own. And he explains why. In passages that are highly interesting, and sometimes surprising.
But curiously, at the presentation of the volume, neither the Vatican press office nor the publisher that edited the publication in German, Herder, gave any emphasis to the pope's written preface, nor did they distribute its text.
The German language, a bit difficult for most of the journalists who cover the Vatican all over the world, has contributed to the scarce attention to the work. The first to grasp the importance of the pope's preface, and to refer to it in an extensive article in the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, "Avvenire," was Gianni Cardinale, on October 24.
The pope's preface is presented in its entirety below. But in order to understand it better, it is helpful to survey the complete outline of the volumes that will compile the writings of Joseph Ratzinger, theologian, previously published and not.
The texts are arranged not by date of publication, but according to theme. The organization was determined by the pope himself, together with the specific arrangement of each volume.
Volumes I and II will include Ratzinger's undergraduate and doctorate theses, as well as other writings concerning Augustine and Bonaventure, the two doctors of the Church who are the subjects of his theses.
Volume III will open with Ratzinger's inaugural conference as a professor: "The God of faith and the God of the philosophers," delivered in Bonn in 1959, followed by writings on faith and reason and the historical-intellectual foundations of Europe.
Volume IV will open with the famous "Introduction to Christianity" of 1968. It will be followed by other writings on the profession of faith, baptism, following Christ, and the fulfillment of Christian existence.
Volume V will collect writings on creation, anthropology, the doctrine of grace, Mariology.
Volume VI will be on Christology, and will open with "Jesus of Nazareth," the only work in the collection that was written and published after the author's election as pope.
Volume VII will collect the writings on Vatican Council II, including notes and comments from that period.
Volume VIII will deal with ecclesiology and ecumenism.
Volume IX will collect essays on theological epistemology and hermeneutics, in particular on the understanding of the Scriptures, Revelation, Tradition.
Volume X will open with "Eschatology," published in 1977, followed by other writings on hope, death, resurrection, eternal life.
Volume XI is the one that has been published first, in the past few days. It is entitled "Theology of the Liturgy."
Volume XII, dedicated to the doctrine of the sacraments and to the ministry, will be entitled "Proclaimers of the Word and Servants of Your Joy."
Volume XIII will collect the many interviews conducted with Joseph Ratzinger, including the ones published in book form, with Vittorio Messori in 1984, and with Peter Seewald in 1996 and 2000.
Volume XIV will collect homilies from before his election as pope, many of which are little known and previously unpublished.
Volume XV will open with the book "My Life," published in 1997, followed by other writings of an autobiographical and personal nature.
Volume XVI will close the series with a complete bibliography of the works of Joseph Ratzinger in German, plus a comprehensive index of all the preceding volumes. The individual volumes will also be equipped with detailed indexes.
Ratzinger's "Opera Omnia" is being published in German by Herder, in Freiburg. The Italian version is being published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Volume XI, just released in German, will be published in Italian in March of 2009. The Italian publication is being overseen by a commission headed by Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the congregation for the causes of saints, and includes Elio Guerriero, director of the Italian edition of the theological journal "Communio," and Fr. Edmund Caruana. The translators are Eulalia Biffi and Edmondo Coccia. Various publishers are working on editions in other languages.
Here then, in our own translation, is the preface written by the pope to the volume that he wanted to be published first, the one dedicated to the liturgy:
Preface to the initial volume of my writings
by Joseph Ratzinger
Vatican Council II began its work with a discussion of the draft document on the sacred liturgy, which was later solemnly approved on December 4, 1963, as the first result of the great Church assembly, with the rank of constitution. At first glance, it might seem to be a coincidence that the topic of the liturgy was put first in the work of the council, and that the constitution on the liturgy was its first result. Pope John had convened the assembly of bishops in a decision that everyone shared in joyfully, in order to reinforce the presence of Christianity in an age of profound change, but without presenting a definite program. An extensive series of projects had been put in place by the preparatory commission. But there was no compass to find the way amid this abundance of proposals. Among all of the projects, the text on the sacred liturgy seemed to be the least controversial. So it immediately seemed to be the right choice: like a sort of exercise, so to speak, with which the fathers could learn the methods of conciliar work.
What seems to be a coincidence at first glance turns out to be, after looking at the hierarchy of themes and tasks of the Church, intrinsically the most just thing as well. By beginning with the theme of "liturgy," the primacy of God, the priority of the "God" theme, was unequivocally brought to light. The first word of the first chapter in the constitution is "God." When the focus is not on God, everything else loses its orientation. The words of the Benedictine rule "Ergo nihil Operi Dei praeponatur" (43,3; "So let nothing be put before the Work of God") apply specifically to monasticism, but as a statement of priority they are also true for the life of the Church, and of each of its members, each in his own way. It is perhaps useful to recall that in the term "orthodoxy," the second half of the word, "doxa,"does not mean "opinion," but "splendor," "glorification": this is not a matter of a correct "opinion" about God, but of a proper way of glorifying him, of responding to him. Because this is the fundamental question of the man who begins to understand himself in the correct way: how should I encounter God? So learning the right way of adoration – of orthodoxy – is what is given to us above all by the faith.
When I decided, after some hesitation, to accept the project of an edition of all of my works, it was immediately clear to me that the order of priorities at the Council also needed to be applied to it, and that therefore the first volume to be published had to be the one containing my writings on the liturgy. Ever since my childhood, the Church's liturgy has been the central activity of my life, and it also became, under the theological instruction of masters like Schmaus, Söhngen, Pascher, and Guardini, the center of my theological work. I chose fundamental theology as my specific topic, because I wanted above all to go to the heart of the question: why do we believe? But right from the beginning, this question included the other one about the proper response to to God, and therefore also the question about the divine service. It is on this basis that my work on the liturgy must be understood. I was not interested in the specific problems of liturgical study, but in the anchoring of the liturgy in the fundamental act of our faith, and therefore also its place in our entire human existence.
This volume now collects all of my short and medium-length work in which over the years, on various occasions and from different perspectives, I have expressed positions on liturgical questions. After all of the contributions that came into being in this way, I was finally prompted to present a vision of the whole, which appeared in the jubilee year 2000 under the title "The Spirit of the Liturgy." This constitutes the central text of the book.
Unfortunately, almost all of the reviews of this have been directed at a single chapter: "The altar and the direction of liturgical prayer." Readers of these reviews must have received the impression that the entire work dealt only with the orientation of the celebration, and that its contents could be reduced to the desire to reintroduce the celebration of the Mass "with [the priest's] back turned to the people." In consideration of this misrepresentation, I thought for a moment about eliminating the chapter (just nine pages out of two hundred) in order to bring the discussion back to the real issue that interested me, and continues to interest me, in the book. It would have been much easier to do this because in the meantime, two excellent works had been published in which the question of the orientation of prayer in the Church during the first millennium is clarified in a persuasive manner. I think first of all of the important, brief book by Uwe Michael Lang "Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer" (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004), and in a special way of the tremendous contribution by Stefan Heid, "Atteggiamento ed orientamento della preghiera nella prima epoca cristiana [Attitude and orientation of prayer in the early Christian era]" (in "Rivista d’Archeologia Cristiana" 72, 2006), in which the sources and bibliography on this question have been extensively illustrated and updated.
The result is entirely clear: the idea that the priest and people should look at each other in prayer emerged only in modern Christianity, and is completely foreign to ancient Christianity. Priest and people certainly do not pray to each other, but to the same Lord. So in prayer, they look in the same direction: either toward the East as the cosmic symbol of the Lord who is to come, or, where this is not possible, toward an image of Christ in the apse, toward a cross, or simply toward the sky, as the Lord did in his priestly prayer the evening before his Passion (John 17:1). Fortunately, the proposal that I made at the end of the chapter in question in my book is making headway: not to proceed with new transformations, but simply to place the cross at the center of the altar, so that both priest and faithful can look at it, in order to allow themselves to be drawn toward the Lord to whom all are praying together.
But with this I may have said too much on this point, which represents just one particular of my book, and I could have left it out. The fundamental intention of the work is that of placing the liturgy above the often frivolous questions about this or that form, in its important relationship, which I have sought to describe in three areas that are present in all of the individual themes. In the first place, there is the intimate relationship between the Old and New Testament; without the relationship with the Old Testament heritage, the Christian liturgy is absolutely incomprehensible. The second area is the relationship with the world religions. And finally, there is a third area: the cosmic nature of the liturgy, which represents something beyond a simple meeting of a larger or smaller circle of human beings; the liturgy is celebrated within the vastness of the cosmos, it embraces creation and history at the same time. This is what was intended in the orientation of prayer: that the Redeemer to whom we pray is also the Creator, and so there always remains in the liturgy love for creation and responsibility toward it. I would be happy if this new edition of my liturgical writings could contribute to displaying the great perspectives of our liturgy, and putting certain frivolous controversies about external forms in the right place.
Finally, and above all, I feel the need to express thanks. My thanks is due in the first place to Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller, who has taken charge of the "Opera Omnia" and has created both the personal and institutional conditions for its realization. In a very special way, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Rudolf Voderholzer, who has invested extraordinary time and energy in gathering and organizing my writings. I also thank Dr. Christian Schaler, who is providing valuable assistance. Finally, my sincere thanks goes to the Herder publishing house, which has taken on the burden of this difficult and laborious work with great love and attentiveness. May all of this contribute to a deeper understanding of the liturgy, and its worthy celebration. "The joy of the Lord is our strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).
Rome, feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 2008
__________
The publisher of the "Opera Omnia" of Joseph Ratzinger in its original German:
> Verlag Herder
__________
On www.chiesa, the presentation made by the secretary of the congregation for divine worship, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjit, of the book by Uwe Michael Lang, "Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer," cited by Benedict XVI in the text presented above:
> The New Curia of Benedict XVI Looks toward Asia (26.5.2006)
__________
English translation by Matthew Sherry, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
__________
29.10.2008
In the "Opera Omnia" of Ratzinger the Theologian, the Overture Is All about the Liturgy
And Benedict XVI explains why, in the preface to the volume that he wanted to have published first. He recalls that this is how Vatican Council II began, too. By giving God first place. And about the direction to face in prayer, he writes...
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, October 29, 2008 – Last week, when the first volume of the "Opera Omnia" of Joseph Ratzinger was presented at the Vatican, one question naturally arose: why is it that the first volume printed (volume 11), of the sixteen planned, is focused on the liturgy?
To answer this question, it is enough to read the preface that Benedict XVI wrote for the opening of the volume. There, the pope writes that the selection of the theme to begin with was entirely his own. And he explains why. In passages that are highly interesting, and sometimes surprising.
But curiously, at the presentation of the volume, neither the Vatican press office nor the publisher that edited the publication in German, Herder, gave any emphasis to the pope's written preface, nor did they distribute its text.
The German language, a bit difficult for most of the journalists who cover the Vatican all over the world, has contributed to the scarce attention to the work. The first to grasp the importance of the pope's preface, and to refer to it in an extensive article in the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, "Avvenire," was Gianni Cardinale, on October 24.
The pope's preface is presented in its entirety below. But in order to understand it better, it is helpful to survey the complete outline of the volumes that will compile the writings of Joseph Ratzinger, theologian, previously published and not.
The texts are arranged not by date of publication, but according to theme. The organization was determined by the pope himself, together with the specific arrangement of each volume.
Volumes I and II will include Ratzinger's undergraduate and doctorate theses, as well as other writings concerning Augustine and Bonaventure, the two doctors of the Church who are the subjects of his theses.
Volume III will open with Ratzinger's inaugural conference as a professor: "The God of faith and the God of the philosophers," delivered in Bonn in 1959, followed by writings on faith and reason and the historical-intellectual foundations of Europe.
Volume IV will open with the famous "Introduction to Christianity" of 1968. It will be followed by other writings on the profession of faith, baptism, following Christ, and the fulfillment of Christian existence.
Volume V will collect writings on creation, anthropology, the doctrine of grace, Mariology.
Volume VI will be on Christology, and will open with "Jesus of Nazareth," the only work in the collection that was written and published after the author's election as pope.
Volume VII will collect the writings on Vatican Council II, including notes and comments from that period.
Volume VIII will deal with ecclesiology and ecumenism.
Volume IX will collect essays on theological epistemology and hermeneutics, in particular on the understanding of the Scriptures, Revelation, Tradition.
Volume X will open with "Eschatology," published in 1977, followed by other writings on hope, death, resurrection, eternal life.
Volume XI is the one that has been published first, in the past few days. It is entitled "Theology of the Liturgy."
Volume XII, dedicated to the doctrine of the sacraments and to the ministry, will be entitled "Proclaimers of the Word and Servants of Your Joy."
Volume XIII will collect the many interviews conducted with Joseph Ratzinger, including the ones published in book form, with Vittorio Messori in 1984, and with Peter Seewald in 1996 and 2000.
Volume XIV will collect homilies from before his election as pope, many of which are little known and previously unpublished.
Volume XV will open with the book "My Life," published in 1997, followed by other writings of an autobiographical and personal nature.
Volume XVI will close the series with a complete bibliography of the works of Joseph Ratzinger in German, plus a comprehensive index of all the preceding volumes. The individual volumes will also be equipped with detailed indexes.
Ratzinger's "Opera Omnia" is being published in German by Herder, in Freiburg. The Italian version is being published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Volume XI, just released in German, will be published in Italian in March of 2009. The Italian publication is being overseen by a commission headed by Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the congregation for the causes of saints, and includes Elio Guerriero, director of the Italian edition of the theological journal "Communio," and Fr. Edmund Caruana. The translators are Eulalia Biffi and Edmondo Coccia. Various publishers are working on editions in other languages.
Here then, in our own translation, is the preface written by the pope to the volume that he wanted to be published first, the one dedicated to the liturgy:
Preface to the initial volume of my writings
by Joseph Ratzinger
Vatican Council II began its work with a discussion of the draft document on the sacred liturgy, which was later solemnly approved on December 4, 1963, as the first result of the great Church assembly, with the rank of constitution. At first glance, it might seem to be a coincidence that the topic of the liturgy was put first in the work of the council, and that the constitution on the liturgy was its first result. Pope John had convened the assembly of bishops in a decision that everyone shared in joyfully, in order to reinforce the presence of Christianity in an age of profound change, but without presenting a definite program. An extensive series of projects had been put in place by the preparatory commission. But there was no compass to find the way amid this abundance of proposals. Among all of the projects, the text on the sacred liturgy seemed to be the least controversial. So it immediately seemed to be the right choice: like a sort of exercise, so to speak, with which the fathers could learn the methods of conciliar work.
What seems to be a coincidence at first glance turns out to be, after looking at the hierarchy of themes and tasks of the Church, intrinsically the most just thing as well. By beginning with the theme of "liturgy," the primacy of God, the priority of the "God" theme, was unequivocally brought to light. The first word of the first chapter in the constitution is "God." When the focus is not on God, everything else loses its orientation. The words of the Benedictine rule "Ergo nihil Operi Dei praeponatur" (43,3; "So let nothing be put before the Work of God") apply specifically to monasticism, but as a statement of priority they are also true for the life of the Church, and of each of its members, each in his own way. It is perhaps useful to recall that in the term "orthodoxy," the second half of the word, "doxa,"does not mean "opinion," but "splendor," "glorification": this is not a matter of a correct "opinion" about God, but of a proper way of glorifying him, of responding to him. Because this is the fundamental question of the man who begins to understand himself in the correct way: how should I encounter God? So learning the right way of adoration – of orthodoxy – is what is given to us above all by the faith.
When I decided, after some hesitation, to accept the project of an edition of all of my works, it was immediately clear to me that the order of priorities at the Council also needed to be applied to it, and that therefore the first volume to be published had to be the one containing my writings on the liturgy. Ever since my childhood, the Church's liturgy has been the central activity of my life, and it also became, under the theological instruction of masters like Schmaus, Söhngen, Pascher, and Guardini, the center of my theological work. I chose fundamental theology as my specific topic, because I wanted above all to go to the heart of the question: why do we believe? But right from the beginning, this question included the other one about the proper response to to God, and therefore also the question about the divine service. It is on this basis that my work on the liturgy must be understood. I was not interested in the specific problems of liturgical study, but in the anchoring of the liturgy in the fundamental act of our faith, and therefore also its place in our entire human existence.
This volume now collects all of my short and medium-length work in which over the years, on various occasions and from different perspectives, I have expressed positions on liturgical questions. After all of the contributions that came into being in this way, I was finally prompted to present a vision of the whole, which appeared in the jubilee year 2000 under the title "The Spirit of the Liturgy." This constitutes the central text of the book.
Unfortunately, almost all of the reviews of this have been directed at a single chapter: "The altar and the direction of liturgical prayer." Readers of these reviews must have received the impression that the entire work dealt only with the orientation of the celebration, and that its contents could be reduced to the desire to reintroduce the celebration of the Mass "with [the priest's] back turned to the people." In consideration of this misrepresentation, I thought for a moment about eliminating the chapter (just nine pages out of two hundred) in order to bring the discussion back to the real issue that interested me, and continues to interest me, in the book. It would have been much easier to do this because in the meantime, two excellent works had been published in which the question of the orientation of prayer in the Church during the first millennium is clarified in a persuasive manner. I think first of all of the important, brief book by Uwe Michael Lang "Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer" (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004), and in a special way of the tremendous contribution by Stefan Heid, "Atteggiamento ed orientamento della preghiera nella prima epoca cristiana [Attitude and orientation of prayer in the early Christian era]" (in "Rivista d’Archeologia Cristiana" 72, 2006), in which the sources and bibliography on this question have been extensively illustrated and updated.
The result is entirely clear: the idea that the priest and people should look at each other in prayer emerged only in modern Christianity, and is completely foreign to ancient Christianity. Priest and people certainly do not pray to each other, but to the same Lord. So in prayer, they look in the same direction: either toward the East as the cosmic symbol of the Lord who is to come, or, where this is not possible, toward an image of Christ in the apse, toward a cross, or simply toward the sky, as the Lord did in his priestly prayer the evening before his Passion (John 17:1). Fortunately, the proposal that I made at the end of the chapter in question in my book is making headway: not to proceed with new transformations, but simply to place the cross at the center of the altar, so that both priest and faithful can look at it, in order to allow themselves to be drawn toward the Lord to whom all are praying together.
But with this I may have said too much on this point, which represents just one particular of my book, and I could have left it out. The fundamental intention of the work is that of placing the liturgy above the often frivolous questions about this or that form, in its important relationship, which I have sought to describe in three areas that are present in all of the individual themes. In the first place, there is the intimate relationship between the Old and New Testament; without the relationship with the Old Testament heritage, the Christian liturgy is absolutely incomprehensible. The second area is the relationship with the world religions. And finally, there is a third area: the cosmic nature of the liturgy, which represents something beyond a simple meeting of a larger or smaller circle of human beings; the liturgy is celebrated within the vastness of the cosmos, it embraces creation and history at the same time. This is what was intended in the orientation of prayer: that the Redeemer to whom we pray is also the Creator, and so there always remains in the liturgy love for creation and responsibility toward it. I would be happy if this new edition of my liturgical writings could contribute to displaying the great perspectives of our liturgy, and putting certain frivolous controversies about external forms in the right place.
Finally, and above all, I feel the need to express thanks. My thanks is due in the first place to Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller, who has taken charge of the "Opera Omnia" and has created both the personal and institutional conditions for its realization. In a very special way, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Rudolf Voderholzer, who has invested extraordinary time and energy in gathering and organizing my writings. I also thank Dr. Christian Schaler, who is providing valuable assistance. Finally, my sincere thanks goes to the Herder publishing house, which has taken on the burden of this difficult and laborious work with great love and attentiveness. May all of this contribute to a deeper understanding of the liturgy, and its worthy celebration. "The joy of the Lord is our strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).
Rome, feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 2008
__________
The publisher of the "Opera Omnia" of Joseph Ratzinger in its original German:
> Verlag Herder
__________
On www.chiesa, the presentation made by the secretary of the congregation for divine worship, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjit, of the book by Uwe Michael Lang, "Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer," cited by Benedict XVI in the text presented above:
> The New Curia of Benedict XVI Looks toward Asia (26.5.2006)
__________
English translation by Matthew Sherry, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
__________
29.10.2008
_Painting_by_Philippe_-_(MeisterDrucke-1002935).jpg)
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