Times were a-changing

The
Catholic Weekly
Online

Sydney
7 December 2003

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TIME TO CELEBRATE: Guests at the Liturgy Commission dinner to mark 40 years since the liturgical reform

By Marilyn Rodrigues

Pope Paul VI signed Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy) 40 years ago.

Earlier this year the archdiocesan liturgy commission asked people who attended a 40th anniversary celebration dinner at the Catholic Centre in Lidcombe this question: What has been your experience of the reform since the signing of the constitution?

We did the same, and these were the responses:

Mons John Walsh, as chairman of the Sydney archdiocese liturgical commission in the late 60s and 70s, was involved in leading the implementation of the Vatican document.

He says the changes have been wonderful but limited, and that the document still hasn’t been fully understood.

“The reason is partly because when we implemented it, the changes were made spasmodically, in stages, and there was not the opportunity to digest the full meaning of all that the document was really saying,” Mons Walsh says.

“To my mind the real meaning was that Jesus is the high priest who celebrates with the community and everyone in the community celebrates the divine mysteries with him.

“It is an action of Christ the high priest and of his body, the Church.”

“The priest has a distinctive role, but it is the whole community which celebrates the mysteries.

“Whereas the idea is still there in parishes today that the priest is the one who celebrates the Mass and the parishioners are not really ‘doing’ anything.

“The challenge in liturgy is to bring out that sense of community without losing the sense of individual reverence and devotion.

“There seems to be a tension in parishes between people’s need and desire for private devotion and a sense of communal worship. It’s not easy to combine the two.

“Also in Australia we have a characteristic of reluctance to be involved with other people, a sense of privacy.

“And when you’re sitting on your own in the congregation with no one around you can’t participate properly.”

Sr Catherine Mary Carroll, pastoral associate and lit urgy co-ordinator at St Francis Xavier’s, Arncliffe, identified the removal of church altar rails and the change from Latin to the vernacular as “incredibly uplifting”.

“There has always been that separation between the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of the faithful, but removing the rails has been a very positive thing, bringing them together as a worshipping community,” she says.

“And the Liturgy of the Word now receives the correct emphasis that it’s due, which is giving our Catholic people a love of the scriptures and ability to recognise that the Lord is present in his word.

“Catholics in the past were not encouraged to read the Bible, now people are anxious to pick it up and discover the word of God, and are more reflective about the scriptures.

“Changing the language of the liturgy from Latin to the vernacular was an incredibly uplifting thing. It emphasised that not just the priest celebrates the Mass, but all the people do.

“The reform has given us a greater knowledge and appreciation of what our baptismal call is about, that baptism makes us all ministers in the Church.

“It’s been a wonderful time.”

Richard Connolly of Balgowlah, a composer of liturgical and secular music, uses the words of poet William Wordsworth to describe his feelings just after the Vatican council.

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” he says.

At first he was shocked at the loss of the Latin, but then saw the constitution’s directives about liturgical music as a wonderful challenge.

“After the council I think for quite a few years everything looked very promising, and there was a real stress on the idea of decorous and meaningful worship and the real meaning of the Eucharist,” says Richard.

“We were doing quite well considering that a whole new liturgical repertoire had to be remade overnight.”

But Richard says there has been a shift in the quality and process of liturgical music since the 1970s.

“I’m not blaming the council or the constitution, but I agree with the recent statement by leading Catholic Church musicians at an international meeting in the US that our liturgical music repertoire is in danger of being dictated by market forces,” he says.

“I think there hasn’t been enough guidance or control (in the area of liturgical music).

“Not everybody can write poetic and uplifting lyrics. I would say since the 1970s the new hymns which came in were certainly no better than the ones we used to complain about before the Vatican council.

“But it’s wonderful to have the Mass in our own language and the changes that have been made have been a return to older, primitive practice and making the meanings clearer to parishioners.

“By and large give me Catholic life after the council, not before.”

Patrick Kirkwood, of Queen of Peace Parish, Normanhurst, was an ABC religious programs producer at the time of the council.

“There had already been a groundswell for reform of the liturgy since the early 1900s and what happened at the council was a culmination of many of these hopes and desires, a return to the ‘sources’,” he says.

“But it wasn’t all sweetness and light.

“Many people were shocked by the changes to their beloved rituals, which seemed to mutate overnight.

“Some thought that Latin was God’s language and that English sounded barbaric around the altar.

“And, of course, some of their beloved hymns disappeared to be replaced, in some cases, by trite music and lyrics with little artistic or theological merit.

“The priest now faced the congregation; some of the ‘mystery’ seemed to disappear. The Church’s reforms were for some people a psychological disaster. Liturgical leadership has been varied.

“But the positives have far outweighed the negatives.

“We hear, speak and sing the Word of God in a language and idiom we immediately recognise. Our musical and symbolic life has been enriched.

“We can also be proud of the ecumenical fruits which have followed the council.

“I am happy to have lived through this exciting period in the Church when the word and the sacraments have become more open to our understanding and graceful participation.”

Sr Carmel Pilcher, archdiocesan director of liturgy, says that the document’s directive to encourage full, conscious and active participation by all the Sunday assembly still remains an “urgent task”.

Other challenges include putting devotional practices in their proper place, as honourable but secondary to the liturgy, and ensuring there is “good liturgy”; where the “symbols speak, the words and gestures are clear and the music is appropriate”.

“Then Christians are formed by what they do,” she says.

“Their faith is fed, their hearts and minds are raised to God in praise and conversion of God’s people will occur.

“Liturgical music generally needs improvement. In my experience parishes are still limited in variety and quality.

“However, many parish communities are returning to the Catholic ritual tradition of singing the prayers of the Mass as well as hymns.”

But despite these and other challenges “we have much to celebrate”, she says.