Paix liturgique

Last Thursday, February 5, the XV Colloquium of CIEL was held in Rome at the Maria Santissima Bambina Institute, Via Paolo VI, next to Bernini’s colonnade.

Professor Rubén Peretó Rivas, from Buenos Aires, who, among other subjects, teaches history of medieval philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National University of Cuyo, presided over the session.

Fr. Cassian Folsom, OSB, of Norcia Abbey, who was one of Benedict XVI's advisors on the question of the Traditional Latin Mass (he is said to have coined the genial distinction between "Ordinary" and "Extraordinary"), spoke about the typology and history of the Ordo Missae: the oldest witnesses, the sacramentaries, the books of readings and chants, and the plenary missals.

Gabriel Díaz Patri (London), a specialist in early printed missals and pre- and post-Tridentine editions, presented a paper on "The Proleptic Offertory in Different Liturgical Traditions." He defended the anticipation of the Roman Canon through the "private" prayers of the Traditional Latin Offertory, so criticized by the liturgists who prepared the conciliar reform.

Father Lukasz Celinski, adjunct professor at the Catholic Academy in Warsaw, with multiple publications on Western liturgical traditions (Roman, Ambrosian, Hispano-Mozarabic, and Gallican), addressed the transfer of the gifts in the history of the Hispanic (Mozarabic) Mass.

Deacon Daniel Galadza, professor at the Faculty of Ecclesiastical Sciences of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, specializing in the study of Byzantine liturgy, presented the perspectives of the Byzantine rite on the offertory, a paper that will enrich his already extensive work on this rite.

Father Claude Barthe spoke on “The Abolition of the Offertory and the Creation of a Presentation of the Gifts in the Liturgical Reform.” This intervention is of particular interest to critical debates surrounding liturgical reform, since the disappearance of the traditional offertory and its replacement by the presentation of the gifts is one of the most striking elements of Paul VI's reform of the Mass. A whole series of prayers with an insistent sacrificial tone, which surrounded and explained the offering of the gifts, thus disappeared from the celebration of Mass. The somewhat violent suppression of the traditional offertory resulted in a notable weakening of the explanation of the signification of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

In the later period of the Liturgical Movement, authors such as Dom Jean-Thierry Mærtens, and especially Josef Andreas Jungmann SJ, but also Father Louis Bouyer of the Oratory, considered the offertory a useless "duplicate" of the Roman Canon. Finally, it was replaced by a simple "presentation of the gifts," with brief prayers inspired by the berakhot, the blessings recited during festive meals in Judaism: a berakhah over the first cup of wine ("Blessed are Thou, Lord our God, King of the ages, who gives us this fruit of the vine"), and a berakhah over the broken bread ("Blessed are Thou, Lord our God, King of the ages, who makes the earth produce this bread").

And it fell to me to conclude the symposium.

Father Barthe pointed out this strange peculiarity of the "presentation of the gifts": in a new liturgy, where the options are countless for almost every prayer and text, including the Eucharistic Prayer, the prayers of the presentation of the gifts, which replace those of the offertory, are obligatory (the celebrant's only option is to recite them aloud or silently). One might have imagined that the ancient prayers could be freely recited, since the Roman Canon has been maintained as one of the possible Eucharistic prayers. But this freedom is denied to these wonderful prayers of the Offertory of the Tridentine Missal: “Receive, Holy Father, eternal and almighty God, this immaculate host which I, your unworthy servant, offer to you, my living and true God, for my countless sins, offenses, and negligences, for all those around me, and for all the faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may serve for my salvation and theirs for eternal life.” This demonstrates the (very negative) importance they held for the Bugninian reformers.

These scholarly studies thus reinforce our struggle for the traditional liturgy, which is expressed in our pious “vigils” while reciting our rosaries in Paris, 10 rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame, Monday to Friday, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. until 1:30 p.m., at Saint-Georges de La Villette, 114 avenue Simon Bolivar, on Wednesday and Friday at 5:00 p.m., in front of Notre-Dame du Travail, on Sunday at 6:15 p.m.