"The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other "lights", that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light."
We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director. - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Chile, 1988)
Do we still need sacred space, sacred time, mediating symbols? Yes, we do need them, precisely so that, through the "image," through the sign, we learn to see the openness of heaven. We need them to give us the capacity to know the mystery of God in the pierced heart of the Crucified. - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Spirit of the Liturgy )
The Anti-Iconoclast Mass of Passion Thursday
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Today’s Divine Office contains an unusual feature: the antiphons of the
Benedictus and Magnificat are not taken from the Gospel of the Mass (Luke
7, 36-50)...
The Atlantic on TLM Catacombs
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Francis X. Rocca, who wrote many good pieces about or mentioning the TLM
for the Wall Street Journal as its Vatican correspondent, has a new article
today ...
Prayer before and after Choir
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The following prayer for choirs (scholæ cantorum), intended to be used at
the start and end of each practice or session, was devised and adorned with
chant...
Mary's Month of May, and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner
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"The happy birds Te Deum sing,/'Tis Mary's month of May;/ Her smile turns
winter into spring,/ And darkness into day;/ And there's a fragrance in the
air,/...
The Conclave of the Media
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Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to the clergy of Rome on the 14th of
February 2013, revealed that during the sessions of the Second Vatican
Council, ther...
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