Heading west for good
liturgy
By LESLIE
WIRPSA NCR Staff Los Angeles
What can provoke more change, stir up more storms, cause more
commotion and be more threatening than El Niño?
The answer: liturgists.
It was Bishop Donald Trautman, of Erie, Pa., who used this quip to
inspire an auditorium filled with pastoral leaders from the Los Angeles
archdiocese last week. His address, which received a standing ovation, and a
similar one in Spanish by Rev. Domingo Rodriguez, launched 2,000 people from
dozens of parishes on a mission: the renewal of liturgy for the millennium in
the spirit of Vatican II.
Gathering Oct. 10 in consultation with their priests and regional
bishops, Los Angeles Catholic leaders sought to implement Gather
Faithfully Together: A Guide for Sunday Mass, a pastoral letter
distributed in September by their archbishop, Cardinal Roger Mahony. According
to Trautman, the letter is the first of its kind to address the problems
the celebrating community faces each time it goes to the altar.
The letter is so significant and timely, Trautman said, that it
will have an effect far beyond Los Angeles. I think when other bishops
read the pastoral letter, they will want to copy it for their own people. The
cardinal has taken the problems we all face of enlivening the liturgy and
addressed them through the example of a parish, he said. Its
not like other pastoral letters. It is not aloof from the people. It is a
practical and creative approach.
Gabe Huck, an acquisitions editor for Liturgy Training
Publications of Chicago, which published the letter for national distribution,
said the letter comes at a crucial moment in the life of the U.S. Catholic
church.
Weve been through the sacramentary wars at the
bishops meetings, then the lectionary wars last spring. It sort of seemed
to mean to people that the excitement and renewal is past, that there was
retrenchment, Huck said.
The tensions over liturgical renewal were also manifest at the
local level, he said. For example, in St. Louis, Archbishop Justin Rigali
recently mandated 13 liturgical norms for the archdiocese that ranged from a
requirement to kneel during the eucharistic prayer to reverential methods of
purifying communion vessels.
It was that kind of atmosphere. And here comes one of the
most important church leaders saying things like, We dont learn to
be Catholics from the catechism, but from doing our liturgy. ... At a
point where a major figure needed to be heard from, here he is. ... It was
wonderful, Huck said of Mahonys letter.
He said he believes that many bishops who are feeling timid in the
face of an atmosphere of retrenchment will, with Mahonys letter, be
emboldened. Here, theyve got something important to look to,
he said.
The letter, said Huck, is indicative of a growing tendency among
church leaders committed to reform to look now to the West, particularly Los
Angeles, and beyond traditional hubs of church renewal in the Midwest.
Progressive leadership has long come from the Midwestern church, good
steady stuff. But there are problems now. And you cant look to the East.
Things never took hold there in many ways, he said. Los Angeles is
not only a positive influence, but the rest of California seems to be a lot
more exciting than what were seeing.
By inviting Trautman to deliver the keynote address at the
conference, Mahony sent an unmistakable message that the Los Angeles
archdiocese would resist efforts to turn back liturgical reforms inspired by
the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.
In June, Trautman, a biblical scholar, drew national attention
with an address to a gathering of liturgists at Notre Dame University in South
Bend, Ind., where he openly criticized the reform the reform
movement, which is led by powerful U.S. conservatives. He termed the movement
a sophisticated applying of the brakes to liturgical renewal and an
attempt to return to a liturgy that looks more like that before the
council.
In Los Angeles, Trautman delivered a talk titled New Wine in
New Wineskins, in which he equated the liturgical reforms of Vatican II
to the new wine that our people have tasted ... and have
found it to be very good. Mahonys letter, he said, is more
good wine.
In an apparent reference to the atmosphere surrounding liturgical
renewal today, Trautman reminded conference attendees of the tensions Christ
faced when confronted with the Judaic legalism of the day, those who
blindly defend the ways of the past, those who are closed to new ideas, those
incapable of acquiring new, fresh ideas.
Trautman said he hopes the Los Angeles letter will be seen
as a positive step for us, important in the renewal of Vatican II.
Echoing Mahony in the letter, Trautman, in an interview and during his address,
emphasized the importance of early Christians as a model for liturgical renewal
today.
There are some folks who would like us to stop in the Middle
Ages, when the laity didnt even bring gifts to the altar, when the choir
replaced the congregation, when the liturgical books [omitted] the laity,
Trautman said. The Middle Ages are not normative. What is normative is
the apostolic era of the early church.
During the keynote, Trautman stressed that those who want to
turn back the clocks are few, but vocal. Setbacks, however, he said,
can never be an undoing of the work of an ecumenical council of the
church. Those who reject liturgical reforms, he added, do so
because of our past failure to provide an adequate catechesis.
He defined Mahonys letter as a renewed catechesis on
the nature of liturgy that gives hope to all liturgical
ministers.
Mahony also acknowledged the tensions and difficulties of
liturgical renewal in the letter. So difficult have been these first
efforts that some seem ready to declare it a failure, an embarrassing mistake
of Vatican II. Others would say we have come as far as was intended, so let us
hear no more of liturgical renewal. And yet others call this task meaningless
in light of the great need for the church to throw itself into causes of
justice and peace, the document states.
Affirming the Second Vatican Council as one of the finest
graces of the just-ending century, Mahony invites the faithful to take
ownership to make Sunday liturgy the center of parish life through the
full, conscious and active participation of all. Trautman, in his
address, pointed out that this is no easy task in a culture that dislikes
community celebration -- in a culture that promotes individualism, a Lone
Ranger mentality -- in a culture indifferent to transcendence and mystery -- in
a culture that seeks an entertainment model with the assembly as audience and
ministers as performers.
At one point he asks, How do we teach Eucharist as a meal to
families who rarely eat together?
In Los Angeles, achieving full participation of parishioners
through the liturgy means embracing cultural diversity. Liturgy is alive.
It must have flesh and blood and spirit. ... It must speak to this people, here
and now, Mahony states in the document. We do not need more
mechanical implementation in response to liturgical directives any more than we
need a liturgy that seems to be of the presiders own making.
Liturgy, Mahony stresses, should take on the pace, sounds
and shape that other cultures bring, adding that homogeneity and
comfort are not gospel values. He demands communion, however, within
cultural diversity.
Trautman added to Mahonys list that youth should be
integrated into all aspects of church life and that music is the key to
attracting youth to the Lords table. We need Eucharist to have the
sounds and beats that attract young peoples ears, he said,
eliciting widespread applause.
Trautman said that the citys rich cultural and ethnic mix
has forced Los Angeles to the cutting edge of liturgical renewal.
Cultural diversity makes people more open to accepting a living
liturgy, he said. When people fight it, it is because of
fear. Los Angeles, the largest diocese in the United States, serves more
than 3.6 million Catholics from 102 different ethnic communities. Mass is said
on any given Sunday in 55 languages.
Workshop participants at the conference recognized the immensity
of the task outlined in the pastoral letter. One leader said during a large
session, Yes, hes dreaming. Then she sent small groups off to
figure out how we get from here to there. Trautman had quoted
Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Cåmara: When one dreams alone, there is
only a dream, but when we dream together, we have the beginning of
reality.
Using a consultative approach -- priests sat in conversation with
parishioners -- conference attendees dreamed and schemed and brainstormed about
how to put Mahonys directives into action, how to create
extraordinary celebrations of faith.
Some parish leaders said the letter affirmed models already
developing. A lot of this, weve been doing by default, Spirit
led, said Josie Jiménez from St. John the Baptist parish in the
eastern San Gabriel region. This makes us feel we are on the right track,
going in the right direction.
David Estrada, from St. Benedicts parish, talked of the
gentleness with which multicultural models must be introduced in parishes.
We need to take steps so that no one feels threatened or alienated, and
we need to do multicultural liturgies well, he said.
Parish leaders from St. Dorothys followed the pastoral
letters suggestion that presiders prepare for Sunday homilies by meeting
with parish leaders. Your homilies need to be fed, they told their
priests, to hear that this gospel speaks to me because my two-year-old is
driving me nuts, or to hear from an elderly person laid off after 30 years --
experiences youve never had.
The same group discussed creative ways to invigorate liturgies, to
get the vast 80 percent of the people in church involved. Responses
ranged from training sessions for greeters to planting singers and
chanters at intervals in the pews who could belt out melodies and responses,
encouraging those around them.
During coffee and lunch breaks, conference attendees tasted the
pace, sounds and shape of different cultures: In the lobby, there
were Philippino dancers, an African-American guitarist playing jazz and a
Mariachi band that drew even an older Anglo priest in his collar to the dance
floor.
The full text of Bishop Trautmans talk can be found on
this Web site under "Documents".
National Catholic Reporter, October 24,
1997
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