Bookmarks 1

This year the Library will commence a series of evening book launches and talks entitled Bookmarks, which will highlight the literary achievements of a number of our members.

For our first Bookmark, the Library is pleased to host the launch of Rob Stove's A Student's Guide to Music History (published by Intercollegiate Studies Institue) on Thursday May 8th at 6:00 pm.

Rob is an accomplished composer and organist, as well as an contributing editor at the American Conservative and writer of two other books: Prince of Music: Palestrina and His World and The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims. Rob's articles have appeared in The New Criterion, Chronicles Magazine, National Observer, Oriens and Annals Australasia. He is a graduate of the NSW Conservatorium High School and University of Sydney, with majors in History and Italian.

With the musical theme in mind, let us read what Pope Benedict XVI writes in Feast of Faith on its religious siginificance:

[St] Thomas says that through the praise of God man ascends to God. Praise itself is a movement, a path; it is more than understanding, knowing, and doing - it is an "ascent", a way of reaching him who dwells amid the praises of the angels. Thomas mentioned another factor: this ascent draws man away from what is opposed to God. Anyone who has ever experienced the transforming power of great liturgy, great art, great music, will know this. Thomas adds that the sound of musical praise leads us and others to a sense of reverence. It awakens the inner man, as [St] Augustine had discovered in Milan. With Augustine the academic, a man who had come to appreciate Christianity as a philosophy but was uneasy about the Church herself, which seemed to have a lot of vulgarity about her, it was the singing Church which gave him a shattering experience, penetrating the whole man, and which led him forward on the way to the Church. From this point of view, the other, pedagogical aspect, the "stimulating of others to praise God" becomes meaningful and intelligble, particularly when we recall that "pedagogy" meant for the ancients, namely, a leading to one's real nature, a process of redemption and liberation.

Off the Shelves 5

In a break from our philosophical ponderings, we present an extract from Fr. Romano Guardini's Prayer in Practice (London: Burns & Oates, 1957), which gives an insight into the relationship between personal prayer, liturgical prayer and popular devotion.

Liturgical and personal prayer do not completely exhuast the possibilities of religious life. There is a third form which, for want of a better term, we shall call popular devotion. To it belongs Matins and Vespers, family prayers, saying of the Rosary and the majority of religious folk customs.

This kind of devotion cannot easily be defined. It is best described by saying that it lies between liturgical and personal prayer, but it is distinct from both. Compared with personal prayer it has a communal character because in it the attitude and necessity, not of the individual but of the group, comes to the fore. It is ordered by custom and rules and thereby commands a certain authority. On the other hand, it is much more private than the Liturgy because the various forms of popular devotion are not the same for the whole Church nor even for a whole country, but may hold good only for a particular diocese. They may even vary from parish to parish. Thus they reflect the change of time, the local peculiarities, the diversities of daily life and general variety of conditions much more directly than does the Liturgy, which changes much more slowly and whose scope is much more wide.

Popular devotion is less strict than liturgical. Its phrasing is looser and more expansive; imagination plays a greater part in it and the whole atmosphere is one of warmth and immediacy. On the other hand, it lacks the wide sweep of the Liturgy, its austerity and power. It tends towards the emotional and occasionally lapses into the sentimental or the bizarre.

It is fond of repetition. In liturgical prayer the principle that the identical thing should never be done twice holds good. In popular devotion, however, the same words re-occur continually. The object of popular devotion is, of course, to abide in the presence of God; however, conditions in many of the smaller parishes are such that the proper liturgical prayers- for instance, the Psalms- cannot be used to much purpose. Their place is taken by certain simple texts such as the Lord's Prayer or the Hail Mary, in which anyone can take part but which are, of course, open to the dangers of monotony and of being recited without much feeling or thought.

Restricted in its range, popular devotiuon has a strong local or parochial flavour. The Christian 'we' is more vivid and more reassuring to the individual than in liturgical prayer. The local and intimate atmosphere which one feels in its devotion does, in fact, come not only from the more emotional character of the texts and songs, but from the much closer communal bonds hich carry it. The form of these songs or hymns is popular rather than liturgical. They express with greater directness the religious impulses of the people at the expense, however, of a certain lowering of musical value and spiritual meaning ...

The same could be said for popular devotion hich, whenever the liturgical life is not properly understood and cherished, undergoes a peculiar deterioration. The pitfalls of poular devotion are poverty of intellect, unchecked fantasy, the lack fo proportion and disorder of sentiment. If popular devotion is left to the free play of direct religious impulse, the contents of its faith tends to become inadequate and its affirmations unreliable, while the repetitions accumulate and the feeling becomes spurious and sentimental. The religous life of a parish in which the Liturgy does not play its proper role and which therefore draws its nourishment mainly from popular devotion must inevitably be impoverished.

All this should not make us forget the other side of the picture. There is a form of liturgical zeal which looks upon all popular devotion as inferior or at least superfluous. It springs from the same attitude which regards personal prayer as a mere encroachment upon the Liturgy. This ia a wrong and dangerous point of view. In its own way, it resembles the attitude of the person who says: 'All that is necessary is humanity as a whole. There is no need for a people. I am content with the world, I do not need a homelan.' Popular devotion is to religious life what the link with people and family, country and home, is to the natural life. A good afternoon service worthily and piously performed, a rosary in the evening said in the proper spirit, are beautiful, profound and intimate- something which the Christian mind needs to remain healthy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Romano Guardini (1885-1968) was one of the most important Catholic intellectuals of the 20th century, whose writings on contemporary problems in both the Church and society continue to influence Catholic thought. After his ordination in 1910 he was assistant priest in several parishes and during this period continued studying at the University of Freiburg, receiving his habilitation. [1] It was also during this period he first encountered authentic liturgy at the Abbey of Beuron, which became one of his life long interests and led to the publication of his work The Spirit of the Liturgy.

Following two years of millitary service as a hospital orderly he was appointed to the chair of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Berlin, where his ability to relate Christian truths to contemporary life and culture gained him a considerable following. At this time he also became director of the Catholic youth movement, Quickborn, to which he dedicated his spare time instilling in its members a deep appreciation for Western culture and traditions.

In 1935 he wrote an essay critical of the Nazis portrayal of Jesus and emphasising his distinct Jewishness. Four years later they dismissed him from the university and dissolved Quickborn, but he remained in Berlin in the parish of a priest-friend. There he would write such works as The Church and the Catholic, Meditations Before Mass and his spiritual classic, The Lord. After the war he resumed lecturing in Philosophy of Religion first at the University of Tubingen and then at the University of Munich, from which he retired in 1963 because of ill health. Despite this, he continued lecturing, writing and even found time to coach the German Olympic polo team.

[1] Habilitation is a post-doctoral qualification in certain European countries, without which one cannot attain to a professorship at university. Like a doctorate, its requirements are several years of research and publication of a dissertation, which must be reviewed and defended before an academic committee. It is interesting to note that both Romano Guardini and Pope Benedict received their habilitation for dissertations on St. Bonaventure, the former on his theology of salvation, the latter his theology of history.

Of Faith and Felines

This evening His Lordship, Bishop Peter Elliott, launched a new book by Dr. Tracey Rowland entitled "Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI" and published by Oxofrd University Press. The book explores the development of Pope Benedict's thought, with particular reference to problems within the tradition of the Catholic Church such as ecclesiology, liturgy and Revelation. It also provides an insight into the influence of Plato, Sts. Augustine and Bonaventure, and John Henry Newman on the Holy Father - influences which stand in contrast to the Aristotelian-Thomistic thought of his predecessors.

Dr. Rowland is Dean and Associate Professor at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family (Melbourne). She is a member of the editorial board of Communio and holds a doctorate from Cambridge University.

NB For those wondering about the title of this post, Bishop Elliott eluded to the fact that Dr. Rowland's book is outselling Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat.

The Alleuia: Song of Gladness and Life

What a relief it was to hear the bells once more on Holy Saturday, what relief to wake up from the sleep of death with a triple "Alleluia". Easter, that year, was as late as it could possibly be - the twenty-fifth of April - and there were enough flowers to fill the church with the intoxicating smell of the Kentucky spring - a wild and rich and heady smell of flowers, sweet and full. We came from our light, five hours' sleep into a church that was full of warm night air and swimming in this rich luxury of odours, and soon began that Easter invitatory that is nothing short of gorgeous in its exultation.

How mighty they are, those hymns and those antiphons of the Easter office! Gregorian chant that should, by rights, be monotonous, because it has absolutely none of the tricks and resources of modern music, is full of a variety infinitely rich because it is subtle and spiritual and deep, and lies rooted far beyond the shallow level of virtuosity and "technique", even in the abysses of the spirit, and of the human soul. Those Easter "Alleluias", without leaving the narrow range prescribed by the eight Gregorian modes, have discovered colour and warmth and meaning and gladness that no other music possesses. Like everything else Cistercian - like the monks themselves - these antiphons, by submitting to the rigour of a Rule that would seem to destroy individuality, have actually acquired a character that is unique, unparalleled.

Taken from The Seven Storey Mountain: An Autobiography of Faith by Thomas Merton

Merton's thoughts on the Easter "Alleluia" as chanted in the monastery call to mind the words of Pope Benedict XVI in his work Dogma and Preaching:

Now singing finds its climatic form in the Alleluia, the song in which the very essence of all song achieves its purest embodiment ... In fact we are dealing here with something that cannot be translated. The Alleuia is simply the nonverbal expression in song of a joy that requires no words because it transcends all words. In this it resembles certain kinds of exultation and jubilation that are to be found among all peoples, just as the miracle of joy manifests itself in every nation ... What does it mean to sing with "jubilation"? It means: to be unable to express in words, or to verbalize, the song that sings to you in your heart. As the harvesters in field or vineyard experience an increasingly jubilant sense of joy, they become incapable, it seems, of find words to express this overflowing joy. They abandon syllables and words, and their singing turns into a jubilus or cry of exultation. A jubilus is a shout that shows the heart is trying to express what it cannot possibly say. And to whom is such a jubilus more fittingly directed than to him who is himself ineffable?

Taken from Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI edited by Peter John Cameron OP

The Twelve and the People of God

An evident sign of the intention of the Nazarene to gather together the community of the Covenant, to demonstrate in it the fulfillment of the promises made to the Fathers who always speak of convocation, unification is the institution of the Twelve. On the site of the revelation, "the mount," taking initiative that demonstrates absolute awareness and determination, Jesus establishes the Twelve so that, together with him, they are witnesses and heralds of the coming of the Kingdom of God. In choosing the Twelve, introducing them into a communion of life with himself, and involving them in his mission of proclaiming the Kingdom in words and works, Jesus wants to say that the definitive time has arrived in which to constitute the new People of God, the people of the twelve tribes, which now becomes a universal people, his Church. We cannot have Jesus without the reality he created and in which he communicates himself. Between the Son of God-made-flesh and his Church there is a profound, unbreakable and mysterious continuity by which Christ is present today in his people. He is always contemporary with us, he is always contemporary with the Church, built on the foundation of the Apostles and alive in the succession of the Apostles. And his very presence in the communion, in which he himself is always with us, is the reason for our joy.

Fron an address of Pope Benedict XVI on March 16, 2006