Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Liturgical Participation

TOWARD A TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF LITURGICAL PARTICIPATION R. Gabriel Pivarnik, OP Foreword by Rev. Msgr. Kevin W. Irwin Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Liturgical Participation A PUEBLO BOOK Liturgical Press Collegeville, Minnesota www.litpress.org A Pueblo Book published by Liturgical Press Cover design by David Manahan, OSB. Cover photo: Thinkstock Photos. Cover Illustration: Frank Kacmarcik, OblSB, used with permission. Excerpts from documents of the Second Vatican Council are from Vatican Council II. Volume 1, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery, OP, © 1996 (Costello Publishing Company, Inc.). Used with permission. © 2012 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights re- served. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, micro- film, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2012950684 ISBN 978-0-8146-6285-4 For my parents, William and Barbara Contents Foreword ix Kevin W. Irwin List of Abbreviations xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction: The Search for Meaning within Liturgical Participation xvii Chapter 1: The Unfolding of a Trinitarian Narrative in the Concept of Liturgical Participation 1 Chapter 2: Attempts at Creating a Trinitarian Approach to Participation I: Cipriano Vagaggini 53 Chapter 3: Attempts at Creating a Trinitarian Approach to Participation II: Edward Kilmartin 101 Chapter 4: Later Attempts to Articulate a Trinitarian Theology of Participation 143 Chapter 5: Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Liturgical Participation 165 Epilogue: The Emergence of a Trinitarian Language of Liturgical Participation 235 Bibliography 241 Index 255 vii Foreword From a pastoral as well as a theological point of view probably no one word typifies what the liturgical reforms of Vatican II were primar- ily concerned with than the word “participation.” While adding up the number of times a word is used in any document and on that basis sug- gesting its importance can be very deceptive, nonetheless the fact that the term “participation” is used sixteen times in the liturgy constitution from Vatican II (Sacrosanctum Concilium) and that its modifier is “active” on twelve of those occasions and that “liturgical instruction and active participation” is cited as one of the three principles on which the resto- ration and promotion of the sacred liturgy is based is very significant.1 After the reformed rites were published and subsequently translated into vernacular languages, enormous efforts were undertaken to invite those who participated in the former liturgy to engage themselves now more fully in the sacred liturgy by using their voices and bodies to experience the action of nothing less than the Trinity at work among us through the rites and prayers of the sacred liturgy, well understood.2 That the term “participation” has been used and fostered since the first part of the twentieth century in the papal magisterium is clear.3 That the vernacular was cited by the pioneers of the liturgical move- ment as a means to this end is also clear. But what is less clear is what the term “participation” actually means in its breadth and depth. Some have recently argued (not without value) that there was so much emphasis placed on the externals of the reformed liturgy that physical activity seemed to be what active participation meant as envisioned by the council. Some have taken this more than a precipitous step fur- ther and written that what really matters is “to take part in” Christ’s paschal mystery interiorly and internally and that the means to do this through the liturgy did not matter. In fact, the means to participate do 1 See http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council /documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html, 14, 19, 27, 30, 41, 50, 113, 114, 121, 124, and the title preceding 14. 2 Sacrosanctum Concilium refers to per ritus et preces (48). 3 See this often repeated phrase from Tra le sollecitudini of Pope Pius X (1903). ix matter a great deal, because the sacred liturgy matters a great deal. The means we use are based on two important and classic Catholic principles—of sacramentality and of the incarnation. This is to say that the way we participate in the liturgy, through rites and prayers, matters a great deal. The principle of sacramentality means, among other things, that we use the things of this good earth and the work of human hands to worship God and be sanctified by him through his Son. The incarnational principle means, among other things, that God sent his Son to be incarnate among us, to take on our flesh and to live, obey, suffer, die, rise, and ascend to the Father’s right hand so that we, in and through our bodies, through the liturgy’s rites and prayers, could participate in the very divinity of God. Despite the frequency with which the phrase “active participation” was used in Sacrosanctum Concilium, what was needed then and what is needed still are theological explorations of its meaning both then and now. Father Pivarnik offers us rich fare in this solidly grounded, thoroughly researched, densely argued, but eminently readable mono- graph. It is a work of true theological scholarship that will serve the ongoing renewal of the church for years to come, derived from the church’s participation in the sacred liturgy. In placing Cipriano Vagaggini, OSB, and Edward Kilmartin, SJ, in dialogue with the church’s magisterium, Father Pivarnik accomplishes what Catholic theologians often strive to do, that is, to offer arguments and perspectives on a topic simply not available through the magisterium alone because of the nature of magisterial statements. At times reactive (as at the Council of Trent) and at times deliberately pithy and open-ended (as in Sacrosanctum Concilium), magisterial statements deserve fuller theological exploration and explanation from within the Catholic theological tradition. In Cipriano Vagaggini, Father Pivarnik has chosen a classically trained theologian, an expert in liturgical texts (both East and West), and an esteemed peritus at Vatican II. In Edward Kilmartin, Father Pivarnik has chosen a premier sacramental theologian of the twentieth century whose knowledge and use of insights from several German trinitarian theologians to help explain what the liturgy is remains unsurpassed. In summarizing and using both Vagaggini’s and Kilmartin’s oeuvre, he provides the great service of condensing the rather diffuse and numerous articles and books from each author and in the process offers the next generation of liturgical scholars important bibliographical material for future research. (While both Vagaggini and Kilmartin have left us key books, i.e., Vagaggini’s x Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy in its various editions from 1957 on and Kilmartin’s Christian Liturgy, Father Pivarnik has brought them into dialogue with the rest of their articles and books, in some cases updating and nuancing the originals.) And yet, Father Pivarnik is not uncritical of even these giants in the constellation of important twentieth-century liturgical theologians. His assessments and evaluations are precise and invitational in the sense that when he offers what are still underdeveloped ideas from each author, he invites the reader to think about and, yes, to contemplate what trinitarian participation in the sacred liturgy really means. The words of the sixth preface in Ordinary Time (from Acts 17:28) have ob- vious perennial value and always ring true: . in you we live and move and have our being, and while in this body we not only experience the daily effects of your care, but even now possess the pledge of life eternal. It is especially in chapter 5 of this book that we benefit from Father Pivarnik’s linguistic abilities, as well as his philosophical and theological training as a son of St. Thomas and as a teacher who himself has already drawn many into appreciating more fully what it means to participate in the sacred liturgy. I anticipate that this study will make him an invaluable dialogue partner in future debates about the ongoing renewal of the church as based on liturgical participation—a major point of what liturgical participation means, which is unfortunately often lost in some contemporary debates. His theological expertise abounds on every page of this book. The liturgy is a many splendored thing. It can be viewed and grasped from a variety of viewpoints and perspectives. In choosing the lens of “trinitarian liturgical participation” Father Pivarnik has chosen one of the foundations on which the entire enterprise of liturgy is based. We are in his debt for inviting us to go beyond the externals and the ephemeral and to drink deeply of the liturgy at it source—in and through the triune God. This book should become a model for others trying to help us all appreciate what it means to participate in the sacred liturgy. Rev. Msgr. Kevin W. Irwin Walter J. Schmitz Chair in Liturgical Studies School of Theology and Religious Studies The Catholic University of America Washington, DC xi Abbreviations Documents of the Second Vatican Council: AA Apostolicam Actuositatem AG Ad Gentes CD Christus Dominus DV Dei Verbum GE Gravissimum Educationis GS Gaudium et Spes LG

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