The Liturgical Movement

CHAPTER 2 The Liturgical Movement To understand the process of liturgical renewal and reform that took place in the church in the twentieth century – especially the re-engagement with the Paschal Mystery manifested chiefly in the restoration of the Holy Week liturgies – requires a basic grasp of the history and key issues of the Liturgical Movement.1 This chapter provides an overview of the history of the movement and its fundamental principles and issues to provide a context for the work that took place in the twentieth century – first in the Roman Catholic Church and later in the Episcopal Church in the United States and in other churches of the Anglican Communion. Whenever possible, I let the people and writings of the movement speak for themselves, focusing on key leaders in Europe and the United States and on fundamental documents and liturgical congresses.2 Also, because this was a movement directed toward assisting the entire Body of Christ to participate in the worship of the church to the fullest possible extent, I highlight popular works intended particularly for the liturgical formation of the laity. The goals toward which the founders and leaders of the Liturgical Movement (who were primarily scholars and pastors) worked – a renewed understand- ing of the Paschal Mystery as the foundation of Christian life and worship, a re-emphasis on the Body of Christ, and the full participation of all the faith- ful in worship – are inextricably linked. The church is comprised of paschal people: those who have begun to share in Christ’s death and resurrection (the Paschal Mystery) in baptism and the Eucharist. Through participation in this Mystery, they are knit together as the Body of Christ. It is both the right and responsibility of every member of the Body – lay and ordained alike – to participate fully in the worship of the Triune God. 1 Many fine studies of the Liturgical Movement have been published and there is no need – and no attempt – here to duplicate that work. Key studies are listed in the bibliography. 2 This is an attempt to chronicle what Ernest Koenker calls the ‘self-interpretation of the movement by its leaders’; Ernest Koenker, The Liturgical Renaissance in the Roman Catholic Church (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 7. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413917_004 The Liturgical Movement 33 1 ‘Immediate Roots’ and Early Years The ‘immediate roots’3 of the Liturgical Movement in the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century can be traced to the nineteenth century.4 Prosper Gueranger of Solesmes Abbey in France is probably the person most often associated with these nineteenth-century beginnings. His multi-volume work on the liturgical year, intended especially for the laity, L’Année Liturgique, introduced its riches to a wide audience.5 While some of his ideas and methods have been questioned and criticized,6 there is no doubt that, as Virgil Michel says, Gueranger, probably more than any other person in the nineteenth century, reminded the church of the importance and value of the liturgy.7 Massey Shepherd, a key figure in the liturgical work of the Episcopal Church in the twentieth century, agrees, writing that Gueranger ‘laid such foundations that without his pioneering the work of twentieth-century reformers would be impossible’.8 However, it was in the twentieth century that the Liturgical Movement became a real movement and played such a significant role in liturgical renewal and reform, not only in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the Epis- copal Church and other Christian traditions as well. In the twentieth century, scholarship – what the contemporary church can learn from the worship of the church in ages past – and pastoral concern – assisting the baptized to 3 John F. Baldovin, ‘The Liturgical Movement and Its Consequences’, in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, ed. Charles Hefling and Cynthia Shattuck (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 250. 4 J. D. Crichton says that this nineteenth-century work ‘prepared the ground for the liturgical movement of the twentieth century’; J. D. Crichton, Lights in the Darkness: Forerunners of the Liturgical Movement (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), p. 9. 5 Prosper Gueranger, L’Année Liturgique (Paris: F. Wattelier, 1858–1876). 6 For example, Baldovin notes that he ‘is a controversial figure since his models were medieval and his Ultramontanism made him combat neo-Gallican elements in the French church’; Baldovin, ‘Liturgical Movement and Its Consequences’, p. 250. Keith Pecklers writes that ‘his approach was highly subjective, and his research took him back only as far as the medieval period, often leading to inaccurate liturgical conclusions as a result’; Keith F. Pecklers, ‘The History of the Modern Liturgical Movement’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, online publication date September 2015, accessed 21 April 2017; http://religion.oxfordre .com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-19?print=pdf. 7 Virgil Michel, ‘The Significance of the Liturgical Movement’ in The Liturgical Movement, Popular Liturgical Library (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1930), p. 12. 8 Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., ‘The History of the Liturgical Renewal’, in Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., ed. for the Associated Parishes, The Liturgical Renewal of the Church: Addresses of the Liturgical Conference (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 25..

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