Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis ACADEMIA ALFONSIANA Institutum Superius Theologiae Moralis _____________________________________________________________ MARK EDWARD RICHARDS Diocese of Palmerston North “RIGHT AND JUST” THE “STRUCTURE AND MEANING OF THE LITURGY” (SC 23): A PATTERN FOR FORMATION AND THE MAKING OF COMMITMENTS. Excerpta ex Dissertatio ad Doctoratum in Theologia Morali consequendum ROMAE, 2018 Vidimus et approbamus ad normam Statutorum Academiae Alfonsianae Prof. Terence Kennedy, C.Ss.R. I˚ moderatore: Professor Theol. Moralis systematicae. Prof. Vimal Tirimanna, C.Ss.R. II˚ moderatore: Professor Theol. Moralis systematicae. Prof. Andrzej S. Wodka, C.Ss.R.: Praeses Academiae Alfonsianae. Roma, 27 Aprilis 2018. Nihil Obstat + Enrico dal Covolo, SDB Rector Magnificus Pont. Universitatis Lateranensis Roma, 02 Maii 2018. Imprimatur +Charles Edward Drennan Episcopus, Palmerstonaquiloniana Palmerstonaquiloniana, 09 Maii 2018. Acknowledgements This note of acknowledgement is simple, mainly because the life of this thesis has not been such. It has been an exercise of over six years, in the midst of the life of the Diocese and National and familial commitments, with the patient support of Prof Terence Kennedy C.Ss.R. and the Accademia Alfonsiana. So the first thanks is to Fr Terence for his patience, coupled with a willingness to adapt, to question and to test ideas with pastoral questions. His pastoral care and flexibility have been important, and supportive, when the patterns of preparation, seen in a structured process when a candidate is working within the Accademia, have been disturbed by the distance of half the world and the constraints of full time work. The willingness to adapt to ways outside the normal has also been a characteristic of the support of Prof Vimal Tirimanna C.Ss.R., whose wise advice gave a vital focus to the last drive to completion. To you both, thanks. I also wish to thank the Accademia as a whole for their patient support, but the other person who needs specific acknowledgement is Signora Gros who has been a consistent, punctual, clear and warm support at the end of the email, of what must have been for her an administrative nightmare. The movement to this thesis had its origins in studies here at the Accademia thirty years ago and was re-kindled by taking up the present role in the Diocese of Palmerston North in Aotearoa/New Zealand. So my heartfelt thanks are offered to the Diocese. Firstly, I thank Bishop Peter Cullinane, the Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese, for the care, support, encouragement, but more the witness of a great Bishop who in his forty years of episcopal ministry has been a witness to Vatican II and the hope of the Gospel, Thanks +Peter. This has continued in the ongoing support and witness of a Bishop who knows that formation and leading people to commitment starts with meeting people where they are, and who is i actively a “Bishop of personal engagement”, Bishop Charles Drennan. Thank you for the witness and support. I also thank my fellow workers in the vineyard of the Diocese of Palmerston North, the Parish of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, and at The Catholic Institute of Aotearoa New Zealand. Thanks. And as I come to complete this work I want to thank the community of the Lay Centre at the Foyer Unitas, especially Dr Donna Orsuto, for their gentle and warm welcome and support over the last months of work here in Rome; and the Todd Foundation for their support in enabling me to get to Rome and for supporting my time here. However, the most important, and kept till last, is the love, encouragement and support of my wife, Kate, who is the catechist whose ministry inspires and has ‘incarnated’ the drive to build the Body of Christ by welcoming people as they are; and Edward, John and Leo who have grown up with the dinner table covered with books on the RCIA, and a computer pushed to one side. Thanks. Deo autem gratias. The Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, May 03, 2018. Rome. ii Contents Acknowledgements .........................................................................................i Abbreviations of Ecclesial Sources Used in this work.................................... vi “Right and Just”: the “Structure and meaning of the liturgy” (SC 23) as a template for formation and commitment. .................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 1 An outline of the study. ............................................................................. 4 1. The Call of Vatican II: ............................................................................. 6 1.1. The call of Vatican II to link all of theology to the liturgy. .............. 6 Conclusions 1: Moral Theology and the Liturgy. ................................... 7 1.2. The general principles of SC 24-46. ................................................ 7 Conclusions 2: The Norms of Sacrosanctum Concilium ....................... 16 1.3 The structure and meaning of the Liturgy. .................................... 17 Conclusions 3: The Catechumenal structure of the Liturgy. ............... 22 Diagram 1: A Comparison of the Structure of the Sunday Liturgy, the Rites of Christian Initiation and Gaudium et Spes 1-45 ....................... 24 Diagram 2: A comparison of the structure of the Sunday Liturgy, the Rites of Initiation, Gaudium et Spes 1-45 and the seasonal cycle of the liturgical year. ...................................................................................... 27 1.4. The tools of interpretation: .......................................................... 28 Conclusions 4: Discernment. ............................................................... 41 Conclusion 5: Dialogue ........................................................................ 49 Conclusions 6: The Presence of Christ in the Community. .................. 53 Conclusion 7: Sources of Revelation. ................................................... 59 1.5. The Catechumenate as the architype of formation and of commitment. ....................................................................................... 60 2. The Process of Formation that enables the making of a Commitment. ................................................................................................................. 64 iii 2.1. The Introductory Rites .................................................................. 64 Conclusion 8: The Gathering, the start of formation. ......................... 70 Conclusion 9: Entering into an Assembly. ........................................... 75 Conclusion 10: Examen. ....................................................................... 80 Conclusion 11: Collect – The Purpose. ................................................ 81 2.2. The Liturgy of the Word ................................................................ 82 Conclusion 12: Proclamation and Meditation. ................................... 84 Conclusion 13: Christ speaks in the Gospel. ........................................ 86 Conclusion 14: The Fruit of Discernment. ........................................... 90 Conclusion 15: Application to Life. ...................................................... 92 Conclusion 16: Commitment ............................................................... 94 2.3. The Liturgy of the Eucharist .......................................................... 95 Conclusion 17: Committing to total Gift, in action. ........................... 102 Conclusion 18: Commitment to Act in community. .......................... 104 Diagram 3: “The Structure and Meaning of the Liturgy” as a template for formation and the making of commitments................................ 107 General Conclusion: ................................................................................... 110 The Structure ......................................................................................... 110 The Meaning .......................................................................................... 112 Concluding statement:............................................................................... 113 Bibliography ............................................................................................... 115 Conciliar Documents .............................................................................. 115 Papal Documents ................................................................................... 116 Encyclicals .............................................................................................. 116 Apostolic Exhortations and Post-Synodal Exhortations ........................ 117 Speeches, Addresses, Homilies .............................................................. 119 iv Liturgical Books: Sources ....................................................................... 116 Documents of Roman Congregations .................................................... 121 Other Ecclesial Sources .......................................................................... 122 Books...................................................................................................... 124 Articles ................................................................................................... 131 Structure of the full thesis as submitted of which this is an extract: ........ 140 v Abbreviations of Ecclesial Sources Used in this work. In citing official Roman Catholic documents,