Place of the Liturgy in Christian Spirituality

PLACE OF THE LITURGY IN CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY T o oppose liturgical prayer and private prayer is a mistake . For the most part, such oppositions have only a rhetorical value in the heads of those who maintain them. Their aim is nearly always to emphasize the need of one form of prayer, wherever this type is forgotten through negligence or exclusion. Now whatever goes without saying, goes even better when it is said; and, after all, it is useful to show that the profound and real content of " devotions " is nothing other than what pertains to actual liturgical rediscoveries . For example, the true cult of the Sacred Heart has only the aim to interiorize the Paschal mystery. It is always necessary to rectify and complete one type of prayer by another. To combat an uncontrolled taste characteristic of individualism, then, it is legitimate to recall the eminent value of the Christian cult, or to point out to the directors of extremely cumbersome chant that true prayer cannot exist without solitude and silence.1 However, it is no less true that deviations are present in both positions.2 It is useless to keep 1 Cf. L. Boyer, "Liturgic et contemplation, apropos d'un livre recent de Jacques et Raissa Maritain," in La Vie SpiritueUe, April, 1950, pp. 406-9; and P. R. Rkgamey, "L'orientation contemplative de Ia priere liturgique," in La Vie Spirituelle, May, 1960, especially pp. 478-84. 2 " Since the end of the fifteenth century, the generalized practice of mental prayer has tended to give an increasing importance to private prayer, and yet there was a notable regression in the use of liturgical forms [of prayer]. In the seventeenth century, Saint-Cyran and Thomassin thought that religious women who did not know Latin were better off in the recitation of the Office, since, in praying , they were not embarrassed by the text. In our own time, a reaction in the inverse sense is starting to occur, inasmuch as, by exalting liturgical prayer, one has minimized the importance of mental prayer in a way which seems to be excessive . Now, if one remembers that every prayer is, in itself, the prayer of the Church, one can ask what is the precise meaning of the term 'private prayer.' One could not be using this term to indicate prayer wherein the member of the faithful is really alone in God's presence, since such a prayer does not exist and, 413 414 BERNARD BRO on reiterating such complaints as "You have become accustomed to talking so much during Mass that you cannot pray any more," etc. There is justice in the remark that praying does not mean showing interior movies with head in hands. A False Problem There is something more serious. One may hold, for example , by way of defence of the liturgy, " there is no explicit foundation for mental prayer in the Gospel." The ridiculousness of such a claim, even in the mouth of a professor, is of little importance. Yet such aphorisms open the way for "throwing the baby out with the bath water." All of us are too clever in rationalizing our infidelities. Moreover, one does not need long practice to know that the life of prayer is obtained only with great courage.3 Thus such statements not only seem stupid; they are also culpable. Besides, we thereby bless the brutality of our age which has the advantage of speaking to us sharply and of obliging us to be true exteriorly , even if faithfulness is lacking. The quality of the dramatic inventions of our time and its genius of renewal in expression have quickly made us recognize the insufficiencies in our liturgical language, as well as made the audacities of the mystagogues seem tame.4 Furthermore, the taste for psychological verifications and the haste of sociological investigations place us under the obligation of fighting against all spiritual " experiences " which would lead to self reliance rather at all times, the whole Church is praying in us. We are never alone in prayer, and the dogma of the communion of saints lets us claim that the humblest of our mental prayers unites us with the supplication pertinent to the eternal...