Friendship with the Fairest of the Children of Men: Relating the Ars celebrandi to Actuosa participatio

Friendship with the Fairest of the Children of Men: Relating the Ars celebrandi to Actuosa participatio Owen Vyner Introduction On 18 April 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, an astute judge of culture , addressed the cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel to elect the next pope. At the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice he warned of a “dictatorship of relativism,” by which he meant a tyranny of intolerance in the name of “tolerance.” Friendship with Christ, he said, is the only path that enables us “to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth.”1 Nearly a week later, in his first homily as Pope Benedict XVI, he spoke again of friendship with Christ, this time saying of it that nothing is more beautiful.2 It is primarily in the Church’s sacred liturgy where Christians encounter the friendship that enables them to know the truth. For this reason, authentic liturgical renewal has been a central concern of Ratzinger, both as theologian and as Vicar of Christ. Many Catholics waited with great anticipation for Benedict to issue his first papal document on the Eucharist, Sacramentum caritatis of 2007 (henceforth S.Car.). In this apostolic exhortation responding to the October 2005 Synod of Bishops, he writes: The primary way to foster the participation of the People of God in the sacred rite is the proper celebration of the rite itself. The ars celebrandi is the best way to ensure their actuosa participatio.3 1 Homily of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals , 18 April 2005, at . 2 Homily of Benedict XVI at the inauguration of his pontificate, 24 April 2005, at . 3 Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis (22 February 2007), in Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist as Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission (Washington DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2007) §38, p. 35. All citations of this document are drawn from this edition. Antiphon 14.3 (2010): 261-272 262 Owen Vyner I would even go so far as to say that the art of celebrating the liturgy (ars celebrandi) is foundational to the work of promoting the active participation (actuosa participatio) of the Catholic people in the liturgical celebration. In this essay I will try to show the connection between those two themes, first by exploring Pope Benedict’s understanding of beauty as an encounter with Christ, and then by applying this insight to the matter of liturgical celebration. I. The Epistemic Importance of Beauty In an article entitled “Wounded by the Arrow of Beauty,” published in 2004,4 then-Cardinal Ratzinger reflects on an apparent paradox in the Liturgy of the Hours between two antiphons which frame Psalm 45[44], the royal wedding song. The antiphon used during Lent in Vespers for Monday of Week II of the four-week Psalter rightly identifies the bridegroom-king with Jesus Christ, describing him in the psalmist’s words as “the fairest of the children of men” (v. 3).5 In contrast, the antiphon used on Monday of Holy Week, based as it is on the Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah, presents a very different image of Christ: “He had no beauty, no majesty to draw our eyes, no grace to make us delight in him” (cf. Is 53:2).6 So Ratzinger asks: Was Christ beautiful? And if so, how can we reconcile these two antiphons, which the Church presents to deepen our reflection on the mystery of the Redeemer? As he sees it, the two antiphons are contrasting but not contradictory.7 This reflection leads Ratzinger to consider the nature of beauty. In light of the horrors of the twentieth century, he asks “whether beauty is true or whether perhaps ugliness leads us to the actual truth of reality.”8 Then he resolves the question straightaway: Whoever believes in… the God who revealed himself precisely in the distorted figure of Christ crucified as Love ‘to the end’ (Jn 13:1), knows that beauty is truth and truth beauty; but in the suffering Christ he also learns that the beauty of truth also involves wounds, pain, and even the obscure mystery of death….9 4 Joseph Ratzinger, On the...