In reviewing the reforms that occurred in the liturgy because of the documents from the Second Vatican Council, I have been exploring background on those changes. I remember the differences, but I am not always certain of when or how they happened. I remember the big picture more than the details.
I picked up the book, Pastoral Liturgy, by Joseph A. Jungmann, a Jesuit priest who was instrumental in the research that led to the Vatican II liturgy. He was a peritus of Vatican II – an expert or specialist that assisted the bishops – on liturgical matters. He also was a consultant on the implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. His book, Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, is a definitive work on how the liturgy evolved through the centuries.
Note: These books are dense. I’m not making Book Club endorsements.
I am delighted by an essay Jungmann wrote in the early 1960s, before the CSL came to be, Conservation and Change in the Liturgy. I want to share some of his thoughts with you because they are points that come into debate today.
He begins by saying that the liturgy is not an historic building that needs to be preserved without alteration. He calls that idea “Liturgical antiquarianism.” For centuries, “It was a sacred heritage, not to be meddled with.” “Following the rubrics exactly, [clergy] had to carry out the sacred action in all its mysterious complexity and strict dignity, while the faithful attended the holy mysteries at a respectful distance, making their private devotions with the aid … of a prayer book.”
He later says, “But like every living organism, the liturgy has to adapt itself to the present conditions of life.” Jungmann is not advocating a wholesale turnover of liturgical structures. He states that liturgy is conservative by its nature. But historical studies of liturgical texts and rubrics show that differences abounded. One region’s liturgy was not more sacred than another. They were just different. However, one of the reasons the Council of Trent standardized the liturgy was to rid it of idiosyncratic additions thought to be unhealthy for the universal Church.
It is clear in reading Jungmann that the changes in the liturgy did not appear overnight. The scholarship of the 19th and 20th Centuries led to a renewed understanding of the liturgy of the early Church and its growth over time. Liturgical scholars, historians, and archeologists were writing and debating topics that became the essential aims for Vatican II liturgical reforms.
Some changes began happening in certain places before the Second Vatican Council, “within the framework of existing regulations. The people began answering the priest - as the rubrics has always allowed. Communion was received during Mass – as had always been the correct procedure. Occasionally the priest stood behind the altar-table facing the people as had always been permissible according to the rubrics.” Of course, not everyone endorsed these innovations.
Next time: Jungmann and Participation
