Devotional Headwaters: The Liturgy as a Source of Devotion
At the summit and center of the Christian Liturgy1 stands the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary is sacramentally renewed. So essential was this Sacrifice of the Cross that Catholics profess dogmatically that all graces that God would ever give to mankind were merited by this Sacrifice. While the Crucifixion happened at a specific moment in time, graces and merits granted before Calvary were ex ante facto—granted in view of what Christ would merit.
If all graces flow from Calvary, logic then would show us that all true devotion, as an act of the virtue of religion—a supernatural act, founded on grace—must also flow from that same Sacrifice. Continuing that logic, the other parts of the Christian Liturgy—being the official prayer of the Church Herself, and therefore the prayer of Christ to His Father—also form the primary devotional source for all Christians.
Pope Pius XII insists on this point, teaching that the liturgy is “the public worship which our Redeemer as Head of the Church renders to the Father,” but also “the worship which the community of the faithful renders to its Founder, and through Him to the heavenly Father,” and therefore, “the worship rendered by the Mystical Body of Christ in the entirety of its Head and members.”2 Nevertheless, he labels as erroneous those who would make the liturgy a merely external rite, writing, “God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart turn to Him in quest of the perfect life, and that the worship rendered to God by the Church in union with her divine Head [i.e. liturgical prayer] is the most efficacious means of achieving sanctity.”3
If Christian devotional life does not have the liturgy, at least indirectly, as its source, and thus “withdraw [the faithful] from the stream of vital energy that flows from Head to members, it would indeed be sterile, and deserve to be condemned.”4
“The prayer of the Church,” writes Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B., “is, therefore, the most pleasing to the ear and heart of God, and therefore the most efficacious of prayers.”5 As such, it was the primary devotion of the Church until well into the Middle Ages.
Devotio Moderna : A New and Personal Piety
This was something much more clearly understood prior to the devotio moderna. This movement centered around the piety of the Brethren of Common Life, in the middle of the fourteenth century, produced very popular non-liturgical devotions, in the effort to focus personal piety on a closer imitation of Christ. Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ and other devotions like the Stations of the Cross come from this spiritual and period. The Rosary also originates in this same period, as well as the recitation of the Angelus when the bells would ring to ask Catholics to pray during the anti-Hussite wars.
It would be an error to denigrate such fervor, which clearly flows from a true love of God and desire to please Him, grow in virtue, and be united more intimately with Him. Knowing as well that many of these devotions, such as the scapular and Rosary, come directly from the Blessed Virgin and are promoted by the Church, should show that these are fundamental parts of a traditional Catholic devotional life, and as such can easily be connected to the liturgy, just as easily as they can become disconnected.
The focus on personal holiness and piety of particular devotions and the devotio moderna is not only praiseworthy, but it heavily influenced the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola and many other spiritual masters. The Spiritual Exercises have formed great saints and preaching them is a particular charism of the Society of St. Pius X.
It is important, however, that popular non-liturgical devotions not take away from the liturgy. This is what happened as they became more widespread; focus on the Christian Liturgy as the main focal point of devotions began to fall by the wayside. In many places, “the people had ceased to unite themselves exteriorly with the prayer of the Church, except on Sundays and festivals … Social prayer was made to give way to individual devotion … That was the first sad revolution in the Christian world.”6
The purpose of Dom Guéranger in writing his The Liturgical Year and in the Liturgical Movement he would help to found, was to provide the faithful a richer understanding and appreciation so that the Liturgy would become their primary devotion, to which their other private devotions would draw their power and source.
Such also was the concern of the founder of the SSPX, Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre, who said:
Our Lord Jesus Christ’s goal was to offer Himself on the Cross. He came for no other reason. And the Mass is the continuation of the Cross; Our Lord’s goal is then to continue His Cross by the holy sacrifice of the Mass until the end of time. It seems that many souls have forgotten this. They have been looking for the source of grace in little devotions, in the recitation of certain personal prayers, in private devotions to this or that saint. It is good to have devotions, but let us have the essential devotion, the chief and fundamental devotion of the Church and of all the saints: the one brought us by Our Lord.7
Unforeseen Consequences & Possible Solutions
The lack of an appreciation for the Church’s official prayer was a major factor in the ease with which the liturgical revolutionaries were able to introduce novelties in the 1950s and 1960s. With many faithful trained to “hear Mass” by their physical presence, few following the Mass prayers with attentiveness, and trained to pray personal devotions at Mass, not to pray the Mass (as St. Pius X desired), changes to the formulary became easy to justify, and minor changes often went unnoticed. Based on stereotypes, the liturgical revolutionaries introduced ahistorical innovations, but for the most part, they received little pushback from the faithful.
Among the good actors in the Liturgical Movement (especially in its earlier days), great efforts were expended to try to focus the faithful on the Christian Liturgy as the center of their lives as Catholics. While in the Middle Ages, a book was never necessary to follow ceremonies that people learned from their youth, in a more literate but less liturgical nineteenth century, the first modern hand-missals were produced and became very popular in France. Today’s hand-missals are a direct result of those efforts to allow the faithful to follow more closely the texts they often could not understand from hearing alone.
Beginning in the 1860s, Fr. Giuseppe Sarto began teaching the faithful of his small parish church to sing the Gregorian Chant of the Mass and Office. When he received his own parish in Salzano, he opened a school for Latin and sacred music. He would continue these works throughout his time as a bishop, then cardinal-patriarch of Venice before issuing, as Pope Pius X, his famous apostolic letter Tra Le Sollecitudini on sacred music and the liturgy, setting down clear guidelines for sacred music. The Ordinary of the Mass was to be sung by the faithful. The more difficult variable parts, by a choir of men trained for such a purpose.
The Liturgical Movement was, in this way, trying to promote what Dom Alcuin Reid, O.S.B. calls, “the principle of liturgical piety,” writing that this principle “seeks not to reform liturgical rites or prayers, but the spiritual dispositions and practices of the Catholic faithful.”8
In this vein, Dom Lambert Beauduin proposed some practical means for developing liturgical piety in his 1914 La Piété de L’Église. Though Beauduin would later become a “true machine of war to propel the liturgical movement”9 in the wrong direction, his suggestions in this work are perfectly orthodox. Some of his ideas are reworkings of the motu proprio of St. Pius X or logical derivations from these same principles and ideas.
Beauduin suggests, for instance, that the Sunday Sung or Solemn Mass should be emphasized along with communal singing of the liturgical chant. He recommends that Vespers and Compline of Sunday be sung in parochial churches, where possible. The solemn singing of the Office of the Dead with all of its ceremonies for the faithful who have died, was suggested as a way of uniting the faithful, and teaching the Catholic doctrines on the body and soul as a means to help combat the rationalism of the time which would deny the eternity of the soul. It is also a great work of charity for the deceased.
Private devotions were also encouraged, but with a particular emphasis on basing such devotions and practices of popular piety on the liturgical seasons, feasts, meditation on the liturgy or its components such as the Psalms. The use of the liturgy as a central element of Christian education and study was to be promoted in schools, especially by the teaching and study of sacred music and other arts.
Msgr. Lefebvre, even well before a New Mass was on the horizon, saw the value of the Mass as a means by which the faithful can learn their Faith, and draw many spiritual benefits.
The liturgy is a very effective means of ministry. If the liturgy is first and foremost the praise of the Blessed Trinity, an oblation and sacrifice and source of divine life, it is also the most vivid and effective form of catechesis. We can never do enough to enhance our liturgical ceremonies and to make our faithful and catechumens participate in these mysteries, which are the great means of apostolate, the only means that is really and truly efficacious, because it is the one Christ Himself chose as He chose us, too.10
If this is true, it also behooves the faithful to then allow the liturgy to inform their Catholic devotions and spiritual life. No changes to the liturgy are needed, only to drink deeper from this “source of divine life” as deeply as possible, and apply these “living waters” to the field of the domestic Church that is the home, and one’s own spiritual life.
Present Practical Proposals
1. Sacred Music and the Faithful
The singing of the Kyriale (Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) and sung responses at Mass and the Office by all the faithful—not merely a select choir—were repeatedly and widely encouraged.
St. Pius X as a parish priest taught chant to his faithful; later as a Cardinal he would further encourage this in Venice, and then as Pope he would insist that “[s]pecial efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.”11 Pius XII, also, encourages such efforts in his encyclical on the liturgy, writing:
They also are to be commended who strive to make the Liturgy even in an external way a sacred act in which all who are present may share. This can be done in more than one way, when for instance, the whole congregation in accordance with the rules of the Liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally in High Masses when they answer the prayers of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the liturgical chant.12
Pius XII later instructs the bishops of the world to promote congregational singing.13
Even before the papacy of St. Pius X or Pius XII, the Second (1866) and Third (1884) Plenary Councils of Baltimore (from which flow the Baltimore Catechism) both encouraged parish schools to teach chant, so that the faithful could sing Vespers and the Mass responses.
2. The Divine Office and the Faithful
Sunday Vespers and other hours of the Divine Office in chapels, churches and priories should be done where this is possible. This is why Prime, Sext and Compline are often sung publicly at SSPX priories.
Pope Pius XII exhorted the bishops of the world to restore this practice where it had ceased.14 The Councils of Baltimore also recommend this well before the Liturgical Movement began.
Even some ceremonies and Masses were originally joined to the Divine Office, including the blessing of the Ashes on Ash Wednesday, the blessing of candles on Candlemas and even a Pontifical Mass when the local bishop would visit, showing the Office and Mass parts of a whole liturgy.
The restoration of Sunday Vespers at chapels and churches is eminently practical, provided the faithful make it a priority to attend. With some minor variations, Sunday Vespers is simple and regular throughout the year. The tones of the psalms and their antiphons being fixed for most of the year, changing only during Advent and Paschaltide. Combined with Benediction as is done at the seminaries, such a practice could allow the faithful a chance to join in the Church’s prayer more than just on a Sunday at Mass.
Sunday or even weekday Compline, where this is practical, are yet another way to encourage this liturgical piety. When this is not possible at a chapel, or for a family, there is no reason Sunday Compline could not be a family prayer at home in a larger family.15
3. A Practical Rule for Devotions
Without disparaging non-liturgical devotions (such as the Rosary prayed in common), it would seem a fitting rule to add liturgical devotions to parochial life before adding additional non-liturgical devotions. At least if some additional devotion should be added on a weekend, perhaps Vespers should be added first, and if well-attended, then some other non-liturgical devotion could be added.
Liturgical acts that could be added include Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgical Processions, and various actions and Blessings from the Roman Ritual.
4. Sacred Art and the Seasons
The use of seasonally appropriate, doctrinally-rich music, along with appropriate liturgical decorations are a great aid to the faithful in their devotion.
Pius XII speaks of the liturgical year as a “splendid hymn of praise” in all of its recollections of the mysteries of Our Lord’s life.16 This drama is enhanced and taught by the symbolism that sacred art uses when it serves the purposes of the liturgy and by doing this helps devotion and contemplation.
For instance, a beautiful altar, with the finest candles and brassware, vested in a richly-embroidered white antependium for Maundy Thursday, communicates the dignity, solemnity, and joy of the institution of the Eucharist, Priesthood, and Mass. When the richly-appointed altar is then stripped to bare marble, the shock, pain, and sadness of Our Lord’s Passion beginning is also dramatically understood. Those who then can stay to keep Vigil at the Altar of Repose have the added sense of this loss, and reason to keep watch. Thus, the simple use of various classes of decorations and sobriety in their use is a great tool, and one in which the faithful can participate by the creation and maintenance of these appointments.
When, instead, the altar is always plain, or alternatively, always decked out in the finest lace and candles, even in penitential seasons, much of this “splendid hymn of praise” is not heard.
Similarly, with music, when the organ plays as loudly and triumphantly during Lent and Advent (when it is forbidden) as it does on Easter, the drama of that “hymn” is lost. The choice of simple, appropriate hymns all can sing; or the judicious use of a cappella music or chant, can greatly encourage liturgical piety.
Small details can add much to devotion.
5. Living the Liturgical Year
A final suggestion as a means of encouraging a liturgical piety is translating the seasons of the liturgical year into the personal spiritual life of the faithful and of families. This is a particularly useful way of allowing personal and non-liturgical devotion to be influenced and touched by the liturgy.
The Church dedicates each month to a particular Saint or mystery. January is the month of the Holy Name of Jesus; March, of St. Joseph; May, of Our Lady; June, of the Sacred Heart; July, of the Precious Blood, etc. Particular prayers (e.g. an appropriate approved litany), activities, or meditations that focus on these themes help unite families and faithful to the feasts of that month.
Various books, such as Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family, The Year and Our Children, and Religious Customs in the Family, detail liturgically-minded devotional practices for the “domestic church” that is the home. For meditations following the liturgical year, Angelus Press provides Fr. Patrick Troadec’s series as well as Divine Intimacy. Then there is the classic Liturgical Year of Dom Guéranger.
Even simple changes in the adornment of the home or food served at home, based on the liturgical season—a more Spartan environment (or meals) during Lent, for instance—can help to instill the spirit of the liturgy. Small and creative efforts help to bring the Church’s liturgy into the home and daily life, providing a welcome retreat from the apathy of the world to that “splendid hymn of praise” and the prayer of the Mystical Body.
Best of all, none of these practical solutions require, or even suggest that the traditional liturgy be changed to fit men, rather that we men change to fit it.
Endnotes
1 N.B. The author has intentionally preferred “Christian” rather than “Catholic,” not to suggest that heretical “Christian” sects have a true liturgy, but rather the opposite: that the only true Christian worship is that of the Catholic Church—the only true Church of Christ. Thus, those sects that lack this Christian Liturgy lack any true worship.
2 Pius XII, Mediator Dei, §6.
3 Ibid., §26.
4 Ibid., §32.
5 Guéranger, Prosper. The Liturgical Year, vol. 1, p. 2.
6 Guéranger, Prosper. The Liturgical Year, vol. 1, p. 3.
7 Lefebvre, Marcel. Retreat conference to religious sisters at Albano, Italy. Quoted from The Mass of All Time. p. xvii
8 Reid, Alcuin. The Nature of the Liturgical Movement and the Principles of Liturgical Reform. p. 59–60.
9 R. Loonbeek and J. Mortiau. Un pionnier, dom Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960): Liturgie et Unité des chrétiens. 2001. p. 68)
10 Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre, Address to Superiors (1960) Diocese of Dakar, as quoted in The Mass of All Time, p. 165.
11 St. Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini, §3.
12 Pius XII, Mediator Dei, §105.
13 Ibid., §194
14 Ibid., §150
15 N.B. the Divine Office is only an act of liturgy when sung by religious bound to choir, or led by one in Sacred Orders.
16 Ibid., §161.