By Isabella Childs

I once visited the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana for a conference on ethics and human dignity, and while on campus I visited the University’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Though it was a weeknight, the Basilica was full of professors and students, including my group, who were visiting for the conference. The structure of the Basilica is impressive, with its tall pillars, Gothic arches, colorful and realistic 20th century murals, and stained-glass windows. However, the Liturgy held in the Church seemed disconnected from the awe-inspiring architecture of the Church, and this was unsettling.

The weekday Mass began with a crowd of people entering the sanctuary–a bishop, priests, male servers, and female servers–all wearing white robes. Our attention was soon drawn from the opening prayers to an attractive young woman who delivered a practical announcement from the pulpit in a carefully melodious voice. Other lay readers, college students, delivered the lessons of the day, the priest making way for them. When the priest did speak, during his homily, he made references to pop culture, including Harry Potter, in an attempt to explain some aspects of the spiritual life. When we came to the Agnus Dei, the choir sang “Lamb of God…” with beautifully pure voices, but the melody they sang was strangely rhythmic, and in style was some cross between a folk melody and a pop melody.

This celebration of the Mass was disjointed and distracted, and I was disjointed and distracted. I realized that the New Liturgy is out of place, not only in the classical architecture of older churches, but also in the soul’s sense of the proper act of religion, the sense of reverential and ordered worship of God. Often in churches like the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the traditional Mass is held only in the crypt of the church and very early in the morning, if at all. This is a tragedy. The Liturgy, in the form that the Church performed it for nearly two millennia, glorifies God in a fitting, beautiful, and timeless way. It has also nourished generation upon generation of saints because, in conveying the spirit of Christ, it clearly carries the right human spirit. That is, it is specially fitted to human formation, even in its simplest elements.

German 20th century philosopher, Dietrich von Hildebrand (1899-1977), realized these values of the traditional Liturgy, shortly before the traditional Liturgy was discarded, and wrote what may be the most inspired modern commentary on the liturgy, published in 1933. In his book, Liturgy and Personality,¹ Von Hildebrand shows how the traditional liturgy, while accomplishing its primary purpose of glorifying God, also reflects the spirit of true human personality–the personality of Christ Himself–and forms in us this true personality. This article is meant to be a summary of Von Hildebrand’s profound insights into the spirit of the Liturgy, and an encouragement for readers to explore his text in its entirety. For context, readers may note that the subtitles in quotation marks in this article correspond to most of the chapter titles in Liturgy and Personality, and the article more or less follows the structure of the book, with some ideas combined in thematic order, instead of chronological order, for the purpose of a concise summary.

What is True Personality?

When Von Hildebrand speaks of true personality, he does not refer to individual temperaments or even individual gifts and different manners of self-expression. For Von Hildebrand, the great personality is possessed by the man or woman who fully develops according to “the essence of man,” what it means, must fundamentally, to be human. “That man is a true personality who fully…realizes entirely all the essential personal values” (14).

Von Hildebrand sees the world as full of objective values–beauty, love, virtue, grace, divine life. In daily life, everyone comes in contact with these values in the natural world, in art, and in other people, and also encounters the opposite of these positive values. The true personality is reverent, open to goodness, alive to beauty, and in a constant communion of love with God and others. At the same time, the true personality is disturbed only by what is truly disturbing, sin, and is concerned by real and not illusory problems, ultimately, the need for salvation. Von Hildebrand calls the fully developed person, the true personality, the “classical man” and also the “normal man.” “The truly normal man is the classical man who is truly perceptive of values and responsive to them, the uncramped objective man, liberated from the prison of himself, in whom the capacity for self-donation and love is unbroken” (14). Alice von Hildebrand, the philosopher’s wife and a philosopher herself, sees her husband’s view of true personality as “the opposite of mediocrity…spiritual alertness…self-giving generosity…loving abandonment” (123).

According to von Hildebrand, most people, “average men,” are not fully developed (14). They are “spiritually poor and crippled,” and they manifest “abnormal traits: inhibitions, infantilisms, and repressions” (14). Many, especially in our day, suffer from “useless thoughts, and illusory problems…extravagance, self-deception, repression, and artificial evasions” 115). It is easy to see how our use and consumption of the internet, news, and social media, can quickly form illusions and artificial escapes from reality, including the reality of our own spiritual poverty. Von Hildebrand reveals some aspects of modern psychology as misleading for our development, with their tendency to explain our struggles away entirely as results of upbringing and environment, without addressing the deeper woundedness of sin and our need for God. In the end, “the only path leading to full personality is…to die to ourselves, in order that Christ may live in us” (18). The Liturgy helps us overcome obstacles to our spiritual development and leads us to a fullness of life in Christ. It does so in multiple ways.

How the Liturgy Reflects and Cultivates True Personality

Von Hildebrand sees the Liturgy, both the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Hours of the Divine Office, as the fulfillment of the human vocation–to glorify God. There are two ways in which we are meant to glorify God, “two currents of praise and glorification–the objective, silent one, expressed through values, and the personally performed, conscious adoration” (9). These two elements of glorification of God depend on each other. The Liturgy combines these two elements perfectly, as in the example Von Hildebrand gives, of the recitation of the Sanctus. When we recite or sing the Sanctus during Mass, we perform an outward, conscious act of adoration, yet if performed sincerely, this adoration of God springs from the consciousness of His goodness and is a realization of His love and glory. The entire Liturgy–the sacrificial act of the Mass, the prayers, antiphons, hymns, the “structure and construction” of the Mass, rites, sacraments, and the overarching structure of the liturgical year, all form the basis for acts of adoration of God, and at the same time convey the spirit of the true personality, the spirit of Christ, teaching us and forming us. Von Hildebrand discovers and describes several specific aspects of the liturgical spirit which especially reflect the spirit of Christ.

“The Spirit of Communion in the Liturgy”

The spirit of true communion, with oneself, with others, and with God, is essential to living a human life. Isolation, Von Hildebrand points out, “is proof of narrowness, limitation, even stupidity” and “presupposes a certain egocentric attitude toward the world and God” (39). In the Liturgy, the Catholic enters “into the wider stream of prayer…tak[ing] part in the prayer of the Head and through Him also of the Mystical Body of Christ” (25). Other devotions–even the Rosary–do not join members of the Mystical Body in such a way. The Liturgy surpasses the individual, but that does not mean it lacks emotion or character–it is, rather, full of “the deepest emotion, holy fear with holy joy and winged peace” (27).

The Propers of the Mass bring us in contact with different saints throughout the year, all united in the Mystical Body, and the Common prayers of the Mass unite us with each other in their emphasis on “We.” Von Hildebrand notes the plural pronouns in several prayers of the Mass, as in the “Laudamus Te, Benedicimus Te, Glorificamus Te” of the Gloria, the “Nobis quoque peccatoribus” of the Communicantes, the “Timeamus et amemus Deum vivum” of the Holy Thursday Antiphon, and the “Fratres, sobrii estote et vigilate” of Compline. Above all, in the Liturgy, we become one with Jesus, one with God Himself. In the Liturgy, each of us comes into what Von Hildebrand calls the “I-Thou” relationship with Jesus, especially in the reception of Holy Communion. Only the personal communion of each of us with Christ allows for the greater “We” of the Mystical Body. “The man who has been melted by the sun of values, and above all, the man who has been wounded by the love of Christ, is also lovingly open to every man and has entered into the objective unity of all” (32). The Liturgy, and particularly, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, not only teaches communion, but is itself communion between the members of the Mystical Body and the Divine Head.

“The Spirit of Reverence in the Liturgy”

The members of the Mystical Body, if they are to be true personalities, open to communion with others and God, must first possess “a spiritual vision, clear and open to the fullness of the world of values, above all, to the world of supernatural values” and be surrendered completely to Christ, and through Christ, to the Father, says Von Hildebrand (35). A clear view of values, ultimately a view and acceptance of the values of God, and a surrender to God, presupposes reverence. Reverence, Von Hildebrand says, is “the mother of all virtues…the foundation…[of] real knowledge…the knowledge of values” (35). Reverence places us in the context of the Divine, grounding us in our humble human identity of creature, while moving us to praise God, our Creator and Redeemer.

“The Liturgy is penetrated more than anything else by the spirit of true reverence, and it draws those who live it directly into this spirit. The right fundamental relation to God and to creation lives in all its parts” (39). The Liturgy is full of awe for God and the proper fear of God, but it is also full of the joy that fills us upon approaching the Altar of God. Von Hildebrand shows that the spirit of reverence for God is found in a particular way in the liturgical prayers with which we address God the Father through God the Son. In the words, “Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso est tibi, Deo Patri omnipotenti…omnis honor et gloria,” and in the words “Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum…” we approach God the Father through, with, and in Jesus. This fulfillment of God’s will, that the Son should be our Way to the Father, is perfectly accomplished in the Liturgy, and the Liturgy becomes for us, not just an expression, but truly a living of our faith (42).

“The Spirit of Response-to-Value in the Liturgy” and “The Classical Spirit in the Liturgy”

The Spirit of reverence in the Liturgy helps us put everything in the proper context, in light of God, allowing us to appreciate true, supernatural values and ultimately to seek God above all else. The man or woman who has developed, by divine grace, the true personality, is “irradiated and affected by values…joyous and enthusiastic about them…lov[ing] them” (45). Being responsive to values is the opposite of being egocentric and narrow, Von Hildeband says.

The person who treasures true values–beauty in the natural world and art, truth, goodness, virtue, love, supernatural realities–is filled with what Von Hildebrand calls “the Classical spirit” (111). According to him, the person with the Classical spirit “sees the world in its dimension of depth, its luminous plenitude of value, as a manifestation of God. [The Classical spirit] excludes all bluntness…distortion” (112). The man or woman with the Classical spirit views the world objectively, valuing what is truly valuable, disturbed by what is truly evil. “In a word, to be classical means that everything is rooted in the objective logos and is in full conformity with it” (112). The Liturgy is full of this Classical spirit, praising the One Who is to be praised above all, opposing all that does not glorify Him.

The Liturgy, as the expression of the love between God the Son and God the Father, is open to the highest values, and above all, to Divine Love. The prayers of the Mass both affirm the greatness and loveliness of God, and hasten towards Him. There is the prayer in the Mass “Gratias agimus Tibi propter magnam gloriam Tuam” and the prayer in the Psalms “Vultum Tuum quaesivi” (51-52). The Liturgy longs for and seeks the things of God, and finally, God Himself. The desire for God is, we know, fulfilled in a marvelous way in Holy Communion. Receiving Holy Communion, we are not just immersed in divine values–we receive the Source of all Value–Love Himself.

“The Spirit of Awakenedess in the Liturgy”

A truly reverent personality is awake with a state of inner receptiveness to meaning, and an “awareness of the entire metaphysical frame…in the light of God” (64). The true personality does not suffer from spiritual inertia but is constantly moved by grace. The Liturgy, like the true personality, is alive with spiritual alertness because its attention is set on God. The Hours of the Divine Office convey a sense of awakenedness, offering constant praise to God throughout the day, beginning with Matins before the rising of the sun. Ejaculations and other short prayers which we recite during the day, perhaps before performing a good act, as meritorious and useful as they are, can never replicate the “formation in awakenedness granted by the Liturgy” (71).

The Liturgy draws us into the ever-flowing stream of prayer of the entire Mystical Body of Christ, the prayer of Christ Himself, and links us to Eternity in a special way. Von Hildebrand notes that even the physical gestures which we perform during the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office embody the spirit of holy awakenedness. “Even the participation of the body in religious worship, as in the act of genuflection, the inclination of the head during the Gloria, and the standing during the reading of the Gospels, represents an attitude of awakenedness and at the same time a call to wakefulness” (73). All liturgical prayer, down to the smallest rubrics and our bodily postures during the Mass, confirm the magnificent supernatural realities before us, visibly responding to the eternal life of Christ which is constantly renewed on the altar and renewed in us.

“The Spirit of Discretio in the Liturgy, the Spirit of Continuity in the Liturgy, and the Organic Element in the Liturgy”

Von Hildebrand links the spirit of responsiveness to values and the spirit of awakenedness in the Liturgy to the spirit of discretio, the spirit of discretion embodied in the Liturgy.

A man or woman with a true personality understands the order of values, the hierarchy of things in the Cosmos, and also understands the organic progressions of things. For example, a fully-developed person understands the stages that must organically unfold in a friendship or marriage so that the perfect communion in love can be realized in an ordered way. This ordered approach to a relationship is necessary in a relationship with God. Von Hildebrand notes that the spirit of discretion is especially lacking in our day, when we expect and demand immediate results in ourselves and society by relying on external means (books, speeches, propaganda, media, the latest podcasts). We often fail to realize that change must grow slowly, silently, in our souls, and we must be recollected and receptive so God’s grace can penetrate us.

The spirit of discretio in the Liturgy is especially seen in the structure of the Mass, Von Hildebrand says. The Consecration is not performed immediately, but is approached in various stages of prayer, each building on the other to the climax–God’s descent to Earth. We approach the altar, confess our sins in the Confiteor, cry out to God for mercy in the Kyrie, offer praise and thanksgiving to God for His mercy in the Gloria, receive God’s word in the Epistle and Gospel, offer ourselves with Christ in the Offertory, invoke God’s grace and pardon once more, and finally, adore and receive God Himself. The various details in the rubrics, such as the various acts of incensing in the Mass, “are not mere fortuitous creations…but…the very embodiment of discretio” (89-90). The various, ordered elements, both in the rubrics and the overarching structure of the Holy Mass also form a spirit of continuity. There is a basic continuity in the succession of actions in the Mass and the harmony in them, which conveys the deeper element of continuity–the continuous love between Christ and the Father.

The Liturgy, therefore, even in the smallest details of its rubrics and the architecture of its overarching structure, carries the Spirit of Christ. Reading Von Hildebrand’s book, it becomes clear that the smallest disruption, the tiniest tear in the structure of the Liturgy, can be an obstacle to the conveyance of Christ’s Spirit. We can speak about the “Crisis in the Church” without understanding many of the defects of the New Mass. Reading Dietrich von Hildebrand’s book, Liturgy and Personality, helps to clarify our understanding and appreciation of the true Liturgy in its human elements, its artistic structure and prayers, and so helps us understand the terrible defects of the New Liturgy. Renewed by the appreciation of the ways in which God works through the traditional Liturgy and perfects our human personality, we can better marvel at the Divine Drama of the Liturgy, Christ’s Sacrifice on the altar, and enter into His eternal praise of the Father, living a constant reply to the Sursum Corda, Christ’s command to lift up our hearts.

Endnotes

¹ Dietrich von Hildebrand, Liturgy and Personality (The Hildebrand Project, 2016).

TITLE IMAGE: Mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Jindřich Tomec (1863-1928).