What Really Happened When They Reformed the Liturgy?

Nicola Giampietro: "They have all the best intentions, but with this mentality they have only been able to demolish and not to restore." (192)

The Rev. Dr Alcuin Reid, one of the most sensible liturgists in the Catholic world, reviews  Nicola Giampietro, The Development of the Liturgical Reform: As Seen by Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli from 1948-197 (Fort Collins CO: Roman Catholic Books, 2009 xx + 347 pages. Paperback. $33.75 in Antiphon, the journal of liturgical renewal.


Giampietro was there when it all happened.  He was heavily involved in the liturgical Movement.  He was the secretary to the second Vatican council's work on Sacrosanctum Consilium, its constitution on the liturgy.  You can read his review on the New Liturgical Movement.

From The Australian via News.com.au, enjoy this fair dinkum video in which Aussie Tim Winton reads from his book Land's Edge, A Coastal Memoir. The images are by Narelle Autio. Winton is from West australia (Perth maybe?)

Dancing

Dancing has been frowned upon by some denominations at various times. Generally speaking, the Catholic church has consider dancing a good thing until proven otherwise. Certainly David danced into Jerusalem before the Ark of the Covenant. Nevertheless, liturgical dance is not something I am convinced has a place in the mass.

Dancing is an activity that allows the more "mature" in age (if not necessarily in wisdom) to get physical exercise and help the romance in our marriages.

YouTube has a wealth of instruction:

You will find following some examples:

Beginners Waltz - Left Foot Closed Change

Now Andy and Wendy do the Beginner's Waltz - Reverse Turn

And Andy and Wendy do the Beginner's Waltz - The Hesitation

And Andy and Wendy do the Bronze 1 Waltz - Whisk and Chasse:

And Andy and Wendy do the Bronze 1 Standard Routines - Waltz

And Andy and Wendy do the Bronze 2 Waltz - Basic Weave

I suspect the Hiltons are British and they are doing International style:

Beautiful Basics - Marcus and Karen Hilton

Visit VNDANCE.INFO - Marcus and Karen Hilton - Beautiful Basics

Slow Waltz Part 2 - Group 2 - Running Chasse & Oversway

Marcus &  Karen Hilton - Simply The Best

A Bohemian Beer Garden In Queens!

The Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria Queens serves Pilsner Urquell, Czechvar (i.e., the real Budweiser), and Spatten Oktoberfest on a great beer menu.

Jim Farber and Gina Salamone report in the Daily News that it is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year. Eric Krajkovic, 31, of Long Island City, told them, "You can come here when it's packed by yourself and sit there at a table and get into a conversation with 30 other people." He "has been coming to Bohemian Hall since he went as a baby with his family."

Ahoy!

Stupak Steps Down

April 9th, 2010: Naftali Bendavid reports in the Wall Street Journal that Congressman Stupak will not run again.  Stupak was the leader of the pro-life democrats in the battle over the health care finance bill.

"Last month, when the House took its final vote on the Senate bill, Mr. Stupak went along with slightly less restrictive language requiring that women write a separate check to their insurer for abortion coverage. He did so with the promise that Mr. Obama would sign his executive order, which he subsequently did. When Mr. Stupak's agreement became known early on the day of the vote, opponents of the health bill knew they'd lost."


"Mr. Stupak, leading a group of other anti-abortion House Democrats, forced Democratic leaders to include strict anti-abortion language in the House health care bill. He ultimately agreed to the slightly less restrictive Senate bill, with the agreement that President Barack Obama would sign an executive order specifying that no federal funds would go to abortion.

"Since then, he has been vilified by both sides. Mr. Stupak has faced unrelenting hostility from the abortion rights community, which sees the new provisions as a major setback for women. Anti-abortion activists have depicted Mr. Stupak as a traitor who caved to Democratic leaders at the last minute."
"

Sacred Language and the Sacred Liturgy

We have a new (and better) translation of the liturgy coming soon.  The current English translation of the mass became available in 1970.  Vatican II permitted it to be used in whole or in part during the mass.  The de facto transition from its being being an option to its being a mandate occurred with dizzying rapidity.

Christine Mohrmann gave the Dougherty lectures at Catholic U. in 1957 on the development of Liturgical Latin and its relationship to Early Christian Latin.  What she, a renowned expert on the subject, had to say is extremely interesting in light of Rome's current guidelines on translation (Liturgiam Authenticam) and the recent "translation wars."

I transcribed two quotations from hose lectures.  Please note that one popular, but simplistic, misconception about the transition of the Roman liturgy from Greek to Latin is that this was a attempt to put the liturgy into the ordinary language of the people.  Far from it!

Dr. Mohrmann writes, "Latin used in the liturgy displays a sacral style.  The basis and starting point of Liturgical Latin is the Early Christian idiom, which, however, through the use of features of style drawn form the Early Roman sacral tradition mingled with biblical stylistic elements, has taken on a strongly hieratic character, widely removed from the Christian colloquial language."

"The earliest liturgical Latin is a strongly stylized, more or less artificial language, of which many elements–for instance the Orations–were not easily understood even by the average Christian of the fifth century or later."

Apparently, in the late 1950s, there was already a strong movement in liturgical circles to put the liturgy into the vernacular.  Not only is Mohrmann aware of this tendency, but she is quite clear that least common denominator language of the street does not reflect the tradition of the early church.  Indeed, she tells us, "The advocates of the use of the vernacular in the liturgy who maintain that even in Christian Antiquity the current speech of everyday life, 'the Latin of the common man,' was employed, are far off the mark."


The quotations are from Chrstine Morhmann, Liturgical Latin Its Origins and Character: Three Lectures (Catholic University Press: Washington, D.C.: 1957.)

Scelata is a blog by a Catholic parish music director.

He/she has a great picture (I assume it was enhanced):