FOTA X: Session II, talk ii

After Fr Böhler's talk and a brief break we came back to hear Fr Johannes Nebel on The Paradigmatic Change of the Post Conciliar Liturgical Reform from actio to celebrate in the Light of the Latin Fathers.   I begin again by reminding any reader that this is based on hastily taken notes and
on my memory and is not a verbatim report!  Nor is it official!

Wow what a talk.   Fr Nebel began by giving us the example of the offertory composed for the new Rite of Mass and the addition that B. Paul VI insisted on putting into it.  Archbishop Bugnini, following the thought of Fr Odo Casel OSB,  wanted to place the emphasis on the cultic mystery, the presence of Christ in the faithful united to worship (celebratio) whereas the B. Paul VI wanted to retain the Conciliar emphasis on the offering of the priest, the cultic act or actio.   This leads to a tension in the text of the new Rite between these two concepts.

Fr Nebel took us on a whirlwind tour of the Latin Fathers and their understanding of celebratio and actio.  For the ancient Romans they were distinct but inseparable concepts.  Celebratio was a gathering of the people, often festive, on sacred days to do actio, that is cultic worship of the gods.  This involved the concepts of religio and pietas which was how one venerated the gods and did them justice both through ritual and behaviour.  This often had a public character.

The early Latin Fathers took over these concepts to explain the Faith.  They linked them to the Liturgy and to Christain daily life and values.  To separate celebratio and actio would make sense neither to the ancients nor to the Latin Fathers.  What was offered in the Liturgy and in daily life was for the common good and welfare of all and it was also what was due in justice to God.

The importance of Vatican II in this matter is its refocusing of attention on the Paschal Mystery based on the Pietas Dei.  After Vatican II however Casel's ideas found their way into certain documents so that there is tension between the Conciliar emphasis on the actio of the priest offering what is due to God and the new emphasis on communal involvement and Christ's presence in and through the local community with a resultant loss of a sense of the universal Church.  But both of these approaches are approved by the same Pope!

I think that is about as close to the gist of the talk as I can get!