Thursday, February 10, 2011

Eugene Kennedy on Benedict's Liturgical "Reform of the Reform": Reverence Demands a Sense of Imperfection


Eugene Kennedy writing, as always, with wonderful élan about theological issues--in this case, about Pope Benedict's "reform of the reform" and his top-down, heavy-handed imposition of liturgical "reforms" for which the faithful have not asked, and which many lay Catholics (and many priests) find clumsy, unwarranted, and not in the least conducive to the reverential worship at which Benedict claims to be aiming:


The sacramental order is meant to grasp and reflect not the stilted perfection, but the glorious imperfection of human beings. If they were not imperfect, there would be no need for faith, hope, or love, because these virtues are not required in that non-existent universe in which people are always so well ordered and perfect that they don’t need anybody to have faith in them, they have no need for hope, and they can survive very well, thank you, without somebody’s loving them.

How interesting that the pope insists on complete clarity in addressing Mystery when the word’s root, mu, refers to being mute or silent, the only response we can have to the ineffable and inexplicable nature of religious mystery.

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