We all believe that Christ is present in some way, but the question is how? And so what the book and also for the Jesuit or the Kilmer groups. And they study. So we hope to do this even once or twice a year to bring some speaker in and gather us all to go over these kind of basic realities of our faiths. But the tradition and all we do is kind of so rich we can kind of get unfocused really on our worship. And it is our relationship to God through Christ and the Spirit among others, which is

[01:01]

what it's all about. We get a lot of thoughts on various issues and things. So it's good to be able to take some time to concentrate on some more fundamental basic issues. And then we have some more chairs. If you even have a couch if you don't need to fall asleep. That's great. If we have some more chairs, what are they against the wall? Now, we've had the talks in 2001 in the chapel. People found that for some strange reason, the acoustics weren't good there. So we moved it over here. But we don't have, at the end, a loudspeaker in here. So if you can't hear it in your back, if you can't hear it anywhere, it would be quiet because they can't hear it.

[02:04]

Is it all right if I stand? It gives me a... I've talked too many classes to sit. I was two years old when I met Father Dan. My oldest memories of him have to do with his smile, his laugh, and his blessings.

[03:04]

Slightly more recent memories from around the time that we moved from West 3rd Street downtown out to Derland Anthony with West Elmira have to do with his coming to teach scripture in our living room. After supper my brothers and I would go upstairs for our baths and then come downstairs in our pajamas for Reverend Father's blessing. The living room would be filled with big people whose faces I don't think I ever really saw. They were so far away, and they were so big. I was four years old, thereabouts. But I remember Reverend Father, we would kneel, and he would stand to give us his blessings, and to say good night, and we would go off to bed. From the years before we left Elmira in 1964, when I was 14, I remember the special occasions when Reverend Father would come to dinner, big occasions, with excitingly wise conversation.

[04:20]

The dining room table expanded perhaps to fit a guest I did not know, as well as Father Martin or one of the other young monks I have pictures in my mind of Reverend Father, young, laughing. He got younger as I got older. Young, laughing, full of life, standing in the sun, scapular glowing in the wind, delighting in the monks and the obliques and their families, delighting in the goodness of God. Above all, I remember Reverend Father sitting to preach in his wise, rhineland-flavored voice, speaking to us about the scriptures. sharing with us his love for God's word. When, years later, I read about the mystery theology of Maria Lach, I realized that I had heard this teaching since I was very small. I remember Reverend Fr.

[05:25]

Damasus in sensing the altar. And I referred to that memory Every time somebody has told me that we, Roman Catholics, lost the sense of mystery when we turned the altar around. All those memories are intertwined with my memories of Mount Savior as a place of transformation, where God's love is tangible and transfiguring. And so it is a great blessing and a great joy for me to be here. What does it mean to say that Christ is present in the liturgy? God is everywhere. Christ is the incarnate Son, true God and true man. Christ is the Word through whom all things were created.

[06:25]

Of course God is present. Of course Christ is present. So is the Father, so is the Holy Spirit. When we say that Christ is present, we say we mean that God is acting. Christ is acting. He's doing something which matters, which can be seen in some way, which can be experienced. Christ is present in the liturgy. But how? What does it mean? to say Christ is present. That's the big question in liturgical and sacramental theology in the 20th century. The short answer is that God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to unite us with Christ to make us really His body

[07:32]

to give us Christ's attitudes of response to the Father's love, Christ's attitudes of opening himself and offering himself to receive the meaning of his life from the Father's hands. Walk with me, briefly, through the conversation. At the beginning of the century, Catholic theology focused on the power of Christ which was applied to the worshiper through the sacramental sign. The merits of Christ's passion and depth formed an infinite treasury from which grace could be given to people. Christ's temporal acts were firmly in the past. They were over and done with. the effects of his actions, the merits of his actions, infinite, could be applied by the church, which had been given by Christ the power to save.

[08:54]

And they were applied through a juridical action, the application of a sacramental sign whose Use indicated the offer of grace. It was not particularly important what the sign was. What was important was that the sign had been specified by Christ to indicate the offer of grace. not a vision of sanctification which could easily be preached, not one which spoke powerfully to the heart. Christ's presence in the sacraments was described as a virtual presence, a presence by Christ's power, the power which is applied to the worshiper by the church acting through her minister.

[09:56]

In the Eucharist, of course, we said that Christ was also really present in the consecrated bread and wine. It was not particularly clear in Roman Catholic theology as taught in colleges, universities, and seminaries early in the 20th century how, for example, reception of sacramental communion was connected to Christ's dying and rising. In 1920, Cotto Cossel, a young monk called the Abbey of Maria Locke in the Rhineland, proposed another explanation of the way Christ is present in the sacraments and in the prayer of the church. He spoke of the mystery, a divine reality which reveals itself through the symbol. God is the great mystery.

[11:01]

God reveals self through Jesus Christ is the basic symbol, the ur-symbol of Christ, the ur-mysterium, making God's salvation, God's reaching out to us, visible and accessible through his saving deeds. The church is the means by which the mystery of God in Christ is continued in time and space. In the worship of the church, the mystery of Christian worship, Christ makes his saving deeds present in such a way that believers, by entering into the sacramental liturgical rite, encounter Christ in his passion and by faith die with him so they can rise with him to new life. The mystery of Christian worship, causal talk, makes Christ's saving deeds present

[12:05]

not just in the Eucharist, but in all the sacraments, and also in the liturgy of the house, and indeed in the liturgical year. This understanding, Kossel claimed, is found in the scriptures, is found in the teaching of the fathers of the church, is found in the entire theological tradition through the high scholastics. But it was then lost, In the decadent period of scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas was long down when the theory that Christ is present through the effects of his saving acts was developed. Kossel propounded his new old understanding of the mystery of Christian worship with great vigor. the defenders of the theory of Christ's presence through the effects of his actions, rejected his mystery theology with equal vigor.

[13:23]

To support or to criticize Kossel's formulation, Christians turned a deeper study of the scriptures, of the fathers of the church, of the prayers of the church, especially the Eucharistic prayers, and of our tradition of theology. A good controversy is a wonderful thing. This controversy brought light to a theology of worship. through the 20th century, and the way that we pray today is directly connected with the vitality of that controversy. A controversy between the proponents of what Kassel called the effectus theory, theory of the effects of Christ's actions, which talked about a virtual presence, a presence of Christ's power,

[14:33]

the virtual presence of Christ's saving deeds. Christ is present in the sacraments through the application of the merits earned through his passion and death. And the proponents of the mysterious theology, theology of the mysteries, who said that there is an objective presence of Christ's saving deeds in the liturgy, in our worship, that Christ is present and Christ makes his Saving deeds present independently of our subjective appropriation of them. We do not save ourselves. We do not make Christ's saving acts present in our midst. Rather, that is God's action. The Lord does this. This is how God wants to save us. There is an objective presence of Christ's saving deeds. Christ makes the kernel of his saving deeds. under the veil of the sacramental sign.

[15:40]

By participation in the liturgical sacramental rite, Christian worshipers encounter Christ in his passage through death back to the Father, and by faith they die with him and are raised to new life with him. According to this explanation, grace is a sharing in the life of Christ itself Christ himself. Grace is a dynamic reality which transforms the persons who receive it. Two visions of grace, two visions of God's action, two visions of prayer and Christian worship, which dueled together through the centuries. Here we are with that saving. Genesis Winston, a young monk of Maria Lach, was sent by Abbot Gildefance Hervegan of Maria Lach to the 1939 liturgical week at Mont César in Belton to explain and defend a mystery theology identified with Maria Lach.

[17:03]

His five-page intervention published in Question Liturgicale, which after the Second War just became Question Liturgicale, his five-page intervention gives a short explanation of what the monastery thought it was proposing. It also corrects in passing what Fr. Damasus sees apparently sees as misunderstandings of the mystery theology proposed by the monastery. He spoke in French. I give you a rough rendering. The mystery theory

[18:05]

touches on the entirety of the Christian life. The mystery should be understood here as a saving act, as a divine work which regenerates people through the passion and resurrection of Christ, represented by the sacramental actions in the church's worship. According to this understanding, the Christian mystery is not a new intellectual system imposed upon humanity, but is properly a new creation, a new birth, and therefore a new sacramental order, the mystical body of Christ himself. The soul of the mystery is Agape. That is, this new divine charity which was unknown by the pagans, but which was revealed in these last days. Unknown by the pagans. Causal spoke not infrequently. Popel the mystery cults in late Hellenistic culture, the cults of death and rebirth.

[19:16]

And Clausel proposed that Christianity had taken over some of the language and some of the ritual of these mystery religions. The scholars going back, said, actually, it could well be that the mystery religions took from Christianity. But it's not terribly important. It's a new mystery, a new understanding, unknown by the pagans, unknown by the mystery cults of dying and rising. This concept of love is absolutely fundamental in the theory of the mysteries, Damasus says. It must be understood not on the psychological level alone, but on the ontological level.

[20:18]

God is agape, God is love. Because God is love, God is Emmanuel. God is with us, not only in the substantial presence in the Eucharist, but in the mystic presence through which we are made holy in the economy of redemption. the imitation of Christ, the representation of Christ dying and rising in us. Dennis is responding here to another criticism of Kassel's theory, offering an explanation of what Kassel meant when he spoke of the objective presence, a presence independent of our subjective appropriation of Christ's saving deeds. Kassel had spoken in such a way that you could think of Christ's saving deeds, an objective presence of his saving deeds, which becomes real before the application of the sacramental sign.

[21:26]

And in Thomas' sacramental theory, the sacrament consists in the application of the sign. The sacrament of baptism is in the washing. It doesn't exist before the washing. It is there in the washing. There is no first and second in Thomas' understanding of the sacrament. And Pazel's critics said, Tom Odo doesn't really understand what Thomas is talking about. The Damasus says, you haven't understood us clearly. You haven't understood us clearly. And Causal never rejected, as far as I know, Causal never rejected Danis' explanation. So, it would appear that Father Danis was giving an accurate rendition of what Podocausal believed.

[22:27]

The imitation of Christ is not something which exists beside the mystery, alongside the mystery, but is rather an effect, a manifestation of the mystery. You have the mystery, and the imitation of Christ together. Prayer itself and theology not only try to lift the mind and the heart to God, but are already expressions of the divine life in the baptized persons. 1939. Prayer itself is an expression of God's action in us. Doesn't it sound more like Vatican II? in 1939. The salvation of human persons is an introduction, an insertion of the Christian, not only into grace, but also into the saving work, into the very action of Christ. In this way, the Christian life, it's working towards the perfection of the Heavenly Father, is completely inserted into worship.

[23:34]

Worship is the soul of the Christian life, just as the sacraments of our salvation cannot be separated from worship. You can't have sacraments and prayer separated from each other. We, who teach the theology of the Vatican Council, say with Sacre Santa Concilium, we reunited the sacraments and the liturgy. We reunited the moment, the essential moment of the sacrament in which Scholastic theology said we are certain that Christ is working here in this essential moment. We reunited that essential moment with the liturgy of the church, the prayer of the church, which a previous theology, a theology which Poto-Causal is working to replace, the previous theology had spoken of the liturgy of the church as the prayer of the church. which is meant to render the person who will receive the sacrament able fruitfully to receive the grace.

[24:38]

The causal said, no, no, no, no. The entire celebration is sanctifying. Christ is present at work in the entire liturgy. And he said, this is the ancient teaching of the church. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Cotillium, says, this is the teaching of the church. Father Damasus says that to us in his French in 1939. I have no idea how accented his French was, but I bet it was a lot better than mine. These words in my very rough translation give us a taste of what Father Damasus was thinking in 1939, shortly before he left Maria Lach. His brief exposition of the mystery theology is followed by a short response to particular criticisms, which had been listed by his colleague, Professor Gottlieb Söhringen, in the paper to which Father Damasus was responding.

[25:40]

Kossel was struck by the similarities between the Hellenistic mystery religions and Christianity. He thought of the Hellenistic mystery cults as providential preparation for the Christian mystery. Father Danesis found the Christian mystery to be thoroughly prepared for in the Psalms. He found the mystery of Christian life, the mystery of Christian worship to be thoroughly prepared for in the Old Testament. It was not the Kaleusinian mysteries and the other religions whose central myths spoke of the dying and rising of a divine hero. But rather, in Dennis' understanding, the Hebrew religion of a God whose faithfulness in bringing believers to new life is described throughout the Old Testament, to which Christians should look in order to understand their own prayer.

[26:48]

In 1939, at Monsaisar, he said, the world of the Psalms is based on the fundamental idea of mystery, thanks to their Jewish origin and more precisely to Jewish worship. He would develop this awareness in the writings which became Pathways in Scripture. He would develop this awareness in his commentaries on the Psalms. He would develop this awareness in his preaching and his teaching. We see... can pathways, can scripture. Damus' awareness of the continuity of God's action and involvement in human life and sanctification from the opening of the book of Genesis to the present day. As we sang this morning at Lord's, this is the day the Lord has made. This is the day. The mystery is renewed in our presence.

[27:51]

The mystery is renewed in our prayer. The controversy over the mysteries was wonderfully fruitful for the life of the church. As the scholars disputed with each other about the best way to describe Christ's presence in the liturgy, the understanding spread that Christ is personally present and active in the liturgy of the church. That understanding is seen in its development as in 1947, when Pius XII, in the first papal encyclical written on the subject of the church's prayer, the first papal encyclical written on the subject of the church's prayer, described the liturgy as the public worship of the body of Christ, head and members, as an action of Christ in which not only the ordained, but also the laity,

[28:55]

participate. A huge step forward in our understanding. And the liturgical movement seized upon this encyclical, claimed victory in the controversy over how Christ is present in the liturgy, and called Mediator Dei the Magna Carta of the liturgical movement. The encyclical, however, did not fully embrace the mystery theology. Indeed, it spoke of worship as the exercise of the virtue of a religion, which is a virtue which is found in philosophers like Aristotle. A human act acknowledging the creator. A human act which People refer to when they say to us, I can worship God better when I walk through the forest than when I go to church.

[30:00]

It means more for me to walk through the forest to worship God, so that's why I don't come to church. And the only response that you could give was, oh, but we are social beings, and so we are bound to worship God not by ourselves, but in society. As we all know, any of us who argued one side or another of that question, it's not a particularly persuasive set of reasons. Mediator Dei spoke of Christ's presence in the liturgy in a way that could be understood either according to the effectus theory rejected by Kassel or according to the Mysterium Theology which Kassel propounded. Mediato Dei, describing the liturgy as the public worship of the mystical body of Christ, had in members action of Christ, in which not just the ordained, but also the laity participate both interiorly and by their taking part in the rite, a very important point which Castle made.

[31:14]

Why should we participate in the liturgy? Because that's our contact with the mysteries, our contact with Christ's dying and rising. Along with the church, therefore, this is what's new, one of the big things that's new with me out today. Along with the church, therefore, her divine founder is present at every liturgical function. Christ is present at the august sacrifice of the altar, both in the person of his minister and above all under the Eucharistic species. He's present in the sacraments, infusing into them the power which makes them ready instruments of sanctification. He is present finally in the prayer of praise and petition we direct to God. As it is written, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. According to Mediator Dei, Christ is also present in the divine office, the official prayer of the church,

[32:20]

and in the liturgical year, through which Christians are incorporated into Christ's worship of the Father. Cazzo had said, Christ is present with his mysteries, not just in the sacraments, but in the office, and indeed in the whole liturgical year. And his critics had said, that is nowhere in our tradition. We have never said this. Pius XII said, of course we've said this. This is after 27 years of people arguing back and forth, and of people discovering more and more about our history. 1947, Mediato Dei, Father Damasus is already in the United States on his journey to Mapes. At Keyport, teaching at Darlington, chaplain at Regina Laudis, teaching, praying, lecturing, forming ministers for the church.

[33:22]

All along those years, the continuing growth of the liturgical movement, Horate Fratress Magazine, the Liturgical Weeks, the Benedictine Liturgical Conference, study groups, and 1951, Here to Not Save. Jump with me forward to 1958. 1958, Fr. Dennis wrote a foreword to Emiliano Lerr's Mass throughout the year. Emiliano Lerr was a nun of Hersteller, the abbey to which Hodo Kossel was sent by Ildefons Herrwegen as chaplain. They were moving from being Benedictine sisters of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, to being Benedictine sisters who prayed the office as their primary prayer.

[34:30]

And Kossel articulated the theology of Christian worship in order to demonstrate to them how they could think of singing the office as something which was more important than being on their knees in front of the blessed sacraments. Emiliano Ler, theologian of Herstel, wrote a book on the texts of the Sundays throughout the year. A book which originally had an introduction written by Cotto Cazzo and a foreword to the English edition written by Oscar Bonnier, great English Benedictine. theologian of the Prince of Christ in the Eucharist. Genesis wrote the foreword to the New American Edition in 1958.

[35:32]

Every Mass is the feast of our redemption through the death of Jesus and of his exaltation into glory as the Lord. This is also the heart of the ecclesiastical year. Time and eternity, earth and heaven, man and God meet in this central event which is the turning point of human history. Seen in its light, the various texts making up the masses of the temporal cycle reveal a unity beyond the often fortuitous circumstances that brought them together. Nobody sat down and said, how will we structure the prayers of the Roman liturgy through the year? It happens. according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit over a long period of time. But Genesis says there is a unity which we see when we look at the celebration of the central mystery, the mystery of Christ's past, the mystery of Christ bringing us into his dying and rising.

[36:37]

This translation, 1958, reaches English-speaking Catholics at a time when the Anglo-Saxon world is faced by grave dangers. Whatever our immediate political future may be, the final outcome of the present struggle is writing in 1958. It could be writing in 2003. Whatever our immediate political future may be, The final outcome of the present struggle depends on the degree in which the given reality of our redemption through Christ transforms our personal lives. This transformation will not come about so long as the power of Christ's death and resurrection contained in the mysteries of the year of the Lord is shackled by a false objectivity. which considers the liturgy of the church either as a decorative series of ceremonies of only aesthetic value, or as a collection of regulations appointed by the hierarchy to be carried out in the performance of the sacred rites.

[37:49]

Or, and this is perhaps the greatest danger, as an objective sacramental power which would render our personal cooperation superfluous, We recognize those dangers. The Feasts of the Lord's Year, the sacred texts with which the church adorns their celebration, are intended to bridge the gap between sacramental grace and ourselves. High stakes. High stakes. In the liturgy, what do we do? We practice our behavior as members of the body of Christ. And we enter into a new reality of grace. as the body of Christ, by our participation in the liturgy. How did your grandfather help us during those years before the Second Vatican Council? The Benedictine liturgical conference, the liturgical conference, when the abbots said, we have to hand over the liturgical movement so that it's no longer simply a monastic movement, so that it becomes the possession of the entire...

[39:01]

church in the United States. Forming this monastery, praying the office, praying the prayer of the church in which we all hear the voice of Christ and the church raised in song prayer and in which we discover the Psalms as the prayer of Christ and of the church. Celebrating the Eucharist daily, Sunday, Holy Week. I remember when I was old enough to be brought for the Holy Week liturgies. Standing outside in the cold with the fire. Celebrating the Eucharist. Communion from the altar. Not from the tabernacle. Teaching scripture. Preaching. welcoming Catholics, Protestants, seminarians, ministers, ordinary lay folks, Mormons, Jews, anyone who would come to pray.

[40:16]

The new chapel with the altar in the center, greeted with a profound bow and the tabernacle downstairs. encouraging old friends and fellow workers like Hans Hanska Reinholdt, an associate editor of Orate Fratres from the early days who took over Don Virgil Michael's column, Timely Tracts, When Virgil Michael Died, active in the Siemens Apostle, Apostle of the Vernacular, Apostle of the Dialogue Mass, desperately concerned that ordinary people be able to pray the church's liturgy and understand what they were saying and understand what was happening. H.A.R. went through hard times, and I remember him here at Mount Savior with what seemed like a very, very high Roman college.

[41:27]

on a very old and authentic and weak man. They always said how sick he was. But he would be here, at home. We heard the mystery theology in Reverend Father's preaching. We experienced the mystery in the celebration of the liturgy. In the Latin sung by the monks, in those days when the rest of us in the outer circle would stand, and join in the prayer through our common posture and through our common gesture, and by our attention. We see the monastery's influence, the monks, the obliques, all those people who would come to pray, conferences, the Dialogue Mass and the parishes, Our Lady of Lourdes, where I served Mass on those Sundays when I was serving Mass, where the year or so after I became an altar server, we started saying the Mass with the whole assembly responding.

[42:43]

The hospitality of the monastery, which reached to us Boy Scouts when we would camp, there on the hill. And Father Martin would come on Sunday morning in the snow to celebrate the Mass with us. This work through the 50s, into the 60s. And then Sacrosancta Concilium, 1963, 40 years ago. Sacrosancta Concilium, which speaks of the mystery of God's self-communication. the Paschal Mystery, established in Jesus Christ, passion, death, resurrection, and in the sending of the Holy Spirit. To continue this work, this work of God's bringing all things back to himself in Christ through the Holy Spirit, to continue this work, Christ is always present in his church.

[43:51]

The liturgy, the expression of the faith of the church, the manifestation and continuation of the Paschal Mystery is itself, says Sacrosanctum Cochileum, a source of theology. The entire liturgical celebration is sanctified. Full, conscious and active participation is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. and is both the right and the duty of all the baptized. So participation is to be considered before all else in the reform of the liturgical books. The people's parts are to be indicated in the liturgical books. The Missal of Pius V makes no mention of the people who are there. The Missal of Pius V talks about the celebrants and the minister who responds. The rest of the folks there are not in the book.

[45:01]

And there is not a word said about their receiving sacramental communion. The people's parts are to be indicated in the new book. In the new books, says the council. To increase participation, texts may even be translated into the vernacular. And so Father Reimold died in what's happening. Modes of Christ's presence are outlined in sacrosanctum cocilia in the same order as they are in Mediato Dei, but in the context of the mystery which is present in the sacrifice of the Mass and which is present in all the other prayer of the Church, that mystery of God's self-communication in Christ and God's bringing all things back in the Holy Spirit So, Christ is present, not only in the person of the minister, but especially under the Eucharistic species.

[46:06]

By his power he is present in the sacraments. Christ is present in his word, since it is he himself who speaks when the Holy Scriptures are read in the church. Christ is present when the church prays and sings, for he has promised where two or three are gathered in my name. There am I in the midst of them. And then quickly, the new books, the transitions to English, big changes for our prayer, big changes for the monastery, the simplification of our prayer. And reflection in these 40 years, reflection on the presence of Christ by the Pope, by the bishops. I Theologians. Paul VI takes an ordering when he speaks of Christ's presence in the liturgy.

[47:09]

It is different from that which Pius XII took in Mediator Dei. Paul VI uses the ordering from the original schema for the liturgy constitution. The schema says, to accomplish so great a work, Christ is always present to his church, especially in its liturgical actions. He who accomplished, where two and three are gathered together. It is he himself who speaks when the words of Holy Scripture are read and explained in the church, who unceasingly renders praise to God the Father, who continues the work of salvation, which he has accomplished while on the earth in the sacraments, and now offers himself in the sacrifice of the Mass through the ministry of priests who formerly offered himself on the cross. A reversal of order. We begin with the church gathered for prayer. Christ is present in the church, and we work our way on it.

[48:12]

So Paul VI says Christ is present in the church when it prays, since it is he who prays for us. And prays in us. And is prayed to by us. Christ is present in his church. This is new. As it performs works of mercy. He is present in his pilgrim church. Longing to reach the harbor of eternal life. In a different yet most real way. He is present in the church as it preaches. Mediator Dave doesn't say anything about preaching. The gospel that is proclaimed is the word of God, and thus it's preached only in the name of and by the authority of Christ, and with his help. He's present in his church as it shepherds and guides the people of God. In a manner even more sublime, Christ is also present in his church when it offers the sacrifice of the Mass in his name and administers the sacraments. But there is another, indeed most remarkable way, in which Christ is present in his church in the sacrament of the Eucharist,

[49:16]

for it contains Christ himself, and is, as it were, the high point of the spiritual life and the purpose of all the sacraments. This presence is called the real presence, not to exclude the other kinds as though they were not real, but because it is real par excellence, since it is substantial, in the sense that Christ, whole and entire, God and man, becomes present. John Paul II speaks in the same way. First, about the presence of Christ in the celebration. About an unfolding presence reaching its height with the sacramental communion of the faithful. Christ's presence gains in intensity

[50:18]

As the liturgy progresses, and in the Eucharistic liturgy, we can clearly see that the height of Christ's presence is the sacramental communion of the faithful. John Paul II refers again and again, most recently, most clearly in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, to his experience of celebrating the Eucharist in various places as a source of theology and a source of spirituality. Ongoing theological reflection talks about the interpersonal nature of the presence of Christ, the interpersonal nature of Christ, of the modes in which Christ is present. Christ makes himself present. Christ makes himself present. through our relation with each other, as we pray. Our relationship to each other does not make Christ present, but in and through our relationship with each other, Christ makes himself present.

[51:31]

Don Orocaso is dancing in heaven. It's an objective presence, not dependent upon us, but... As Papa Damas has said, you can't separate that objective presence from Christ making himself present in and through our participation in the mystery. So we have to unpack and to continue unpacking what it means to assemble, what it means to be called together to prayer, what it means to cooperate with the call to pray. what it means for us to participate in the liturgy, in our own time, in our own place, in our own culture. Ongoing theological reflection talks about this unfolding intensity of presence, which we find in the teachings of Paul VI, where we talk about the common action of the assembly.

[52:37]

offering itself in union with christ where we talk about the faith of the church the faith of christ and the faith of the church expressed in the prayer texts expressed in our action as we pray the construction of meaning in the way that we pray together together we express the meaning of our lives. Together we remember the dying and the rising of Jesus Christ. And our reflection keeps on reminding us, as the mystery theologians did, that to remember Christ means to be transformed in the likeness of his dying, so that we may be like him. in His rising, not in a as-if likeness, but in a real likeness, so that we truly die with Christ in the mystery and we truly rise with Him.

[53:48]

The sacrifice of Christ, Christ opening Himself to the Father's love, the sacrifice by which the covenant is established, the sacrificial meal, which leads to, expresses and brings the participants into the faith of the covenant. The Old Testament's sacrificial meal, the sacrificial meal of the new covenant leading us into the faith of Christ. All this rich in contemporary theological reflection. How are we doing today? We must. We have much more to do. We have come a long way. We have a great need for continuing recovery of the liturgy as a source of our theology, as a source of our spirituality, as the common action which Christians engage in, as the expression of our lives.

[55:05]

as those who are the body of Christ. The Eucharist. Our sacramental signs. The richness of our signs. Holy Communion. Holy Communion from the table. Holy Communion under both kinds. in obedience to the command of the Lord, take and eat, take and drink, to overcome the years of saying it does not matter whether we drink from the cup because we have already received Christ whole and entire under the species of bread. Rather to say, In obedience to the Lord's command, we do this. The meaning of the sacrifice and the continued unpacking of our Eucharistic prayers, a continued praying of our Eucharistic prayers as the most important prayer that we have.

[56:18]

Can the other sacraments, the symbols, opening up the symbols, washing, anointing, laying on the pants, Understanding the modes of Christ's presence. The assembly, yes. The other thing which has come across to me in my teaching, the attitudes of the presiders, like seminarians, who said the presider acting in persona Christi, the presence of Christ in the one who is presiding. The introductions to our new sacramental rites, speak a bit about the presence of Christ and the attitude of the one who presides. So, for instance, in baptism, the one who presides is to embody the welcoming of a new Christian, embody the hospitality of the community, and God's reaching out to those who are coming to be incorporated into Christ.

[57:24]

Somehow... Christ's presence in the one who baptizes is connected with the hospitality of that person. In reconciliation, the general introduction underlines compassion. Previous theologies spoke of the confessor as judge, sitting in the person of Christ who is judge. The new general introduction speaks of Christ's compassion. And the confessor is to be compassionate as Christ is compassionate. The embodiment of compassion has something to do with being in persona Christi. We have a long way to go to recover these attitudes. The hours. The hours. The hours when I was learning my prayers.

[58:24]

Reading from the manual for athletes. At the end of the prayer before the office. O Lord, in union with that divine intention, with which you, while on earth, did yourself praise God, I offer to you this hour. It was a few years ago that I came to myself one day and I said, that divine intention, the intention within the Trinity of the attitude of the Son toward the Father, expressed in Christ in His prayer on earth, in union with that divine intention with which you yourself while on earth did yourself praise God, I offer to you this hour. We have there the theology of the Trinity We have there the humanity of Christ.

[59:27]

We have there our own humanity being joined with Christ. The prayer of the church. Not for monks only. Not for seminarians only. Even for Jesuits. Prayed in a few parishes. And the importance of our learning to sing and pray together. I said to the community last night, I was privileged to come and speak with them a little bit. how wonderful it is for me to come and pray with the community and listen to the voice of the monastery lifted in prayer. The monks listening to each other and singing and praying together in one voice. The challenge for us of music, of prayer, of culture, how do we do it? We've been at it for only a short time. the realization that prayer itself is a gift. Prayer is a manifestation of Christ's presence.

[60:30]

Our continuing rediscovery of the scripture in which Father Damasus has given us so much through his own great love of God's word. The practice of the liturgy in a particular community, in a particular place of transformation. Let me share with you one more quote from 1955. Fr. Danis is writing to the American Benedictine Review, a little article speaking about Prosper Deranger, the re-founder of Salem, who was called the beginning of the revival of the liturgical spirit in the church. Where I read Geranger, I think we could hear Damasus.

[61:35]

Geranger would not have become the beginning of the revival of the liturgical spirit in the church if he had remained a seminary professor. Instead, he did the one thing which alone could save the liturgy from the hands of the intellectuals and the archaeologists and the reformers. He revived the rule of Saint Benedict and founded the monastic community. He realized that before anything else, the liturgy had to be lived, and that the rule of St. Benedict was a practical way of life of which the liturgy was the foundation. His love of the liturgy and of the Church and of the Holy See was not an abstract thing, but a reality. It became concrete and truly fruitful in his love for his monastic family. He had to adapt himself to the ways and feelings of the many who came to him, not to become liturgists, but to work under his guidance at the conversion of their life.

[62:39]

People comment on the deep reverence that always pervaded the performance of the liturgy at the monastery of Salem. This shows that the monks of Salem were not merely actors in an opera, that they withdrew from the ordinary parish life was their right as monks. Because the church is, thank God, not identical with the actual congregations at the time, monastic worship is true worship of the church without being subject to the standards of a parish. Tom Geragier did not want his monks to withdraw into the monastery as into a kind of liturgical hothouse. with all the windows closed to prevent a draft. He never refused the challenge or burden of the apostolate, but he wanted his monks to remain monks also in their activity outside the monastery. He wanted their apostolate to grow out of their monastic life.

[63:45]

With this idea of a specifically monastic and Benedictine apostolate, the monks began to realize in an ever-increasing degree, that they had a mission to perform in the life of the Church, not through their prayer law, not necessarily through some extra monastic activity, but simply by sharing their own spiritual life, their liturgical piety, with priests and laypeople alike. So, Reverend Father, in 1955, today, on the mountain of the transfiguration, where we celebrate again and again the transfiguration of the body of Christ, the mystery of Christ made present in our lives as we pray, as we live the liturgy. We say to Almighty God, thank you for the gifts, thank you for the gifts of Reverend Father, thank you for the gifts of the monastery,

[64:55]

Thank you for the gift of our prayer over these years. Thank you for the promise of your faithfulness in the years to come. It is good for us to be here. We have a few minutes, I think. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure that was more than splendidly. Jerry told you that the couch used to come and it snowed. You didn't tell it was a month of July to an apple. Every year we hated the student kid to come. We were out working and they'd be cured off and they'd show up and two hours later The furnace was on, and it was inside, and the snow was blocked.

[65:56]

The furnace could be deep. I don't know where it came from. It was just on that area where they had the rain and hail. Look forward to the visit. Why don't you stand for just one minute, and try to figure it around. Do you have any questions, or alterations, or subtractions? I have no restrictions or alterations. Your talk is wonderful. I wonder, when the Pope allowed the resurgence, if you will, of the Latin Mass and gave permission for interested congregations to take it up, I thought that was a terrible step back into an abyss. And I wonder, is that a problem? You know, if the movement should grow, that kind of thing. I don't think there's a snowball to chance.

[66:56]

I think the challenge for us is to celebrate the liturgy in such a way that people discover there devotion, emotion, joy, freedom, excitement, Not to celebrate it as an objective thing where you're just going through what you have to do according to some theoretical formula. People who've never lived through that time, that era, seem to be attracted to the notion. Yes, they're looking for... I live with seminarians. I live with seminarians. They're wonderful kids. They're wonderful kids. You have a small group of philosophers. So they come to Catholic University on a scholarship program with their juniors in college. They're smart.

[67:59]

They are not conspicuously far to the left as far as theology and spirituality. They're smart. And they have no experience of what was. And they romanticize what was. And they say, gee, it must have been wonderful in those good old days. And we all who are old enough to have been there say, if only. People romanticize. And I think people look for tradition. People look for a sense of where have we come from. Did we just make this up? Did we just make this up when I made my first communion in 1985? Or in 1990? Or is it a little older than that? Did we just make it up in 1970? The thought that we have been doing this for a long time.

[69:09]

I think we need to keep on dealing with that. One of the other things that I would just toss out, I had a conversation about... week or so ago with the Secretary of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy. And I said to him, he came to speak to the seminarians about the new General Instruction, the 2,000 General Instruction to the Roman Miss. And he was very good. He spoke about the mystery. He spoke about our entry into the mystery. He spoke about reverence and giving yourself to the mystery. And I said to him afterwards, I was, over a later day weekend, I was at a parish on the Jersey Shore where the Sunday Mass was done in a da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da form. And we were back out in the parking lot at 12.33.

[70:18]

after the noon Mass. And there were 300 people that received communion. But how do you do that? You pray the prayers, as if they didn't mean anything at all, and that's how you do it. And I said to him, I wonder why when we are in places that are conspicuously beautiful, why we again and again and again do things that are aggressively not beautiful. And he said, I have the same question. We need to keep working on it. And we need to keep on calling each other. And we need to keep on praying together. And I think that's what the young people need above all. Is to have us pray with them in a way that's exciting and is transforming. And it's not just all up here. That's my take on it. I don't think we'll ever go back. I mean, we'll never go back to praying in a language we don't understand. Can't do it. There will always be some people who want to do it.

[71:19]

There will always be some scholars who are good enough at Latin that they can pray, that they could really be praying in Latin. But I don't know a lot of them. I don't know a lot of them. They all pray in their own native languages. We go on. We go on. the thoughts or the comments. Other things for us to work on? Yeah. I'm wondering, over the next 20 years, whether you think the liturgy will be something radically different than perhaps I've experienced in my 30 years so far. Reverend Father would say the liturgy will be the same.

[72:20]

And the liturgy will be different. I think he would say that. He would say that. The liturgy will be the same because it's the one mystery. What do we do? We're celebrating the mystery of Christ. How can it be different? Well, it can be different because we're different. What changes? What makes today's Mass different from yesterday's Mass? It's the offering of our lives today that's different. The offering of Christ is the same in every day. but the offering of our lives today is different. Will the liturgy be different? I think the liturgy, I expect, with the help of grace, had a lot of work from a lot of people. I expect that we will be a lot better at that thing of working together, having the liturgy be a common action. That's my expectation. I expect great things of God that will be a lot better at praying together. and not all being in the same place praying as individuals while something happens that we're all spectators at, to put it very unfairly.

[73:32]

I think we'll be better at praying together. I think we'll be better at preaching. I think maybe in 20 years we'll have gotten... who will either have gotten or will be on the way to getting a new lectionary and a new sacramentary to replace the one that is supposed to be coming out in the next couple of years. Because I would expect that every 15 or so years, realizing that our culture changes, our language changes, our lives change, realizing that that is the case that every 15 or 20 years we would have new additions of our liturgical works. That's my expectation. That is most decidedly not the expectation of the folks in the Congregation for Divine Worship and Rome. But, you know, that's my expectation.

[74:41]

I think we'll keep on working and we'll keep planning. Things will keep getting. Things will keep getting better by God's grace. I think one of the other wonderful things about, one of the things that I was very struck with, living in Italy for five years, we Americans, we people in the Western Hemisphere, we assume that things can change. The Italians tell us nothing changes. Nothing changes. The liturgy does not change. So, you don't You just don't do it. You don't try to change. Whereas we think programmatically. How do we get from here to there? We have the history of Catholic schools. What were the Catholic schools founded for? They were founded to educate Catholic laity. How do we get from here to there? Well, we use the schools. How do we teach generations of Catholics how to celebrate a liturgy?

[75:43]

We do it in the schools. We teach the children in the schools. We teach them how to pray, how to respond, how to read the scriptures, how to study the scriptures, how to sing. And now we have, from 1963, 64 to the present, we have some 40 years of people who have experience of it, largely because the sisters in the schools who really pioneered the hard work of the liturgical movement, getting a lot of energy from the monks. The sisters in the schools did that teaching over the years. We used the schools in a way for education of Christian formation, for formation for liturgy, in a way that sets us apart from what I saw in the Italian church.

[76:45]

and what I think is the case in the rest of the churches in Europe. Because they don't have the treasury, they don't have the resource of the schools as an apostolic platform. And they don't have the mindset of taking these apostolic platforms and using them to work toward a greater participation in the mystery of Christ that we celebrate. I think if we keep on working at it, the Lord will keep on giving us grace. But if we keep on cooperating with Christ, we'll get better. Do you see an increasing role of the laity in the liturgy as the role of the laity in the church increases and perhaps in the small, intentional, eucharistic communities, this sort of thing, with the parishes and on top? I don't see any way that we're not going to have it increased. I don't see any way that that's not going to happen. I think the important, among the many important things, among the many important things, there's the need for us to take great care of those small groups in our parishes, to take care with formation of people, formation of people in prayer.

[78:12]

formation of people for leadership and prayer and to take great care with our concern for the unity of the church so that what we're praying we are always aware that it's not just our little group that's praying but that we are praying in communion with the church around the world so that we work against any sense of being separate from our bishop, from the College of Bishops, from the Pope. But I don't think there's any way that we can not keep on having the ordinary baptized folk take their place in the Christian Assembly and in our worship The question will come, the question will come, whom do we ordain?

[79:21]

The folks who taught me at Catholic University said, our tradition is that we ordain the leader of the community. Because the one who presides at Eucharist is the leader of the community. Our tradition is that we ordain a leader of the community. We don't have a lay person presiding in Eucharist because Eucharist is not something that you are appointed to preside at. Eucharist is not something that you take on the presidency of on your own, no matter how gifted you are. But that the person who presides at Eucharist, he is prayed over by the church. And you don't... And the prayer of the church is that this person will be given the gift of bringing Christ to the church and the church to Christ. And we never appoint someone to do that ministry.

[80:26]

Whom do we ordain? We'll be talking about that over the next century or so. And we'll become more aware that whom we ordain in one place and in one culture may be the right person to ordain in that place and in that culture. And that person may not be the right person to preside the Eucharist in another place in another culture. And we'll have to come to terms with that. It has to do with the Catholicity of the church, and we'll have to deal with that. We're not there yet. Well, I would say that's in the business to be done over the next time. I used to be more confident about making predictions. Yes, Tony?

[81:30]

You're working with the seminarians. Do you find them, on the whole, to being open to this style of... of inclusiveness, you know, of the kind of emphasis and that, you know, signing each proper rose fully and so forth of all the members of the church? Or do you find an excessive clericalism among many of the young aspirants to ministry? I think there's probably more excessive clericalism in other seminaries. than in the one in which I'm blessed to live. There are times when I say, these kids are very young. There are times when I say, what we are doing is formation. And it's a long-term process.

[82:33]

And I remember that when I was ordained I remember that when I was a scholastic, I went to Georgetown when I was 21, and I got out of college, and I worked in campus ministry. My prayer was formed to a large extent by the Sunday community with which I prayed. And we prayed together for two years, three years, and then we could see that it was beginning to be a community. It didn't happen just like that. It was starting when I went there in 1971. By the time I left in 74, you could say, oh, there is a community here. Not everybody who would be in the chapel, there would be the visitors at once, but you could say, there is something here that is real. When I went back in 79, I was ordained in 77,

[83:38]

I went to our parish in Baltimore. It was a parish of old people. And we started doing the High Mass. We reinstituted the High Mass with the choir, with kinsets, with some things that they could remember to say, oh, the church is alive. And we got the seminaries from St. Mary's to come and help, and some of the students from Kingdadi, the conservatory, to come and sing. And we did things where, frequently, we'd have as many people in the choir lofts in the nave and in the sanctuary. Equal numbers. People in all three places. But the old people could say, ah, there's something here. This is just like what we knew. And of course, you could look at it and say, this isn't at all what you knew. This is something entirely different. It was 77, 78, 79. Then I went back to Georgetown and I was pastor. I went from being in a church where we used incense every Sunday to It says coming, going.

[84:41]

It says everything that moves. Big, baroque, auditorium, wonderful place. You could blow your nose in the choir loft and it sounded wonderful downstairs. I went from a church in which the right thing to do was something high, back to Georgetown, back to the community which I had been part of in 71, 72, 73, which was a very different place where... If you brought out the smoke, people would start coughing. Ted would say, please don't do that. It stresses my allergies. Praying with those people formed my spirituality. Who forms the priests? The people that clergy. Seminary formation staff try to help the seminarians. become flexible enough, open enough, so that when they get out to the parishes, that the people will be able to teach them what they need to know.

[85:46]

And we pray for them. We pray for them. We pray for them. You've got to pray for them. You've got to pray for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, we've got a long way to go. We have to say, oh, these are kids. Maybe by the time they're in their 40s, they'll be better at this. Back to the presence of Christ in the liturgy. If only you could develop a more holy relation between the role of the humanity of Christ and the operation of the word, the distinction and also how it's related. The role of the humanity of Christ and the operation of the divine word incarnate in Jesus. Great question.

[86:48]

Within the context of the literature. The humanity of Christ has raised at the moment called its creation. union with the second person of the Trinity. So there is never a time when the humanity of Christ exists apart from its union with the divine word. The humanity of Christ being a true humanity has to be developed through categorical actions, decisions, of value, through experiences, through learning, through developing a history. And the development of Christ's humanity, if you will, his human personality, genitive problems between Howard, 21st century way of speaking, and 4th century, 2nd, 3rd, 4th century way of speaking.

[88:07]

the development of Christ's humanity is something that takes place in the Holy Spirit over time as Jesus discovers that he is uniquely loved by the Father and that his whole life is summed up in being loved by the Father and that the meaning of his life is in responding to the Father's love. This is something which he develops. Something which is always there. But something which he develops in his growing, in his human learning, in his learning to walk, in his learning to talk, in his learning to pray, in his learning Hebrew, in his learning the prayers, in his learning about God's faithfulness throughout his career.

[89:24]

And we know from the Gospels that his experience of God's love for him is so strong and is so freeing is so absolute that what he talks about is the love of God for the people around him. A love which reaches into their lives, transforms them, changes them, frees them, heals them, forgives their sins. A love which is there to be accepted. A love which we do not cause. And Jesus learns this love and responds to this love in His humanity, over time, developing a particular history, if you will, a history of faith, a history of grace, as He responds in the Holy Spirit to the Father's love, as He experiences it day by day.

[90:28]

That life of faith life of responding, experiencing and responding to the Father's love for Him. That is what is shared with us in the giving of the Holy Spirit. So that we receive the Spirit of Christ's being loved by the Father. That the Spirit comes to us as the Spirit of the Father's love for us in Jesus Christ. The Spirit in whom we realize that we are loved and in whom we then are free to respond to that love so that we can act in all of our lives but especially in the liturgy of the church in our free decisions together

[91:35]

in response to the love of God which reaches out to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. So that there's something between Jesus' human experience, as Father Skillbeck said in words that are somewhat dangerous from our tradition. But Jesus' experience in his humanity, Jesus' experience of the Father's love for him. There's something between, something which is real. between Jesus' experience in his humanity of the Father's love and his response to the Father's love and opening himself absolutely to the Father, and our experience in Christ of opening ourselves to receive the meaning of our lives as the body of Christ from Christ's hand. with the liturgy, with its human action and divine mystery, is a reflection of the life of Christ and Christ's experience, His humanity of the Father's love for Him.

[92:57]

So that our response of faith is a participation in Christ's response of faith. Remembering that it's through Christ's human response of faith to the Father that we are saved. Christ is a priest in his humanity. As the fathers of the church, like Chrysostom, insisted, Christ is a priest in his humanity. In his humanity he opens himself. to the Father's love in His humanity, He offers Himself. And His offering of Himself in His humanity is the perfect expression of the life of the Trinity, where the Son receives and gives back to the Father in one continuous dance of love in the Holy Spirit. Christ in His humanity, receiving and giving,

[94:04]

power receiving and giving in Christ and the Holy Spirit in such a way that our humanity is united with the humanity of Christ sacramentally by the gift of the Holy Spirit, by faith, by the waters of baptism, by the eternal plan of God,

[94:30]

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