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Thursday 13 September 2007

EWTN Rountable on Motu Proprio

Very interesting, (despite the not-ready-for-primetime personas of the members of the roundtable discussion.)
One participant (Msrg. Schmitz? of Christ the King? I'll have to look it up,) used (or quoted?) a perfect analogy.

This is the first year I've grown peppers, and the first time I have ever even tried to grow something from any seed that I had gathered myself.
I take an inordinate pride in gazing out my back window at the shining, brilliantly yellow-gold, tremendously sweet (I have eaten one so far, they ripened far more slowly than I'd expected,) and normally EXPENSIVE beauties.
How I preen!
Look what I grew! I think to myself.
But I always think "grew."
Note that. Not "look what I created," I merely planted, and watered, and staked, and watched.
I create nothing.
Anyway, this priest, in talking about the excessive so-called creativity of "liturgists," reminded that a liturgist (and a musician, I might add,) is no more a creator than a gardener, who properly tends..., protects,... encourages, NEVER creates the Liturgy/the Plant, to "grow from its own interior strength."
Exactly.
I was pleased to hear, (can I admit this as an creative artist? LOL!) the dismissive inflection everyone on the panel used in speaking the word "creativity."

There was also a phrase that caught my ear, as an alternative to "exerting a gravitational pull," which I have probably overused.
The Extraordinary Form can "reinvigorate the Rite [in its Ordinary Form,] with VIRTUES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST" either in practice er even in theory (I would have said either accidentally through carelessness or ignorance, or intentionally, by design; the useful idiots guilty of the former are far less culpable than the "theologians" and "liturgists", the theorists who perpetrated the latter.)

One other quote, which I saw as a possible rebuke to certain bishops who shall remain nameless... but not, I hasten to add, mine... the motu proprio requires implementation, not commentary.

2 comments:

Sir Monocle said...

a gardener, who properly tends..., protects,... encourages, NEVER creates the Liturgy/the Plant, to "grow from its own interior strength." --- that is good stuff. How often I've been to a liturgy that was either an over produced concert, lacking any sign of soul, or bordering on irreverent. Thanks for that one.

Cathy said...

I wish the roundtable would have JUST been Msgr Schmitz.
I enjoyed the others very much, and am sure they had good things to say, but I think one at a time is a better interview format for the topic.
When they weren't deferring to Msgr. because of his office, he was deferring to them because he wanted them to have their time, too.
Anyhow...
I love Msgr very much and have volunteered at the Institute (painting and such) many times.
It is a very special place.