Monday, April 12, 2010

Sacrality in Worship: the Anti-Sin

He voices what is otherwise un-voiced.

“The sense of sin has been weakened by the dilution of the sacrality of the liturgy. There is a close link between ethos and worship.”

People need the sense of the sacred in order to discover God. Sin is a negation of God, but if even when assisting Mass we live far from God, how is it then possible to avoid sin?” Then he specifies: “The liturgy is sacred, divine and glorious; it is vertical in the sense of tending towards the High, towards Beauty and Heaven. It is not something circular or horizontal, some kind of sports stadium, assembly or party. The idea of a fruitful and creative liturgy inevitably loses the sense of the sacred and therefore alienates us from God and draws us near to sin. The people, who are much more intelligent than one gives them credit for, perceive where the sacred is. It is not something abstract but a concrete thing. And it says so in the Gospel. "The woman wished to touch the cloak of Christ. In order to defeat sin, there is a need for certain, unequivocal and firm signs, not fluctuating, unstable ones."

“Many, especially after the Council, ceded to this unhealthy notion of creativity, but it was not the fault of the Council, as the Council never abrogated or cancelled the liturgy of all times (liturgia di sempre.) A sloppy, manipulated and -- even worse – violated Mass is an obstacle to the sacred and alienates the people from the Church. To celebrate creative Masses is a profanation of the sense of the sacred, because it brings us away from God.

--Mgr. N. Bux

HT: RorateCoeli

2 comments:

Neo-Con Tastic said...

Wow. Perfect.

GOR said...

“The liturgy is sacred...It is not something circular or horizontal, some kind of sports stadium, assembly or party...."

Something forgotten in the past 40 years with churches - like St. Joseph's in Big Bend - looking like a 'theater in the round' and the Blessed Sacrament relegated to a corner of the vestibule.

Of course, given what happened to the Cathedral and who was in charge at the time...