De romeinse euchologie in de Quadragesima. Verandering van paradigma?

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the prayers in the Roman Missal (MR. ) 1970 for Lent in order to find the ground of this euchology (A). Secondly its origins have been traced (B) and thirdly its paradigm criticized (C). The outcome of A: MR.1970 presents prayers for the celebration of the Eucharist, which belong to the traditional roman euchology. The ground of the prayers: man is sinful and in need for the grace of God in order to convert himself to God the Creator. After his conversion God, by His grace elevates man to a new life ('vetustas-novitas'). The prayers appear to be 'optative' rather than 'performative'. In the so-called presidential 'orations' the faithful is included as praying community. As far as the origins are concerned (B), I found that the MR.1970 depends totally on the the Roman liturgy as established in the 8th and 9th centuries and known to us as 'the Roman-Frankish liturgy'. But at the same time the new Missal presents texts selected from more sources than does the Tridentine Missal. Not only the Gregorian Sacramentary has been used for the selection, but also the Gelasian and the collection of 'libelli missarum', known under the name Sacramentarium Veronense. The MR.1970, so to speak, is Roman in an broader sense than MR.1570. Moreover, the new Missal softens by way of variants (e.g.. moderatio for maceratio) the sense of 'ieiunium' (fasting). Finally one can find in the Roman euchology of Lent prayers of non-roman (though western) liturgical families (e.q. the opening-prayer of Sunday 2 is an adaptation of the beautiful prayer of the Mozarabic liturgy: Liber Mozarabicus Sacramentorum, ed. Férotin 385).My 'evaluating' judgment of this euchology establishes firstly that most of the motives of the prayers for Lent and consequently their ground can be traced back to the 5th and 6th centuries, because they all figure already in the 'libelli' of Veronense (esp. in those for the 'ieiunium mensis septimi' (ed. Mohlberg XXVIII). Their ambiance can be found in the controversy on grace and free will of that period. In this controversy the Roman bishops demonstrate their 'mid-position', which also marks the prayers for Lent. For the actual Roman liturgy of Lent the Apostolic See, to the competence of which the editio typica (the authoritative edition of liturgical books) belongs, presents a type of euchology which is 'dated' and connected with special circumstances (the controversy on grace), but makes out of it a 'perennial', a-historic phenomenon. The in MR.1970 exclusively authorized Roman 'lex orandi' of Lent presents a paradigm of the past as the one which under leadership of the Cathedra can face the ages and nourrish the faith of all times, without any justification.Secondly, one can appreciate in some way that this 'dated' paradigm has been maintained in the Roman missal: Christians of all ages have made their different 'interpretants' of the euchology of Lent and so doing they have absorbed these prayers in the various expressions of spirituality. But for the Christian faithful who, with their generation and society, is on the way to the post-modern era a new paradigm of praying is needed that avoids polyinterpretability (which in no way is the same as what I would call 'symbolic language') and the dichotomies of the old paradigm, such as 'natura versus gratia', 'corpus versu anima', 'terrena versus caelestia'.