« Pas sans l’autre » : Liturgy and Oecumenism.

First of all, let me express to you and, above all, to Frère Patrick Prétot, my deep thanks for the invitation to join you in this celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Institut. Let me thank you for including a Lutheran from America in your deliberations and for extending your hospitality to me and to my wife. Let me greet you on this occasion in the name of the council of the international community of scholars of liturgy, the Societas Liturgica. And let me thank you beforehand for your kind patience with my poor French.

Many of us, from throughout the world and from many Christian communities and churches, celebrate with you the great gifts that have been given to us all through this Institut and its scholars. Also Lutherans in North America have read Bernard Botte, Louis Bouyer, Pierre-Marie Gy, Louis-Marie Chauvet, and Paul De Clerck - to name only a few - and have been led by them into both more responsible liturgical scholarship and more profound pastoral practice. But our work has also sometimes been read by those scholars - for one, by Louis Bouyer, priest of the Oratory and professor in this Institut , who died two years ago. Indeed, near the end of his book on the Eucharist of 1966, at the conclusion of his survey of renewed protestant Eucharistic practice, Père Bouyer carefully analyzed and carefully praised the mid-twentieth century Eucharistic prayer of the North American Lutherans. This was the very prayer with which I myself first learned classic Eucharistia at the holy table. And this is the very prayer which, in a revised form, still occupies first place among the eleven Eucharistic prayers set out in our new book of worship published this month. (For your interest, there will be a case study on this book of worship, presented here this afternoon.) In any case, Père Bouyer said of this prayer and its sources,

« Il serait difficile d’être plus œcuménique ! Mais tous ces éléments, choisis avec un grand discernement, ont été fondus dans une rédaction aussi sobre qu’aisée. Dans sa brève simplicité, cette prière est d’une plénitude concise qu’on n’est pas habitué à trouver ailleurs que dans l’antiquité chrétienne. » [1]

Even though Bouyer’s scholarship has, to a large extent, been surpassed and perhaps even because Bouyer himself was personally noted for being polemical and difficult, I think that this generous estimation and this willingness to read and learn ecumenically ought not be set aside. I am glad to be here where Bouyer, from who I have learned so much - and these others - have taught. And I am glad to try to continue to think about the relationship between such ecumenical awareness and fine liturgical scholarship. What place does the liturgy have in ecumenical study and ecumenical practice and what place do ecumenical considerations have in liturgical scholarship ?

These are our questions.

Begin with the account of two liturgies. Perhaps you know this remarkable, honest and closely observed account, written by the Dominican theologian Yves Congar in his personal Journal from the time of the Second Vatican Council. The date is October 11, 1962, the opening day of the Council. The place is S^t. Peter’s Church in Rome :
« À 8 h 35, on entend au micro le bruit lointain d’une marche à moitié militaire. Puis on chante le Credo. Je suis venu ici POUR PRIER : prier AVEC, prier DANS. J’ai de fait beaucoup prié. Cependant, pour tuer le temps, une chorale entonne successivement tout et n’importe quoi. Les chants les plus connus : Credo, Magnificat, Adoro Te, Salve Regina, Veni Sancte Spiritus, Inviolata, Benedictus… On chante d’abord un peu avec, mais on se lasse… Mon Dieu, qui m’avez mené là par des voies que je n’ai pas choisies, je m’offre à vous pour être, si vous le voulez, l’instrument de votre Évangile en cet événement de la vie de l’Église, que j’aime, mais voudrais moins “ Renaissance ” ! moins constantinienne… On entend les applaudissements sur la place Saint-Pierre. Le pape doit approcher. Il entre sans doute. Je ne vois rien, derrière six ou sept rangées de soutanes montées sur des chaises. Par moments, dans la basilique, des applaudissements, mais ni cris ni paroles… La Messe commence, chantée exclusivement par la Sixtine : quelque morceaux de grégorien et de la polyphonie. Le mouvement liturgique n’a pas pénétré jusqu’à la Curie romaine. Cette immense assemblée ne dit rien, ne chante rien. On dit que le peuple juif est le peuple de l’ouïe, les Grecs celui de l’œil. Il n’y en a ici que pour l’œil et l’oreille musicale : aucune liturgie de la Parole. Aucune parole spirituelle. Je sais que tout à l’heure on installera sur un trône, pour présider au concile, une Bible. MAIS PARLERA-T-ELLE ? L’écoutera-t-on ? Y aura-t-il un moment pour la Parole de Dieu ? » [2]

The next day, Friday 12 October, Congar continues :
« Taxi pour aller à la réception de l’ambassade… Il y a là Cullmann, Hébert Roux, Thurian et Schutz [donc, quatre observateurs protestants francophones et hôtes œcuméniques]. Je les embrasse tous sur les deux joues… Cullmann [professeur luthérien à la Sorbonne et à l’Université de Bâle] dit aussi, à propos de la cérémonie de jeudi : “C’est cela, votre mouvement liturgique ? ”

And Congar writes, by way of response :
« Hélas ! Il n’a pas franchi la Porte de Bronze ! » [3] But let me tell you of another liturgy as well, my other example. This liturgy took place on a much smaller scale. It was held several years ago at a North American Lutheran liturgy conference, a conference intended to encourage the renewal of liturgical practice in the local parishes of the churches of Canada and the United States. I was there, and I will not - alas - forget it. The liturgy was to be a celebration of the Word. The hope of the planners seemed to have been to model the possibility of a rich and deep, public and communal Christian ritual that did not have to be a full Eucharist, but rather a liturgy focused in the Bible as the source and center of our gathering, reading, preaching, singing and praying. One problem was that there was not a Bible or lectionary or gospel-book in sight. There were many banners. And very many vested clergy and blaring trumpets. But no Bible. The liturgy began with a procession and a considerable amount of marching about. Scores of vested clergy and burning candles were ceremoniously moved to their places. Trumpets blared. Banners were waved. But no Bible. No lectionary. When at last someone rose into the ambo to read the scripture, he held before himself a loose half-sheet of paper containing the reading. Just then, perhaps as a kind of justice in that too-large room, the sound system failed, and we could not even hear what was read. And when someone rose to preach it was, as Père Congar would say of liturgical presiding, “mal et sans onction,” or, as Lutherans would say, “without the gospel.” Were there then more trumpets ? I think so, but mercifully I do not remember.

Had Père Congar been there, he might rightly have asked us, “C’est cela, votre mouvement liturgique, votre dévotion luthérienne à la parole de Dieu ?” I do not tell these stories in order simply to make us laugh ruefully or to bring us to a certain despair. I know that anyone who cares about pastoral liturgical studies will come to have too many memories of failed liturgies. But what is important in these stories is Cullmann’s question and Congar’s openness to it or my imagination of Congar’s reprise of Cullmann’s question and the possibility of the North American Lutheran openness to it.
“C’est cela, votre mouvement liturgique ?”

The question should not be heard as impertinent or mean-spirited. Rather, at least as in Cullmann’s mouth and in Congar’s report, the question profoundly respects core values of the other, separated community in the body of Christ - profoundly honors the deepest charismata of renewal alive in that community - but then gently urges, by means of affirmation and admonition, the realization of these values and gifts in actual, public, communal life. The question supports self-awareness and self-criticism, the agony already present in Congar the diarist at the Council, for example. His own lively questions find company. Even more, questions like this penetrate to the central matters which belong to all Christians - the word and sacrament of Christ’s gift, a fully participating assembly gathered around this word and sacrament by the Spirit of God, and ministers who humbly and lovingly serve this assembly in its vocation - and asks how these things that unite us might stand forth in utter clarity. Indeed, in a certain sense the liturgical movement inevitably opens onto the ecumenical movement. Inquiry into renewed Christian ritual practice cannot help but notice the practices of all Christian communities. And hope for the manifestation of Christian unity must attend to the ways in which local Christian assemblies also visibly demonstrate that concern for unity and common witness. If your definition of ecclesia includes a community enacting the presence of Christ in word and sacrament, then a concern for the unity of that ecclesia must also include a concern for the clarity and centrality of that word and those sacraments.

Renewal, the recovery in the life of the churches of the centrality of Jesus Christ for the sake of the life of the world and that recovery through the resources of the Bible and the liturgy, can be seen as a common theme of both movements. If we take the definition of Père Congar, it might even be argued that a certain “catholicisme ressourcé,” alive in all the churches, can be seen as the goal of both movements - that is, a “catholicisme recentré sur le Christ, et qui est également biblique, liturgique, pascal, communautaire, œcuménique et missionnaire,” as Congar has written. [4] In any case, the inquiry into the origin and meaning of central Christian practices has been, since the nineteenth century, an ecumenical undertaking. The studies of Edward Pusey in Oxford, Johann August Neander in Berlin, and Philip Schaff in New York had effect in nineteenth century Roman Catholic circles, at the very beginnings of the Roman Catholic liturgical movement, just as the work of Lambert Beauduin, Romano Guardini, Pius Parsch and, in America, Virgil Michel also had a profound effect on renewal movements in many protestant churches. Responsible histories of the liturgical movement need to tell of this mutual influence, though they have not always done so. But the mutual influence continues : liturgical scholarship, at its best, is an international and ecumenical conversation, a conversation carried on, for example, in the Societas Liturgica, but also in the North American Academy of Liturgy or in the recently formed Nordic society, Leitourgia.

In fact, this conversation has proceeded so far and the mutual influence has been so strongly felt in the preparation of new liturgical materials in many different churches, that one may rightly speak now of an “ecumenical liturgical movement.” Furthermore, in recent years, historical, pastoral and theological studies of liturgical practice have at least sometimes demonstrated a respectful, sensitive and honest ecumenical awareness. And the profoundly important statements of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches - especially, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry - have included reflections on liturgical meaning and even counsel for liturgical practice, urging self-examination in the worship life of the churches. The very goals of the liturgical movement could come to be articulated in ways that would be recognizable in many Christian communities. One could say the matter this way : Christian communities should continually inquire of themselves and of their neighbors whether the biblical word and the preaching of the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ, the Eucharistic meal and the prayers for and sending of help to the poor of the world are at the center of every Christian Sunday gathering. They should inquire of themselves and their neighbors whether the assembly fully participates in these enacted and paired signs, this very simple and basic ordo of Christian worship - participates, thus, in lively song and in ritual gesture, in a beautiful and accessible vernacular language, in serving each other mutually, in eating and drinking and in the gathering of gifts for the poor. They should ask, furthermore, whether there is an open and clear process for anyone to come to and through the catechesis and the water-bath that joins us to this assembly. They should ask whether the ministers that assist the assembly serve in a spirit of love and humility. And they should ask whether all of this is done in a way that respects and welcomes local cultural gifts.

Or, said negatively, Christian communities may inquire of themselves and of their neighbors whether secondary ceremonies, a display of rank and position, overly important musical choirs and professional music, a desire to entertain, an accent upon gender difference, or a spirit of religious individualism or religious consumerism or denominational exclusivity or local self-importance - to name only a few of the obstacles - are obscuring the central matters of Christian liturgy. Gently we should ask each other : “ C’est cela, votre mouvement liturgique ? ” I think that all of this - the overlapping ecumenical and liturgical movements, the genuine hope for a certain ressourcement, the shared development of the liturgical renewal and its shared goals, the central matters of word and sacrament, of assembly and ministry, the desire for a transparent, open and humble witness to the world, the desire for each of our assemblies to be continually renewed, the mutual encouragement and the careful but willing mutual admonition - all of this is hidden in Cullmann’s question : “ C’est cela, votre mouvement liturgique ? ” But there is something else in that question as well. The other Christian, the separated other, poses a question to us. In a sense, the separated but baptized other is a question for us, in the current divided state of Christianity. These questions are at the center of the ecumenical movement. But the center of the liturgical movement meets these questions and corresponds to them. Jesus Christ stands in the midst of the Christian assembly. But this same Jesus Christ -the Christ of the four gospels - stands always with the excluded other, as well. The question of the other continually lives at the heart of a renewed assembly. Still, I am quite aware that we have come to a time when many people have lost interest in both ecumenical and liturgical questions. I know that Cullmann’s question might now be understood to be impossible, that we no longer have such access to each other. It is not simply that ours is a time marked by resurgent local identities of all sorts, by a fierce politics of identity-purity that has also come to expression in a new confessional and denominational rigor. But, even more, it is also a time when “renewal” of any kind will be questioned, with deep suspicions about the hidden exercise of power : “Whose renewal ?” will be the question. “Who benefits from change ? ” It is a time when specific localities are important, even though some authorities have responded, often unsuccessfully, with a new insistence on uniform, so-called “universal” practices. Furthermore, it is a time when history itself is suspect : who is telling the story and for what reasons ? And who has been silenced in the telling ? And, as for ecumenism, who wants a larger ecclesial institution anyway ? Is that what is meant by unity ? While I think that we should all resist the politics of identity-purity, these other post-modern themes should not frighten us. On the contrary, I think that we can welcome them gladly as allies and old friends. Christians should indeed engage in a critique of power, calling always for the greatest transparency in any exercise of authority. And locality is immensely important to Christian liturgical practice - the assembly is indeed always a local assembly - though also an assembly always in communion with the “more-than-local,” as Edward Schillebeeckx has said. [5]

Furthermore, a certain kind of history has indeed been overused and over-interpreted as the source for liturgical renewal. The Eucharist has a more diverse history than we have ordinarily told, though that ought not discourage our efforts at reform. Rather, the source of the Eucharist is Jesus Christ even now breaking into our symbolization and ritualization of meals and making the resultant open celebration to be the place of his self-giving in the Spirit for the life of the world. And, finally, the goal of the ecumenical movement and of prayer for Christian unity has more and more emerged not as a large, centralized institution of any kind, but as a communion of local churches, as a richly diverse Église-des-Églises, with our leaders and bishops as servants of this communion. But the post-modern themes have discouraged us. It is easier to attend to scholarship without the complicated calls for reform, easier to do théologie without pastorale, easier to rehearse old ways of telling history, easier simply to support our own ecclesial community without bothering about the others.

But it is not more faithful to do so. Nor is it more interesting ! Dear sisters and brothers : here, at this 50th anniversary celebration, let me beg you not to lose heart. Let me ask you to hold together liturgical study and ecumenical openness, theological study and the continuing call for ongoing liturgical reform, and to do this, as the Pastoral Epistles say, “à temps et à contretemps” (2 Tim. 4:2). Let me urge you to remember in your studies this assertion of your director, Frère Patrick, reworking the thought of Michel de Certeau : « le christianisme est la religion dont la particularité et de se penser sous le signe du ‘pas sans l’autre’, » [6] Or, let me ask you to take the words of the lamented Frère Roger Schutz, one of those four ecumenical guests whom Congar kissed on both cheeks on the evening of Cullmann’s question, words addressed to each of the new brothers of the Community of Taizé, as words addressed also to each of you :

“Ne prends jamais ton parti du scandale de la séparation des chrétiens confessant tous si facilement l’amour du prochain, mais demeurant divisés. Aie la passion de l’unité du Corps du Christ. » [7] There are resources for you if you take up this challenge. There are resources for “pas sans l’autre” and for “aie la passion.” Whether you are a scholar or a pastor - or something of both - or whether you are Roman Catholic or protestant or orthodox, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council will be one such resource, especially in its remarkable seventh paragraph about the “presences of Christ” in the liturgical assembly. In its repetitions, the text nearly sings of Jesus Christ in the assembly :

Praesens adest virtute sua in Sacramentis … Praesens adest in verbo suo … Praesens adest denique dum supplicat et psallit Ecclesia…. [8]

This basic assertion of the liturgical movement, recognizable in the many churches - indeed, this foundation for the ecumenical movement - can continue to animer our local work for renewal and can be the grounds for our turning to neighboring churches, even separated churches, with respectful affirmation and admonition. Or, let me say, there are resources in that old but astonishingly current teacher - my teacher - Martin Luther. In his 1539 essay, Von den Conziliis und Kirchen, [9] Luther asked a pastoral question : “ how can a simple person tell when a gathered community is the church ? How can a needy person find the assembly of God ? ” In his answer, he brought his theology to work. You can know that an assembly is the church of Jesus Christ, he says, when at least seven marks or Kennzeichen or signs of life are present in strength.

This assertion - and others like it from both Luther and his colleague Philipp Melanchthon - is the very origin of the idea of notae ecclesiae, “marks of the church,” in theological debate. [10] But here the discussion is not polemical. Indeed, it is rather a proposal entre théologie et pastorale. For Luther, in this essay, the seven signs are these : the preached word of God, the sacrament of baptism, the sacrament of the altar, the use of absolution, the calling and consecrating of ministers, the public use of thanksgiving and prayer, and, nota bene, shared suffering. This list - including this last sign as well - is a pastoral-liturgical list. It is an encouragement toward renewal and, at the same time, a calling toward realism, humility and the abandonment of triumphalism. This little list can be an ecumenical treasure for mutual encouragement, for the asking of the question of Cullmann. But there are more resources yet. I urge you to come to know and to discuss the pastoral implications of the liturgical statements of the World Council of Churches - especially still, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, but also the Ditchingham Statement, Towards Koinonia in Worship, [11] and other statements as well. [12] I urge you to come to know carefully the liturgical resources - the most recent liturgical books - of at least one other communion beside your own, learning there the outlines of our shared ordo but also the gifts of the diverse ways in which that ordo is currently unfolded. Further, I urge you to read and consider at least one liturgical theology, one reflection on the meanings and questions of Christian worship, written in a community besides your own. If you are a pastor or a pastoral worker in a local parish, here are several suggestions about word and sacrament that have been made in the ecumenical liturgical movement, suggestions you could consider. Recall that the three-year lectionary, developed as Ordo Lectionum in Roman Catholic practice since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, has - with certain adaptations - come to be used widely by many other churches, most especially as the Revised Common Lectionary, used in North America, Great Britain and widely elsewhere in the world.

Consider meeting ecumenically, week by week, with other parish leaders from other, separated communities, to discuss the meanings of your shared (and your differing) texts in your places - to explore the possibilities in these texts for preaching and for catechesis in the present time. Then, recall that in many language areas, the shared texts of liturgy - the Gloria and the Credo, the Sursum corda dialogue and the Sanctus, for example - have been translated together, as texts we have in common. I beg you to rejoice in these texts and resist any attempt to change them, unless the changes are made together, avec l’autre, pas sans l’autre. Further, even if it is impossible to celebrate Eucharist together at this time, consider inviting and welcoming ecumenical visitors to your Sunday liturgies and consider making such visits yourself. Then ask your visitors to tell you what they see in your celebration, what they would affirm and what they might question.

More : if you have a catechumenate, consider welcoming the catechumens of other, separated communities to some common discussion of the meaning of Christian faith in the present time. Or, even if this is not possible, consider the possibility of some people from your parish being present at the baptisms being practiced in neighboring, separated communities, and vice versa. And think about this : could all of the Christians in a single place - in a village or a neighborhood - come together to build a single, shared baptistry that would subsequently be used by them all, on the model of the ancient baptistries of the Mediterranean and early European world ? And if you are a scholar, let me urge you to remember, in your private work and your public reflections, the question of Cullmann and the openness of Congar to that question. Let me ask you to remember the method of Bouyer, who included a responsible and knowledgeable account and critique of protestant liturgical practice at the conclusion of his book on the Eucharistic prayer.

Or, better yet, since Bouyer could tend toward the use of a strongly polemical voice and since his idea of unity frequently involved visions of “return to Rome” rather than an ecclesiology of communion, let me recommend to you instead the method of the former archbishop of Uppsala in Sweden, Yngve Brilioth. In his Eucharistic Faith and Practice, Evangelical and Catholic (en suédois, Nattvarden i evangeliskt gudstjänstliv), [13] as also in his Brief History of Preaching (en suédois, Predikans historia), [14] Brilioth made of “motif research” an intentionally irenic method, in which the historical diversities of Christian practice could be regarded as enriching the whole of the church and unfolding the whole mystery of Christ, while, at the same time, particular communities could still be urged to recover a fuller balance in their life, urged to let the central matters of Christian worship stand forth as central. It is a method worthy of emulation. A critically irenic method belongs to a spirit marked by le signe du “pas sans l’autre.” “C’est cela, votre mouvement liturgique ?” I have imagined this question of Cullmann, reported by Congar, as the question of a friend, himself deeply involved in the pastoral and theological recovery of sacramental life in Christ in his own church. I have imagined the question as one we rightly ask each other, still today, rejoicing with each other when the word and sacrament of Christ’s gift are set out clearly, still now, in a participating assembly, itself sign of the mercy of God for the life of the world. But let me say one more thing. We are able to even talk about “the liturgical movement” as an important and engaging reality, we are able to use the term in such a question, at least partly because of this place. The Institut Supérieur de Liturgie has been one of the major sources of the continuing strength of that movement. Dear friends : thank you for maintaining that tradition. And thank you for your kindness and attention this morning to me.

Gordon W. Lathrop Philadelphia