Corriere della Sera offered this bonus for Benedict's birthday.
Preface by BENEDICT XVI
to the Russian edition of
THE THEOLOGY OF LITURGY
The sacramental foundation of Christian existence
Volume 11, COMPLETE WRITINGS OF JOSEPH RATZINGER
Translated from
Nihil Operi Dei praeponatur — Nothing is to be preferred to the Work of God.
With these words from his Rule (43,3), St. Benedict established the absolute priority of divine worship with respect to every other duty of monastic life. This, even in monastic life, was not always immediately obvious because the monks also had important tasks in agriculture and science.
Whether in agriculture or in artisanal work and in the work of formation, there were certainly temporal urgencies that might have appeared more important that liturgy. In the face of all this, Benedict, with the priority he gave to liturgy, unequivocally highlighted the priority of God himself in our life: “As soon as you hear the signal for the Divine Office, leave everything you have in your hands, and hurry to prayer with maximum attention” (43,1).
In the minds of men today, the things pertaining to God – liturgy among them – do not seem urgent at all. Everything else is urgent, but God never seems to be an urgency. We could say, of course, that monastic life is, in any case, not at all the life of the men in the world, which is true. But the priority of God that we all seem to have forgotten is valid for everyone.
If God is no longer important, then the criteria have changed for establishing what is important. Man, in shelving God, subjects himself to constraints which make him a slave of material forces which can violate his dignity.
In the years following the Second Vatican Council, there was a new awareness of the priority of God and of divine liturgy. But the misunderstanding of the liturgical reform which became widespread in the Catholic Church led to giving priority to the aspect of instruction and man’s own creativity and activity. In this way, man’s actions led to almost forgetting the presence of God.
In such a situation, it became more clear that the existence of the Church depends on the correct celebration of liturgy and that the Church is in danger when the primacy of God is no longer manifested in the liturgy, and therefore, not in life itself.
All this led me to dedicate myself to the subject of liturgy more amply than I had in the past, because I knew that the true renewal of liturgy is a fundamental condition for the renewal of the Church. It is on the basis of this conviction that the studies found in this Volume 11 of my Complete Writings were born.
Basically, with all the existing differences, the essence of the liturgy in the Eastern and Western Churches is one and the same. And so I hope that this book may help even the Christians of Russia in a new and better way the great gift that has given to us in Sacred Liturgy.
Vatican City
Feast of St. Benedict
July 11, 2015
Corriere’s senior Vaticanista Gian Guido Vecchi wrote the accompanying article:
The test we publish today was written by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican. This in itself is exceptional, as is the occasion which prompted it.
Joseph Ratzinger turns 90 this year on Easter Sunday. By a rare coincidence, both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches celebrate Easter on the same day this year. As a special gift, the Emeritus Pope will be given a copy of Volume 11 of his Complete Writings,
The Theology of Liturgy, which was translated and published in Russia by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow.
It is an initiative that was long in preparation – its translation from German to Russian by Olga Aspisova took three years. It will be followed by the publication in Russia of Benedict XVI’s trilogy on JESUS OF NAZARETH.
All thanks to the scientific and editorial collaboration between the publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Vatican pubishing house LEV and the international academy ‘Sapientia et Scientia’ (Knowledge and Science) founded and headed by Prof. Giuseppina Cardillo Azzaro to bring together personages from science and culture from both Eastern and Western Europe as well as representatives of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
The ecumenical value of the initiative is evident. Enough to convince Benedict XVI to write the Preface to the Russian edition when he was asked to do so in 2015. He dated his Preface, not surprisingly, July 11, 2015, Feast of St. Benedict, Patron of Europe.
In one of the most central interventions of his Pontificate – his memorable lecture at the College des Bernardins in paris on September 12, 2008 – Benedict XVI explained how the monasticism established by St. Benedict in the 6th century had saved the patrimony of classical culture and formed the basis of Western culture as we know it, thanks to his monks whose primary objective was
quarere Deum, to seek God.
In one of his most famous books,
Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger in 1967 started with the fable of the clown and the burning village narrated by Kierkegaard: a circus caught fire, the clown was sent to get help from the nearby village, but the people ‘laughed themselves to tears’ in the face of his cries for help, and the circus and the village ended up destroyed by the fire.
Thus, in the above text, one sees the profound consistency of his thinking: his concern for a world in which “things about God no longer seem urgent” and for the Church which is “in danger when the primacy of God is no longer manifested in the liturgy, and therefore, not in life itself”.
And that is why publication of his 16-volume COMPLETE WRITINGS started with the volume on liturgy.
“I asked my Orthodox friends to read this Preface,” says Pierluca Azzaro, translator and editor of the Italian editon of the COMPLETE WRITINGS, and vice-president of the Accademia Sapientia et Scientia. “They found it very powerful and moving. ‘It is clear we are in profound harmony about the liturgy’, they said. The very valuable bridge that Joseph Ratzinger has established between the Eastern and Western Churches is liturgy: It is a path that is not vague or utopian, but concrete and living, towards a true path of renewal along which Catholics and Orthodox can go hand in hand”.
I was positive Father Z would react enthusiastically to this news item because he has always actively promoted the slogan 'SAVE THE LITURGY, SAVE THE WORLD'. Here is his commentary.
Benedict XVI's new text
on Sacred Liturgy -
'The Russian Preface'
April 17, 2017
...In 2008 Benedict wrote the preface for the first volume of his Opera Omnia [Complete Writings]that was issued (in fact it’s Vol. XI) which includes his writings about liturgy and liturgical theology.
That was the correct choice:
they began with the single issue that connects and roots all other issues even as it also indicates the Church’s direction and goal. After all, the celebration of the Eucharist and the Eucharist Itself is the “source and summit” of the Church’s life.
It is interesting that the Russian Orthodox got on board with this. No?
Do you long-time readers recall I what tagged Benedict XVI? Pope of Christian Unity.
This was an ecumenical signal on the part of the Russians: watching the Catholic Church they, too, are concerned about our worship. They clearly think that Benedict’s thought is worth promoting.
What does Pope Benedict say in his preface to the Russian edition?
He starts off with the famous phrase from the Rule of Benedict 43:
Nihil operi Dei praeponitur… Put nothing before liturgical worship of God. Literally, this is “let nothing be put before the work of God”, but ‘
opera Dei‘ here means ‘liturgy’, which includes Mass and the public recitation of the Office, especially.
Let nothing have precedence over worship even other great earthly matters are pressing. That was taken literally: when it was time to pray the office, monks were to stop what they were doing and, immediately, go to pray. They subsequently returned to their tasks and their tasks were consequently themselves transformed by what they did.
Benedict spoke about this very phrase
“Nihil operi Dei praeponitur” back in 2013 during his final encounter with priests of the Diocese of Rome, when he made the point that Vatican II also started with liturgy. He made that very point again in his first preface to the Omnia Opera liturgy volume.
He clarified even then that, although this rock solid, pivotal principle rises from a monastic context, it nevertheless is a necessary guideline for the rest of the Church. The monastic life provides a guiding force for the life of the active Church.
[Fr. Z then provides his translation from the Italian of the complete text of the Russian Preface...]
Benedict identifies the problem we face as a Church. The Church’s identity has been “freaked out”, as it were, by the upheaval caused by the damage done to our sacred liturgical worship.
And now we are in a
situazione, as he put it, a typically Ratzingerian understatement. I wonder what German word he chose:
Zustand? Lage? In any event, his calm words ring with an urgent call to action:
“Rome, we have a ‘situation’.”
Didn’t Card. Sarah make this same point recently in his address to the conference in Germany for the 10th anniversary of Benedict’s
Summorum Pontificum? Yes, he did. He spoke of “devastation”. The usual libs had a nutty, right on schedule.
For years I hammered away at my conviction that Benedict has laid out, especially in
Summorum Pontificum and his own
ars celebrandi, a kind of “Marshall Plan” for the Church. You long-time readers here will remember this, but it has been a while since I’ve presented it.
Here it is again:
After World War II many regions of Europe were devastated, especially its large cities and manufacturing. These USA helped rebuild Europe through the Marshall Plan so as to foster good trading partners and, through prosperity, stand as a bulwark against Communism.
After Vatican II many spheres of the Church were devastated, especially its liturgical and catechetical life. We needed a Plan to rebuild our Catholic identity so that we can stand, for ourselves as members of the Church and in the public square for the good of society, as a bulwark – indeed a remedy – against the dictatorship of relativism.
NB: In his brief preface, above, Benedict says that if God is obscured, then our criteria for what is important shifts. Relativism dominates us. Where is our most regular and obvious, strengthening and informing meeting and attention with God? Liturgy. Without this constant formation and transformation, we have no idea who we are or what is important.
If we don’t know who we are as Catholics, if we don’t know what we believe or pray as Catholics, then the world has no reason to listen to anything we have to say as Catholics. We will fragment into little self-enclosed groups, islands. Enervated and drifting, we will be all the more easily driven from the public square by the enemies of objective truth, goodness and beauty.
I have been saying for years that, for any revitalization of our Catholic identity to be successful, we must renew our liturgical worship of God.
We need action in every other sphere as well, but … but… without a renewed sacred liturgical worship, nothing else will stand. Everything else we do is inexorably tied to our encounter with the transcendent in worship.
Therefore, we must not give preference to any activity in the Church over our sacred liturgical worship. This is a sine qua non existential priority.
Contrary to the notions of most liberals and progressivists, “the Catholic thing” did not begin in the 1960s. Hence, I believe that
Summorum Pontificum is a key to Benedict’s vision, his “Marshall Plan” as I call it.
His new Russian preface bears out exactly what I have been saying for years and it reaffirms me in my work.
HENCE….
We must work for the prudent and yet energetic application of
Summorum Pontificum as far and as widely as possible.
Never be discouraged.
My recommendations follow:
1) Work with sweat and money to make it happen. If you thought you worked hard before? Been at this a long time? HAH! Get to work! “Oooo! It’s tooo haaard!” BOO HOO!
2) Get involved with all the works of charity that your parishes or groups sponsor. Make a strong showing. Make your presence known. If Pope Francis wants a Church for the poor, then we respond, “OORAH!!” The “traditionalist” will be second-to-none in getting involved. “Dear Father… you can count on the ‘Stable TLM Group” to help with the collection of clothing for the poor! Tell us what you need!”
3) Pray and fast and give alms. Think you have been doing that? HAH! Think again. If you love, you can do more.
4) Form up and get organized. You can do this. Find like minded people and get that request for the implementation of Summorum Pontificum together, how you will raise the money to help buy the stuff the parish will need and DO IT. Make a plan. Find people. Execute!
5) Get your ego and your own petty little personal interpretations and preferences of how Father ought to wiggle his pinky at the third word out of the way. It is team-work time. If we don’t sacrifice individually, we will stay divided and we won’t achieve our objectives.
6) Fathers… MAN UP. Get informed. LEARN YOUR RITE! Educate.
7) Don’t whine and blame others.
8) When you get what you want… DON’T REST.
As I have previously posted Pope Benedict gave you, boys and girls, a beautiful new bicycle! He gave you a direction, some encouragement, a snow cone, and a running push. Now, take off the training wheels and RIDE THE DAMN BIKE!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/04/2017 03:24]