\376\377\000C\000:\000\\\000R\000e\000s\000e\000a\000r\000c\000h\000\\\000C\000h\000a\000n\000t\000s\000\\\000T\000e\000x\000t\000s\000\\\000L\000i\000t\000u\000r\000g\000y\000\\\000L\000i\000t\000u\000r\000g\000i\000c\000a\000l\000C\000o\000m\000m\000i\000s\000s\000i\000o\000n\000\\\000V\000o\000l\000u\000m\000e\0000\0006\000N\000u\000m\000b\000e\000r\0000\0002\000.\000x\000p\000s

Liturgy

:ist e r c ia ns

o f

t he

st r ict

o bs e rv a nc e

Ol.8 N0.2

AUGUST 1972

f_ERIPTOR J U M

L I T U R G YVol ume 6, Number 2 / August 1972

EDITOR Is PAGE1

THE CURSING PSALMS : FOR OR AGAI NST3

Dossi er of Comments from La Vie Spirituelle

THE CANTICLES OF THE NEW COVENANT IN THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS33

Emmanuel MAYEUR

MYSTICAL LIFE AND PASCHAL MYSTERY51

Paul ST-CYR

LITURGY Bulletin serves to share with others whatever thoughts and ex periences may contribute towards the development of a living liturgy for today.

Manuscripts should be forwarded to: Fr. Chrysogonus

Gethsemani Abbey

Trappist, Kentucky 40073 (U.S.A.)

Material for the next issue (late November or early December) should be received by mid-November.

1

E D I T O R ' SP A G E

I like the story I first read in (I think)Martin Buber's little collection of Hasidic aphorisms and stories, Ten Rungs. As I remember it, there was once a poor Jew from Cracow who, three nights in a row, dreamed that he heard a voice saying: "Isaac ben Levi, go to Prague; and there, under the bridge which leads to the king's palace, you 'll find a great treasure . After listening to the voice for the third night, Isaac ben Levi finally gave in to the voice and walked the long distance from Cra cow to Prague, only to find that the bridge leading to the king's palace was patrolled by gendarmes . Still, he waited patiently for an opportune moment to begin digging, till at last the captain of the guard asked his business. In all simplicity, Isaac explained: "Three times I dreamed I heard a voice'Go to Prague; and there, under the bridge which leads

to the king's palace, you'll find a great: treasure.'" The sympathetic officer of the guard laughed; and to demonstrate to the credulous Jew the folly of taking such dreams seriously, remarked that he himself had had a similar dream in which he heard a voice saying: "Go to Cracow, and dig un der the stove in the room of Isaac ben Levi, and you 'll find a great trea sure." So Isaac trotted home, dug under his own stove, found a great trea sure, and was thereupon able to build a fine neighborhood synagogue .

Like most Hasidic stories, this one probably contains multiple morals and applications; but one at least of these is this one : Though we might sometimes have to journey rather far- afield in order. to find our treasure, we 're really sitting on top of it all the time . All we have to do is to dig beneath the surface of the place in which God has put us.

It seems to me that this little story is not without its element of pertinence in our present context of liturgical and monastic renewal. What it's all about is simply this:We want to enter more deeply into the Mys tery of Christ present and acting in the liturgy and in our connnunity; and we want to express this reality and be transformed by it as perfectly as possibleat the level of each individual, and at the level of the entire connnunity.

Our desireto enter into more perfect possession of the spiritual riches which are already ours, but whch perhaps are experienced at times

...',

2

only in a somewhat superficial manner, will take some of us from time to time to Prague . It's probably a good thing that we query McLuhan, Jung,

Whitehead, Cox; that we avail ourselves of all that can be offered us by cybernetics, psychology, sociology; that we make our own the positive acqui sitions chalked up by Gontemporary theologians and exegetes.After all, in Christ, all things are ours;if the Prince of Darkness is still at work,

so is the Spirit.And , though we always have to exercise keen spiritual discernmentnot all things are expedient for us, it would be rather churlish of us, and would manifest a weak faith in Christ as the Lord of history, were we to regard all the fruits of our fast evolving culture (s) and civilization (s)as rotten . Still, all these acquisitions of modern times will prove rather ineffectual in our own regard, if they fail to bring us back to our own little room in the back streets of Cracow, to dig beneath our stove so as to come into possession of our real riches. It's not in in Prague, and in front of the king's palace that we'll find our treasure, but in our humble, unpretentious dwelling in Cracow.

And now I hear more than one confrre pounding the table and shrieking: "Obscurantist! You're digging like a blind mole into a past that 's dead and buried; while the Spirit is saying to the churches:'Forget what lies behind and stretch forward to what lies ahead! '" It's a good objection, but one which shouldn 't be made if we understand that, after all, every comparison limps .

If I describe a living return to tradition and a deepening of our spiritual experience in terms of a digging beneath the surface where we 've lived for years, this doesn 't mean that the movement is exclusively downwards and

into the past.In point of fact, Isaac ben Levi didn 't spend all his life digging beneath his stove. He built the synagogue, transformed his hovel, and lived in style

The trees which soar the highest upwards have the deepest downward roots . If we sink our roots deeper into the rich soil of our monastic heritage and spiritual patrimony (with the help of the best techniques of modern forestry), we might possibly find ourselves by the same token stretching fruit-laden, living branches upwards, to what lies above .

Sooff we go to Prague, so often as we hear the voice telling us

to do so.But what a shame if we were to take up permanent residence there! Our treasure lies in the back streets of Cracow, where we already are

3

T H EC U R S I N GP S A L M S F 0 R0 RA G A I N S T *

The new arrangenent of the psalms in the Raman Breviary has acceded to the insistent demands of many people by suppressing the nost i.nprecato ry of the psal.ros and psalm-verses .Sare regret this nove;others think

that the deletions are not bold enough;so that this irritating dif ference of opinion is still not settled.

One wonders if it 'WOuld ever be possible, or even benef icial, to set tle it.The very f act that a thing of this kind cannot be legislated for

but remains a diff iculty to be overoc::me by each individual, is an indication that the matter touches us in a vulnerable spot.It could be that the Holy Spirit Who inspired the psalms , and inspires the Church not to abandon the practice substantially, does not wish us to attain a tranquility which is too perfect.Prayer, cleverly purif ied , .might mask tmresolved conf licts in our heart.The Holy Spirit may not be displeased at the waves of protest these psalms arouse in us:it is only when we are forced to ask ourselves

what such novements signify that we come to scrutinize our spirits clearly and f rankly.We would have our protestations inplicate only the ancient He brews -who becane wicked through being deeply humiliated . We would like to make it clear that we have not very much in cx::mron, and \l.Ould like to be

f reed frcm the obligation of reciting their threats and trumpeting their savage cries.NON , even if this is evidence of our true position, we knav: that even the nost justif ied protest, if persisted in, makes one suspect the denial of some truth which involves us.

How exactly are we inq?licated? At what level? And by what a::nplexus of attitudes? This needs to be clarif ied as it cannot be deduced from the content of our protests. In short: The Holy Spirit has lef t us a way of

*This is a translation of a dossier of comments which appeared in ?rench fn La Vie spirituelle for March, 1970, pp .291-336, and later, in English,

in the Supplement to Hallel, 2/1 (Lent, 1972), pp .30-51. The Editors of both magazines are warmly thanked for permission to re-print this material.

4

prayer which all Christians have follCMed dam the centuries.Here and there along this way of prayer there are to be formd certain stum bling blocks.The point at issue is how aPe we supposed to overaome these obstacles.

For or against the cursing psalms : what does this :rcean?Is it

just a question of adapting language?Does it :rcean adopting a "ration alizing" attitude to what we hope might be :rcere p:;eudo-prablems which have arisen as by-productsof passing cultural crises?'Vbat if these things were injuri es borne without arw respite by Him who, at the very narent of our prayers , wishes to test us and seeks to convert us by

causing our true sentim::mts to e:rerge from our hearts?

With these considerations in mind, a practical, or empirical, ap proach was necessary.Anenquiry was necessary into the way we experi ence a sturrbling block.As well as that we had to examine the content

of our secret and overt protestations with their notives and justi f ica tions .Thus , we asked a nurrber of individuals and camn.mities who re cite the p:;alter to indicate as f rankly as possible if they experienced a dif f iculty and hCM they handled it.The dossier which we nCM present is the result of this enquiry.

The dossier is canposed of two "suites" (used in a sense analogous to the musical tenn) .'!he f irst is the f ruit of an exchange with sever al people whose only stimulus was through a cxmnunication of J.-P. de

ce, O.P.The text of this ccmrunication foDilS the "overture" .

The second "suite" was canposed by grouping the reaction of other indi viduals and groups to the f irst "suite".In this way it verif ies, re states and oomplen:ents the f irst "suite".

By way of an "interlude" , two texts have been inserted between the "suites".These provide food for thought:the f irst reminds us of the animal depths f rcm which -we have e:re:rged;the other , the degree of per fection to which Christ calls us.

J.-P. de MENASCE, O.P.

Sorce of those who lovingly recite the psalter in the liturgy have

The Cursing Psalms5

decided not to use the so-called "cursing psalms" as being repugnant

to Christian sentinent, by reason of their cruelty.Is this merely a s1x:mtaneous expression of the traditional doctrine of the i.Irperfect na ture of the Old Testarrent in relation to the New?If so, there would

be nothing wrong with this attitude, were it not f or the fact that an equally spontaneous use is made of those psahns which seem to be ex clusively concen'l.ed with temporal goods.If praying earnestly for the goods of this life causes us no enbarrassirent, is this not because our petitions seem to us -correctly -to be the bearers of our deep

longing f or spiritual goods?The desire for peace and plenty is inferior to that for the things of the Spirit.Nevertheless, in accordance with the law mich governs the relationship between the Old and New Teasta

.m ents, the fonrer synibolize and pre-f igure the latter.This being so, could we not use the cries of a quite natural hatred -which is made

all the worse for being directed to the sinner rather than to the sin - to express a spiritual hatred of evil? The reality and intensity of such a hatred will be in proportion to the strength and purity of our love

for God himself .The I.Drd praises, in his parables, unjust sentiments

and actions , but means to highlight only one aspect of them, nanely , vinl lence, which is rarer and less noticeable when in the source of good.

Preachers hesitate before such a figurative exegesis.But what other in terpretation can be put foi:ward?

If the analogy is not perceived in the case of hatred, it is question able Yb.ether it has really been seen in the case of love.In asking to inherit the land,Iam aspiring to another country.But how deep-seated

is the aspiration if , at the sane time, Ido not wish with all IIo/ being that everybody begotten by ma that isopposed to God - even children - should be dashed against the rock?

SUITE No.1

FRANrary sensitivity must be taken into acoount: every age has its legibi.mate preferences which later ages may criticize.

At the sane tine I am aware of the danger of wanting to adapt the

salnsnerely to suit noden1 tastes.I renerber once telling a priest worker about icy dif f iculties with these "cursing salms".He replied:

"In icy case it is the opposite.I feel in tune with these psalms of vio

lence.'!here's too mu.dl injustice and too many prof iteers and tyrants and o:ppressors in the world today.What a relief to be able to say what

I think of them when praying! "Then he added: "On the other hand, I have serious dif f iculty with those psalms which speak of everything being just perfect for the just man."By the tine we had corre to the end of our oon versationwe had agreed that not only were our two attitudes camplenenta i:y , but that they showed forth the richness of the psalter and the Church's prayer.

R.ecently I read sane "psalms" which had been written in prison by a Latin-American .Orristian.They had all the violence of the biblical psalter.It seems a good thing to ne that such things should be expresserl, provided that they stay within certain bounds.I once asked a ral::bi, out of curiosity, hCM nodern JEMS pray those salms , and he told ne there were

no cursingpsalms anong those prescribed for the regular prayers of the norning, evening, and Sabbath.On the other hand, he said, there were psalms prescribed for private prayer to be said in weekly cycles.These oontained all the psalms; but, remarkably , the imprecatoi:y passages ap

pear in small print and are neant to be said in aCM voice.Not one jot

of the divine"WOrds IIRlSt be suppressed, for there is an awareness that sudl "WOrds, oontaining a reystery , should be said in a whisper.

The Curaing Psalms7

M .-D.CHENU, O.P.

When it canes to singing the cursing psalms , I am just a "con sumer" .An exegete gleans f:rom his sources a true human understanding of these psalms.A professional liturgist, who kncMs how to transfer the words of Scripture into the prayer of the assenbly, would overcare the dif f iculty by using the allegorical methcrl.A theologian, and a fortiori, a prophet, will knav hav to integrate the parts played by violence, aggression and the demands of justice into the domain of love

and liberty of conscience (although even he will have some dif f iculty!) . A sociologist will recognize the literacy vocabulary of national strug gles and class warf are.But for a simple nerri:>er of the f aithf ul , like Iey"self , these fearsone verses make me start when I hear them in the lit-

. urgy.I 'm af raid I just swallav than without thinking about them.Not that I want to eliminate them frcm the Bible -this w::>uld be an imperti nence as well as a serious e.rror .It is possible that the daily strug gles of the individual Christian nake these verses understandabl e.But when singing and praying in the liturgy, I share the assembly 's distaste far such forcef ul declamation of curses in public.Besides , the pastors of the Church no longer refer to them in their Gospel hanilies.

PHILIPPE ROUILIARD, O.S.B., M:lnk of Wisques

I wonder if it is not the formulation rather than the oontent of these psaJ.ns that bothers us?The language used is that of poetry , neta

phor and hyperbole.In order to judge the psaJ.ns oo.rrectly, we would have to OOI11pare than with oonterrp:>rary p:>etry and songs.Do we f ind a similar

veh.e:lrence of expression?When a choir of religious declaims that its enanie$ : surround it like wasps and "in the name of the Lord I will cut than dCMn with the mvord" , this will d::>viously give rise to understandable surprise am:mg the laity participating:they would not have imagined that

oontemplatives lived so dramatically Doubtless , this is because we are so much attached to the literal interpretation of the psalms.

Part of the diff iculty , also, is that the liturgy requires the psalms to be said day af ter day.Originally , hCMever , the saying of the psalms sprang fran a certain experience, and in order to understand them correct-

8

ly it is necessa:ry to have something of the sane experience.Tn' e day that an individual or group of the faithf ul undergces an unusual ex perience, for exanple, of violence, it will then see the eminent suita bility of certain psalms -and these they will ccmrence to sey in an entirely new wey from then on.

Isn 't this, in f act, the wey the Ranan liturgy cane into being in the f irst place?In the time of St. Grego:ry theGreat, Christians lived in fear of violence frcm the Barbarians.The Christian cammmity

at Rane gave expression to its real anxiety by selecting suitable psalms and arranging them as Introit chants (notice the fonrer Sundays of the Septuages.irna period) This was a response to a need in a local situa tion.Why, then, was it thought necessa:ry to impose these texts on the universal Church for the next fourteen centuries?We usually overcone

this dif f iculty by "spiritualizing" them;since the ene:ny was no longer theBarbarian horde, we tried to visualize them as E.'vil, Sin, and the Devil.M:>dern man seens to be dissatisf ied with this type of transposi tion.In tirres past, people found it easy to personify evil, but "When we succeed in in doing so we see our enemies with f amiliar faces;instead

of "sin" or "evil" , we see one or other of our neighbors with whan we have

a dif f iculty -and this we f ind unacceptable.

I am not t:rying to say that :rrodern man is better able to cope with hostilities in his lif e.If someone plays a "dirty trick" on us , we are only too prone to call him a rotter.But I don 't think this gives us

the right to say -in prayer,"Lord, wipe out all these rotters! "We :mUst be clear , of course, on "What we rrean by prayer.In other centuries man was ready enough to ask God to f ree him frcxti his enemies.Todey, ho.vever , a militant Christian trade-unionist, if he were unjustly dismissed f rom

his job, would stand in God 's presence and try to discover ho.v best to react.Prayer rreans nore to us :it is an atterrpt to see clearly under the gaze of God.

For rre , it is one thing to recite certain psalms alone or in a small group, and quite another to proclaim them solem.ly in a mixed assenbly.

Public psallrody conf ers the character of a value-judg:rrent on the text; it.

The Cursing Psaims9

is a high-lighting of the Christian ideal.This is why it is so dif f i cult to make use of psalms which seem clearly to contradict specif ically Christian virtues.A Benedictine nonastery experienced this problem recently when a group of boys on retreat attended .Matins at four o'clock in the noming.The boys listended attentively to the psalms recited in the vernacular.The tone of the language scandalized them so nru.ch that they af te:rwards said to the m::>nks: "HON can you possibly rise in the mid

dle of the night to say such things?"

CHANI'AL LION, Marriage Counsellor

In JI acperience many lay-folk are not at all at ease in the over structured atnosphere of the liturgy.The a:xrplacent tone of sc:xre of the Masses is unbearable:we are all f ine and happy to be together; we have the sane Father and everything is beautif ul!This does not accord at

all with reality.For this reason I am inclined to def end the psalms of "aggression" . Why are we embarrassed by than?Could it be the violence within ourselves which we dare not admit in a liturgical atroc>sphere?But not to admit this would be to leave out part of ourselves.

Obviously a great ef fort will have to be made before Christian rreek. ness bea:xres a reality. F..ONever , I have the i.npression that our liturgi cal pref erences are not in order. Is it not possible that reciting the

:r;salms of violence may well help us acquire Christian meekness?

AN'IDINE LION , O.P.

1- big objection is related to that of Phillipe lbuillard: the im

possibility of integrating these psalms of violence into JI prayer.I have no dif f iculty when I use them as :rreditations, because I can under stand them by putting them into their context.I can also identify with

the groanings and cat\Plaints of the oppressed.But when f aced with curs ing I sturrble at every step.

Vhy should this be so?I readily admit that we are neither less violent nor less aggressive than Christians of another age.It is the structure of our sensibility that is dif ferent.Vb.en Lucien Febvre de-

10

scribes the nenof the 16th centw:y , he p:>rtrays them as "simple and without oontrol".Their ercotions resp:>nd to the slightest stinulation. Let the music at a concert evoke a battle scene and straightavay they are prancing about, ready to mine the action.With us , ha-1ever , it is

quite dif ferent.our sensibility is of the ref lexive type: we f ind it

dif ficult to pray without passing jUdgnent on it at the very instant we are praying.

Sane say that the cursing psa.llrs have at least this value, that they act as a safety-valve for the violence in us.I cannot agree with this view because I don 't believe that prayer-ti.Ire is the ti.ne for letting of f steam.The discovery that we have feelings of vindictiize aggression does , not entitle us to give expression to them in prayer, under the pretext of being "authentic".I have also mcm:mts of pride, sexual impulses, etc.

Must these, too, f ind a place in my prayer?My malaise extends beyond the psaJ.nE of vengeance.Such a phrase in one of the new Prefaces as "and called us to the glory that has made us a chosen race, a royal priesthocxl, a people set apart," grates on ne because it seerrs to f latter our pride

and the collective pride of the Church.To speak such words we would want to be very pure indeed.Christ uttered curses against the Pharisees. But, then, he was Christ.In similar situations , we are far f rom having ac quired his p.irity.Should not our ti.rre of prayer be a privileged ti.ne when we try to becare ever more spiritual men who wish to leani haN not

to hate -nen of the Beatitudes?

I. DUIS d 'AGIER, O.P.

In the f irst place, when we speak of aggressiveness, we must use the

tenn accurately.In the f ield of psychology there is an aggressiveness which is healthy and good;this was kncMn to Olrist hircself .'Ihere was nothing feigned alx>ut his outbursts of anger against the Pharisees.In

connection with the vindictive or cursing psalms , the aggressiveness we are speaking of is that \\hi.ch mankind expresses spontaneously in its vio lent struggles stained with sin.It is the saire f or us as it was for the psalmist.When sarreone witnesses, . or is the victim of , certain types of action, his basic reaction in the 20th century will be what it would have

The Cursirtf] Psalms11

been thirty centuries earlier.It is not a Christian reaction.If one wishes to make it Christian, it must be transfonood so that it can be replaced by the love of one 's enemies.Just think of the spontaneous reaction of the apostles to the hostility of the Sarraritan tc:Ml: "lord, do you want us to call dCMn f ire f ran heaven on this tavn?"Jesus re

buked them, "You do not knCM of \\hat spirit you are."It is the sane with us:at f irst we either don 't knCM or f orget of what spirit we are.Only af ter a second , ref lex, action do we say: "Mind yourself ".If I want to follav Jesus , I can 't give way to these sentiments.This creates within

us what would be called a split psychology.Even today , people can openly threaten destruction and promise to massacre their enemies.They identify corrpletely with what they are saying and, if circumstances lend themselves, will remrselessly fulf ill their th.i:eats.But we cannot identify perfect ly with such instincts or even with sorre of our actions.

What can a Christian do in ti.ma of war?He must kill the enerey , but must also strive to el:i.rninate hatred.He must kill in the hour of battle, but in sadness; there is no other solution.For several years I had an analogous experience in Africa.As of ten as we priests ref lected on it,

we were persuaded that it was ri1.t to remain in the country.We were also well aware of the sent.im:mts which animated those mo did not shrink f rcm killing white priests along with other Europeans.Five of our priests dis appeared.Living in such circumstances where violence was inevitable, we tried to f ill our hearts with thoughts less ugly than thoughts of hatred ,

fw:y and venrd?

b) HON is it that only the psalms of violence and vengeance create dif f iculties for us?There are other psalms and verses 'Which express cries f or help, cringing attitudes, the feeling of crushing def eat and an awareness of personal w:::>rthlessness, which are all just as ani:>iguous

if taken literally.Isn 't there a need to evangelize and transpose these as well?Why are we not sensitive to these?It seans to me, then , that the question should be as broad as the whole psalter, and not conf ined to one section of it.In f act, to conf ine the question to the cursing psalms only seans to be arbitrary and uncritical.

2- Having thus dwelt on the f irst of Besnard 's two points, I shall ncM nove on to his seoond.f the psalms nrust be taken within a nove nent 'Which at the sane tine gives them their narent of truth and brings

22

them to f ulf illrrent, then the question arises of the use made of them in the liturgy and the :rreaning they take on when publicly proclaimed.

I am as much opposed to selective cuts in the psalter as I am to abusing the psalms by singing, reciting or proclaiming them inopportunely and without rhyme or reason.Recitation , conceived as saying the whole psal

ter at a stretch without regard to the literary genres, is no longer possi ble.We must, therefore,be careful that the psalms are integrated into the celebration of a concrete conmunity,that their meaning be understood within an on-going rroverrent,and that the conmunity as such beoorres filll'are of what it is expressing in the psalms .This has of ten been our experience: psahns which are prayed af ter a reading in the liturgy and which are fol lowed by a prayer which surrmarizes the conmunity oonsciousness are no

longer allegqrized by each one for himself according to his needs and m:xxls .Perhaps the psalter should be used like a f iling cabinet f ran which nothing is to.be excluded tinder pain of mutilating human experience and God 's revelation, especially in those areas of our humanity in which the Word of God is bent on becoming incarnate.Seen in this light, the psalter is no longer a progranme but a repertoire.

JAO;:UESOOIRE WATELET, rv."onk. of Maredsous

I quite agree with Olivier du Roy.It seems to rre that the prcblem lies in oonfronting oonrary man with biblical man.Biblical man is much nnre glcbal in his errotion , more ooncrete in his expression of re venge and supplication.His aff ectivity or, at least, its expression , is too global and t6o valid when taken globally , to penni.t us to erase from

the psalter, a:rbitrarily and for ever, those parts which shock us. Curious

ly enough, expressions of oonf idence and resignation (even of alienation) do not seem to shock our conterrporaries.Surely those aspects are just as dangerous 'When separated f ran the whale?The man of the Bible is a concrete, existential tm.it with primary feelings Ci.e. primitive roan in the good sense) He havls against his enemies just as he exults in his God.He is not a "well-behaved" man of reserve and oontrol.He follows

his heart, bent tavards a God who seerPs closer than any other living being , and expresses his f eeling to him in a sinple, authentic mmner.To use

the psalms as a prayer involves holding onesf lf at a distance f ran them

23

just as much as taking them to oneself . But you must either take them or leave them:if they are taken as the expression of a primitive "I" , the deepest level of one 's being , it will still be necessary to utilize this "tribal language".In this way my spiritual experience of the psalms will link up with my deepest natural experiences.As a roan of

the seoond half of the 20th centw:y, I am nearer to the biblical man -

who would f ind little dif ficulty speaking of the Vietnam war -than I

am to Cartesian roan.

DCMINICAN C'ONTEMPLATJ:VES OF BEI'HLEHEM

Having read and re-read the dossier, we f ind ourselves in agreement with what was written there, and we shall take it rx>int by point.All the sisters who were questioned -except one -love and pray the curs ing psa1ros, but realize it is dif ficult to use them in a liturgy open

to the public.

1- Why we love them:The nore we oarre to realize what sin is, what the Passion means for us in everday life;the nore we carrpassionate with the suf f ering of this world -to this degree do we f ind these ;alrns

conducive to prayer.Jesus took them up in his Passion.If "in his Person he has destroyed hatred" , it was not by tuming a deaf ear to those hu-

man -if savage -cries,but by allCMing them to echo within him. It was thus that he delivered us from hatred.The cursing psalrns allON us to speak the violence we should feel with an ef f ective hatred for sin, and they permit us to express a desire that the IDrd might deliver us

f ran evil.They make us a.vare of ha-1 we beca:re for our neighl::x:>rs the "unjust aggressors" We all of us kncM men and warren who spend their lives struggling in situations similar to t.'liose of the psalmist.It is far us to say these psalms in the name of these people.It is good for us to be able SOiretirres to express our revolt against injustice and op pression.

2- The dif f i culty of using them in the liturgy: '!he language of these ;al.ms is not that of no:1ern man. Like Philippe Rouillard, we are

sensitive to the possibility of the ridiculous entering in.These ;alms

.a re hard to label.The ideal would be to introduce the psalms to those who want to share our prayer by helping them to see the connection between

24

the violence of the psalms and the tensions within themselves . 'lhis would demand a whole biblical culture" Sare of us propose to re serve the singing of the cursing psalms Wien the a:mnunity alone is asserrbled and there are no seculars about.But I don 't think this is the answer . Nor am I in f avor of the solution adopted by the nf?N Roman Breviary whidl. simply deletes certain psalms and verses.I should have preferred to see them bracketed, or struck out with a light stroke.

we shall never sing them, but that doesn 't prevent me f rcm sc::irretiroes

saying them in J heart.'1he solution which avoids the dif f iculty by

a recourse to sy:rrbolism doesn 't satisfy me.Prayer is not the time for

nental gymnastics.

One f inal remark.Taking evecything into accomlt,I think it is dif f icult to say those psalms in truth and out of a motive of love. It is possible, but it must be rare.It is dif ficult enough trying to live the lif e of love in our own lB,DJUage.What will it be like if we borrav a language which, if taken literally, is the opposite to a language of love?The curses of Jesus are a series of calls to conversion, and are, thus, words of nercy .But do we know how to curse while loving?I

doubt it.

'!HE TRAPPISTS OF BELLEFONTAINE

The disite arising f ran the use of these psahrs in the liturgy reached us in three stages:

a- One theoretical level through some articles which evoked a rather negative response (Charpentier , in Bibl-e et vie ahretienne, 1961; Bem.irront, in NouveUe revue theol-ogique, 1962;Bea.ucanp, in Bibl-e et vie ahretienne, 1963) .

b- At the practical level as a result of a pastoral questionnaire issued a year ago af ter which we made sare changes -though not with out some reservations. An account of this will be foml.d at the end of our contribution.

c- And what about today?We don 't f ind this dossier very satis f actory , and we have clarif ied our reservations by asking ourselves

The Cursing Psalms25

why this should be so.There is a whole section dealing with remarks about the malaise which these fo:nnulations of violence occasion today. While we are CtW"are of thismalaise, we f eel the problem has been in

adequate!y stated -and this in two ways:

Positively, the problem is such a real one that we "WOnder whether

the dossier has given it its exact proportions?

Negatively, we f ind it dif f icult to see our o,.vn problem in that posed here, because the dossier seans to ignore a dimension of prayer which is f amiliar to us .

'Ihis is the essence of 'Vbat we wish to say.We shall have to ex plain our pastoral choices with regard to these psalms , which were of necessity empiric ones.

1- The problem should not be minimized:

It 's rather like a f amily quarrel.If.one sorre. grievance slips past the censorship of mutual love, all the unconsciously hidden griefs cx:xre to the surf ace and ally themselves with the f irst, to the great a stonislurent even of the suf ferer himself .This seems to have been the line taken by de Menasce.If we are to be shocked by the vindictiveness

of sare of the psalms , there is also their f eeling for happiness and hope, their legalism and eschatology which are no longer ours.can all this be transposed?Our answer is no;not 'IODAY.HON are we to read an ancient text without transposing it?Is there a single passage in the Old Testa nent or the N!W which we can take as simply given, directly and totally, without fear of illusion?It is a question of language.One of us re

marked that, even before the problem of the cursing psalms , there are other psalms which are at least strange and, in extrE!lE. cases , incanpre hensible.The change of language from Latin to the vernacular has forced

us to postulate, sonewhat sbrplistically, that we can pray only in oUP own language ...The Sit z im Leben of the psalms is obviously not that of our prayer.Are we going to accept the psalms in their context or our con text?Is it not the "life-situation of the psalms , even :rrore than the psalms themselves , which is inspired and touches us with its call?Is

it not into this context that we should insert ourselves?The Lord is

not in the letter of the Bible but in the event crystallized in the letter.

26

Perhaps , then, we should in the f irst place accept a language which is not our a-lI1 in order to welcome an event whim precedes and detennines us.

2- The objective language of Revelation must be received and the Histo:ry of Salvation accepted:

There is prayer and prayer.According to the monastic tradi tion, true prayer begins when it is no longer ourselves who are praying.

Would rrodern man rebel against this kind of alienation too?It seems

to us that he would, because to our astonishlrent we note that the dossier is taken up solely with the subjective, personal elerrent of prayer . Sub jectivity in prayer is quite a characteristic of our tines, and it is

re-inforced by the dlange to the living tongue in the liturgy.We are inclined to appropriate the psalm in an acquisitive way instead of re ceiving it as a gif t.Fr. Jean Eudes Bamberger told us that this lack. of objectivity is deeply hann:ful to our monastic life in general.Here a gain the problem is a larger one: there is a monastic experience of the 11objective11 prayer of the psalter.Historically linked with an under standing of inspiration, with a theology and an exe;Jesis , in its actual practice it doubtless creates problers.It is, perhaps , too soon to

pass over it in silence.

In a sacra:rrental manner, the psalter makes present what it enunci ates , i.e. the history of salvation.Under this aspect it could be con sidered as a sacra:rrental preliminary to prayer , in the rrodem sense .of the tenn:scnething on which it is necessary to lean.The Beatitudes rest not so much onpetty vexations as on the Old Testanent :impreca tions taken in their context.

The psalter was once the dlief treasury of theological interpretations.

By that f act alone it actualized the f aith of the Church.It is perhaps here that we f eel the pindl nost,because we f eel ourselves cut of f f ran a whole world of interpretation.But surely the prayers and invitatories of the psalter in the Jerusalem Bible indicate that it is still i;x::>ssible to read the psalter in this ecclesial perspective?Should we not also

.nention, especially in oonnection with.. the cursing verses, the psalter 's

power to exorcize?It is dif f icult to choose between a subjective and

The Cursing Psaims27

an objective reading of the psalter.Neither of them can be lirposed and neither dispensed with.What has been given objectivel y cannot be ref ashioned to suit our pleasure, particularly when it has been given for the prayer of the Church as a whole.

3- The pastoral point of view:

'Ihe principle is retained that this objective prayer presupposes

a mininrum of biblical culture (initiation to, and experience of , prayer) . The private use of the psalter presents no dif f iculty . The real problem arises at those Of f ices attended by guests and retreatants.At Bellefon taine this was resolved in practice by suppressing the cursing verses of Psalms 138 and 140 sung at Vespers.

CLEMENT DE OOURr.oc>NT, Monk of Bellefontaine

Having read the dossier , I place JI!iSelf beside de Menasce and Chan tal Lion. Iwould like to adopt as niy CMl the remark of Philippe Rouil lard: " we are too much given to a literal interpretation of the psalms" . It is a pity he di&l 't devel9P this point f urther.On the other hand ,

a remark of his in the following paragraph seems to ne to be an over-sim

plif ied placing of oneself yis- -vis the psalm: "'!he day that an individu al or group of the f aithful undergoes an unusual experience, for example, of violence, they will see the eminent suitability of certain psalms , and these t:h.ey will c:x:mnence to say in an entirely nB11 way f rom then on".

This idea underlies, to sane extent, the replies of Louis d 'Agier and A.-M. Besnard, when asking hcM the Christian can line up "conf licts" and express them in prayer;or hew he can transfer the CUX'Ses f rom the

oppressors to the oppressive structures.In all these cases the authors seen to take up a position on the literal level, adapting the psalm to

the personal situation of the one saying it and, particularly, to his re

lations to other persons.This seems to ne to be a f alse use of the psalmand also betrays an ignorance. of the pedagogy ofelation.

a..:. The question of "a.pPropriating" the psalms:

'Ihe anbiguity here seems to arise fran the use of the ter:rn "prayer" in regard to the psalms.For us , prayer. suggests an act by whi.ch we turn Ou:l'seives tls blunted and un balanced.

Further, to be nore precise, these canticle texts of the New Testament represent a stage in the Christian re-reading 0 biblical tradition. This might be valid for conterrporary man. Ha.Never , these texts arose in a context in which the integration into real lif e of the saving event, Jesus Christ , was only just beginning. It soon re ceived a f ixed ;fonn in writing. But if we sinply takethese writings as they are, they became., in practice, no nore than a dead letter.

Would the solution lie in an atten;:>t to give the assembly of the

f aithf ul a biblical culture? '!his ef fort, we are told, vuld be arti

f icial, doarred to f ailure.So we should look in a dif ferent direction. Sta.rt from the positive reality- which these New Testament canticles

;r;-epresent in the history of Christian thought.They bear witness to a concrete actualization of f aith. So oontinue along the sanE line,

without getting tied dcMn by a fonn of expression which belongs to the

past.What you have to do is create new texts whia.'1 bear witness to the Christian experience as lived at the present tirre , and expressed

in a contemporary vocabulary. It 's not the biblical text which brings us

to an understanding of what our life is about . Rather , it 's an under-

The CanticZes ofthe New Covenant37

standing of our life in confrontation with Christ which makes it possi- ble for us to find under other fonns and expressed with different words the sane vital experience such as we find attested by the early bibli- cal texts.This is the condition for the efficacy of every fonn of Christian culture, and hence, of the word addressed us by God.

This challenge makes us reflect, and leads us to clarify a few details so as to discern the elerrent of truth in this argurrent, and to rectify the elements of confusion. We're here confronted with the problem of the value of the word of God, and with the further prdJlem of creativity in the expression of our faith.

III.'l"HE VALUE OF THE 'WORD OF GOD 1- Intrinsic Value

This problem appears clearly in one of the last affirmations reproduced arove: the biblical text isn't a key for an understanding

of our CMil life; rather, it's an understanding of our life in confron tation with Christ which enables us to find once more the experience of the witnesses of an earlier age -an experience described in texts of the past. But the i.nnediate reaction could well be:Yes -but hCM am I to kna.v or recognize Christ(\\ho is the neans by which I have to un derstand R own life), if not in the word transmitted by the Church fran one generation to the next? For it's the Churcll which guards the

word in its purity, and interprets it according to the varying hmran situations.

I'ts quite certain that the problem of language is no false prdJlem.

One of the directives given by VaticaY\II is to provide the word of God with a clothing, with a fonn of expression which is accessible to nod.em nan. This represents a cultural evolution(and even revolution), par ticularly in the process of secularization. It has becane banal to note the fact.

It's quite enlightening to read, in a recent issue of La vie spiri tueUe, Jean Lestavel's chronicle about Gustave Thibon. We read there that "the Christian of today, despite the loss of a certain lyric and epic tone, mistrusts every kind of exaggerated language when it corres to

38

expressing his faith (even though it might be perf ectly all right to

invest languages other than that of faith with a high degree of af fec tivity) ". 5 'Ihis was said with regard to the re-publication of the

EcheU e de Jacob , combined under one cover with Le pain de chaque jour . In his pref ace, Gustave 'Ihibon was prudent enough to f orestall the critics: "You use an outnoded vocabulary. Words such as "soul" , "sin" , "grace" , "heaven" , "hell" . no longer f ind an echo in rrodenl man."

Could it be that Christians no longer knew hCM to hear the "eternal content" of Revelation?G. Thibaut is af raid that, "under the pretext of openness and dialogue" ,Christianity will be re-absorbec into the nodern world; and he insists on the rights of truth over the "novelties

and tastes of the current season based on feeling and opinion" . We be lieve that Christians in the Churd.1 always knew hew to listen to and hear the "eternal content" of Revelation; but this "eternal content" cannot be closed to every atterrpt at re-interpretation.

'Ihis situates the problem in its proper context.

'Ihe word of God , transrnitted by the Church in its biblical fonn (that is to say, in writings inspired by the Holy Spirit) , has an in trinsic value.'!here is a divine gif t, a divine transmission of the word (the word of the Word of God) ; this Wl'Jrd bea:::mes incarnatein the integral human condition, and is "objectif ied" in a def initive f ashion

in the Holy Books.'Ihis is why the the Vatican II Constitution Dei Ver

bwn says that the entire presentation of t.11e Christian Mystery has got

to be "nourished and ruled by sacred Scripture". 6

As soon as we see all this fran an cbjective via\7P0int, we admire the extent to which the biblical theres and the bililical symbolism are universal. Every human culture can f ind neaning there. When I was in China, I was struck by the all but insunro\.llltable dif f iculty of fered

by l.'.ristotelian and , theref ore, scholastic thought; but what joy these

same Chinese had when they cane into contact with the Bible! They felt at home with the divine word. Thanks to a recent study on the Bhagavad Gtt, I see that the same is true for India. In the sacred writings of

The Canticles of the New Covenant39

this civilization, there are numerous texts whic.h could be transposed directly into the Bible without any prd:>lem. This is particularly true of the canticles of praise:

Glory to Thee, O grea,test of gods!

Be gracious !

Iseek to k.nON Thee, the Prineval;

IknON not Thy ways.

-XI , 31

By Thy glorification,

the universe rejoices and shCMs love to Thee.

-XI , 36

Bowing dCMn, and holding the body so lON, Thee, o Lord, I pray for grace;

forgive, o Lord, as forgives the father the son,

the friend the friend,

and the lover the beloved .

-XI , 44

'lhe blessed Lord spoke: He that 'Vvorks but for ne,

for whom Iam the supreme goal,

who is devoted to ne,

devoid of attachment for things, and devoid of hate,

cornes to Me.

-XI,55

Even if the nost evil-conducted roan worships Jt.e with exclusive devotion,

he is to be considered even as righteous because he is established on the right road.

Such a one quickly becares righteous-souled, for he comes to perpetual peace.

devoted one shall never be destroyed.

-IX,30-31

The universality of bililical language extends not only throughout space, but through time as "1;\fell. Can we really say that at any given pericx1, the syrribols of the Bible are no longer ad raem, that they no longer have anything to say?

In a very fine article,8 Paul Beauchanp expresses his CMn opinion to the contrary: 11 It would be to speak without due thought, were a per-

40

son to represent nature, which holds so irrportant a place in the Bilile, as an elerrent. of existence "'11.ch is on the way to being overcalE and mastered: it pertains to the essence of man that he be situated in a

cosrros which both precedes him in existence, anO. goes on after hiro ...9

When he is cut of f f rom nature, man f eels a deeper and deeper loss of balance; and he won 't stop till he recovers his equililirium.We' re f ace to face with this serious problem.The urban dweller runs away from the city in order to plunge into the woods and the sea; he 's crazy about srow, rrountain-cl.inbing, hunting, real bread, local vintage wines ...

The very thrust of civilization is leading it back to the sources of the word of God.

(.)Let's take a look at the currently signif icant book by Fr. Gelineau and his international group of collaborators -Dans vos assembZees 10 When it 's a question of placing in its proper context "the specif ic role

of Scripture in the liturgy" , we read: "Bililical language has been fashioned by the experience of the People of God throughout the oourse of Salvation History, and this language has becx:are the language of Jesus and his disci

ples ..The liturgy, then, oould not fail to grasp the value of this lan-

guage which is the specif ic language of the Scriptures. "

11 '!he author

does, of oourse, recognize the f act that there 's a problem of understand ing this language; and this sanetirnes calls for an initiation , a cateche sis. Hcwever, he adds the follc:ling: "We ought not imagine that the lan guage of the Bilile and the liturgy is outdated.'lhis would be true if they depended on, and referred to realities which are now desacralized

and better understood , such as the realities of outer space.In point of fact , the sacraments and the realities with which they 're bound are

interwoven with basically human realities which are identical f or every

tine and place: sy:rrbols of a meal, of water, of judgnent, of love, of death, of a covenant, etc . .. These categories are always contanporary, and they are the ones which best express the relations of the Living God

W'1th l'vm.

g roan" .12

We should like to add that :the .mistake would oonsist of identif ying the word of God with the language of ideas.In the latter , words are born and die acoording to the f luctuation of systems and passions.They

The Canticles of the New Covenant41

have to have a shock-ef fect on our imagination and sensitivity.When they no longer make our skin tingle, they die of f .

2- Ef f icacy

This leads us to a consideration of t.li.e reproach that the lan guage of the Bible lacks ef f icacy.'lhis is a quite natural reproach

f or m:>a.em man to make, since he is inclined to judge evei:ything by

the ircmediate result , the .imrediate reaction.

We were just naN speaking about ideological language and its exi gencies. '!he word of God is nost exactly NO!' addressed to the epide:rmis; it knocks, rather, on the door of the heart.Paul Beaucharrp also notes with pertinence that the biblical word doesn 't necessarily produce its

ef f ect straightaway.We ought not ask the hearers for their inpressions as they leave the church. So of ten as the reaction follCMS imrediately

upon the action of the word, only the surf ace of the person is af fected".J.J

Farther on, the author stresses the f act that it pertains to the vei:y essence of the 'WOrn of God to be proclairred in an assembly of believers, and this is one of the conditions for its eff icacy. "'!here is an ef f icacy proper to the worn of God; and the duty to proclaim this 'WOrd depends up- on this ef f icacy."And he quotes Janes 1:21 - "'Ihe 'WOrd planted within

your hearts can save you."The proclamation of the word is a central litur gical act; but it presupposes a global action which surrounds it, as does

the act of putting a seed into the grmmd.'!his derives fran the divine origin of the word, and f ran the sacrarrental orner of which it is a part. This word, then , is proclained "in an institutional act" , as willed by Christ.A failure to realize this "explains a great deal about the partial

failure.of so many atterrpts to provide the f aithf ul with a solid biblical pedagogy11 14 The round-table discussion organized by Chant et Monast'eres

expresses it well by saying that "the place where the Bible renders its true sound is the ccmnunity'' 15 Or, rrore precisely, if you wish.: the ec

clesial camrunity.

'!he book Dans vos asserriblJes gi-ves all this a definitive formulation: "Faith is received through listening to the worn of God The Church has

42

handed down to us not a l::xJok, but the proclamation of God 's w::>rd.Lis tening to the word of Gcx1 is indispensable, because it means a direct enrounter with the Lord who is really present in the proclamation of

his word.We should rerre:nber that the word not only ex-presses a thought, but that it is also ef f icacious. 'Ihe Hebrew w::>rd dabar is a word-action. "16

It 's essential, then, that "the liturgy itself and the asserrbly ought to create an abrosphere of listening . The faithf ul ought to listen in

an attitude of expectation, so that the w::>rd might act in each listener. 1117

As the Constitution Dei Verbum expresses it , "The word of God is the p:::Mer of God for the salvation of all who believe."

3- Fecundity

As Paul Beauchamp has just suggested, we always have to cone back to the word of Jesus : Semen est Verbum DeilThis can be trans lated in two dif f erent ways. By wey of explaining the parable: 11The seed is the word of God''; by way of applying the text in a living way:

"The word of Gcx1 is a seed" .This was the great light received by NEM roan: the expression of the entire lif e of f aith, t.'-le tota,lity of the Church 's experience (all the action of the Holy Spirit} , in tenns of the ilra.ge of organic grc:Mth.We here have an eminently biblical synbol, the reality of Wrich is constantly under our eyes, if only in the realism of human generation.

If I thus receive the -word in a well disposed heart, it 's inpossible that this -word should not bring forth its f ruit in TIE.The "good soil"

of which Jesus speaks presupposes w::>rk, tilling, weeding, etc.The cultural ef fort required in approaching the Bible is, acrordingly , indis pensable, according to the possibilities af forded each individual; and pastors have an irrperious duty to provide access f or the f aithf ul to the word of God.A disposition of vital exchange is created in the heart;

the word of God becc:xres master of lif e.I receive the w::>rd just as it is -biting , tender, soothing.I off er Il!l!Self to the word, which in

turn opens to TIE the secret of Lif e, assumes the burden of lI!l:' experience, and f irst of all teaches me hew to experience lI!l:' CMn insuf f iciency, lI!l:' CMn poverty before the Il!l!Stery It 's the inkling of this Il!l!Stery

The Co:nticles ofthe New Copeno;nt43

which nourishes the heart of man , fills it and makes it dilate, and soon causes it to overf low in a canticle of love.

It 's not the overwhelrning things v.hich touch us at our deepest level, but the things which enter into the f lcrw of our quite ordinary day to day existence, and bring with than some small ray of light.

Men rreet each other at depth in the simplest realities, the uost ordi nary symbols.The more one is stripped of all arrogance, the nore one is f ree of all encumbrances , the better will one be able to grasp the real meaning of the slightest gestures and actions.The of f ering of

a f la.ver can be of greater value than the of fering of a f ortune ...

And when it 's a question of love, the simplest words are never trite ..

In this way, the irruption of the word of God within me calls me to conversion, to look at things in a ne\'1 way;and , in so doing , it opens up within me the source of a new song.This new song will re peat the word received., but in a unique manner; it will be a f aithf ul echo of the eternal word, nut yet will be something quite original.

This is hcM spontaneous expressions of the f aith are created under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.This brings us to the problem of creativity.

IV. CREATIVITY IN THE EXPRESSION OF THE FAITH

The New Testament canticles proceed from tl"...is interior novernent. Saint Paul told the f aithful: . 11Sing i.'1 your hearts I addressing one an other in psahns and hymns and spiritual songs 11'Ihe history of the Church sJ1a.ls us that the word of God has always had a deep , strong resonance in those hearts mich the Spirit f ills.

Here we have to make a distinction between two groups : those who had a part in the shaping up of the Gospels, and the f aithf ul of the pilgrim Church.

1- Those Who took part in shaping up the Gospel

Theirs is a special privile:Je: their songs and hymns (those, at least, which have been preserved) carry with them the guarantee of the Holy Spirit. The Gospels are proof that Jesus Christ himself ex pressed himself with an all but disconcerting ricbness of syrrbols; he

44

said even the rrost important things in words bordering on the banal: "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep" ...And yet , these words are irnrrortal,

so charged with :rreaning that all the treatises on ecclesiastica juris diction have not yet exhausted their content.Allrost everything said by Jesus teems with lyricism and lerrls itself to song The repertory

ofChant et Monastere s mentioned earlier, notes five texts wlll.ch have

attracted the attention of nrusicians, in particular, the Beatitudes in St. .Matthew 's version , and the "benediction" of Luke 10:21-22.19

Jesus , who is the Word made f lesh, appears as the singer of t.-.:.ie word of God.He gathered together as in a splendid, huge bouquet, all the f la.vers of the Prophets who prepared his caning, as did Mary , Zachai:y , and Sineon. Jesus opened the f urrav for the def initive sowings which were to folla.v; for the apostles only had to follCM what Jesus had already traced out.

Singing the Gcx:x1 News meant singing of Christ, sincJing about the f ul

f illrcent of the proruses , discovering the prophetic depth of the psalms by reading them in the light of Christ, creating hyrms ...The apostles and the f irst Christian camn.mities animated by them thus integrated the word of lif e into the f lCM of human existence which the grace of Christ had care to sanctify.These texts, these expressions of f aith. preserved f or us by the New Testament, have the privilege, the."1, of being part of the deposit of Revelation transmitted to all generations till the end of tine.This is an irreplaceable privilege. All these texts , spontaneous though they might be, and no matter how heterocli te they might appear , are oriented ta.vards that "center to which we nrust constantly return

tine. and again11 , as Fr. Congar once expressed it.

2- The f aithf ul of the pilgrim Church

All the above has a nonnative value for us , as regards the expression of the f aith;but this doesn 't mean it has to stif le inspiration. On the contrary.Its value is that of being exerrplary.It 's an invitation.If the word -and this incluCles the New 'l'estament canticles -is truly

sa.vn within our hearts, it won 't stop singing there, and bringing forth genuine .owers and f ruit, provided that we don 't cut the root f ran which this springs.

The CanticZes of the New Covenant45

Deep da-m, the Church has always felt the need to re-create the expression of the f aith, without restriction as to literary f onns and . gen."..'"es -on oondition, havever, that there 's a real compatability, or rather , harnony, with the central chorus of New Testament singers ,

whose value remains universal.

In the work ref erred to earlier , Fr . Gelineau makes a good point. He f irst notes that "the Ranan liturgy had given a preponderant place to the psalms 11 , while the Eastern liturgies "gave a larger place to hymnody" . He then goes on to d:>serve that today, in the West, "we feel

the need, in the prayer and song of the assenbly, to have an expression

of the f aith in contemporary lyric and poetic fo:rms .Hymns are winning back their proper place".It 's quite certain that a vernacular liturgy can only further . point up this exigency But does this have to be to the detriment of the New Testament elements introduced into the Of f ice under the nane of canticles?'Ihe author replies with two important re marks:

a- "The psalms are the privileged witness to the word of God in prayer.They are to hymns what the reading of Scripture is to preadring. The essential thing is to proclaim the Gospel; but, in the liturgy, this proclamation made by preaching is oonstantly referred to the Scriptures.

So too, the essential thing is to pray;but the words used in prayer will always be re-born fran contact with the inspired psalms". 21

!Fidelity , liberty -this tension is always the mark of an authentic Christianity.Basically, it 's a characteristic of love to f ind nEM ways

of repeating and expressing the sarre reality.]

b- 'Ihe second remark is this: "'!hough. hymns are the si911 of the Church's catholicity, since the Churdtin every period, place, and cul turere-nodels the living expression of her faith, the psalms are what oonstitutes a sign of unity between Christians."And the author justif ies his af f inna.tion in this way: "Aro:>ng all the languages which. the liturgy

can employ, it 's the language of the Bible (in which the images and vocabu lary of the psalms fonn the privileged corpus} which is the basis for the symbols and language in cx:mron use.The nore the Church opens herself to

the diversity of cultures, the nnre inp:>rtance ao the structural images

46

of the Bible acquire f or the evangeZization of the myths and synbols of these other cultures". 22

I myself have noted hCM the great civilizations such as the Chinese and the Hindu spontaneously f ind themselves on familiar ground when it oones to the language of the Bible. There will always be a Christian ten sion between unity and pluralism; but the solution is tlat of continually referring to the center."Constantly return to the center, time and a gain" , to repeat Fr . Congar 's VJOrds.

So let the f la-1ers bloan!ron 1 t hesitate for a m::rcent.Just keep your eye on the root.Othei::wise, the f lCMers will fade, wither .

Moreover , creativity is in f ull blocm.TrUe, total successes are

still sorcewh.at exceptional; but this sl1oul.d cause surprise to no one who has squ:i_red up to the problan.At least, people are singing.'Ihink of the p::>pular religious songs whim, in times past, served as catechetical aids (and hence f acilitated access to the v.urd of God} .These of ten proved ef f icacious at a time when Latin still held uncontested sway.Sare regions had an admirable repertory of such songs.But, on t.11.e whole, these songs were nostly clinkers;a really good one was always an event. Perhaps we ought not be too demanding, especially since we have to recog nize the f act that the general level of the over-all repertory is higher than it used to be.

So let 's create, let 's sing.The problem is always that of giving its proper place to the proclamation and the singing of the word of God; f or only the living sap of the Spirit wt.1.0 lives in the word of Godcan make human hearts and voices fruitful.

We close with a quotation f ran :Marcel :Legaut -a prayer which is

also a canticle:

When the word is the right VJOrd, it brings forth prayer

it raises up the Presence.

My lips f ind it sweet,

it resounds within IT heart;

Iam one '1.Ti.th it, forIam its echo. Always new;

Ihave only to repeat,

it calls ne into being ,

calls God within ne. 2 3

(Bricquebec)Trans., Gethsemani AbbeyEmnanuelMAYEUR

The Canticles of the New Covenant47

N O T E S

1 These canticles have been given an interesting introduction by Andre Rose, "La repartition des psaurres dans le cycle liturgique", in La Maison-Dieu 105 (1971), pp.92-94.

2 Paul-Errmanuel Spies, Repertoires des cantiques bibZiques, in Prier ensemble (= Chant et Monastres 12 lDec .1971]), pp.47-45.

3 Table ronde: "Les cantiques du Nouveau Testarrent dans l'Office", ibid.'pp.2-22.

4Ibid., p.21.

5La vie spiritueZZe 589 (March-April 1972), pp.289-292.

6Dei Verbum 21.

7Mohini M.Chatterji(trans.and editor}, The Bhagavad Gtta, The Ju lian Press, Inc., New York 1960.

8Paul Beauchamp,'_'OuvrU: le Livre en face du peuple11 , in Christus

42, pp .160-173.

9Art . cit., p .167.

10Joseph Gelineau and Collaborators, Dans vos assembZr!es, 2 vols., Des- cle et cie, Paris 1971.

11Op. cit., T.I, pp.158-159. See also pp.155-160.

12Ibid.

13Art . cit., p .162. 14Ibid., pp .162-163.

15 Art . cit., p.22.

16 Dans vos assembZees, T.I, p.159. 17Ibid., pp.159-160.

18Dei Verbum 17.

19Art . cit., supra, Note 2 .

20Quoted by Jaoques Desseaux, in Unite des chrtftiens 6 (April 1972), p.5.

49

M Y S T I C A LL I F E

A N D

P A S C H A LM Y S T E R Y*

INTIDDUCTION

F i r s tP a r t

L I T U R G YANDM Y S T I C I S M

I. THE GOD OF TRANSCENDANCE AND r..cm:

II. THE MYSTICAL EXPERIBNCE

a) In the tradition of the early centuries

b) In the life of the Christian

c) In the Mystery

d) Characteristics

S e c o n dP a r t

S Y M B O LA SE X P R E S S I O N A PIDBLEM OF EXPRESSION

I. SYMBOLISM

l} The symbol as it is in itself

2} Language and sy:rrbol

3} Sy.rrbolism and the cusn:os

II. MAN 'S EXPERIENCE OF SYMOOL

a) Archaic tirres

b) The Middle Ages

c)The Renaissance

d) M:Xiern times

*This study was written by Fr. PauZ St-Cyr, monk of N.-D. du Laa, during 1970/71, in fuZfiZZment of the requirements of the Institut Superieur de Liturgie of the Institut CathoZique de Paris.

50

T h i r dP a r t

N I G H TF I L L E DW I T HL I G H T

I. THE PASCHAL MYSI'ERY

a) Structure

b) A passage

1) By m=ans of faith and the sacraments

2) In the rcy"stical life

II. PASCHAL LIFE : NIGH'"l' Ai.LIGHT

a) In the Paschal Night

b) IGH'I'

1) Universal symbol

2) Night as seen by the ancients and th.e rcy"Stics

c) Structure of the Night

1) A passage

2) A wisdan

3) Ascendancy of the Spirit

4) In the fire of Love

5) In water

6) a void

7) "O living flarre of love!"

CONCLUS!Ol'l

Notes and references Bibliography

51

M Y S T I C A LL I F E

A N DP A S C H A LM Y S T E R Y

The hour is ooming, and no.v is,

when the true worshipers will worship the Father

in spirit and truth,

for such the Father seeks to worship him.

- Jn 4 :23

INTRODUCTION

Rav can we becare adorers such as "the Fat.her seeks to worship him"? Hav can we assimilate in a living manner, and in all its reality, the Mys tery of Christ as actualized in the here and DCM by the liturgy? These are delicate questions, but of vital irrportance for our life as Christians .

If the liturgical ItStery makes Christ live on throughout the period of history which extends all the way up to the Parousia, it should, then, be in

everyone the source from which flavs forth an authentic experience of Cod, a ItStical life. We shall then be at the heart of the Church's life and of our vocation as "adopted sons of God".Mystical life and liturgical life in this way throw light on one another.

In this world of sense perception, havever, the ineffable and the tran scend.ant can be perceived only in sign, in analogy, in Symbol. This will be the subject of the secxmd part of our reflections.

Then, in the light of the great mystical doctor, St.John of the Cross, we shall see hav we experience the realities of the Paschal Mystery: death, life and union with Cod.Mystical theology will thus be able to account for the Paschal Mystery lived at depth by means of the light it sheds on the ma jor symbols:night and light, water and fire.

52

F i r s tP a r t

L I T U R G YANDM Y S T I C I S M

I.'l'HE OOD OF TRANSCENDAl.\ICE AND I.OVE

'Ihe God of Revelation is at one and the sarre tine the God who is transcend.ant and the God who is inmanent to the heart of man.'Ihis truth is the basis of the Olristian experience.

To whom then will you conpare :rre ,

that I should be like him?

says the Holy One. -I s 40 :25

I1 B:19

Why do you call ne good? No one is good but God alone. -Lk

'Ihe JrStical teaching of St. John of the Cross is developed on the basis of this truth:

All the being of creation .compared with the inf inite Being

of God, is nothing All the beauty of the creatures , a:mpared

with the inf inite beauty of God, is the height of defonnity

-Ascent of Mount Ca::t>melI, iv, 4.

It should be noted that this juClgment relative to things created is made only with ref erence to God 's transcendence.We know the Holy One 's f eeling with regard to the beauty of created things in themselves: And God SCM that they were good .

But the reality which man ought to interrogate is no longer the nere f inite reality;it 's no longer towards the contingent that man turns,

but to the one only Absolute; and this Absolute, man realizes, is wholly original.Man is then struck by 'God's catplete liberty with regard to everything.God is not only autonarrous: he is absolutely conplete and self-suf ficient in himself .

Dios no arna cosa fuera de si. God loves naught apart f rom him

-- Spiritual Canticle .xxiii, 5

Iself .

But this Transcendant God is also a personal God.'lhls divine person ality is what fonrs the bond between God 's transcendance and his imnanence. Jacques Maritainhas brought this out well, when he wrote: "God is sarre one who says "I"just as we do." 1It was this sane God who told Pascal :

My sticai Li f e and Paschai My ster53

"No one is as Im.lch your friend as I am." 2

Since God is the 'Wholly Other, and since he absolutely surpasses all that our limited minds can conceive, we shall attain him, then, on ly by going beyond sense experience and perception by our created intel

. ligence. 'Ihis personal God wishes to effect with us a comnunion mich shares in his transcendance. St.John of the Cross expressed this when he wrote:

And there is no reason for marvelling thateven in this life there should be accomplished in the faithful soul that which the Son of God has promised -that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit would rome to him that loved

God and make their abode in him. What else does this rean, but that the soul 's understanding would be divinely enlight ened by God in the wisdom of the Son, that its will would find its pleasure in the Holy Spirit, and that the Father would clasp it and abso:rb it by his strength and might in the embrace and abyss of his sweetness.

-L'.iV'.ing

F .i,,ame of L ove

2 bis

When two persons love each other here belav, and, in a dialogue be tween heart and heart, profess to belong each to the other -"You and I" they, and only they, are able to express themselves in this manner. But this is hav it is in our relationship with God:

I am yours, and I am for your sake. I take pleasure in being what I am, so that I can be yours, and can give 11 self to you.

(-Lg). .

'iV'in

.,f

Fi,ame o

Love

2 bis

The God we love is a "jealous God"; he wants our whole heart.We

have to tend to love him for himself, though without failing to be grate ful for the gifts he has placed within us .3At the feet of Jesus, Mary

.Magdalene pays homage to this transcendance of God and to this nearness of the Son of l\'.lan.We here are very close to the 11stery of pure prayer, of the 11Stical experience

II. THE MYSTIC.AL EXPERIENCE

a) In the Tradition of the Early Centuries Let us rejoice, Beloved,

And let us go to see ourselves in your beauty.

-Spirituai Canticie xxxv, 1

54

'Ibis stanza of the Spiritual Canticle expresses in a great poem the If!YStical experience with which Jolm of the Cross had just been fa vored.

What is the origin of the Greek word "If!Ystikos 11? Its root cares

f rcm the vem "If!Yo" , which means "to close" , and particularlyto close one's eyes.It places the accent on the irrational elerrents ll'Ore than on the social, rroral or dogmatic aspects of religion.One rould def ine If!YSticisrn in this way:

...the JtSterious desire -experie.nced as sacred, anterior to any kind of rational justi f ication, sub-'conscious at times, but deep and incoercible -f elt by the soul when it tries to enter into contact with wnat it holds to be the Absolute -generallyits god, but at tirres also an entity of a vaguer sort: :Oeing in itself , the great All, nature , the world-soul. 4

In the rqystexy religions , we f ind this word used before the Christian era.The essential rites of these cults were kept from the uninitiated.

There was, then, a certain kind of "secret" . In hellenism, this "secret" has nothing to do with a higher f onn of religious understanding, but con cerns the rites only in their material aspect.

The great religions of the past have their If!YStical books , and this JtSticism becomes nore and nore in evidence to the extent that these civ ilizations af f inn their authority: buddhism in India , taoism in China, Arabian and Persian If!YSiticism.

Christian texts will give the word "Jtsticism" the proper meaning of r e 1 i g i o u sk n o w 1e d g eor understanding - a meaning it had never previously had.The If!YSticism of the prophets and the psalmist runs like f ire across Israel's religion.

Jesus appeals unceasingly to the prophets and the psalmists; for he it is who cane, not to destroy the religion of his ancestors, but to bring it to its perfection. 5

With the Fathers , 6 and with Clanent of Alexandria and Origen in par ticular , "Jtsticism" will designate the ll'Ore dif f icult and the deeper as pects of the problems and questions contained in Revelation.In this line of thought we shall envisage biblical exegesis, mi.ch will give rise to the allegorical meaning.

Mystical Life and PashaZ Mystery55

For Origen, the entire Bible and the whole history of the People of God find their corrplete and total meaning only in Christ. In the course of his letters, St.Paul has developed this thought at length.

Christ himself affinns it in the Gospel according to St. John:

You seardl the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me .

-Jn 5:39

Clement will say: 11For the sake of the New People, Jesus was be-

gotten as the nstical Angel.11 7

The Fathers gave the name !!mystical" to the deepest content of the faith . Eusebius of Caesarea named the very Trinity: "the Mystical Triad". In his Demonstration according to the Gospel3 he affinns that Christ's divine nature is nnre nstical than his human nature .

For the Greek Fathers, the divinity itself is, then, lI!{Stical. Knav ing the divine is considered as something "mystical".We are thus led to

a religion "in spirit and truth"; and we reject all that would not be vivified by Christ.

In the scriptures, we look for the spiritual meaning, the mystical neaning; but this is also true of the liturgy.In the rites and the Christian sacrarnents, we have to discover that which lies beyond the visi

ble and material. Eusebius calls the whole ensemble of the eucharistic liturgy "a mystical worship11 8 For him, baptism is "mystical regeneration in the Narne of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit11 9

The mystical experience is presented as a union of love which means a deepening of what preceded, rather than a fresh discovery in the strict sense; by a different route it arrives at an abject already revealed or known in a different manner.

b) In the Life of the Christian

Jean !J.' ouroux has expressed it well:

The Christian experience neans grasping oneself in relation

to God;the Christian life means being in relation to God.10

The Christian experience makes us conscious of the fact that Christ

is living in our hearts by faith. It means a grasping of our relation

56

to Christ, and of our relation to the Church wr..ich nourishes this faith within us by means of the sacrarrents .Karl Rabner was thus able to write:

The 'incarnation' of grace, and grace's process of becom ing tangibly historical, reaches its climax in the sacra ments. Grace is not only incarnated in the personal super naturalized activity of roan, but also in the acts of the Church as such: not only in the activity of a :rrerrber of God 's people, but in the essential activity of the histor ically constituted people of God, i.e.in the essential ac tivity of the Church in her own public, social sphere.11

And so the ITStical experience sinply deepens and prolongs that Christian experience which is found in ever:y believer. We can speak of a substantial continuity, one which continues in the same direction as the initial and decisive thrust. Accordingly, it is impossible to think here in tenns of a contenplation which is purely of the intellectual or philosophical order, after the ma.rm.er of a Plato or a Plotinus. The IT5tical experience is rooted deeply in one's baptismal and sacrarrental

life.There are sorre who have wanted to consider the ITStical life solely in tenns of itself; and the result was that they cut the vital link be

tween JrSticism and the sacrarrents and liturgy.12

With the Fathers, the If!YStical experience is never considered as sim ply an experience of the psychological order; never is it reduced to pure subjectivity.It's always a question of one's exp=rience of the divine Object which is known by rreans of Scripture, and which has corre to us in Jesus Christ; an objective reality which lives on in the Church, and in which we participate by rreans of the liturgy. It was in the breaking of the bread that the disciples of Ermaus recognized Christ; so, too, it is

in the liturgy that we shall recognize and understand the true Iey'stical

13

experience, and shall manifest to others the If!YSteries of Christ.

As Fr.Ephrem Iongpre wrote:

The Eucharist is the sacrarrental principle of the IT5tical experience, from its beginnings to its highest peaks So lofty are the supernatural conmunications deriving from the Eucharist, that the Bread of life realizes or actualizes - and this as the nonnal thingJ when it finds present the necessary conditions of adherenee to CJ-rist and total fideli ty to him, that interior, Iey"Stical manifestation which the

Mystical Pra&er and Paschal Mystery57

Lord promised all the faithful at the Last Supper: "He VJho loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him (Jn 14 : 21 ) . 14

c) In the Mystery

The word "mystical derives from the same root as the word "mystery".

With the Greeks, the mystic was the one who initiated others into the mysteries; and everything touching upon the mysteries was called 11mystic al". St.Teresa of Avila will insist on the fact that, at absolutely no stage of grcwth in the mystical life can one abandon meditation on the Mysteries of the Word made flesh. Jean Danielou has said:

Mysticism without the JIStery, that is, the religious experience 'Which does not meet with Christ, is something 'Which remains uncertain.15

So also, mystery without JISticism, that is, the Christian faith 'When it does not become prayer and inwardness, is in danger of becoming formalism.

The genuine mystic doesn't withdraw' from the connnmion of believers; he doesn't cut himself off from the Mystical Body.He knc:Ms hew to in teriorize in the deepest :i;ossible way the mysteries experienced in the liturgy. The liturgy itself is the vehicle of a genuine mystical value.

Basil Zenkovsky has written:

I don't identify liturgical life with JIStical life as sudl; but, when we do celebrate the liturgy, we pass along a path which is purely mystical, and this JIStical experience is saretimes rrore intense and rrore profound than the type of mystical experience which can take place outside the context of the liturgy .16

For his part, Jean Danilou says:

The JIStj.cal state in its ineffable reality consists pre cisely in being the synthesis between these two apparent ly contradictory elements -light and darkness.17

The JIstical life makes the Christian pass through the crucible

of death and life contained in the Paschal :Mystery, which is celebrated in the liturgy. This means a personal appropriation at depth of the eystery-states of Christ. Without this bond between JISticism and litur gy, the authentic liturgy would fold up and collapse. We would easily

58

fall into the ritualisrn of the mystery religions, where the important thing was the correct execution of the ritual action.It's the mystical

element which makes it possible to have a deep encounter with God at the very heart of the ritual action and ecclesial prayer.18

The experience of rronastic tradition shc:Ms us that the highest type of TIStical experience can be had within the very context of the liturgical action. Let's listen to cassian:

Someti.Jres while I'm chanting a psalm verse, I'm cast in-

to this prayer of fire.Again, it's someti.Jres the rrelodious voice of one of the brethren which rouses souls from their torpor19

We could also quote St.Gertrude of Helfta. Host often it was during

the celebration of the Eucharist that she had her raptures.

'l'he nnre this union with Christ grows at the heart of the liturgical action, the nnre contemplative does the liturgy become . This contempla tion represents the interior aspect of the liturgy rendered to perfection; and in no way can we make an adequate distinction between this contempla tive experience and active participation. Let's not forget that we are called to celebrate the mysteries ''with the same mind which we have in Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5). Charity -that gift poured out in our hearts

by the Spirit -has got to be corrprised in the act of worship; only then does worship acquire its full value. The action is reciprocal:the in tensity of love gives the worship its value, and the act of worship helps increase the degree of charity. We see the connection: liturgy and in terior or Ilo/Stical contemplation.

St.John of the Cross, who was such a great master of the nystical life, had an ecclesial conternplation, centered on Christ, and nourished by the sacraments. Taking into account the historical context and the

milieu in which he lived, his biographers assure us that his life of con ternplation found its center in the celebration of the Eucharist, where

he received outstanding graces. The Bl. Sacrament was for him "all his glory, all his satisfaction, surpassing all the things of earth".

For John of the Cross, there aren't two lives, the one being devoted to contemplation, and the other to liturgical prayer.Rather, the liturgy

My s tica l Lif e and Pascha l Mys tery59

itself springs f rom the sources of oontemplation, and gives us access to a deep ItStical life -provided that we kn.cM hav to make our CMn

the riches of the sacrarrent, and to live f ran them in an authentic man ner.In his comnentary on Jesus ' triumphal entcy into Jerusalem, St.

John of the Cross shavs the result of a liturgy without interior love:

IConsider] ..the description of that feast which they made for His.ajesty when he entered Jerusalem.'Ihey received him with songs and with branches, and the IDrd wept;for their hearts were very f ar renoved f rom him and they paid him reverence only with outward adornments and signs.We may say of them that they were making a

f estival for themselves rather than f or God . 20

For his part, Hans Urs von Balthasar said:

'..rhose who work to assimilate the divine word oontained in the liturgy, in their prayer and oontemplation, are laboring to attain a f ull spiritual personality found ed upon the Church and sacraments as they actually are. It is to this end that Church and sacraments are or dained,and such men.; anned with the "sword of the Spirit" , are capable of going forth to do the work of Christ in the world. 21

dl Characteristics

In the present terrestrial state, the IIStical experience is structured within the ensemble of the sacraments; but what is its CMn proper and original point?

It is true, writes A. Ieonard , that IIStical knavledge oonnally takes its rise from the sacraments , and that it develops within the setting of \\Drship, and that it

can even f ind therein -as experience shCMS in the case of the Eucharist -its peak rrorrents; but neither the sacrarrents nor _.worship set limits to the horizon of ItS

tical knavledge. Thewishto enclose the whole of nusti cism within the bolll1ds of worship -and the sanE remark applies to the reading of the Bible -would not only

mean a basic misunderstanding as to the specif ic originali ty of IISticism, but would turn into barriers and outer limits those pathways which open out upon the depths of

God. 2 2

60

The mystical experience errerges beyond all that by means of a i;x:>int which penetrates into the abyss of God.This is its essential i;x:>int, its vei:y heart.Charity makes i;x:>ssible a oontact with God

without need of any intenrediary . The wisdom which flavs fram this

charity will make it J;X)Ssible to taste God: "Taste and see hON good the Lord is."(Ps 33:9)

He.re it is no longer reflection which is called for, but passivity under the infused light of the Spirit.As Jacques Maritain wrote:

The proper light of infused contauplation derives only from the ardor of love shining in the night.23

An extrerrely keen consciousness makes it possible to experience this divine presence which takes i;x:>ssession of tl-ie entire being.This is the climate or abrosphere of a truly evangelical conterrplation.This is the corrmunion of which St.John speaks :

That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellavship with us; and our fellavship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus

Christ.- I Jn 1:3

'Ihis knavledge of God -a knc:Mledge "which is eternal life" - has to be understcxxl in the semitic rneaning of the term, as requiring the note of experience. St.Paul will give expression to this experi

ence:He who is united to the lord becares one spirit with

him.-I Cor 6:17

St.John of the Cross will make this comrent:

The soul that is united and transfonred in God breathes God in God with the sarre divine breathing with which God, while in her, breathes her in himselfAnd the.re is no need to wonder that the soul should be capable of aught so high; for since God grants her the favor of attaining to being deifonn and united to the fust Holy Trinity, wherein she becares God by participation, hav is it a thing incredible that she should perfonn her -work of un derstanding, knowledge and love in the Trinity, together with It, like the Trinity Itself, by a node of participa pation, which God effects in the soul herself?

-Spiritual Canticle Clst version) xxxviii, 3

And elsewhere:There arenatures in one only spirit and one only love of God .

j

Mystical Life and Paschal Mystery61

The ieystics wanted to live and express the aspiration of every human being: liberty in love.

At the conclusion of his long study on St. John of the Cross, G. Morel wrote:

If there is one lesson left us by the fiStics , it is to recall that, when we revert to the universal origin, God alone is the :rreasure of each , precisely because God is without measure To give oneself in tine to the pc:M

of Love - this is the f undamental human experience.

And Jean Daniel.cu says:

(a)Natural fiSticism depends on a technique of inwardness , so that it is byhis avn effort that man f inally reach es the goal, 'Whereas the Christian ItStical experience

is essentially that ofgif t to which we nrust open our selves but 'Which utterly sw:passes all that man could ev er cone to grasp by his ONn powers.25

In c=. perspective such as this, there's nothing nebulous or impre cise.Christ is able to give a knavledge of God and of his Mystery. On several occasions St. J