The Spirit Of The Liturgy by Romano Guardini

2. THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE LITURGY

THE liturgy does not say "I," but "We," unless the

particular action which is being performed specifically

requires the singular number (e.g., a personal declaration,

certain prayers offered by the bishop or the priest in his

official capacity, and so on). The liturgy is not celebrated

by the individual, but by the body of the faithful. This is

not composed merely of the persons who may be present in

church; it is not the assembled congregation. On the

contrary, it reaches out beyond the bounds of space to

embrace all the faithful on earth. Simultaneously it reaches

beyond the hounds of time, to this extent, that the body

which is praying upon earth knows itself to be at one with

those for whom time no longer exists, who, being perfected,

exist in Eternity.

Yet this definition does not exhaust the conception of the

universality and the all-embracingness which characterize

the fellowship of the liturgy. The entity which performs the

liturgical actions is not merely the sum total of all

individual Catholics. It does consist of all these united in

one body, but only in so far as this unity is of itself

something, apart from the millions which compose it. And

that something is the Church.

Here we find an analogy with what happens in the body

politic. The State is more than the sum total of citizens,

authorities, laws, organizations, and so on. In this

connection discussion of the time-honored question-whether

this higher unity is real or imagined--is beside the point.

In any case, as far as personal perception is concerned, it

does exist. The members of a State are not only conscious of

being parts of a greater whole, but also of being as it were

members of an overlapping, fundamental, living unity.

On an essentially different plane--the supernatural--a more

or less corresponding phenomenon may be witnessed in the

Church. The Church is self-contained, a structure-system of

intricate and invisible vital principles, of means and ends,

of activity and production, of people, organizations, and

laws. It does consist of the faithful, then; but it is more

than the mere body of these, passively held together by a

system of similar convictions and regulations. The faithful

are actively united by a vital and fundamental principle

common to them all. That principle is Christ Himself; His

life is ours; we are incorporated in Him; we are His Body,

"Corpus Christi mysticum."1 The active force which governs

this living unity, grafting the individual on to it,

granting him a share in its fellowship and preserving this

right for him, is the Holy Ghost.2 Every individual Catholic

is a cell of this living organism or a member of this Body.

The individual is made aware of the unity which comprehends

him on many and various occasions, but chiefly in the

liturgy. In it he sees himself face to face with God, not as

an entity, but as a member of this unity. It is the unity

which addresses God; the individual merely speaks in it, and

it requires of him that he should know and acknowledge that

he is a member of it.

It is on the plane of liturgical relations that the

individual experiences the meaning of religious fellowship.

The individual--provided that he actually desires to take

part in the celebration of the liturgy--must realize that it

is as a member of the Church that he, and the Church within

him, acts and prays; he must know that in this higher unity

he is at one with the rest of the faithful, and he must

desire to be so.

From this, however, arises a very perceptible difficulty. It

is chiefly to be traced to a more common one, concerning the

relation between the individual and the community. The

religious community, like every other, exacts two things

from the individual. The first is a sacrifice, which

consists in the renouncement by the individual of everything

in him which exists merely for itself and excludes others,

while and in so far as he is an active member of the

community: he must lay self aside, and live with, and for,

others, sacrificing to the community a proportion of his

self-sufficiency and independence. In the second place he

must produce something; and that something is the widened

outlook resulting from his acceptance and assimilation of a

more comprehensive scheme of life than his own--that of the

community.

This demand will be differently met, according to the

disposition of each individual. Perhaps it will be the more

impersonal element of spiritual life--the ideas, the

ordering of instruments and designs, the objectives, laws

and rules, the tasks to be accomplished, the duties and

rights, and so on--which first arrests the attention. Both

the sacrifice and production indicated above will in such

cases assume a more concrete character. The individual has

to renounce his own ideas and his own way. He is obliged to

subscribe to the ideas and to follow the lead of the

liturgy. To it he must surrender his independence; pray with

others, and not alone; obey, instead of freely disposing of

himself; and stand in the ranks, instead of moving about at

his own will and pleasure. It is, furthermore, the task of

the individual to apprehend clearly the ideal world of the

liturgy. He must shake off the narrow trammels of his own

thought, and make his own a far more comprehensive world of

ideas: he must go beyond his little personal aims and adopt

the educative purpose of the great fellowship of the

liturgy. It goes without saying, therefore, that he is

obliged to take part in exercises which do not respond to

the particular needs of which he is conscious; that he must

ask for things which do not directly concern him; espouse

and plead before God causes which do not affect him

personally, and which merely arise out of the needs of the

community at large; he must at times--and this is inevitable

in so richly developed a system of symbols, prayer and

action--take part in proceedings of which he does not

entirely, if at all, understand the significance.

All this is particularly difficult for modern people, who

find it so hard to renounce their independence. And yet

people who are perfectly ready to play a subordinate part in

state and commercial affairs are all the more susceptible

and the more passionately reluctant to regulate their

spiritual life by dictates other than those of their private

and personal requirements. The requirements of the liturgy

can be summed up in one word, humility. Humility by

renunciation; that is to say, by the abdication of self-rule

and self-sufficiency. And humility by positive action; that

is to say, by the acceptance of the spiritual principles

which the liturgy offers and which far transcend the little

world of individual spiritual existence.

The demands of the liturgy's communal life wear a different

aspect for the people who are less affected by its concrete

and impersonal side. For the latter, the problem of

fellowship does not so much consist in the question of how

they are to assimilate the universal and, as it were,

concrete element, at the same time subordinating themselves

to and dovetailing into it. The difficulty rather lies in

their being required to divide their existence with other

people, to share the intimacy of their inner life, their

feeling and willing, with others; and to know that they are

united with these others in a higher unity. And by others we

mean not one or two neighbors, or a small circle of people,

congenial by reason of similar aims or special relations,

but with all, even with those who are indifferent, adverse,

or even hostilely-minded.

The demand here resolves itself into the breaking down of

the barriers which the more sensitive soul sets around its

spiritual life. The soul must issue forth from these if it

is to go among others and share their existence. Just as in

the first case the community was perceived as a great

concrete order, in the second it is perceived as a broad

tissue of personal affinities, an endless interweaving of

living reciprocal relations. The sacrifice required in the

first place is that of renouncing the right of self-

determination in spiritual activity; in the second, that of

renouncing spiritual isolation. There it is a question of

subordinating self to a fixed and objective order, here of

sharing life in common with other people. There humility is

required, here charity and vigorous expansion of self.

There the given spiritual content of the liturgy must be

assimilated; here life must be lived in common with the

other members of Christ's Body, their petitions included

with one's own, their needs voiced as one's own. There "We"

is the expression of selfless objectivity; here it signifies

that he who employs it is expanding his inner life in order

to include that of others, and to assimilate theirs to his.

In the first case, the pride which insists upon

independence, and the aggressive intolerance often bred by

individual existence, must be overcome, while the entire

system of communal aims and ideas must be assimilated; in

the second, the repulsion occasioned by the strangeness of

corporate life must be mastered, and the shrinking from

self-expansion, and that exclusiveness triumphed over, which

leads us to desire only the company of such as we have

ourselves chosen and to whom we have voluntarily opened out.

Here, too, is required continual spiritual abnegation, a

continuous projection of self at the desire of others, and a

great and wonderful love which is ready to participate in

their life and to make that life its own.

Yet the subordination of self is actually facilitated by a

peculiarity inherent in liturgical life itself. It forms at

once the complement of and contrast to what has already been

discussed. Let us call the disposition manifesting itself in

the two forms indicated above, the individualistic. Facing

it stands the social disposition, which eagerly and

consistently craves for fellowship, and lives in terms of

"We" just as involuntarily as the former bases itself on the

exclusive "I." The social disposition will, when it is

spiritually active, automatically seek out congenial

associates; and their joint striving towards union will be

characterized by a firmness and decision alien to the

liturgy. It is sufficient to recall in this connection the

systems of spiritual association and fellowship peculiar to

certain sects. Here at times the bounds of personality

diminish to such an extent that all spiritual reserve is

lost, and frequently all external reserve as well. Naturally

this description only applies to extreme cases, but it still

shows the tendency of the social urge in such dispositions.

For this reason people like this will not find all their

expectations immediately fulfilled in the liturgy. The

fellowship of the liturgy will to them appear frigid and

restricted. From which it follows that this fellowship,

however complete and genuine it may be, still acts as a

check upon unconditional self-surrender. The social urge is

opposed by an equally powerful tendency which sees to it

that a certain fixed boundary is maintained. The individual

is, it is true, a member of the whole--but he is only a

member. He is not utterly merged in it; he is added to it,

but in such a way that he throughout remains an entity,

existing of himself. This is notably borne out by the fact

that the union of the members is not directly accomplished

from man to man. It is accomplished by and in their joint

aim, goal, and spiritual resting place--God--by their

identical creed, sacrifice and sacraments. In the liturgy it

is of very rare occurrence that speech and response, and

action or gesture are immediately directed from one member

of the fellowship to the other.3 When this does occur, it is

generally worth while to observe the great restraint which

characterizes such communication. It is governed by strict

regulations. The individual is never drawn into contacts

which are too extensively direct. He is always free to

decide how far he is to get into touch, from the spiritual

point of view, with others in that which is common to them

all, in God. Take the kiss of peace, for instance; when it

is performed according to the rubric it is a masterly

manifestation of restrained and elevated social solidarity.

This is of great importance. It is hardly necessary to point

out what would be the infallible consequences of attempting

to transmit the consciousness of their fellowship in the

liturgy directly from one individual to another. The history

of the sects teems with examples bearing on this point. For

this reason the liturgy sets strict bounds between

individuals. Their union is moderated by a continually

watchful sentiment of disparity and by reciprocal reverence.

Their fellowship notwithstanding, the one individual can

never force his way into the intimacy of the other, never

influence the latter's prayers and actions, nor force upon

the latter his own characteristics, feelings and

perceptions. Their fellowship consists in community of

intention, thought and language, in the direction of eyes

and heart to the one aim; it consists in their identical

belief, the identical sacrifice which they offer, the Divine

Food which nourishes them all alike; in the one God and Lord

Who unites them mystically in Himself. But individuals in

their quality of distinct corporeal entities do not among

themselves intrude upon each other's inner life.

It is this reserve alone which in the end makes fellowship

in the liturgy possible; but for it the latter would be

unendurable. By this reserve again the liturgy keeps all

vulgarizing elements at a distance. It never allows the soul

to feel that it is imprisoned with others, or that its

independence and intimacy are threatened with invasion.

From the man of individualistic disposition, then, a

sacrifice for the good of the community is required; from

the man of social disposition, submission to the austere

restraint which characterizes liturgical fellowship. While

the former must accustom himself to frequenting the company

of his fellows, and must acknowledge that he is only a man

among men, the latter must learn to subscribe to the noble,

restrained forms which etiquette requires in the House and

at the Court of the Divine Majesty.

ENDNOTES

1. Cf. Rom. xii. 4 et seq.; I Cor. xii. 4 et seq.; Eph.,

chaps. i.-iv.; Col. i. 15 et seq., and elsewhere.

2. Cf I Cor. xii. 4 et seq.; M. J. Scheeben, "Die Mysterien

des Christentums," pp. 314-508 (Freiburg, 1911).

3. This does not apply, of course, to the communication

between the hierarchical persons and the faithful. This

relation is continual and direct.