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The Spirit Of The Liturgy by Romano Guardini

6. THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE LITURGY



THE liturgy is art, translated into terms of life. Sensitive

people clearly recognize its wealth of expression, its

symmetry of form, and its delicate sense of proportion. As a

result, such people are in danger of appreciating the

Church's worship merely for the sake of its aesthetic value.

It is on the whole understandable that poetic literature

should apprehend the liturgy from its artistic side. It is a

more serious matter when this is so emphatically stressed in

writings which are particularly dedicated to liturgical

worship. It is sufficient for our purpose to recall valuable

works such as Staudenmaier's "Geist des Christentums," or

many of J. K. Huysman's books, "L'Oblat," for instance. The

present writer is anxious that this little work should not

gravitate, however unconsciously, in the same direction. For

this reason, in the chapter which has been begun, the

question will be more closely examined.



It is an incontrovertible proposition that people who

consider a work of art merely from the artistic point of

view do it an injustice. Its significance as a composition

can only be fully estimated when it is viewed in connection

with the whole of life. A work of art is in less danger from

the logician or the moral philosopher pure and simple,

because they stand in no particular relation to it. Deadly

destructive to the work of art, however, is the purely

artistic perception of the aesthete--both work and matter

being taken in the worst and most extreme sense which they

have possessed since, for instance, Oscar Wilde.



Still more does this hold good when it is a question, not of

the representation of a work of art, but of actual people,

and even of that tremendous unity--the "Opus Dei," that is

the liturgy--in which the Creator-Artist, the Holy Ghost,

has garnered and expressed the whole fullness of reality and

of creative art. Aesthetes are everywhere looked upon as

unwelcome guests, as drones and as parasites sponging on

life, but nowhere are they more deserving of anger and

contempt than in the sphere of sacred things. The careworn

man who seeks nothing at Mass but the fulfillment of the

service which he owes to his God; the busy woman, who comes

to be a little lightened of her burden; the many people who,

barren of feeling and perceiving nothing of the beauty and

splendor of word and sound which surrounds them, but merely

seek strength for their daily toil--all these penetrate far

more deeply into the essence of the liturgy than does the

connoisseur who is busy savoring the contrast between the

austere beauty of a Preface and the melodiousness of a

Gradual.



All of which impels us to the fundamental question, what is

the importance of beauty in relation to the entire

liturgical scheme?



First, however, a slight but necessary digression. We have

already seen that the Church's life functions in two

directions. On the one side there exists an active communal

life, a tremendous driving force of systematically directed

activities, which, however, coalesce in the many-membered

but strongly centralized organization. Such a unity alike

presupposes and manifests power. But what is the purpose of

power in the spiritual sphere?



This query deeply concerns every one of us, each according

to his disposition. For the one, it is a question of

satisfying himself as to the truth of the axiom that every

type of society, including the spiritual, needs power if it

is to subsist. The truth of this does not degrade the ideal,

even if it ranks power next in order to doctrine,

exhortation, and organization. This external power must not

of course be allowed to usurp the place of truth and of

justice, nor permitted to influence convictions. Where,

however, a religion is concerned which does not confine

itself to presenting ideals and opinions, but undertakes the

molding and adapting of human entities on behalf of the

Kingdom of God, there power is necessary. It is this which

adapts a truth, or a spiritual or ethical system, to the

needs of actual existence.



But if there are people who find it hard to bear that things

like justice and power should be named in the same breath

with such intimate matters as religious convictions and

spiritual life, there are others who are entirely

differently constituted. Upon such people a tremendous force

like the Catholic Church produces so direct an effect that

they easily forget the real significance of such power. It

is merely a means to an end. It is a tool, used to carve the

Kingdom of God from the raw material of the world; it is the

servant of Divine truth and grace. If an attempt were to be

made to constitute a form of spiritual society without a

powerful discipline, it would inevitably dissolve into

fleeting shadows. But if power, the servant, were to be

promoted to the position of master, the means to that of the

end, the tool to that of the guiding hand, religion would

then be stifled by despotism and its consequence, slavery.



Somewhat analogous to the position of power in the Church's

active life is that of beauty in relation to her

contemplative side. The Church not only exists for a

purpose, but she is of herself significant, viewed from her

other aspect of art transformed into life--or, better still,

in the process of transformation. For that is what the

Church is in the liturgy.



The preceding chapter endeavored to demonstrate that

artistic self-sufficiency is actually compatible with the

liturgy. Only a sophist could argue that the justification

of a form of life resides exclusively in its manifest

purposes. On the other hand, one must not forget as well

that artistic worth--beauty--is as dangerous to the

susceptible person as is power in the corresponding sphere

of active communal life. The danger inherent in the idea of

power is only to be overcome by those who are clear about

its nature and the method of employing it. Similarly, only

those who force their way into perception of its import can

break free from the illusive spell of beauty.



Apart from this stands the question, whence a spiritual

value derives its currency, whether from itself or from an

extraneous superior value? Associated with it, but entirely

distinct, is the second question, as to the quality of the

relation which exists between one value which is admittedly

based upon itself and other independent values. The first

question endeavors to trace one value back to another, e.g.,

the validity of the administration of justice to justice in

the abstract. The second investigates the existence, between

two values of equal validity, of a determinate order which

may not be inverted.



Truth is of itself a value, because it is truth, justice

because it is justice, and beauty because and in so far as

it is beauty. No one of these qualities can derive its

validity from another, but only from itself.1 The most

profound and true thought does not make a work beautiful,

and the best intentions of the artist avail as little, if

his creation, in addition to a concrete, vivid and robust

form, has not--in a word--beauty. Beauty as such is valid of

itself, entirely independent of truth and other values. An

object or a work of art is beautiful, when its inner essence

and significance find perfect expression in its existence.

This perfection of expression embraces the fact of beauty,

and is its accepted form of currency. Beauty means that the

essence of an object or action has, from the first moment of

its existence and from the innermost depths of its being,

formulated its relation to the universe and to the spiritual

world; that this interior formation, from which has

developed a phenomenon susceptible of expression, has

resolved upon symbolic unity; that everything is said which

should be said, and no more; that the essential form is

attained, and no other; that in it there is nothing that is

lifeless and empty, but everything that is vivid and

animated; that every sound, every word, every surface, shade

and movement, emanates from within, contributes to the

expression of the whole, and is associated with the rest in

a seamless, organic unity. Beauty is the full, clear and

inevitable expression of the inner truth in the external

manifestation. "Pulchritudo est splendor veritatis"--"est

species boni," says ancient philosophy, "beauty is the

splendid perfection which dwells in the revelation of

essential truth and goodness."



Beauty, therefore, is an independent value; it is not truth

and not goodness, nor can it be derived from them. And yet

it stands in the closest relation to these other values. As

we have already remarked, in order that beauty may be made

manifest, something must exist which will reveal itself

externally; there must be an essential truth which compels

utterance, or an event which will out. Pride of place,

therefore, though not of rank or worth, belongs, not to

beauty, but to truth. Although this applies incontestably to

life as a whole, and to the fundamentals of art as well, it

will perhaps be difficult for the artist to accept without

demur.



"Beauty is the splendor of truth," says scholastic

philosophy. To us moderns this sounds somewhat frigid and

superficially dogmatic. But if we remember that this axiom

was held and taught by men who were incomparable

constructive thinkers, who conceived ideas, framed

syllogisms, and established systems, which still tower over

others like vast cathedrals, we shall feel it incumbent upon

us to penetrate more deeply into the meaning of these few

words. Truth does not mean mere lifeless accuracy of

comprehension, but the right and appropriate regulation of

life, a vital spiritual essence; it means the intrinsic

value of existence in all its force and fullness. And beauty

is the triumphant splendor which breaks forth when the

hidden truth is revealed, when the external phenomenon is at

all points the perfect expression of the inner essence.

Perfection of expression, then, not merely superficial and

external, but interior and contemporaneous with every step

in the creation--can the essence of beauty be more

profoundly and at the same time more briefly defined?



Beauty cannot be appreciated unless this fact is borne in

mind, and it is apprehended as the splendor of perfectly

expressed intrinsic truth.



But there is a grave risk, which many people do not escape,

of this order being reversed, and of beauty being placed

before truth, or treated as entirely separate from the

latter, the perfection of form from the content, and the

expression from its substance and meaning. Such is the

danger incurred by the aesthetic conception of the world,

which ultimately degenerates into nerveless aestheticism.



No investigation of the aesthetic mind and ideas can be

undertaken here. But we may premise that its primary

characteristic is a more or less swift withdrawal from

discussion of the reason for a thing's existence to the

manner of it, from the content to the method of

presentation, from the intrinsic value of the object to its

value as a form, from the austerity of truth and the

inflexible demands of morality to the relaxing harmony and

more or less consciously, until everything terminates

finally in a frame of mind which no longer recognizes

intrinsic truth, with its severe "thus and not otherwise,"

nor the moral idea with its unconditional "either--or," but

which seeks for significance in form and expression alone.

That which is objective, whether it is a natural object, a

historical event, a man, a sorrow, a preference, a work, a

legal transaction, knowledge, an idea, is merely viewed as a

fact without significance. It serves as a pretext for

expression, that is all.2 Thus originates the shadowy image

of absolute form, a manner without a matter, a radiance

without heat, a fact without force.3



People who think like this have lost the ability to grasp

the profundity of a work of art, and the standard by which

to measure its greatness. They no longer comprehend it as

being what it is, as a victory and as an avowal. They do not

even do justice to the form which is the exclusive object of

their preoccupation; for form means the expression of a

substance, or the mode of life of an existent being.



Truth is the soul of beauty. People who do not understand

what the one and the other are really worth turn their

joyful play into mere empty trifling. There is something

heroic in every great and genuine creation, in which the

interior essence has won through opposition to its true

expression. A good fight has been fought, in which some

essential substance, conscious of the best elements within

itself, has set aside that which is extraneous to itself,

submitted all disorder and confusion to a strict discipline,

and obeyed the laws of its own nature. A tremendous

ebullition takes place, and an inner substance gives

external testimony to its essence and to the essential

message which it holds. But the aesthete looks upon all this

as pointless trifling.



Nay, more. Aestheticism is profoundly shameless. All true

beauty is modest. This word is not used in a superficial

sense. It has no relation as to the suitability of this or

that for utterance, portrayal, or existence. What it means

is that all expression has been impelled by an interior

urge, justified by immutable standards, and permitted, even

offered existence by the latter. This permission and

obligation, however, only reside in the intrinsic truth of

an entity or a genuine spiritual experience. Expression on

the other hand for the sake of expression, self-elected as

both matter and form, has no longer any value.



We are led yet further afield by these considerations. In

spite of the most genuine impulse, and even when truth not

only emphatically justifies the proceeding, but also

imperatively demands it, all true inwardness still shrinks

from self-revelation, just because it is full of all

goodness. The desire for revelation, however, and the

realization that it is only in articulation that it can

obtain release from the tyranny of silence, compel the

expression of an inwardness; yet it still shrinks from

disclosure, because it fears that by this it will lose its

noblest elements. The fulfillment of all inwardness lies in

the instant when it discloses itself in a form appropriate

to its nature. But it is immediately conscious of a painful

reaction, of a sensation as of having irrevocably lost

something inexpressibly precious.



This applies--or is it too sweeping a statement?--to all

genuine creative art. It is like a blush after the word,

readily enough spoken, but followed by a secret reproach, an

often incomprehensible pain, arising from depths till now

unexplored; it is like the quick compression of the lips

which would give much to recall the hasty avowal. People who

understand this are aware that further depths and modestly

concealed riches still lie beyond that which, surrendering

itself, has taken shape. This generosity, while at the same

time the store remains undiminished, this advance, followed

by withdrawal into resplendent fastnesses, this grappling

with expression, triumphant expansion, and timid, dolorous

contraction, together constitute the tenderest charm of

beauty.



But ail this--the restrained yet youthful fullness of candor

vanishes before the glance, at once disrespectful and

obtuse, of those who seek after articulation for the sake of

articulation, and after beauty for the sake of beauty.



Those who aspire to a life of beauty must, in the first

place, strive to be truthful and good. If a life is true it

will automatically become beautiful, just as light shines

forth when flame is kindled. But if they seek after beauty

in the first place, it will fare with them as it fared with

Hedda Gabler, and in the end everything will become

nauseating and loathsome.



In the same way--however strange it may sound--the creative

artist must not seek after beauty in the abstract, not, that

is, if he understands that beauty is something more than a

certain grace of external form and a pleasing and elegant

effect. He must, on the contrary, with all his strength

endeavor to become true and just in himself, to apprehend

truth and to live in and by it, and in this way fully

realize both the internal and external world. And then the

artist, as the enemy of all vanity and showiness, must

express truth as it should be expressed, without the

alteration of a single stroke or trait. It follows that his

work, if he is an artist at all, will, and not only will,

but must be beautiful. If, however, he tries to avoid the

toilsome path of truth, and to distill form from form, that

which he represents is merely empty illusion.



People who have not enjoyed--repulsive word, which puts

beauty on a par with a titbit, and originates from the

worthless conception which we have just now censured-human

perfection or the beauty of a work of art, but desire closer

familiarity with it, must take the inner essence for their

starting-point. They will be well advised to ignore

expression and harmony of form at first, but to endeavor to

penetrate instead to the inner truth of the vital essence.

Viewed from this standpoint, the whole process by which the

matter transposes itself into its form becomes apparent, and

the spectators witness a miraculous flowering. This means

that they are familiar with beauty, although perhaps they

may not consciously recognize it for what it is, but are

merely aware of a sentiment of perfect satisfaction at the

visible and adequate fulfillment of an object or of an

existence.



Beauty eludes those who pursue it for its own sake, and

their life and work are ruined because they have sinned

against the fundamental order of values. If a man, however,

desires to live for truth alone, to be truthful in himself

and to speak the truth, and if he keeps his soul open,

beauty--in the shape of richness, purity, and vitality of

form--will come to meet him, unsought and unexpected.



What profound penetration and insight was shown by Plato,

the master of aesthetics, in his warnings against the

dangers of excessive worship of beauty! We need a new

artist-seer to convince the young people of our day, who

bend the knee in idolatrous homage before art and beauty,

what must be the fruit of such perversion of the highest

spiritual laws.



We must now refer what has already been propounded to the

liturgy. There is a danger that in the liturgical sphere as

well aestheticism may spread; that the liturgy will first be

the subject of general eulogy, then gradually its various

treasures will be estimated at their aesthetic value, until

finally the sacred beauty of the House of God comes to

provide a delicate morsel for the connoisseur. Until, that

is, the "house of prayer" becomes once more, in a different

way, a "den of thieves." But for the sake of Him who dwells

there and for that of our own souls, this must not be

tolerated.



The Church has not built up the "Opus Dei" for the pleasure

of forming beautiful symbols, choice language, and graceful,

stately gestures, but she has done it--in so far as it is

not completely devoted to the worship of God--for the sake

of our desperate spiritual need. It is to give expression to

the events of the Christian's inner life: the assimilation,

through the Holy Ghost, of the life of the creature to the

life of God in Christ; the actual and genuine rebirth of the

creature into a new existence; the development and

nourishment of this life, its stretching forth from God in

the Blessed Sacrament and the means of grace, towards God in

prayer and sacrifice; and all this in the continual mystic

renewal of Christ's life in the course of the ecclesiastical

year. The fulfillment of all these processes by the set

forms of language, gesture, and instruments, their

revelation, teaching, accomplishment and acceptance by the

faithful, together constitute the liturgy. We see, then,

that it is primarily concerned with reality, with the

approach of a real creature to a real God, and with the

profoundly real and serious matter of redemption. There is

here no question of creating beauty, but of finding

salvation for sin-stricken humanity. Here truth is at stake,

and the fate of the soul, and real--yes, ultimately the only

real--life. All this it is which must be revealed,

expressed, sought after, found, and imparted by every

possible means and method; and when this is accomplished,

lo! it is turned into beauty.4



This is not a matter for amazement, since the principle here

at work is the principle of truth and of mastery over form.

The interior element has been expressed clearly and

truthfully, the whole superabundance of life has found its

utterance, and the fathomless profundities have been plainly

mapped out. It is only to be expected that a gleam of the

utmost splendor should shine forth at such a manifestation

of truth.



For us, however, the liturgy must chiefly be regarded from

the standpoint of salvation. We should steadfastly endeavor

to convince ourselves of its truth and its importance in our

lives. When we recite the prayers and psalms of the liturgy,

we are to praise God, nothing more. When we assist at Holy

Mass, we must know that we are close to the fount of all

grace. When we are present at an ordination, the

significance of the proceedings must lie for us in the fact

that the grace of God has taken possession of a fragment of

human life. We are not concerned here with the question of

powerfully symbolic gestures, as if we were in a spiritual

theater, but we have to see that our real souls should

approach a little nearer to the real God, for the sake of

all our most personal, profoundly serious affairs.



For it is only thus that perception of liturgical beauty

will be vouchsafed to us. It is only when we participate in

liturgical action with the earnestness begotten of deep

personal interest that we become aware why, and in what

perfection, this vital essence is revealed. It is only when

we premise the truth of the liturgy that our eyes are opened

to its beauty.



The degree of perception varies, according to our aesthetic

sensitiveness. Perhaps it will merely be a pleasant feeling

of which we are not even particularly conscious, of the

profound appropriateness of both language and actions for

the expression of spiritual realities, a sensation of quiet

spontaneity, a consciousness that everything is right and

exactly as it should be. Then perhaps an offertory suddenly

flashes in upon us, so that it gleams before us like a

jewel. Or bit by bit the whole sweep of the Mass is

revealed, just as from out the vanishing mist the peaks and

summits and slopes of a mountain chain stand out in relief,

shining and clear, so that we imagine we are looking at them

for the first time. Or it may be that in the midst of prayer

the soul will be pervaded by that gentle, blithe gladness

which rises into sheer rapture. Or else the book will sink

from our hands, while, penetrated with awe, we taste the

meaning of utter and blissful tranquillity, conscious that

the final and eternal verities which satisfy all longing

have here found their perfect expression.



But these moments are fleeting, and we must be content to

accept them as they come or are sent.



On the whole, however, and as far as everyday life is

concerned, this precept holds good, "Seek first the kingdom

of God and His justice, and all else shall be added to you"-

-all else, even the glorious experience of beauty.









ENDNOTES

1. We are not concerned here with the question if and how
all forms of validity ultimately go back to an ultimately
valid Absolute, i.e., to God.

2. Oscar Wilde's "Intentions" are quite clear on this point.

3. The writer has been reproached with treating the subject
too simply in this exposition. He has deliberately shortened
it for the sake of the fundamental idea, and has neglected
many of its ramifications which should actually have been
discussed. Yet after careful testing he finds no reason for
altering his method of procedure. In a profounder sense,
that which he here says is nevertheless justified.

4. The Abbot of Marialaach rightly remarks in this
connection, "I stress the point that the liturgy has
developed into a work of art, it was not deliberately formed
as such by the Church. The liturgy bore within itself so
much of the seed of beauty that it was of itself bound to
flower ultimately. But the internal principle which
controlled the form of that flowering was the essence of
Christianity." (Herwegen, "Das Kunstprinzip der Liturgie,"
p. 18, Paderborn, 1916.)












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