inundado por um mistério de luz que é Deus e N´Ele vi e ouvi -A ponta da lança como chama que se desprende, toca o eixo da terra, – Ela estremece: montanhas, cidades, vilas e aldeias com os seus moradores são sepultados. - O mar, os rios e as nuvens saem dos seus limites, transbordam, inundam e arrastam consigo num redemoinho, moradias e gente em número que não se pode contar , é a purificação do mundo pelo pecado em que se mergulha. - O ódio, a ambição provocam a guerra destruidora! - Depois senti no palpitar acelerado do coração e no meu espírito o eco duma voz suave que dizia: – No tempo, uma só Fé, um só Batismo, uma só Igreja, Santa, Católica, Apostólica: - Na eternidade, o Céu! "If the Liturgy appears first of all as the workshop for our activity, then what is essential is being forgotten: God. For the Liturgy is not about us, but about God. Forgetting about God is the most imminent danger of our age. As against this, the Liturgy should be setting up a sign of God's presence. "Yet what is happening, if the habit of forgetting about God makes itself at home in the Liturgy itself, and if in the Liturgy we are only thinking of ourselves? In any and every liturgical reform, and every liturgical celebration, the primacy of God should be kept in view first and foremost."
The young Joseph Ratzinger grew up in a Germany enjoying the first fruits of the 20th century Liturgical Movement - an attempt to rediscover the spiritual value of the rich liturgical tradition of the Church.
His memoir, Milestones, records the gift of a bi-lingual missal that enabled him to discover this treasure. As for so many, the Liturgical Movement introduced him to the prayer- book of the Church, the missal, and taught him the theological importance of the Liturgy: the manner in which the Church prays determines what she believes.
Thus, as a young priest and theologian, Ratzinger saw in the Liturgy not "an abstract sacramental theology" but "a living network of tradition which had taken concrete form, which cannot be torn apart into little pieces, but has to be seen and experienced as a living whole."
A prominent advisor at Vatican II, Father Ratzinger enthused at the prospect of liturgical reform. This enthusiasm - and that of many others - was grounded in a desire that the whole Church might, through some moderate reforms, come to draw from the riches of liturgical tradition he had known and loved from his youth.
However, recently, he lamented: "Anyone like myself, who was moved by this perception in the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for."
Is Benedict XVI a staunch traditionalist who rejects the Council and all its works? Should we expect him to reverse the liturgical reforms of Paul VI? Continue to read...