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Chapter 6: The Chapter 6:
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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