THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY



BY ROMANO GUARDINI


TRANSLATED BY ADA LANE


SHEED & WARD INC., NEW YORK


NIHIL OBSTAT: INNOCENTIUS APAP, S.TH.M.; O.P.
CENSOR DEPUTATUS

IMPRIMATUR: + JOSEPH BUTT
VIC. GEN.

WESTMONASTERII, DIE 27A IULII 1935



CONTENTS

1. THE PRAYER OF THE LITURGY

2. THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE LITURGY

3. THE STYLE OF THE LITURGY

4. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE LITURGY

5. THE PLAYFULNESS OF THE LITURGY

6. THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE LITURGY

7. THE PRIMACY OF THE LOGOS OVER THE ETHOS



1. THE PRAYER OF THE LITURGY

AN old theological proverb says, "Nothing done by nature and 
grace is done in vain." Nature and grace obey their own 
laws, which are based upon certain established hypotheses. 
Both the natural and the supernatural life of the soul, when 
lived in accordance with these principles, remain healthy, 
develop, and are enriched. In isolated cases the rules may 
be waived without any danger, when such a course is required 
or excused by reason of a spiritual disturbance, imperative 
necessity, extraordinary occasion, important end in view, or 
the like. In the end, however, this cannot be done with 
impunity. Just as the life of the body droops and is stunted 
when the conditions of its growth are not observed, so it is 
with spiritual and religious life--it sickens, losing its 
vigor, strength and unity.

This is even more true where the regular spiritual life of a 
corporate body is concerned. Exceptions play a far greater 
part, after all, in the life of the individual than in that 
of the group. AS soon as a group is in question, concern is 
immediately aroused with regard to the regulation of those 
practices and prayers which will constitute the permanent 
form of its devotion in common; and then the crucial 
question arises whether the fundamental laws which govern 
normal interior life--in the natural as in the supernatural 
order--are in this case to have currency or not. For it is 
no longer a question of the correct attitude to be adopted, 
from the spiritual point of view, towards the adjustment of 
some temporary requirement or need, but of the form to be 
taken by the permanent legislation which will henceforth 
exercise an enduring influence upon the soul. This is not 
intended to regulate entirely independent cases, each on its 
own merits, but to take into account the average 
requirements and demands of everyday life. It is not to 
serve as a model for the spiritual life of the individual, 
but for that of a corporate body, composed of the most 
distinct and varied elements. From this it follows that any 
defect in its organization will inevitably become both 
apparent and obtrusive. It is true that at first every 
mistake will be completely overshadowed by the particular 
circumstances--the emergency or disturbance--which justified 
the adoption of that particular line of conduct. But in 
proportion as the extraordinary symptoms subside, and the 
normal existence of the soul is resumed, the more forcibly 
every interior mistake is bound to come to light, sowing 
destruction on all sides in its course.

The fundamental conditions essential to the full expansion 
of spiritual life as it is lived in common are most clearly 
discernible in the devotional life of any great community 
which has spread its development over a long period of time. 
Its scheme of life has by then matured and developed its 
full value. In a corporate body--composed of people of 
highly varied circumstances, drawn from distinct social 
strata, perhaps even from different races, in the course of 
different historical and cultural periods--the ephemeral, 
adventitious, and locally characteristic elements are, to a 
certain extent, eliminated, and that which is universally 
accepted as binding and essential comes to the fore. In 
other words, the canon of spiritual administration becomes, 
in the course of time, objective and impartial.

The Catholic liturgy is the supreme example of an 
objectively established rule of spiritual life. It has been 
able to develop "kata tou holou," that is to say, in every 
direction, and in accordance with all places, times, and 
types of human culture. Therefore it will be the best 
teacher of the "via ordinaria"--the regulation of religious 
life in common, with, at the same time, a view to actual 
needs and requirements.1

The significance of the liturgy must, however, be more 
exactly defined. Our first task will be to establish the 
quality of its relation to the non-liturgical forms of 
spiritual life.

The primary and exclusive aim of the liturgy is not the 
expression of the individual's reverence and worship for 
God. It is not even concerned with the awakening, formation, 
and sanctification of the individual soul as such. Nor does 
the onus of liturgical action and prayer rest with the 
individual. It does not even rest with the collective 
groups, composed of numerous individuals, who periodically 
achieve a limited and intermittent unity in their capacity 
as the congregation of a church. The liturgical entity 
consists rather of the united body of the faithful as such--
the Church--a body which infinitely outnumbers the mere 
congregation. The liturgy is the Church's public and lawful 
act of worship, and it is performed and conducted by the 
officials whom the Church herself has designated for the 
post--her priests. In the liturgy God is to be honored by 
the body of the faithful, and the latter is in its turn to 
derive sanctification from this act of worship. It is 
important that this objective nature of the liturgy should 
be fully understood. Here the Catholic conception of worship 
in common sharply differs from the Protestant, which is 
predominatingly individualistic. The fact that the 
individual Catholic, by his absorption into the higher 
unity, finds liberty and discipline, originates in the 
twofold nature of man, who is both social and solitary.

Now, side by side with the strictly ritual and entirely 
objective forms of devotion, others exist, in which the 
personal element is more strongly marked. To this type 
belong those which are known as "popular devotions," such as 
afternoon prayers accompanied by hymns, devotions suited to 
varying periods, localities, or requirements and so on. They 
bear the stamp of their time and surroundings, and are the 
direct expression of the characteristic quality or temper of 
an individual congregation.

Although in comparison with the prayer of the individual, 
which is expressive of purely personal needs and 
aspirations, popular devotions are both communal and 
objective, they are to a far greater degree characteristic 
of their origin than is the liturgy, the entirely objective 
and impersonal method of prayer practiced by the Church as a 
whole. This is the reason for the greater stress laid by 
popular devotion upon the individual need of edification. 
Hence the rules and forms of liturgical practice cannot be 
taken, without more ado, as the authoritative and decisive 
standard for non-liturgical prayer. The claim that the 
liturgy should be taken as the exclusive pattern of 
devotional practice in common can never be upheld. To do so 
would be to confess complete ignorance of the spiritual 
requirements of the greater part of the faithful. The forms 
of popular piety should rather continue to exist side by 
side with those of the liturgy, and should constitute 
themselves according to the varying requirements of 
historical, social, and local conditions. There could be no 
greater mistake than that of discarding the valuable 
elements in the spiritual life of the people for the sake of 
the liturgy, or than the desire of assimilating them to it. 
But in spite of the fact that the liturgy and popular 
devotion have each their own special premises and aims, 
still it is to liturgical worship that pre-eminence of right 
belongs. The liturgy is and will be the "lex orandi." Non-
liturgical prayer must take the liturgy for its model, and 
must renew itself in the liturgy, if it is to retain its 
vitality. It cannot precisely be said that as dogma is to 
private religious opinion, so is the liturgy to popular 
devotion; but the connection between the latter does to a 
certain degree correspond with that special relation, 
characteristic of the former, which exists between the 
government and the governed. All other forms of devotional 
practice can always measure their shortcomings by the 
standard of the liturgy, and with its help find the surest 
way back to the "via ordinaria" when they have strayed from 
it. The changing demands of time, place, and special 
circumstance can express themselves in popular devotion; 
facing the latter stands the liturgy, from which clearly 
issue the fundamental laws--eternally and universally 
unchanging--which govern all genuine and healthy piety.

In the following pages an attempt will be made to select 
from the liturgy and to analyze several of these laws. But 
it is an attempt pure and simple, which professes to be 
neither exhaustive nor conclusive.

The first and most important lesson which the liturgy has to 
teach is that the prayer of a corporate body must be 
sustained by thought. The prayers of the liturgy are 
entirely governed by and interwoven with dogma. Those who 
are unfamiliar with liturgical prayer often regard them as 
theological formula, artistic and didactic, until on closer 
acquaintance they suddenly perceive and admit that the 
clear-cut, lucidly constructed phrases are full of interior 
enlightenment. To give an outstanding example, the wonderful 
Collects of the Masses of Sunday may be quoted. Wherever the 
stream of prayer wells abundantly upwards, it is always 
guided into safe channels by means of plain and lucid 
thought. Interspersed among the pages of the Missal and the 
Breviary are readings from Holy Scripture and from the works 
of the Fathers, which continually stimulate thought. Often 
these readings are introduced and concluded by short prayers 
of a characteristically contemplative and reflective nature-
-the antiphons--during which that which has been heard or 
read has time to cease echoing and to sink into the mind. 
The liturgy, the "lex orandi," is, according to the old 
proverb, the law of faith--the "lex credendi"--as well. It 
is the treasure-house of the thought of Revelation.

This is not, of course, an attempt to deny that the heart 
and the emotions play an important part in the life of 
prayer. Prayer is, without a doubt, "a raising of the heart 
to God." But the heart must be guided, supported, and 
purified by the mind. In individual cases or on definite and 
explicit occasions it may be possible to persist in, and to 
derive benefit from, emotion pure and simple, either 
spontaneous or occasioned by a fortunate chance. But a 
regular and recurrent form of devotion lights upon the most 
varied moods, because no one day resembles another. If the 
content of these devotional forms is of a predominatingly 
emotional character, it will bear the stamp of its 
fortuitous origin, since the feeling engendered by solitary 
spiritual occurrences flows for the most part into special 
and particular channels. Such a prayer therefore will always 
be unsuitable if it does not harmonize, to a certain degree 
at least, with the disposition of the person who is to offer 
it. Unless this condition is complied with, either it is 
useless or it may even mar the sentiment experienced. The 
same thing occurs when a form of prayer intended for a 
particular purpose is considered to be adapted to the most 
varied occasions.

Only thought is universally current and consistent, and, as 
long as it is really thought, remains suited, to a certain 
degree, to every intelligence. If prayer in common, 
therefore, is to prove beneficial to the majority, it must 
be primarily directed by thought, and not by feeling. It is 
only when prayer is sustained by and steeped in clear and 
fruitful religious thought, that it can be of service to a 
corporate body, composed of distinct elements, all actuated 
by varying emotions.

We have seen that thought alone can keep spiritual life 
sound and healthy. In the same way, prayer is beneficial 
only when it rests on the bedrock of truth. This is not 
meant in the purely negative sense that it must be free from 
error; in addition to this, it must spring from the fullness 
of truth. It is only truth--or dogma, to give it its other 
name--which can make prayer efficacious, and impregnate it 
with that austere, protective strength without which it 
degenerates into weakness. If this is true of private 
prayer, it is doubly so of popular devotion, which in many 
directions verges on sentimentality.2 Dogmatic thought 
brings release from the thralldom of individual caprice, and 
from the uncertainty and sluggishness which follow in the 
wake of emotion. It makes prayer intelligible, and causes it 
to rank as a potent factor in life.

If, however, religious thought is to do justice to its 
mission, it must introduce into prayer truth in all its 
fullness.

Various individual truths of Revelation hold a special 
attraction for the temperaments and conditions to which they 
correspond. It is easy to see that certain people have a 
pronounced predilection for certain mysteries of faith. This 
is shown in the case of converts, for instance, by the 
religious ideas which first arrested their attention at 
their entry into the Church, or which decided them on the 
step they were taking, and in other cases by the truths 
which at the approach of doubt form the mainstay and 
buttress of the whole house of faith. In the same way doubt 
does not charge at random, but attacks for the most part 
those mysteries of faith which appeal least to the 
temperament of the people concerned.3

If a prayer therefore stresses any one mystery of faith in 
an exclusive or an excessive manner, in the end it will 
adequately satisfy none but those who are of a corresponding 
temperament, and even the latter will eventually become 
conscious of their need of truth in its entirety. For 
instance, if a prayer deals exclusively with God's mercy, it 
will not ultimately satisfy even a delicate and tender 
piety, because this truth calls for its complement-the fact 
of God's justice and majesty. In any form of prayer, 
therefore, which is intended for the ultimate use of a 
corporate body, the whole fullness of religious truth must 
be included.

Here, too, the liturgy is our teacher. It condenses into 
prayer the entire body of religious truth. Indeed, it is 
nothing else but truth expressed in terms of prayer. For it 
is the great fundamental truths4 which above all fill the 
liturgy--God in His mighty reality, perfection, and 
greatness, One, and Three in One; His creation, providence, 
and omnipresence; sin, justification, and the desire of 
salvation; the Redeemer and His kingdom; the four last 
things. It is only such an overwhelming abundance of truth 
which can never pall, but continue to be, day after day, all 
things to all men, ever fresh and inexhaustible.

In the end, therefore, prayer in common will be fruitful 
only in so far as it does not concentrate markedly, or at 
any rate exclusively, on particular portions of revealed 
truth, but embraces, as far as possible, the whole of Divine 
teaching. This is especially important where the people are 
concerned, because they easily tend to develop a partiality 
for particular mysteries of faith which for some reason have 
become dear to them.5 On the other hand, it is obvious that 
prayer must not be overladen and as a result form a mere 
hotchpotch of ill-assorted thoughts and ideas--a thing which 
sometimes does occur. Yet without the element of 
spaciousness, spiritual life droops and becomes narrow and 
petty. "The truth shall make you free"--free not only from 
the thralldom of error, but free as a preparation for the 
vastness of God's kingdom.

While the necessity of thought is emphasized, it must not be 
allowed to degenerate into the mere frigid domination of 
reason. Devotional forms on the contrary should be permeated 
by warmth of feeling.

On this point as well the liturgy has many recommendations 
to make. The ideas which fill it are vital: that is to say, 
they spring from the impulses of the heart which has been 
molded by grace, and must again in their turn affect other 
eager and ardent hearts. The Church's worship is full of 
deep feeling, of emotion that is intense, and sometimes even 
vehement. Take the Psalms, for instance--how deeply moving 
they often are! Listen to the expression of longing in the 
"Quemadmodum," of remorse in the "Miserere," of exultation 
in the Psalms of praise, and of indignant righteousness in 
those denouncing the wicked. Or consider the remarkable 
spiritual tension which lies between the mourning of Good 
Friday and the joy of Easter morning.

Liturgical emotion is, however, exceedingly instructive. It 
has its moments of supreme climax, in which all bounds are 
broken, as, for instance, in the limitless rejoicing of the 
"Exultet" on Holy Saturday. But as a rule it is controlled 
and subdued. The heart speaks powerfully, but thought at 
once takes the lead; the forms of prayer are elaborately 
constructed, the constituent parts carefully 
counterbalanced; and as a rule they deliberately keep 
emotion under strict control. In this way, in spite of the 
deep feeling to be found in, say, the Psalms (to instance 
them once more), a sense of restraint pervades liturgical 
form.

The liturgy as a whole is not favorable to exuberance of 
feeling. Emotion glows in its depths, but it smolders 
merely, like the fiery heart of the volcano, whose summit 
stands out clear and serene against the quiet sky. The 
liturgy is emotion, but it is emotion under the strictest 
control. We are made particularly aware of this at Holy 
Mass, and it applies equally to the prayers of the Ordinary 
and of the Canon, and to those of the Proper of the Time. 
Among them are to be found masterpieces of spiritual 
restraint.

The restraint characteristic of the liturgy is at times very 
pronounced--so much so as to make this form of prayer appear 
at first as a frigid intellectual production, until we 
gradually grow familiar with it and realize what vitality 
pulsates in the clear, measured forms.

And how necessary this discipline is! At certain moments and 
on certain occasions it is permissible for emotion to have a 
vent. But a prayer which is intended for the everyday use of 
a large body of people must be restrained. If, therefore, it 
has uncontrolled and unbalanced emotion for a foundation, it 
is doubly dangerous. It will operate in one of two ways. 
Either the people who use it will take it seriously, and 
probably will then feel obliged to force themselves into 
acquiescence with an emotion that they have never, generally 
speaking, experienced, or which, at any rate, they are not 
experiencing at that particular moment, thus perverting and 
degrading their religious feeling. Or else indifference, if 
they are of a phlegmatic temperament, will come to their 
aid; they then take the phrases at less than their face 
value, and consequently the word is depreciated.

Written prayer is certainly intended as a means of 
instruction and of promoting an increased sensibility. But 
its remoteness from the average emotional attitude must not 
be allowed to become too great. If prayer is ultimately to 
be fruitful and beneficial to a corporate body, it must be 
intense and profound, but at the same time normally tranquil 
in tone. The wonderful verses of the hymn--hardly 
translatable, so full are they of penetrating insight--may 
be quoted in this connection:

			Laeti bibamus sobriam
			Ebrietatem Spiritus . . .6

Certainly we must not try to measure off the lawful share of 
emotion with a foot-rule; but where a plain and 
straightforward expression suffices we must not aggrandize 
nor embellish it; and a simple method of speech is always to 
be preferred to an overloaded one.

Again, the liturgy has many suggestions to make on the 
quality of the emotion required for the particular form of 
prayer under discussion, which is ultimately to prove 
universally beneficial. It must not be too choice in 
expression, nor spring from special sections of dogma, but 
clearly express the great fundamental feelings, both natural 
and spiritual, as do the Psalms, for instance, where we find 
the utterance of adoration, longing for God, gratitude, 
supplication, awe, remorse, love, readiness for sacrifice, 
courage in suffering, faith, confidence, and so on. The 
emotion must not be too acutely penetrating, too tender, or 
too delicate, but strong, clear, simple and natural.

Then the liturgy is wonderfully reserved. It scarcely 
expresses, even, certain aspects of spiritual surrender and 
submission, or else it veils them in such rich imagery that 
the soul still feels that it is hidden and secure. The 
prayer of the Church does not probe and lay bare the heart's 
secrets; it is as restrained in thought as in imagery; it 
does, it is true, awaken very profound and very tender 
emotions and impulses, but it leaves them hidden. There are 
certain feelings of surrender, certain aspects of interior 
candor which cannot be publicly proclaimed, at any rate in 
their entirety, without danger to spiritual modesty. The 
liturgy has perfected a masterly instrument which has made 
it possible for us to express our inner life in all its 
fullness and depth, without divulging our secrets--"secretum 
meum mihi." We can pour out our hearts, and still feel that 
nothing has been dragged to light that should remain 
hidden.7

This is equally true of the system of moral conduct which is 
to be found in prayer.

Liturgical action and liturgical prayer are the logical 
consequences of certain moral premises--the desire for 
justification, contrition, readiness for sacrifice, and so 
on--and often issue afresh into moral actions. But there 
again it is possible to observe a fine distinction. The 
liturgy does not lightly exact moral actions of a very far-
reaching nature, especially those which denote an interior 
decision. It requires them where the matter is of real 
importance, e.g., the abjuration at baptism, or the vows at 
the final reception into an order. When, however, it is a 
question of making regular daily prayer fruitful in everyday 
intentions and decisions, the liturgy is very cautious. For 
instance, it does not rashly utter such things as vows, or 
full and permanent repudiations of sin, entire and lasting 
surrender, all-embracing consecration of one's entire being, 
utter contempt for and renouncement of the world, promises 
of exclusive love, and the like. Such ideas are present at 
times, fairly frequently even, but generally under the form 
of a humble entreaty that the suppliant may be vouchsafed 
similar sentiments, or that he is encouraged to ponder upon 
their goodness and nobility, or is exhorted on the same 
subject. But the liturgy avoids the frequent use of those 
prayers in which these moral actions are specifically 
expressed.

How right this is! In moments of exaltation and in the hour 
of decision such a manner of speech may be justified, and 
even necessary. But when it is a question of the daily 
spiritual life of a corporate body, such formulas, when 
frequently repeated, offer those who are using them an 
unfortunate selection from which to make their choice. 
Perhaps they take the formulas literally and endeavor to 
kindle the moral sentiments expressed in them, discovering 
later that it is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, 
to do so truthfully and effectually. They are consequently 
in danger of developing artificial sentiments, of forcing 
intentions that still remain beyond their compass, and of 
daily performing moral actions, which of their very nature 
cannot be frequently accomplished. Or else they take the 
words merely as a passing recommendation of a line of 
conduct which it would be well to adopt, and in this way 
depreciate the intrinsic moral value of the formula, 
although it may be used frequently, and in all good faith. 
In this connection are applicable the words of Christ, "Let 
your speech be yea, yea,--nay, nay."8

The liturgy has solved the problem of providing a constant 
incentive to the highest moral aims, and at the same time of 
remaining true and lofty, while satisfying everyday needs.

Another question which arises is that concerning the form to 
be taken by prayer in common. We may put it like this: What 
method of prayer is capable of transforming the souls of a 
great multitude of people, and of making this transformation 
permanent?

The model of all devotional practice in common is to be 
found in the Divine Office, which day after day gathers 
together great bodies of people at stated times for a 
particular purpose. If anywhere, then it is in the Office 
that those conditions will be found which are favorable to 
the framing of rules for the forms of prayer in common.9

It is of paramount importance that the whole gathering 
should take an active share in the proceedings. If those 
composing the gathering merely listen, while one of the 
number acts as spokesman, the interior movement soon 
stagnates. All present, therefore, are obliged to take part. 
It is not even sufficient for the gathering to do so by 
repeating the words of their leader. This type of prayer 
does, of course, find a place in the liturgy, e.g., in the 
litany. It is perfectly legitimate, and people desirous of 
abandoning it totally fail to recognize the requirements of 
the human soul. In the litany the congregation answers the 
varying invocations of the leader with an identical act, 
e.g., with a request. In this way the act each time acquires 
a fresh content and fresh fervor, and an intensification of 
ardor is the result. It is a method better suited than any 
other to express a strong, urgent desire, or a surrender to 
God's Will, presenting as it does the petition of all sides 
effectively and simultaneously.

But the liturgy does not employ this method of prayer 
frequently; we may even say, when we consider divine worship 
as a whole, that it employs it but seldom. And rightly so, 
for it is a method which runs the risk of numbing and 
paralyzing spiritual movement.10 The liturgy adapts the 
dramatic form by choice to the fundamental requirements of 
prayer in common. It divides those present into two choirs, 
and causes prayer to progress by means of dialogue. In this 
way all present join the proceedings, and are obliged to 
follow with a certain amount of attention at least, knowing 
as they do that the continuation of their combined action 
depends upon each one personally.

Here the liturgy lays down one of the fundamental principles 
of prayer, which cannot be neglected with impunity.11 
However justified the purely responsive forms of prayer may 
be, the primary form of prayer in common is the actively 
progressive--that much we learn from the "lex orandi." And 
the question, intensely important to-day, as to the right 
method to employ in again winning people to the life of the 
Church is most closely connected with the question under 
discussion. For it is modern people precisely who insist 
upon vital and progressive movement, and an active share in 
things. The fluid mass of this overwhelming spiritual 
material, however, needs cutting down and fashioning. It 
requires a leader to regulate the beginning, omissions, and 
end, and, in addition, to organize the external procedure. 
The leader also has to model it interiorly; thus, for 
instance, he has to introduce the recurrent thought-theme, 
himself undertaking the harder portions, in order that they 
may be adequately and conscientiously dealt with; he must 
express the emotion of all present by means of climaxes, and 
introduce certain restful pauses by the inclusion of 
didactic or meditative portions. Such is the task of the 
choir-leader, which has undergone a carefully graduated 
course of development in the liturgy.

Attention has already been called to the deep and fruitful 
emotion which is contained in the liturgy. It also embraces 
the two fundamental forces of human existence: Nature and 
civilization.

In the liturgy the voice of Nature makes itself heard 
clearly and decisively. We only need to read the Psalms to 
see man as he really is. There the soul is shown as 
courageous and despondent, happy and sorrowful, full of 
noble intentions, but of sin and struggles as well, zealous 
for everything that is good and then again apathetic and 
dejected. Or let us take the readings from the Old 
Testament. How frankly human nature is revealed in them! 
There is no attempt at extenuation or excuse. The same thing 
applies to the Church's words of ordination, and to the 
prayers used in administering the sacraments. A truly 
refreshing spontaneity characterizes them; they call things 
by their names. Man is full of weakness and error, and the 
liturgy acknowledges this. Human nature is inexplicable, a 
tangled web of splendor and misery, of greatness and 
baseness, and as such it appears in the prayer of the 
Church. Here we find no carefully adapted portrait from 
which the harsh and unpleasing traits have been excluded, 
but man as he is.

Not less rich is the liturgy's cultural heritage. We become 
conscious of the fact that many centuries have co-operated 
in its formation and have bequeathed to it of their best. 
They have fashioned its language; expanded its ideas and 
conceptions in every direction; developed its beauty of 
construction down to the smallest detail--the short verses 
and the finely-forged links of the prayers, the artistic 
form of the Divine Office and of the Mass, and the wonderful 
whole that is the ecclesiastical year. Action, narrative, 
and choral forms combine to produce the cumulative effect. 
The style of the individual forms continually varies--simple 
and clear in the Hours, rich in mystery on the festivals of 
Mary, resplendent on the more modern feasts, delightful and 
full of charm in the offices of the early virgin-martyrs. To 
this we should add the entire group of ritual gestures and 
action, the liturgical vessels and vestments, and the works 
of sculptors and artists and musicians.

In all this is to be learnt a really important lesson on 
liturgical practice. Religion needs civilization. By 
civilization we mean the essence of the most valuable 
products of man's creative, constructive, and organizing 
powers-works of art, science, social orders, and the like. 
In the liturgy it is civilization's task to give durable 
form and expression to the treasure of truths, aims, and 
supernatural activity, which God has delivered to man by 
Revelation, to distill its quintessence, and to relate this 
to life in all its multiplicity. Civilization is incapable 
of creating a religion, but it can supply the latter with a 
"modus operandi," so that it can freely engage in its 
beneficent activity. That is the real meaning of the old 
proverb, "Philosophia ancilla theologiae"--philosophy is the 
handmaid of theology. It applies to all the products of 
civilization, and the Church has always acted in accordance 
with it. Thus she knew very well what she was doing, for 
instance, when she absolutely obliged the Order of Saint 
Francis--brimming over with high aspirations, and spiritual 
energy and initiative--to adopt a certain standard of 
living, property, learning, and so on. Only a prejudiced 
mind, with no conception of the fundamental conditions 
essential to normal spiritual life, would see in this any 
deterioration of the first high aims. By her action in the 
matter the Church, on the contrary, prepared the ground for 
the Order, so that in the end it could remain healthy and 
productive. Individuals, or short waves of enthusiasm, can 
to a wide degree dispense with learning and culture. This is 
proved by the beginnings of the desert Orders in Egypt, and 
of the mendicant friars, and by holy people in all ages. 
But, generally speaking, a fairly high degree of genuine 
learning and culture is necessary in the long run, in order 
to keep spiritual life healthy. By means of these two things 
spiritual life retains its energy, clearness, and 
catholicity. Culture preserves spiritual life from the 
unhealthy, eccentric, and one-sided elements with which it 
tends to get involved only too easily. Culture enables 
religion to express itself, and helps it to distinguish what 
is essential from what is non-essential, the means from the 
end, and the path from the goal. The Church has always 
condemned every attempt at attacking science, art, property, 
and so on. The same Church which so resolutely stresses the 
"one thing necessary," and which upholds with the greatest 
impressiveness the teaching of the Evangelical Counsels--
that we must be ready to sacrifice everything for the sake 
of eternal salvation--nevertheless desires, as a rule, that 
spiritual life should be impregnated with the wholesome salt 
of genuine and lofty culture.

But spiritual life is in precisely as great a need of the 
subsoil of healthy nature--"grace takes nature for granted." 
The Church has clearly shown her views on the subject by the 
gigantic struggles waged against Gnosticism and Manichaeism, 
against the Catharists and the Albigenses, against Jansenism 
and every kind of fanaticism. This was done by the same 
Church which, in the face of Pelagius and Celestius, of 
Jovinian and Helvidius, and of the immoderate exaltation of 
nature, powerfully affirmed the existence of grace and of 
the supernatural order, and asserted that the Christian must 
overcome nature. The lack of fruitful and lofty culture 
causes spiritual life to grow numbed and narrow; the lack of 
the subsoil of healthy nature makes it develop on mawkish, 
perverted, and unfruitful lines. If the cultural element of 
prayer declines, the ideas become impoverished, the language 
coarse, the imagery clumsy and monotonous; in the same way, 
when the life-blood of nature no longer flows vigorously in 
its veins, the ideas become empty and tedious, the emotion 
paltry and artificial, and the imagery lifeless and insipid. 
Both--the lack of natural vigor and the lack of lofty 
culture--together constitute what we call barbarism, i.e., 
the exact contradiction of that "scientia vocis" which is 
revealed in liturgical prayer and is reverenced by the 
liturgy itself as the sublime prerogative of the holy 
Creative Principle.13

Prayer must be simple, wholesome, and powerful. It must be 
closely related to actuality and not afraid to call things 
by their names. In prayer we must find our entire life over 
again. On the other hand, it must be rich in ideas and 
powerful images, and speak a developed but restrained 
language; its construction must be clear and obvious to the 
simple man, stimulating and refreshing to the man of 
culture. It must be intimately blended with an erudition 
which is in nowise obtrusive, but which is rooted in breadth 
of spiritual outlook and in inward restraint of thought, 
volition, and emotion.

And that is precisely the way in which the prayer of the 
liturgy has been formed.



ENDNOTES

1. It is not by chance that "the religious Pope" so 
resolutely took in hand the revision of the liturgy. The 
internal revival of the Catholic community will not make 
progress until the liturgy again occupies its rightful 
position in Catholic life. And the Eucharistic movement can 
only effectually distribute its blessings when it is in 
close touch with the liturgy. It was the Pope who issued the 
Communion Decrees who also said, "You must not pray at Mass, 
you must say Mass!" Only when the Blessed Sacrament is 
understood from the point of view of the liturgy can It take 
that active share in the religious regeneration of the world 
which Pius X expected of It. (In the same way the full 
active and moral power of the Blessed Sacrament is only free 
to operate unchecked when Its connection with the problems 
and tasks of public and family life, and with those of 
Christian charity and of vocational occupations, is fully 
comprehended.)

2. A proof of this is to be found in the often sugary 
productions of sacred art--holy pictures, statues, etc.--
which appeal to the people. The people are susceptible to 
powerful art when it is national; the Middle Ages are a 
witness to this, and certain aspects of modern art. But the 
danger of lapsing into mere insipidity is very great. The 
same thing applies to popular songs, and holds good in other 
directions as well.

3. This does not mean that these truths are merely a mental 
indication of the existing spiritual condition of the person 
concerned. It is rather a proof of the saying, "grace takes 
nature for granted." Revelation finds in a man's natural 
turn of mind the necessary spiritual premises by which the 
truths, which are of themselves mysteries, can be more 
easily grasped and adhered to.

4. It is a further proof of Pius X's perspicacity that he 
made universally accessible precisely those portions of the 
liturgy--Sundays, the weekly office, and especially the 
daily Masses of Lent--which stress the great fundamental 
mysteries of faith.

5. By this we do not mean that specific times (e.g., the 
stress of war) and conditions (e.g., the special needs of an 
agricultural or seafaring population) do not bring home 
certain truths more vividly than others. We are dealing here 
with the universal principle, which is, however, adaptable 
and must make allowances for special cases.

6. From the Benedictine Breviary, Lauds (e.g., the prayer at 
daybreak) of Tuesday. [Literally, "Let us joyfully taste of 
the sober drunkenness of the Spirit."]

7. The liturgy here accomplishes on the spiritual plane what 
has been done on the temporal by the dignified forms of 
social intercourse, the outcome of the tradition created and 
handed down by sensitive people. This makes communal life 
possible for the individual, and yet insures him against 
unauthorized interference with his inner self; he can be 
cordial without sacrificing his spiritual independence, he 
is in communication with his neighbor without on that 
account being swallowed up and lost among the crowd. In the 
same way the liturgy preserves freedom of spiritual movement 
for the soul by means of a wonderful union of spontaneity 
and the finest erudition. It extols "urbanitas" as the best 
antidote to barbarism, which triumphs when spontaneity and 
culture alike are no more.

8. Matt. v. 37.

9. We do not overlook the fact that the Office in its turn 
presupposes its special relations and conditions, from which 
useful hints may be gained for private devotion, such as the 
necessity for a great deal of leisure, which enables the 
soul to meditate more deeply; and a special erudition, which 
opens the mind to the world of ideas and to artistry of 
form, and so on.

10. The foregoing remarks on the liturgy have already made 
it abundantly clear that the justification of methods of 
prayer such as, e.g., the Rosary, must not be gainsaid. They 
have a necessary and peculiar effect in the spiritual life. 
They clearly express the difference which exists between 
liturgical and popular prayer. The liturgy has for its 
fundamental principle, "Ne bis idom" [there must be no 
repetition]. It aims at a continuous progress of ideas, mood 
and intention. Popular devotion, on the contrary, has a 
strongly contemplative character, and loves to linger around 
a few simple images, ideas and moods without any swift 
changes of thought. For the people the forms of devotion are 
often merely a means of being with God. On this account they 
love repetition. The ever-renewed requests of the Our 
Father, Hail Mary, etc. are for them at the same time 
receptacles into which they can pour their hearts.

11. In earlier ages the Church practiced by preference the 
so called "responsive" form of chanting the Psalms. The 
Precentor chanted one verse after the other, and the people 
answered with the identical verse, or the partially repeated 
verse. But at the same time another method was in use, 
according to which the people divided into two choirs, and 
each alternately chanted a verse of the Psalm. It says much 
for the sureness of liturgical instinct that the second 
method entirely Supplanted the first. (Cf. Thalhofer-
Eisenhofer, "Handbuch der kathalischen Liturgik," Freiburg, 
1902, I, 261 et seq.)

13. The above remarks must not be misunderstood. Certainly 
the grace of God is self-sufficient; neither nature nor the 
work of man is necessary in order that a soul may be 
sanctified. God "can awaken of these stones children to 
Abraham." But as a rule He wishes that everything which 
belongs to man in the way of good, lofty, natural and 
cultural possessions shall be placed at the disposal of 
religion and so serve the Kingdom of God. He has 
interconnected the natural and the supernatural order, and 
has given natural things a place in the scheme of His 
supernatural designs. It is the duty of his representative 
on earth, ecclesiastical authority, to decide how and to 
what extent these natural means of attaining the 
supernatural goal are to be utilized.



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.



3. THE STYLE OF THE LITURGY

STYLE is chiefly spoken of in a universal sense. By style we 
understand those particular characteristics which 
distinguish every valid and genuine production or organism 
as such, whether it is a work of art, a personality, a form 
of society, or anything whatever; it denotes that any given 
vital principle has found its true and final expression. But 
this self-expression must be of such a nature that it 
simultaneously imparts to the individual element a universal 
significance, reaching far beyond its own particular sphere. 
For the essence of individuality embraces within itself a 
second element; it is true that it is particular and 
unreproducible, but it is at the same time universal, 
standing in relationship to the other individuals of its 
kind, and manifesting in its permanent existence traits 
which are also borne by others. The greater the originality 
and forcefulness of an individual thing, the greater its 
capacity of comprehensively revealing the universal essence 
of its kind,1 the greater is its significance. Now if a 
personality a work of art, or a form of society has, by 
virtue of its existence and activity, expressed in a 
convincing manner that which it really is, and if at the 
same time by its quality of specialness it does not merely 
represent an arbitrary mood, but its relation to a corporate 
life, then and to that extent it may be said to have style.

In this sense the liturgy undoubtedly has created a style. 
It is unnecessary to waste further words on the subject.

The conception can, however, be given a narrower sense. Why 
is it that in front of a Greek temple we are more intensely 
conscious of style than we are in front of a Gothic 
cathedral? The inner effect of both these structures is 
identically powerful and convincing. Each is the perfect 
expression of a particular type or form of space-perception. 
Each reveals the individuality of a people, but at the same 
time affords a profound insight into the human soul and the 
significance of the world in general. Yet before the temple 
of Paestum we are more strongly conscious of style than we 
are before the cathedrals of Cologne and of Rheims. What is 
the reason? Why is it that for the uncultured observer 
Giotto has the more style in comparison with Grunewald, who 
is without any doubt equally powerful; and the figure of an 
Egyptian king more than Donatello's wonderful statue of St. 
John?

In this connection the word style has a specialized meaning. 
It conveys that in the works of art to which reference has 
been made the individual yields place to the universal. The 
fortuitous element--determined by place and time, with its 
significance restricted to certain specific people--is 
superseded by that which is essentially, or at least more 
essentially, intended for many times, places and people. The 
particular is to a great degree absorbed by the universal 
and ideal. In such works an involved mental or spiritual 
condition, for instance, which could only have expressed 
itself in an abstruse utterance or in an unreproducible 
action, is simplified and reduced to its elements.2 By this 
process it is made universally comprehensible. The 
incalculable ebullition is given a permanent basis. It then 
becomes easily penetrable and capable of demonstrating in 
itself the interweaving of cause and effect.3 The solitary 
historical event serves to throw into relief the vital 
significance, universal and unaffected by time, which 
reposes within it. The figure which appears but once is made 
to personify characteristics common to the whole of society. 
The hasty, impetuous movement is restrained and measured. 
Whereas it was formerly confined to specific relationships 
or circumstances, it can now to a certain degree be accepted 
by everyone.4 Things, materials and instruments are divested 
of their fortuitous character, their elements revealed, 
their purpose defined, and their power of expressing certain 
moods or ideas is heightened.5 In a word, while one type of 
art and of life is endeavoring to express that which is 
special and particular, this other, on the contrary, is 
striving to hold up to our view that which is universally 
significant. The latter type of art fashions simple reality, 
which is always specialized, in such a manner that the ideal 
and universal comes to the fore; that is to say, its style 
is developed and its form is fixed. And so whenever life, 
with its entanglements and its multiplicity, has been 
simplified in this way, whenever its inner lawfulness is 
emphasized and it is raised from the particular to the 
universal, we are always conscious of style in the narrower 
sense of the word. Admittedly it is difficult to say where 
style ends and arrangement begins. If the arrangement is too 
accentuated, if the modeling is carried out according to 
rules and ideas, and not according to its vital connection 
with reality, if the production is the result, not of exact 
observation, but of deliberate planning, then it will be 
universal only, and therefore lifeless and void.6 True 
style, even in its strictest form, still retains the 
developed faculty of convincing expression. Only that which 
is living has style; pure thought, and the productions of 
pure thought, have none.

Now the liturgy--at any rate, as far as the greater part of 
its range is concerned--has style in the stricter sense of 
the word. It is not the direct expression of any particular 
type of spiritual disposition, either in its language and 
ideas, or in its movements, actions and the materials which 
it employs. If we compare, for instance, the Sunday Collects 
with the prayers of an Anselm of Canterbury, or of a Newman; 
the gestures of the officiating priest with the involuntary 
movements of the man who fancies himself unobserved while at 
prayer; the Church's directions on the adornment of the 
sanctuary, on vestments and altar-vessels, with popular 
methods of decoration, and of dress on religious occasions; 
and Gregorian chant with the popular hymn--we shall always 
find, within the sphere of the liturgy, that the medium of 
spiritual expression, whether it consists of words, 
gestures, colors or materials, is to a certain degree 
divested of its singleness of purpose, intensified, 
tranquilized, and given universal currency.

Many causes have contributed to this result. For one thing, 
the passing centuries have continually polished, elaborated 
and adapted the form of liturgical expression Then the 
strongly generalizing effect of religious thought must be 
taken into account. Finally, there is the influence of the 
Greco-Latin spirit, with its highly significant tendency 
towards style in the strict sense of the word.

Now if we consider the fact that these quietly constructive 
forces were at work on the vital form of expression, not of 
an individual, but of an organic unity, composed of the 
greatness, exclusiveness and strength of the collective 
consciousness that is the Catholic Church; if we consider 
further that the vital formula thus fashioned steadily 
concentrates its whole attention upon the hereafter, that it 
aspires from this world to the next, and as a natural result 
is characterized by eternal, sublime and superhuman traits, 
then we shall find assembled here all the preliminary 
conditions essential to the development of a style of great 
vigor and intensity. If it were capable of doing so 
anywhere, here above all should develop a living style, 
spiritual, lofty and exalted. And that is precisely what has 
happened. If we reflect upon the liturgy as a whole, and 
upon its important points, not upon the abbreviated form in 
which it is usually presented, but as it should be, we shall 
have the good fortune to experience the miracle of a truly 
mighty style. We shall see and feel that an inner world of 
immeasurable breadth and depth has created for itself so 
rich and so ample an expression and one at the same time so 
lucid and so universal in form that its like has never been 
seen, either before or since.

And it is style in the stricter sense of the word as well--
clear in language, measured in movement, severe in its 
modeling of space, materials, colors and sounds; its ideas, 
languages, ceremonies and imagery fashioned out of the 
simple elements of spiritual life; rich, varied and lucid; 
its force further intensified by the fact that the liturgy 
employs a classic language, remote from everyday life.

When all these considerations are borne in mind it is easy 
to understand that the liturgy possesses a tremendously 
compelling form of expression, which is a school of 
religious training and development to the Catholic who 
rightly understands it, and which is bound to appear to the 
impartial observer as a cultural formation of the most lofty 
and elevated kind.

It cannot, however, be denied that great difficulties lie in 
the question of the adaptability of the liturgy to every 
individual, and more especially to the modern man. The 
latter wants to find in prayer--particularly if he is of an 
independent turn of mind--the direct expression of his 
spiritual condition. Yet in the liturgy he is expected to 
accept, as the mouthpiece of his inner life, a system of 
ideas, prayer and action, which is too highly generalized, 
and, as it were, unsuited to him. It strikes him as being 
formal and almost meaningless. He is especially sensible of 
this when he compares the liturgy with the natural 
outpourings of spontaneous prayer. Liturgical formulas, 
unlike the language of a person who is spiritually 
congenial, are not to be grasped straightway without any 
further mental exertion on the listener's part; liturgical 
actions have not the same direct appeal as, say, the 
involuntary movement of understanding on the part of someone 
who is sympathetic by reason of circumstances and 
disposition; the emotional impulses of the liturgy do not so 
readily find an echo as does the spontaneous utterance of 
the soul. These clear-cut formulas are liable to grate more 
particularly upon the modern man, so intensely sensitive in 
everything which affects his scheme of life, who looks for a 
touch of nature everywhere and listens so attentively for 
the personal note. He easily tends to consider the idiom of 
the liturgy as artificial, and its ritual as purely formal. 
Consequently he will often take refuge in forms of prayer 
and devotional practices whose spiritual value is far 
inferior to that of the liturgy, but which seem to have one 
advantage over the latter--that of contemporary, or, at any 
rate, of congenial origin.

Those who honestly want to come to grips with this problem 
in all its bearings should for their own guidance note the 
way in which the figure of Christ is represented, first in 
the liturgy, and then in the Gospels. In the latter 
everything is alive; the reader breathes the air of earth; 
he sees Jesus of Nazareth walking about the streets and 
among the people, hears His incomparable and persuasive 
words, and is aware of the heart-to-heart intercourse 
between Jesus and His followers. The charm of vivid 
actuality pervades the historical portrait of Christ. He is 
so entirely one of us, a real person--Jesus, "the 
Carpenter's Son"--Who lived in Nazareth in a certain street, 
wore certain clothes, and spoke in a certain manner. That is 
just what the modern man longs for; and he is made happy by 
the fact that in this actual historical figure is incarnate 
the living and eternal Godhead, One with the body, so that 
He is in the fullest sense of the word "true God and true 
Man."

But how differently does the figure of Jesus appear in the 
liturgy! There He is the Sovereign Mediator between God and 
man, the eternal High-Priest, the divine Teacher, the Judge 
of the living and of the dead; in His Body, hidden in the 
Eucharist, He mystically unites all the faithful in the 
great society that is the Church; He is the God-Man, the 
Word that was made Flesh. The human element, or--
involuntarily the theological expression rises to the lips--
the Human Nature certainly remains intact, for the battle 
against Eutyches was not fought in vain; He is truly and 
wholly human, with a body and soul which have actually 
lived. But they are now utterly transformed by the Godhead, 
rapt into the light of eternity, and remote from time and 
space. He is the Lord, "sitting at the right hand of the 
Father," the mystic Christ living on in His Church.

It will be objected that in the Gospels of the Mass we can 
still follow the historical life of Jesus in its entirety. 
That is absolutely true. But if we endeavor to listen more 
attentively, we shall still find that a particular light is 
thrown on these narratives by their context. They are a part 
of the Mass, of the "mysterium magnum," pervaded by the 
mystery of sacrifice, an integral part of the structure of 
the particular Sunday office, current season, or 
ecclesiastical year, swept along by that powerful straining 
upwards to the Hereafter which runs through the entire 
liturgy. In this way the contents of the Gospels, which we 
hear chanted, and in a foreign language, are in their turn 
woven into the pattern. Of ourselves we come to consider, 
not the particular traits which they contain, but their 
eternal, super-historical meaning.

Yet by this the liturgy has not--as Protestantism has 
sometimes accused it of doing--disfigured the Christ of the 
Gospels. It has not set forth a frigid intellectual 
conception instead of the living Jesus.

The Gospels themselves, according to the aims and purpose of 
the respective Evangelists, stress first one, then another 
aspect of the personality and activity of Christ Facing the 
portrait contained in the first three Gospels, in the 
Epistles of St. Paul Christ appears as God, mystically 
living on in His Church and in the souls of those who 
believe in Him. The Gospel of St. John shows the Word made 
Flesh, and finally, in the Apocalypse God is made manifest 
in His eternal splendor. But this does not mean that the 
historical facts of Christ's human existence are in any way 
kept back; on the contrary, they are always taken for 
granted and often purposely emphasised.7 The liturgy 
therefore has done nothing that Holy Scripture itself does 
not do. Without discarding one stroke or trait of the 
historical figure of Christ, it has, for its own appointed 
purpose, more strongly stressed the eternal and super-
temporal elements of that figure, and for this reason--the 
liturgy is no mere commemoration of what once existed, but 
is living and real; it is the enduring life of Jesus Christ 
in us, and that of the believer in Christ eternally God and 
Man.

It is precisely because of this, however, that the 
difficulty still persists. It is good to make it absolutely 
clear, since the modern man experiences it more especially. 
More than one--according to his instinctive impulse--would 
be content to forego the profoundest knowledge of theology, 
if as against that it were permitted to him to watch Jesus 
walking about the streets or to hear the tone in which He 
addresses a disciple. More than one would be willing to 
sacrifice the most beautiful liturgical prayer, if in 
exchange he might meet Christ face to face and speak to Him 
from the bottom of his heart.

Where is the angle to be found from which this difficulty is 
to be tackled and overcome? It is in the view that it is 
hardly permissible to play off the spiritual life of the 
individual, with its purely personal bearing, against the 
spiritual life of the liturgy, with its generalizing bias. 
They are not mutually contradictory; they should both 
combine in active co-operation.

When we pray on our own behalf only we approach God from an 
entirely personal standpoint, precisely as we feel inclined 
or impelled to do according to our feelings and 
circumstances. That is our right, and the Church would be 
the last to wish to deprive us of it. Here we live our own 
life, and are as it were face to face with God.8 His Face is 
turned towards us, as to no one else; He belongs to each one 
of us. It is this power of being a personal God, ever fresh 
to each of us, equally patient and attentive to each one's 
wants, which constitutes the inexhaustible wealth of God. 
The language which we speak on these occasions suits us 
entirely, and much of it apparently is suited to us alone. 
We can use it with confidence because God understands it, 
and there is no one else who needs to do so.

We are, however, not only individuals, but members of a 
community as well; we are not merely transitory, but 
something of us belongs to eternity, and the liturgy takes 
these elements in us into account. In the liturgy we pray as 
members of the Church; by it we rise to the sphere which 
transcends the individual order and is therefore accessible 
to people of every condition, time, and place. For this 
order of things the style of the liturgy--vital, clear, and 
universally comprehensible--is the only possible one. The 
reason for this is that any other type of prayer, based upon 
one particular set of hypotheses or requirements, would 
undoubtedly prove a totally unsuitable form for a content of 
different origin. Only a system of life and thought which is 
truly Catholic--that is to say, actual and universal--is 
capable of being universally adopted, without violence to 
the individual. Yet there is still an element of sacrifice 
involved in such adoption. Each one is bound to strive 
within himself, and to rise superior to self. Yet in so 
doing he is not swallowed up by, and lost in, the majority; 
on the contrary, he becomes more independent, rich, and 
versatile.

Both methods of prayer must co-operate. They stand together 
in a vital and reciprocal relationship. The one derives its 
light and fruitfulness from the other. In the liturgy the 
soul learns to move about the wider and more spacious 
spiritual world. It assimilates--if the comparison is 
permissible--that freedom and dignified restraint which in 
human intercourse is acquired by the man who frequents good 
society, and who limits his self-indulgence by the 
discipline of time-honored social usage; the soul expands 
and develops in that width of feeling and clearness of form 
which together constitute the liturgy, just as it does 
through familiarity and communion with great works of art. 
In a word, the soul acquires, in the liturgy, the "grand 
manner" of the spiritual life--and that is a thing that 
cannot be too highly prized. On the other hand, as the 
Church herself reminds us--and the example of the Orders who 
live by the liturgy is a proof of this--side by side with 
the liturgy there must continue to exist that private 
devotion which provides for the personal requirements of the 
individual, and to which the soul surrenders itself 
according to its particular circumstances. From the latter 
liturgical prayer in its turn derives warmth and local 
color.

If private devotion were non-existent, and if the liturgy 
were the final and exclusive form of spiritual exercise, 
that exercise might easily degenerate into a frigid formula; 
but if the liturgy were non-existent--well, our daily 
observations amply show what would be the consequences, and 
how fatally they would take effect.



ENDNOTES

1. The essence of genius, of the man of genius (e.g., of the 
Saint), and of the really great work or deed consists in 
this, that it is immeasurably original and yet is still 
universally applicable to human life.

2. Cf. the inner life in Ibsen's plays, for instance, with 
that of Sophoclean tragedy, the "Ghosts," perhaps, with 
"Oedipus."

3. Cf. the line of action adopted by, e.g., Hedda Gabler and 
Antigone. 

4. Such is the origin of social deportment and of court 
usage. 

5. Such is the origin of symbols--social, state, religious 
and otherwise.

6. It is this which differentiates various classical periods 
from the classical age.

7. As, for instance, in the beginning of the Gospel of St. 
John.

8. Even if here, as in the whole range of spiritual things, 
the Church is our guide. But she is so in a different manner 
than where the liturgy is concerned.



4. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE LITURGY

IN the liturgy the faithful are confronted by a new world, 
rich in types and symbols, which are expressed in terms of 
ritual, actions, vestments, implements, places, and hours, 
all of which are highly significant. Out of this the 
question arises--what is the precise significance of all 
this as regards the soul's intercourse with God? God is 
above space; what has He to do with directions as to 
specific localities? God is above time; what does time, 
beginning with the liturgical hours and ending with the 
ecclesiastical year, matter to Him? God is Simplicity; then 
how is He concerned with specific ritual, actions and 
instruments? Let us desist from the attempt to enter more 
fully into the question, and content ourselves with asking: 
God is a Spirit--can matter therefore have any significance 
in the soul's intercourse with Him? Is not the intervention 
of material things bound to pervert and to degrade this 
intercourse? And even if we admit that man consists of soul 
and body, that he is not pure spirit, and therefore as a 
logical conclusion that a material element will always play 
a certain part in his spiritual life--must we not regard 
this as a defect against which we must strive? Should it not 
be the task of all true religion to come to be the "worship 
of God in spirit and in truth," and at least to aim at, if 
not to succeed in, eliminating the bodily and material 
element as far as possible?

This question penetrates deeply into the essence and nature 
of the liturgy.

What meaning has matter--regarded as the medium of spiritual 
receptivity and utterance, of spiritual impression and 
expression--for us?

The question depends upon the manner in which the Ego, 
within its bodily-spiritual personality, experiences the 
relationship between body and soul.1 There exists a peculiar 
form of this self-experience, in which the boundary between 
the "spiritual" and the "bodily" or "physical" is sharply 
defined. In such cases the spiritual plane appears as 
entirely self-contained, lying within--or perhaps it would 
be better to say beyond--the physical plane, and having 
little or nothing to do with the latter. The two planes--
spiritual and physical--are felt to be two distinct orders, 
lying closely adjacent, between which communication 
certainly takes place; but communication of such a nature 
that it rather appears as a transposition from the one into 
the other, than as the direct co-operation of both. Such is 
the frame of mind which has probably drawn its conception of 
the external world from Leibniz's theory of monads, and its 
conception of the soul from the teaching of psycho-physical 
parallelism.

It is obvious that people who favor such a system of thought 
will only attach a more or less fortuitous significance to 
the relationship between the physical and the spiritual. The 
latter, they consider, is intimately bound up with the 
former, and is also in need of it, but as far as the life of 
the soul proper is concerned, the physical has no 
importance; it merely appears to encumber and to degrade 
spiritual activity. The soul strives to attain its goal--
that is to say, truth, the moral impulse, God, and the 
Divine--by purely spiritual means. Even when such people 
know that this endeavor cannot possibly succeed, they still 
exert themselves to approach to the purely spiritual at 
least as nearly as they can. To them the physical is an 
alloy, an innate imperfection, of which they endeavor to rid 
themselves. They may perhaps credit it with a limited 
external significance, and look upon it as an aid to the 
elucidation of the spiritual, as an illustration, or as an 
allegory; but they are all the time conscious that they are 
making what is actually an inadmissible concession. 
Moreover, the physical does not appeal to them as a medium 
of vividly expressing their inner life. They scarcely even 
feel the need of expressing that life in a tangible manner; 
for them the spiritual is self-sufficing, or else it can 
express itself in a straightforward moral action and in a 
simply uttered word.

People of such a turn of mind will inevitably have great 
difficulties to face in the liturgy.2 Somewhat naturally, 
they gravitate towards a strictly spiritual form of 
devotion, which aims at suppressing the physical or material 
element and at shaping its external manifestations in as 
plain and homely a manner as possible; it prizes the simple 
word as the most spiritual medium of communication.

Facing these, and in contrast with them, are people of a 
different mental constitution. For them, the spiritual and 
the physical are inextricably jumbled together3; they 
incline to amalgamate the two. While the former type of 
disposition labors to separate the physical and the 
spiritual spheres, the latter endeavors to unite them. 
People like this are prone to look upon the soul merely as 
the lining of the body, and upon the body as the outside, in 
some sort the condensation or materialization, of the spirit 
within. They interpret spiritual elements in terms of 
physical conditions or movements, and directly perceive 
every material action as a spiritual experience. They extend 
their conviction of the essential oneness of the soul and 
the body beyond the province of the individual personality, 
and include external things within its sphere of operation. 
As they frequently tend to regard externals as the 
manifestation of spiritual elements, they are also capable 
of utilizing them as a means of expressing their own 
innerness. They see this expressed in various substances, in 
clothing, in social formations, and in Nature, while their 
inner struggles are reflected even in conditions, desires, 
and conflicts which are universal.4

Of the two types of spiritual character, the second at the 
first glance would seem to correspond the more closely to 
the nature of the liturgy. It is far more susceptible to the 
power of expression proper to liturgical action and 
materials, and can the more readily apply these external 
phenomena to the expression of its own inner life. Yet in 
the liturgy it has to face problems and difficulties all its 
own.

People who perceive the physical or material and the 
spiritual as inextricably mingled find it hard to confine 
the manifestations of the individual soul to set forms of 
expression, and to adhere strictly to the clearly defined 
significance of the formulas, actions and instruments 
employed in such expression. They conceive the inner life as 
being in a perpetual state of flux. They cannot create 
definite and clearly outlined forms of expression because 
they are incapable of separating spiritual from physical or 
material objects. They find it equally difficult to 
distinguish clearly the specific substance behind the given 
forms of expression; they will always give it a fresh 
interpretation according to varying circumstances.5

In other words, in spite of the close relationship which in 
this case exists between the physical and the spiritual such 
people lack the power of welding certain spiritual contents 
to certain external forms, which together will constitute 
either the expression of their inner selves or a receptacle 
for an extraneous content. That is to say, they lack one of 
the ingredients essential to the creation of symbols. The 
other type of people do not succeed any better, because they 
fail to realize how vital the relationship is between the 
spiritual and the physical. They are perfectly capable of 
differentiating and of delimiting the boundaries between the 
two, but they do this to such an extent that they lose all 
sense of cohesion. The second type possess a sense of 
cohesion, and with them the inner content issues directly 
into the external form. But they lack discrimination and 
objectiveness. Both--the sense of cohesion and the power of 
discrimination--are essential to the creation of a symbol.

A symbol may be said to originate when that which is 
interior and spiritual finds expression in that which is 
exterior and material. But it does not originate when6 a 
spiritual element is by general consent coupled with a 
material substance, as, for instance, the image of the 
scales with the idea of Justice. Rather must the spiritual 
element transpose itself into material terms because it is 
vital and essential that it should do so. Thus the body is 
the natural emblem of the soul, and a spontaneous physical 
movement will typify a spiritual event. The symbol proper is 
circumscribed; and it may be further distinguished by the 
total inability of the form selected as a medium of 
expression to represent anything else whatever. It must be 
expressed in dear and precise terms and therefore, when it 
has fulfilled the usual conditions, must be universally 
comprehensible. A genuine symbol is occasioned by the 
spontaneous expression of an actual and particular spiritual 
condition. But at the same time, like works of art, it must 
rise above the purely individual plane. It must not merely 
express isolated spiritual elements, but deal with life and 
the soul in the abstract.

Consequently when a symbol has been created, it often enjoys 
widespread currency and becomes universally comprehensible 
and significant. The auspicious collaboration of both the 
types of temperament outlined above is essential to the 
creation of a symbol, in which the spiritual and the 
physical elements must be united in perfect harmony. At the 
same time it is the task of the spiritual element to watch 
over and determine every stroke of the modeling, to sort and 
sift with a sure hand, to measure off and weigh together 
delicately and discreetly, in order that the given matter 
may be given its corresponding and appropriate form. The 
more clearly and completely a spiritual content is cast in 
its material mold, the more valuable is the symbol thus 
produced, and the more worthy it is of its name, because it 
then loses its connection with the solitary incident which 
occasioned it and becomes a universal possession. The 
greater the depth of life from which it has sprung, and the 
greater the degree of clarity and of conviction which has 
contributed to its formation, the more true this is in 
proportion.

The power of symbol-building was at work, for instance, when 
the fundamental rules governing social intercourse were laid 
down. From it are derived those forms by which one person 
signifies to another interest or reverence, in which are 
externally expressed the inward happenings of civil and 
political life, and the like. Further--and in this 
connection it is specially significant--it is the origin of 
those gestures which convey a spiritual meaning; the man who 
is moved by emotion will kneel bow, clasp his hands or 
impose them, stretch forth his arms, strike his breast, make 
an offering of something, and so on. These elementary 
gestures are capable of richer development and expansion, or 
else of amalgamation. They are the source of the manifold 
ritual actions, such as the kiss of peace or the blessing. 
Or it may be that certain ideas are expressed in 
corresponding movements, thus belief in the mystery of 
absolution is shown by the Sign of the Cross. Finally, a 
whole series of such movements may be co-ordinated. This 
gives rise to religious action by which a richly developed 
spiritual element--e.g., a sacrifice--succeeds in attaining 
external and symbolic expression. It is when that form of 
self-experience which has been described above is extended 
to objects which lie without the personal province, that the 
material concrete factor enters into the symbol. Material 
objects are used to reinforce the expressiveness of the body 
and its movements, and at the same time form an extension of 
the permanent bodily powers. Thus, for instance, in a 
sacrifice the victim is offered, not only by the hands, but 
in a vessel or dish. The smooth surface of the dish 
emphasizes the expressive motion of the hand; it forms a 
wide and open plane, displayed before the Godhead, and 
throwing into powerful relief the upward straining line of 
the arm. Or again, as it rises, the smoke of the incense 
enhances the aspiration expressed by the upturned hands and 
gaze of those who are at prayer. The candle, with its 
slender, soaring, tapering column tipped with flame? and 
consuming itself as it burns, typifies the idea of 
sacrifice, which is voluntarily offered in lofty spiritual 
serenity.

Both the before-mentioned types of temperament co-operate in 
the creation of symbols. The one, with its apprehension of 
the affinity between the spiritual and the physical, 
provides the material for the primary hypothesis essential 
to the creation of the symbol. The other, by its power of 
distinction and its objectiveness, brings to the symbol 
lucidity and form. They both, however, find in the liturgy 
the problems peculiar to their temperament. But because they 
have shared together in the creation of the liturgical 
symbol, both are capable of overcoming these difficulties as 
soon, that is, as they are at least in some way convinced of 
the binding value of the liturgy.

The former type, then, must abandon their exaggerated 
spirituality, admit the existence of the relationship 
between the spiritual and the physical, and freely avail 
themselves of the wealth of liturgical symbolism. They must 
give up their reserve and the Puritanism which prompts them 
to oppose the expression of the spiritual in material terms, 
and must instead take the latter as a medium of lively 
expression. This will add a new warmth and depth to their 
emotional and spiritual experience.

The latter type must endeavor to stem their extravagance of 
sensation, and to bind the vague and ephemeral elements into 
clear-cut forms. It is of the highest importance that they 
should realize that the liturgy is entirely free from any 
subjection to matter,7 and that all the natural elements in 
the liturgy (cf. what has been previously said concerning 
its style) are entirely re-cast as ritual forms. So for 
people of this type the symbolizing power of the liturgy 
becomes a school of measure and of spiritual restraint.

The people who really live by the liturgy will come to learn 
that the bodily movements, the actions, and the material 
objects which it employs are all of the highest 
significance. It offers great opportunities of expression, 
of knowledge, and of spiritual experience; it is 
emancipating in its action, and capable of presenting a 
truth far more strongly and convincingly than can the mere 
word of mouth.



ENDNOTES

1. The more precise discussion of the question belongs to 
the domain, is yet but little explored, of typological 
psychology.

2. This disposition does not, of course, actually exist in 
the extreme form portrayed here any more than does that 
which is described later. We are concerned, however, with 
giving an account of such conditions in the abstract and not 
in detail.

3. It need hardly be said that no intention exists of 
discussing in this connection the real relationship of soul 
and body. We are concerned with describing the manner in 
which this relationship is felt and interiorly experienced. 
It is not a question of metaphysics, but merely of 
descriptive psychology.

4. Cf., for instance, the feeling of the Romantics for 
Nature.

5. Hence the tendency of people like this to forsake the 
Church, with her clear and unequivocal formulas, and to turn 
to Nature, there to seek an outlet for their vague and 
fluctuating emotions and to win from her the stimulus that 
suits them.

6. As in allegory.

7. Such as is found in Nature-religions, for instance, which 
are directly derived from Nature herself, from the forest, 
the sea, etc. The liturgy, on the contrary, is entirely 
designed by human hands. It would be extremely interesting 
to investigate in a detailed manner the transformation of 
natural things, shapes and sounds into ritual objects 
through the agency of the liturgy.



5. THE PLAYFULNESS OF THE LITURGY

GRAVE and earnest people, who make the knowledge of truth 
their whole aim, see moral problems in everything, and seek 
for a definite purpose everywhere, tend to experience a 
peculiar difficulty where the liturgy is concerned.1 They 
incline to regard it as being to a certain extent aimless, 
as superfluous pageantry of a needlessly complicated and 
artificial character. They are affronted by the scrupulously 
exact instructions which the liturgy gives on correct 
procedure, on the right direction in which to turn, on the 
pitch of the voice, and so on. What is the use of it all? 
The essential part of Holy Mass--the action of Sacrifice and 
the divine Banquet--could be so easily consummated. Why, 
then, the need for the solemn institution of the priestly 
office? The necessary consecration could be so simply 
accomplished in so few words, and the sacraments so 
straight-forwardly administered--what is the reason of all 
the prayers and ceremonies? The liturgy tends to strike 
people of this turn of mind as--to use the words which are 
really most appropriate--trifling and theatrical.

The question is a serious one. It does not occur to 
everyone, but in the people whom it does affect it is a sign 
of the mental attitude which concentrates on and pursues 
that which is essential. It appears to be principally 
connected with the question of purpose.

That which we call purpose is, in the true sense of the 
word, the distributive, organizing principle which 
subordinates actions or objects to other actions or objects, 
so that the one is directed towards the other, and one 
exists for the sake of the other. That which is subordinate, 
the means, is only significant in so far as it is capable of 
serving that which is superior, the end. The purpose does 
not infuse a spiritual value into its medium; it uses it as 
a passage to something else, a thoroughfare merely; aim and 
fulcrum alike reside in the former. From this point of view, 
every instrument has to prove in the first place whether, 
and in the second to what extent, it is fitted to accomplish 
the purpose for which it is employed. This proof will 
primarily be headed by the endeavor to eliminate from the 
instrument all the non-essential, unimportant, and 
superfluous elements. It is a scientific principle that an 
end should be attained with the minimum expenditure of 
energy, time, and material. A certain restless energy, an 
indifference to the cost involved, and accuracy in going to 
the point, characterize the corresponding turn of mind.

A disposition like this is, on the whole, both appropriate 
and necessary to life, giving it earnestness and fixity of 
purpose. It also takes reality into consideration, to the 
extent of viewing everything from the standpoint of purpose. 
Many pursuits and professions can be shown to have their 
origin almost entirely in the idea of purpose. Yet no 
phenomenon can be entirely, and many can be, to a minor 
degree only, comprehended in this category. Or, to put it 
more plainly, that which gives objects and events their 
right to existence, and justifies their individuality, is in 
many cases not the sole, and in others not even the primary 
reason for their usefulness. Are flowers and leaves useful? 
Of course; they are the vital organs of plants. Yet because 
of this, they are not tied down to any particular form, 
color, or smell. Then what, upon the whole, is the use of 
the extravagance of shapes, colors and scents, in Nature? To 
what purpose the multiplicity of species? Things could be so 
much more simple. Nature could be entirely filled with 
animate beings, and they could thrive and progress in a far 
quicker and more suitable manner. The indiscriminate 
application to Nature of the idea of purpose is, however, 
open to objection. To go to the root of the matter, what is 
the object of this or that plant, and of this or that 
animal, existing at all? Is it in order to afford 
nourishment to some other plant or animal? Of course not. 
Measured merely by the standard of apparent and external 
utility, there is a great deal in Nature which is only 
partially, and nothing which is wholly and entirely, 
intended for a purpose, or, better still, purposeful. 
Indeed, considered in this light, a great deal is 
purposeless. In a mechanical structure--a machine, say, or a 
bridge-everything has a purpose; and the same thing applies 
to business enterprises or to the government of a State; yet 
even where these phenomena are concerned, the idea of 
purpose is not far-reaching enough to give an adequate reply 
to the query, whence springs their right to existence?

If we want to do justice to the whole question, we must 
shift our angle of vision. The conception of purpose regards 
an object's center of gravity as existing outside that 
object, seeing it lie instead in the transition to further 
movement, i.e., that towards the goal which the object 
provides. But every object is to a certain extent, and many 
are entirely, self-sufficient and an end in itself--if, that 
is, the conception can be applied at all in this extensive 
sense. The conception of meaning is more adaptable. Objects 
which have no purpose in the strict sense of the term have a 
meaning. This meaning is not realized by their extraneous 
effect or by the contribution which they make to the 
stability or the modification of another object, but their 
significance consists in being what they are. Measured by 
the strict sense of the word, they are purposeless, but 
still full of meaning.

Purpose and meaning are the two aspects of the fact that an 
existent principle possesses the motive for, and the right 
to, its own essence and existence. An object regarded from 
the point of view of purpose is seen to dovetail into an 
order of things which comprehends both it and more beyond 
it; from the standpoint of meaning, it is seen to be based 
upon itself.

Now what is the meaning of that which exists? That it should 
exist and should be the image of God the Everlasting. And 
what is the meaning of that which is alive? That it should 
live, bring forth its essence, and bloom as a natural 
manifestation of the living God.

This is true of Nature. It is also true of the life of the 
soul. Has science an aim or an object in the real sense of 
the word? No. Pragmatism is trying to foist one upon it. It 
insists that the aim of science is to better humanity and to 
improve it from the moral point of view. Yet this 
constitutes a failure to appreciate the independent value of 
knowledge. Knowledge has no aim, but it has a meaning, and 
one that is rooted in itself--truth. The legislative 
activity of Parliament, for instance, has an end in view; it 
is intended to bring about a certain agreed result in the 
life of the State. Jurisprudence, on the contrary, has no 
object; it merely indicates where truth lies in questions of 
law. The same thing applies to all real science. According 
to its nature, it is either the knowledge of truth or the 
service of truth, but nothing else. Has art any aim or 
purpose? No, it has not. If it had, we should be obliged to 
conclude that art exists in order to provide a living for 
artists, or else, as the eighteenth century German thinkers 
of the "Aufklarung"--the "age of enlightenment"--considered, 
it is intended to offer concrete examples of intelligent 
views and to inculcate virtue. This is absolutely untrue. 
The work of art has no purpose, but it has a meaning--"ut 
sit"--that it should exist, and that it should clothe in 
clear and genuine form the essence of things and the inner 
life of the human artist. It is merely to be "splendor 
veritatis," the glory of truth.

When life lacks the austere guidance of the sense of purpose 
it degenerates into pseudo-aestheticism. But when it is 
forced into the rigid framework that is the purely 
purposeful conception of the world, it droops and perishes. 
The two conceptions are interdependent. Purpose is the goal 
of all effort, labor and organization, meaning is the 
essence of existence, of flourishing, ripening life. Purpose 
and meaning, effort and growth, activity and production, 
organization and creation--these are the two poles of 
existence.

The life of the Universal Church is also organized on these 
lines. In the first place, there is the whole tremendous 
system of purposes incorporated in the Canon Law, and in the 
constitution and government of the Church. Here we find 
every means directed to the one end, that of keeping in 
motion the great machinery of ecclesiastical government. The 
first-mentioned point of view will decide whether adjustment 
or modification best serves the collective purpose, and 
whether the latter is attained with the least possible 
expenditure of time and energy.2 The scheme of labor must be 
arranged and controlled by a strictly practical spirit.

The Church, however, has another side. It embraces a sphere 
which is in a special sense free from purpose. And that is 
the liturgy. The latter certainly comprehends a whole system 
of aims and purposes, as well as the instruments to 
accomplish them. It is the business of the Sacraments to act 
as the channels of certain graces. This mediation, however, 
is easily and quickly accomplished when the necessary 
conditions are present. The administration of the Sacraments 
is an example of a liturgical action which is strictly 
confined to the one object. Of course, it can be said of the 
liturgy, as of every action and every prayer which it 
contains, that it is directed towards the providing of 
spiritual instruction. This is perfectly true. But the 
liturgy has no thought-out, deliberate, detailed plan of 
instruction. In order to sense the difference it is 
sufficient to compare a week of the ecclesiastical year with 
the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In the latter every 
element is determined by deliberate choice, everything is 
directed towards the production of a certain spiritual and 
didactic result; each exercise, each prayer, even the way in 
which the hours of repose are passed, all aim at the one 
thing, the conversion of the will. It is not so with the 
liturgy. The fact that the latter has no place in the 
Spiritual Exercises is a proof of this.3 The liturgy wishes 
to teach, but not by means of an artificial system of aim-
conscious educational influences; it simply creates an 
entire spiritual world in which the soul can live according 
to the requirements of its nature. The difference resembles 
that which exists between a gymnasium, in which every detail 
of the apparatus and every exercise aims at a calculated 
effect, and the open woods and fields. In the first 
everything is consciously directed towards discipline and 
development, in the second life is lived with Nature, and 
internal growth takes place in her. The liturgy creates a 
universe brimming with fruitful spiritual life, and allows 
the soul to wander about in it at will and to develop itself 
there. The abundance of prayers, ideas, and actions, and the 
whole arrangement of the calendar are incomprehensible when 
they are measured by the objective standard of strict 
suitability for a purpose. The liturgy has no purpose, or, 
at least, it cannot be considered from the standpoint of 
purpose. It is not a means which is adapted to attain a 
certain end--it is an end in itself. This fact is important, 
because if we overlook it, we labor to find all kinds of 
didactic purposes in the liturgy which may certainly be 
stowed away somewhere, but are not actually evident.

When the liturgy is rightly regarded, it cannot be said to 
have a purpose, because it does not exist for the sake of 
humanity, but for the sake of God. In the liturgy man is no 
longer concerned with himself; his gaze is directed towards 
God. In it man is not so much intended to edify himself as 
to contemplate God's majesty. The liturgy means that the 
soul exists in God's presence, originates in Him, lives in a 
world of divine realities, truths, mysteries and symbols, 
and really lives its true, characteristic and fruitful 
life.4

There are two very profound passages in Holy Scripture, 
which are quite decisive on the point. One is found in the 
description of Ezekiel's vision.5 Let us consider the 
flaming Cherubim, who "every one of them went straight 
forward, whither the impulse of the Spirit was to go . . ., 
and they turned not when they went . . ., ran and returned 
like flashes of lightning . . ., went . . . and stood . . . 
and were lifted up from the earth . . .. the noise of their 
wings was like the noise of many waters . . ., and when they 
stood, their wings were let down." How "aimless" they are! 
How discouraging for the zealous partisans of reasonable 
suitability for a purpose! They are only pure motion, 
powerful and splendid, acting according to the direction of 
the Spirit, desiring nothing save to express Its inner drift 
and Its interior glow and force. They are the living image 
of the liturgy.

In the second passage it is Eternal Wisdom which speaks: "I 
was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every 
day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the 
world...."6

This is conclusive. It is the delight of the Eternal Father 
that Wisdom (the Son, the perfect Fullness of Truth) should 
pour out Its eternal essence before Him in all Its ineffable 
splendor, without any "purpose"--for what purpose should It 
have?--but full of decisive meaning, in pure and vocal 
happiness; the Son "plays" before the Father.

Such is the life of the highest beings, the angels, who, 
without a purpose and as the Spirit stirs them, move before 
God, and are a mystic diversion and a living song before 
Him.

In the earthly sphere there are two phenomena which tend in 
the same direction: the play of the child and the creation 
of the artist.

The child, when it plays, does not aim at anything. It has 
no purpose. It does not want to do anything but to exercise 
its youthful powers, pour forth its life in an aimless 
series of movements, words and actions, and by this to 
develop and to realize itself more fully; all of which is 
purposeless, but full of meaning nevertheless, the 
significance lying in the unchecked revelation of this 
youthful life in thoughts and words and movements and 
actions, in the capture and expression of its nature, and in 
the fact of its existence. And because it does not aim at 
anything in particular, because it streams unbroken and 
spontaneously forth, its utterance will be harmonious, its 
form clear and fine; its expression will of itself become 
picture and dance, rhyme, melody and song. That is what play 
means; it is life, pouring itself forth without an aim, 
seizing upon riches from its own abundant store, significant 
through the fact of its existence. It will be beautiful, 
too, if it is left to itself, and if no futile advice and 
pedagogic attempts at enlightenment foist upon it a host of 
aims and purposes, thus denaturizing it.

Yet, as life progresses, conflicts ensue, and it appears to 
grow ugly and discordant. Man sets before himself what he 
wants to do and what he should do, and tries to realize this 
in his life. But in the course of these endeavors he learns 
that many obstacles stand in his way, and he perceives that 
it is very seldom that he can attain his ideal.

It is in a different order, in the imaginary sphere of 
representation, that man tries to reconcile the 
contradiction between that which he wishes to be and that 
which he is. In art he tries to harmonize the ideal and 
actuality, that which he ought to be and that which he is, 
the soul within and nature without, the body and the soul. 
Such are the visions of art. It has no didactic aims, then; 
it is not intended to inculcate certain truths and virtues. 
A true artist has never had such an end in view. In art, he 
desires to do nothing but to overcome the discord to which 
we have referred, and to express in the sphere of 
representation the higher life of which he stands in need, 
and to which in actuality he has only approximately 
attained. The artist merely wants to give life to his being 
and its longings, to give external form to the inner truth. 
And people who contemplate a work of art should not expect 
anything of it but that they should be able to linger before 
it, moving freely, becoming conscious of their own better 
nature, and sensing the fulfillment of their most intimate 
longings. But they should not reason and chop logic, or look 
for instruction and good advice from it.

The liturgy offers something higher. In it man, with the aid 
of grace, is given the opportunity of realizing his 
fundamental essence, of really becoming that which

according to his divine destiny he should be and longs to 
be, a child of God. In the liturgy he is to go "unto God, 
Who giveth joy to his youth."7 All this is, of course, on 
the supernatural plane, but at the same time it corresponds 
to the same degree to the inner needs of man's nature. 
Because the life of the liturgy is higher than that to which 
customary reality gives both the opportunity and form of 
expression, it adopts suitable forms and methods from that 
sphere in which alone they are to be found, that is to say, 
from art. It speaks measuredly and melodiously; it employs 
formal, rhythmic gestures; it is clothed in colors and 
garments foreign to everyday life; it is carried out in 
places and at hours which have been co-ordinated and 
systematized according to sublimer laws than ours. It is in 
the highest sense the life of a child, in which everything 
is picture, melody and song.

Such is the wonderful fact which the liturgy demonstrates; 
it unites art and reality in a supernatural childhood before 
God. That which formerly existed in the world of unreality 
only, ant was rendered in art as the expression of mature 
human life, has here become reality. These forms are the 
vital expression of real and frankly supernatural life. But 
this has one thing in common with the play of the child and 
the life of art--it has no purpose, but it is full of 
profound meaning. It is not work, but play. To be at play, 
or to fashion a work of art in God's sight--not to create, 
but to exist--such is the essence of the liturgy. From this 
is derived its sublime mingling of profound earnestness and 
divine joyfulness. The fact that the liturgy gives a 
thousand strict and careful directions on the quality of the 
language, gestures, colors, garments and instruments which 
it employs, can only be understood by those who are able to 
take art and play seriously. Have you ever noticed how 
gravely children draw up the rules of their games, on the 
form of the melody, the position of the hands, the meaning 
of this stick and that tree? It is for the sake of the silly 
people who may not grasp their meaning and who will persist 
in seeing the justification of an action or object only in 
its obvious purpose. Have you ever read of or even 
experienced the deadly earnestness with which the artist-
vassal labors for art, his lord? Of his sufferings on the 
score of language? Or of what an overweening mistress form 
is? And all this for something that has no aim or purpose! 
No, art does not bother about aims. Does anyone honestly 
believe that the artist would take upon himself the thousand 
anxieties and feverish perplexities incident to creation if 
he intended to do nothing with his work but to teach the 
spectator a lesson, which he could just as well express in a 
couple of facile phrases, or one or two historical examples, 
or a few well-taken photographs? The only answer to this can 
be an emphatic negative. Being an artist means wrestling 
with the expression of the hidden life of man, avowedly in 
order that it may be given existence; nothing more. It is 
the image of the Divine creation, of which it is said that 
it has made things "ut sint."

The liturgy does the same thing. It too, with endless care, 
with all the seriousness of the child and the strict 
conscientiousness of the great artist, has toiled to express 
in a thousand forms the sacred, God-given life of the soul 
to no other purpose than that the soul may therein have its 
existence and live its life. The liturgy has laid down the 
serious rules of the sacred game which the soul plays before 
God. And, if we are desirous of touching bottom in this 
mystery, it is the Spirit of fire and of holy discipline 
"Who has knowledge of the world"8--the Holy Ghost-Who has 
ordained the game which the Eternal Wisdom plays before the 
Heavenly Father in the Church, Its kingdom on earth. And 
"Its delight" is in this way" to be with the children of 
men."

Only those who are not scandalized by this understand what 
the liturgy means. From the very first every type of 
rationalism has turned against it. The practice of the 
liturgy means that by the help of grace, under the guidance 
of the Church, we grow into living works of art before God, 
with no other aim or purpose than that of living and 
existing in His sight; it means fulfilling God's Word and 
"becoming as little children"; it means foregoing maturity 
with all its purposefulness, and confining oneself to play, 
as David did when he danced before the Ark. It may, of 
course, happen that those extremely clever people, who 
merely from being grown-up have lost all spiritual youth and 
spontaneity, will misunderstand this and jibe at it. David 
probably had to face the derision of Michal.

It is in this very aspect of the liturgy that its didactic 
aim is to be found, that of teaching the soul not to see 
purposes everywhere, not to be too conscious of the end it 
wishes to attain, not to be desirous of being over-clever 
and grown-up, but to understand simplicity in life. The soul 
must learn to abandon, at least in prayer, the restlessness 
of purposeful activity; it must learn to waste time for the 
sake of God, and to be prepared for the sacred game with 
sayings and thoughts and gestures, without always 
immediately asking "why?" and "wherefore?" It must learn not 
to be continually yearning to do something, to attack 
something, to accomplish something useful, but to play the 
divinely ordained game of the liturgy in liberty and beauty 
and holy joy before God.

In the end, eternal life will be its fulfillment. Will the 
people who do not understand the liturgy be pleased to find 
that the heavenly consummation is an eternal song of praise? 
Will they not rather associate themselves with those other 
industrious people who consider that such an eternity will 
be both boring and unprofitable?



ENDNOTES

1. In what follows the writer must beg the reader not to 
weigh isolated words and phrases. The matter under 
consideration is vague and intangible, and not easy to put 
into words. The writer can only be sure of not being 
misunderstood if the reader considers the chapter and the 
general train of thought as a whole.

2. Even when the Church is considered from its other aspect, 
that of a Divine work of art. Yet the former conception is 
bound to recur in this connection.

3. The Benedictines give it one, but do so in an obviously 
different system of spiritual exercises to that conceived by 
St. Ignatius.

4. The fact that the liturgy moralizes so little is 
consistent with this conception. In the liturgy the soul 
forms itself, not by means of deliberate teaching and the 
exercise of virtue, but by the fact that it exists in the 
light of eternal Truth, and is naturally and supernaturally 
robust.

5. Ezekiel i. 4 et seq., especially 12, 17, 20, 24, and x. 9 
et seq.

6. Proverbs viii. 30, 31.

7. Entrance prayer of the Mass.

8. Responsory at Terce, Pentecost.



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.)



7. THE PRIMACY OF THE LOGOS OVER THE ETHOS

THE liturgy exhibits one peculiarity which strikes as very 
odd those natures in particular which are generously endowed 
with moral energy and earnestness--and that is its singular 
attitude towards the moral order.

People of the type instanced above chiefly regret one thing 
in the liturgy, that its moral system has few direct 
relations with everyday life. It does not offer any easily 
transposable motives, or ideas realizable at first hand, for 
the benefit of our daily conflicts and struggles. A certain 
isolation, a certain remoteness from actual life 
characterize it; it is celebrated in the somewhat 
sequestered sphere of spiritual things. A contrast exists 
between the study, the factory, and the laboratory of to-
day, between the arena of public and social life and the 
Holy Places of solemn, divine worship, between the intensely 
practical tendency of our time, which is opposed to life by 
its wholly material force and acrid harshness, and the 
lofty, measured domain of liturgical conceptions and 
determination, with its clearness and elevation of form.

From this it follows that we cannot directly translate into 
action that which the liturgy offers us. There will always 
be a constant need, then, for methods of devotion which have 
their origin in a close connection with modern life, and for 
the popular devotions by which the Church meets the special 
demands and requirements of actual existence, and which, 
since they directly affect the soul, are immediately 
productive of practical results.1 The liturgy, on the 
contrary, is primarily occupied in forming the fundamental 
Christian temper. By it man is to be induced to determine 
correctly his essential relation to God, and to put himself 
right in regard to reverence for God, love and faith, 
atonement and the desire for sacrifice. As a result of this 
spiritual disposition, it follows that when action is 
required of him he will do what is right.

The question, however, goes yet deeper. What is the position 
of the liturgy generally to the moral order? What is the 
quality of the relation in it of the will to knowledge, as 
of the value of truth to the value of goodness? Or, to put 
it in two words, what is the relation in it of the Logos to 
the Ethos? It will be necessary to go back somewhat in order 
to find the answer.

It is safe to affirm that the Middle Ages, in philosophy at 
least, answered the question as to the relation between 
these two fundamental principles by decisively ranking 
knowledge before will and the activity attendant upon the 
functioning of the latter. They gave the Logos precedence 
over the Ethos. That is proved by the way in which certain 
frequently discussed questions are answered,2 and by the 
absolute priority which was assigned to the contemplative 
life over the active3; this stands out as the fundamental 
attitude of the Middle Ages, which took the Hereafter as the 
constant and exclusive goal of all earthly striving.

Modern times brought about a great change. The great 
objective institutions of the Middle Ages--class solidarity, 
the municipalities, the Empire--broke up. The power of the 
Church was no longer, as formerly, absolute and temporal. In 
every direction individualism became more strongly 
pronounced and independent. This development was chiefly 
responsible for the growth of scientific criticism, and in a 
special manner the criticism of knowledge itself. The 
inquiry into the essence of knowledge, which formally 
followed a constructive method, now assumes, as a result of 
the profound spiritual changes which have taken place, its 
characteristic critical form. Knowledge itself becomes 
questionable, and as a result the center of gravity and the 
fulcrum of the spiritual life gradually shifts from 
knowledge to the will. The actions of the independent 
individual become increasingly important. In this way active 
life forces its way before the contemplative, the will 
before knowledge.

Even in science, which after all is essentially dependent 
upon knowledge, a peculiar significance is assigned to the 
will. In place of the former penetration of guaranteed 
truth, of tranquil assimilation and discussion, there now 
develops a restless investigation of obscure, questionable 
truth. Instead of explanation and assimilation, education 
tends increasingly towards independent investigation. The 
entire scientific sphere exhibits an enterprising and 
aggressive tendency. It develops into a powerful, restlessly 
productive, laboring community.

This importance of the will has been scientifically 
formulated in the most conclusive manner by Kant. He 
recognized, side by side with the order of perception, of 
the world of things, in which the understanding alone is 
competent, the order of practicality, of freedom, in which 
the will functions. Arising out of the postulations of the 
will he admits the growth of a third order, the order of 
faith, as opposed to knowledge, the world of God and the 
soul. While the understanding is of itself incapable of 
asserting anything on these latter matters, because it is 
unable to verify them by the senses, it receives belief in 
their reality, and thus the final shaping of its conception 
of the world, from the postulations of the will which cannot 
exist and function without these highest data from which to 
proceed. This established the "primacy of the will." The 
will, together with the scale of moral values peculiar to 
it, has taken precedence of knowledge with its corresponding 
scale of values; the Ethos has obtained the primacy over the 
Logos.

The ice having been broken, there now follows the entire 
course of philosophic development which sets, in the place 
of the pure will logically conceived by Kant, the 
psychological will, constituting the latter the unique rule 
of life--a development due to Fichte, Schopenhauer, and von 
Hartmann--until it finds its clearest expression in 
Nietzsche. He proclaims the "will to power." For him, truth 
is that which makes life sound and noble, leading humanity 
further towards the goal of the "Superman."

Such is the origin of pragmatism, by which truth is no 
longer viewed as an independent value in the case of a 
conception of the universe or in spiritual matters, but as 
the expression of the fact that a principle or a system 
benefits life and actual affairs, and elevates the character 
and stability of the will.4 Truth is fundamentally, if not 
entirely--though here we overstep the field marked out for 
our consideration--a moral, though hardly a vital fact.

This predominance of the will and of the idea of its value 
gives the present day its peculiar character. It is the 
reason for its restless pressing forward, the stringent 
limiting of its hours of labor, the precipitancy of its 
enjoyment; hence, too, the worship of success, of strength, 
of action; hence the striving after power, and generally the 
exaggerated opinion of the value of time, and the compulsion 
to exhaust oneself by activity till the end. This is the 
reason, too, why spiritual organizations such as the old 
contemplative orders, which formerly were automatically 
accepted by spiritual life everywhere and which were the 
darlings of the orthodox world, are not infrequently 
misunderstood even by Catholics, and have to be defended by 
their friends against the reproach of idle trifling. And if 
it is true that this attitude of mind has already become 
firmly established in Europe, whose culture is rooted in the 
distant past, it is doubly true where the New World is 
concerned. There it comes to light unconcealed and 
unalloyed. The practical will is everywhere the decisive 
factor, and the Ethos has complete precedence over the 
Logos, the active side of life over the contemplative.

What is the position of Catholicism in relation to this 
development? It must be premised that the best elements of 
every period and of every type of mind can and will find 
their fulfillment in this Religion, which is truly capable 
of being all things to all men. So it has been possible to 
adapt the tremendous development of power during the last 
five centuries in Catholic life, and to summon ever fresh 
aspects from its inexhaustible store. A long investigation 
would be needed if we were to point out how many highly 
valuable personalities, tendencies, activities and views 
have been called forth from Catholic life as a result of 
this responsiveness to the needs of all ages. But it must be 
pointed out that an extensive, biased, and lasting 
predominance of the will over knowledge is profoundly at 
variance with the Catholic spirit.

Protestantism presents, in its various forms, ranging from 
the strong tendency to the extreme of free speculation, the 
more or less Christian version of this spirit, and Kant has 
rightly been called its philosopher. It is a spirit which 
has step by step abandoned objective religious truth, and 
has increasingly tended to make conviction a matter of 
personal judgment, feeling, and experience. In this way 
truth has fallen from the objective plane to the level of a 
relative and fluctuating value. As a result, the will has 
been obliged to assume the leadership. When the believer no 
longer possesses any fundamental principles, but only an 
experience of faith as it affects him personally, the one 
solid and recognizable fact is no longer a body of dogma 
which can be handed on in tradition, but the right action as 
a proof of the right spirit. In this connection there can be 
no talk of spiritual metaphysics in the real sense of the 
word. And when knowledge has nothing ultimately to seek in 
the Above, the roots of the will and of feeling are in their 
turn loosened from their adherence to knowledge. The 
relation with the super-temporal and eternal order is 
thereby broken. The believer no longer stands in eternity, 
but in time, and eternity is merely connected with time 
through the medium of conviction, but not in a direct 
manner. Religion becomes increasingly turned towards the 
world, and cheerfully secular. It develops more and more 
into a consecration of temporal human existence in its 
various aspects, into a sanctification of earthly activity, 
of vocational labor, of communal and family life, and so on.

Everyone, however, who has debated these matters at any 
considerable length clearly perceives the unwholesomeness of 
such a conception of spiritual life, and the flagrance of 
its contradiction of all fundamental spiritual principles. 
It is untrue, and therefore contrary to Nature in the 
deepest sense of the word. Here is the real source of the 
terrible misery of our day. It has perverted the sacred 
order of Nature. It was Goethe who really shook the latter 
when he made the doubting Faust write, not "In the beginning 
was the Word," but "In the beginning was the Deed."

While life's center of gravity was shifting from the Logos 
to the Ethos, life itself was growing increasingly 
unrestrained. Man's will was required to be responsible for 
him. Only one Will can do this, and that is creative in the 
absolute sense of the word, i.e., it is the Divine Will.5 
Man, then, was endowed with a quality which presumes that he 
is God. And since he is not, he develops a spiritual cramp, 
a kind of weak fit of violence, which takes effect often in 
a tragic, and sometimes (in the case of lesser minds) even a 
ludicrous manner. This presumption is guilty of having put 
modern man into the position of a blind person groping his 
way in the dark, because the fundamental force upon which it 
has based life--the will-is blind. The will can function and 
produce, but cannot see. From this is derived the 
restlessness which nowhere finds tranquillity. Nothing is 
left, nothing stands firm, everything alters, life is in 
continual flux; it is a constant struggle, search, and 
wandering.

Catholicism opposes this attitude with all its strength. The 
Church forgives everything more readily than an attack on 
truth. She knows that if a man falls, but leaves truth 
unimpaired, he will find his way back again. But if he 
attacks the vital principle, then the sacred order of life 
is demolished. Moreover, the Church has constantly viewed 
with the deepest distrust every ethical conception of truth 
and of dogma. Any attempt to base the truth of a dogma 
merely on its practical value is essentially unCatholic.6 
The Church represents truth--dogma--as an absolute fact, 
based upon itself, independent of all confirmation from the 
moral or even from the practical sphere. Truth is truth 
because it is truth. The attitude of the will to it, and its 
action towards it, is of itself a matter of indifference to 
truth. The will is not required to prove truth, nor is the 
latter obliged to give an account of itself to the will, but 
the will has to acknowledge itself as perfectly incompetent 
before truth. It does not create the latter, but it finds 
it. The will has to admit that it is blind and needs the 
light, the leadership, and the organizing formative power of 
truth. It must admit as a fundamental principle the primacy 
of knowledge over the will, of the Logos over the Ethos.7

This "primacy" has been misunderstood. It is not a question 
of a priority of value or of merit. Nor is there any 
suggestion that knowledge is more important than action in 
human life. Still less does a desire exist to direct people 
as to the advisability of setting about their affairs with 
prayer or with action. The one is just as valuable and 
meritorious as the other. It is partly a question of 
disposition; the tone of a man's life will accentuate either 
knowledge or action; and the one type of disposition is 
worth as much as the other. The "Primacy" is far rather a 
matter of culture--philosophy, and indeed it consists of the 
question as to which value in the whole of culture and of 
human life the leadership will be assigned, and which 
therefore will determine the decisive tendency; it is a 
precedence of order, therefore, of leadership, not of merit, 
significance, or even of frequency.

But if we concern ourselves further with the question, the 
idea occurs that the conception of the Primacy of the Logos 
over the Ethos could not be the final one. Perhaps it should 
be put thus: in life as a whole, precedence does not belong 
to action, but to existence. What ultimately matters is not 
activity, but development. The roots of and the perfection 
of everything lie, not in time, but in eternity. Finally, 
not the moral, but the metaphysical conception of the world 
is binding, not the worth-judgment, but the import-judgment, 
not struggle, but worship.

These trains of thought, however, trespass beyond the limits 
of this little book. The further question--if a final 
precedence must not be allotted to love seems to be linked 
with a different chain of thought. Its solution perhaps lies 
within the possibilities we have already discussed. When one 
knows, for instance, that for a time truth is the decisive 
standard, it is still not quite established whether truth 
insists upon love or upon frigid majesty; the Ethos can be 
an obligation of the law, as with Kant, or the obligation of 
creative love. And even face to face with existence it is 
still an open question whether this obligation is a final 
rigid inevitability, or if it is love transcending all 
measure, in which the impossible itself becomes possible, to 
which hope can appeal against all hope. That is what is 
meant by the question whether love is not the greatest of 
these. Indeed, it is.

Nothing less than this was announced by the "good tidings."

In this sense, too, as far as the primacy of truth--but 
"truth in love"--is concerned, the present question is to be 
resolved.

As soon as this is done the foundation of spiritual health 
is established. For the soul needs absolutely firm ground on 
which to stand. It needs a support by which it can raise 
itself, a sure external point beyond itself, and that can 
only be supplied by truth. The knowledge of pure truth is 
the fundamental factor of spiritual emancipation. "The truth 
shall make you free."8 The soul needs that spiritual 
relaxation in which the convulsions of the will are stilled, 
the restlessness of struggle quietened, and the shrieking of 
desire silenced; and that is fundamentally and primarily the 
act of intention by which thought perceives truth, and the 
spirit is silent before its splendid majesty.

In dogma, the fact of absolute truth, inflexible and 
eternal, entirely independent of a basis of practicality, we 
possess something which is inexpressibly great. When the 
soul becomes aware of it, it is overcome by a sensation as 
of having touched the mystic guarantee of universal sanity; 
it perceives dogma as the guardian of all existence, 
actually and really the rock upon which the universe rests. 
"In the beginning was the Word"--the Logos....

For this reason the basis of all genuine and healthy life is 
a contemplative one. No matter how great the energy of the 
volition and action and striving may be, it must rest on the 
tranquil contemplation of eternal, unchangeable truth. This 
attitude is rooted in eternity. It is peaceful, it has that 
interior restraint which is a victory over life.

It is not in a hurry, but has time. It can afford to wait 
and to develop.

This spiritual attitude is really Catholic. And if it is 
also a fact, as some maintain, that Catholicism is in many 
aspects, as compared with the other denominations, 
"backward," by all means let it be. Catholicism could not 
join in the furious pursuit of the unchained will, torn from 
its fixed and eternal order. But it has in exchange 
preserved something that is irreplaceably precious, for 
which, if it were to recognize it, the non-Catholic 
spiritual world would willingly exchange all that it has; 
and this is the primacy of the Logos over the Ethos, and by 
this, harmony with the established and immutable laws of all 
existence.

Although as yet the liturgy has not been specifically 
mentioned, everything which has been said applies to it. In 
the liturgy the Logos has been assigned its fitting 
precedence over the will.9 Hence the wonderful power of 
relaxation proper to the liturgy, and its deep 
reposefulness. Hence its apparent consummation entirely in 
the contemplation, adoration and glorification of Divine 
Truth. This is also the explanation of the fact that the 
liturgy is apparently so little disturbed by the petty 
troubles and needs of everyday life. It also accounts for 
the comparative rareness of its attempts at direct teaching 
and direct inculcation of virtue. The liturgy has something 
in itself reminiscent of the stars, of their eternally fixed 
and even course, of their inflexible order, of their 
profound silence, and of the infinite space in which they 
are poised. It is only in appearance, however, that the 
liturgy is so detached and untroubled by the actions and 
strivings and moral position of men. For in reality it knows 
that those who live by it will be true and spiritually 
sound, and at peace to the depths of their being; and that 
when they leave its sacred confines to enter life they will 
be men of courage.



ENDNOTES

1. Both in this connection and in countless others we find 
demonstrated the absolute necessity of the extra-liturgical 
forms of spiritual exercise, the Rosary, the Stations of the 
Cross, popular devotions, meditation, etc. There could be no 
greater mistake than the attempt to build up liturgical life 
on an exclusively liturgical model. And it is equally 
mistaken merely to tolerate the other forms, because the 
"lower classes" need them, while setting the liturgy as the 
only possible pattern and guide before struggling humanity. 
Both are necessary. The one complements the other. Pride of 
place, however, belongs of course to the liturgy, because it 
is the official prayer of the Church.

(Cf. my book, "Der Kreuzweg unseres Hernn und Heilandes," 
Introduction, Mainz, 1921)

2. Cf. the discussions on the significance of theology as to 
whether it is a "pure" science or one with an aim, that of 
bettering humanity; upon the essence of eternal happiness, 
whether it ultimately consists in the contemplation of God 
or in the love of Him; on the dependence of the will upon 
knowledge, and so on.

3. It is significant that it was not until the seventeenth 
century, and then in the face of universal opposition, that 
active Orders for women were founded. The history of the 
Order of the Visitation is especially instructive in this 
connection.

4. This tendency has also influenced Catholic thought. A 
great deal of modernistic thought endeavors to make 
theological truth--dogma-dependent upon Christian life and 
to estimate its importance not as a standard of truth, but 
as a value in life.

5. Yet even here reason affirms that God is not merely an 
Absolute Will but, at the same time, truth and goodness. 
Revelation seals this, as it does every form of spiritual 
perception, by showing us that in the Blessed Trinity the 
"first thing" is the begetting of the Son through the 
recognition of the Father, and the "second" (according to 
thought, of course, not according to time) is the breathing 
forth of the Holy Ghost through the love of Both.

6. Here nothing is said, of course, against the endeavor to 
exhibit the value of dogma in the abstract, and that of the 
single dogmatic truth for life. On the contrary, this can 
never be done forcibly enough.

7. This is said of knowledge, not of comprehension of the 
primacy of knowledge over the practical, of the 
contemplative over the active life in the way understood by 
the Middle Ages, even if it lacks the latter's cultural-
historical characteristics. On the other hand, it is 
impossible for us to free ourselves sufficiently from the 
domination of pure comprehension, as it has endured for half 
a century.

8. John viii. 32. 

9. Because it reposes upon existence, upon the essential, 
and even upon existence in love, as I hope to be able to 
demonstrate upon a future