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Changes in Prayer Life |
The religious understanding and thinking of the people are not revealed in theoretical discussions; they are to be found rather in their prayer. We have had occasion to point out various manifestations of this prayer life when treating of the changes which have taken place in religious thought-patterns.
The official prayer of the Church – the liturgy – has been relatively the least affected by such changes, although even here the impact of the anti-Arian defense movement called forth most obvious modifications of the Roman liturgy through the admixture of Gallican forms, modifications extending even to the unchanging parts of our daily Mass. Still new forms could only be introduced into the area of the liturgy insofar as they could survive the careful scrutiny of Church authorities and meet not only certain demands of theological accuracy but also those of fidelity to tradition, fullness of thought and sound spirituality.
Such changes could come about without hindrance, however, in popular, extraliturgical piety. The first thing we note about these changes is the almost total disappearance of the thought of Christ as Mediator. One might have expected a certain Old Testament simplicity of prayer to have developed as a result of this, somewhat along the lines of the gravity and raw power with which the prayer of the Psalms mounts uniquely and repeatedly to the divine majesty.
The result, however, was quite different, and it had to be so. The holy names, which in older forms of Christian prayer had been united to form a well-ordered cosmos, were all worthy of veneration – and they remained so even as they tended to become more or less separated in Christian thinking from this cosmos. We meet now an ever growing dissection and differentiation in the object of popular prayer. Thus we find that prayer is directed to God, to the Father, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, to the Mother of God, to the choirs of angels and to individual angelic spirits, to the hosts of the saints and to individual saints in heaven. The litanies, whose oldest form came to the West from the East around the seventh century, are an attempt to bring all the invocations of these holy names into a well-ordered arrangement. The veneration of Christ, hardly ever orientated to His continuous glorified existence in heaven, now turns to a pious meditation of the individual mysteries of His earthly life. It loves to dwell on definite turning points of that life: turning suppliantly to the Savior, to the crucified Christ, to Our Lord on the Mount of Olives, to the Child in the crib. At other times it seeks Him in the Blessed Sacrament, or it gathers together all His adorable qualities as found in the holy names that have been given to Him. And on still other occasions, it unites these adorable qualities in the symbol of His heart.
First of all we meet with invocations and hymnal salutations. These found a ready and early acceptance even into the liturgy. Here they often form the Acclamation or preliminary step on the part of the people, upon which their prayer mounts up to the Oration of the priest. Out of them arose devotions, orbits of prayer, as it were, centering about a single holy name, which could become something of a spiritual home in which the prayerful soul dwelt with predilection Monastic piety of the early Middle Ages was already acquainted with devotions of this kind.
For a long time the forms of these devotions kept to the pattern of the liturgy. Thus the veneration of Mary took on the form of the Officium parvum beatae Mariae Virginis (The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin) from the time of the tenth century – an Office built entirely along the stylistic norms of the breviary. When the Salve Regina or other Marian hymns were added to the daily Office in the twelfth century, this was not done without having the hymn (which even today is designated only as an antiphon and not as a formal prayer) flow over into an Oration which the priestly celebrant offered to God through Christ, Our Lord. Similarly the Ave Maria first appears as an antiphon (as in the Antiphonarium Gregorianum of the early Middle Ages). The effort to keep private devotion as close to the liturgy as possible, and thus have it benefit from the liturgical norms of prayer, can be seen in the "Book of Hours" of the late Middle-Ages – the dominant form of devotional literature.
After the Council of Trent a uniform Roman liturgy was prescribed for the entire Western Church and all independent diocesan changes forbidden. Alongside the beneficial results of this new decree, a less fortunate one arose, namely, the gradual weakening of the interaction between popular devotion and liturgy. It became much more difficult for new religious trends to gain access to the sanctuary of the liturgy. On the other hand the formative power, which the ancient liturgy had exerted on popular piety and especially on new forms of devotion, now lost much of its effectiveness. Evening devotions, for example, became freer; their stylistic norms grew slack. The greatest diversity appeared in the arrangement of prayers with regard both to their origin and the holy persons to whom they were directed.
Particularly lost was the feeling that it is the office of the priestly leader of the prayer-assembly to gather together in a final Collect all the acclamations and songs reflecting the prayer of the people and carry this "collected prayer" to God through Christ. This lack of orderly restraint has also found expression (in part, at least) in the form and manner by which the people accompany the celebration of Mass in prayer or song. It is the sense of corporate worship, however, which has suffered the greatest setback in modern times. It is the devotional prayer book that has taken on significance, as it is the prayer book which in turn reflects all too clearly the picture of disunity of which we are speaking.
Severance of popular devotion from the formative influence of liturgical norms exerted a particularly strong impact in the area of Eucharistic piety. Loving contemplation discovered ever new regions in which to dwell while in the sacramental presence of Christ. In doing so, however, it allowed itself to be drawn away from the solidifying core of the spiritual cosmos to a marginal zone which could on occasion enrich us, indeed be sufficient for many individual souls, but which could not be a lasting home for all. Thus devout affection tarried with "the silent recluse (prisoner) in the tabernacle," shared in His solitude and poverty, meditated on all His virtues. Going a step further, one arrived at the concept of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus and with it a new point of departure was initiated for contemplation. Again one might be lost in wonder at the Savior’s obedience to the word of the consecrating priest, forgetting somewhat that He Himself is the Priest in whose name the other speaks that word. Lost from sight as well is the fact that the glorified Savior lives on in the Sacrament, that the holy Church is also Christ’s Body with whose manifold life the Eucharistic Body of the Lord is meant to unite us more deeply.
To compensate for what they have lost through isolation from the total organism of the Christian concept of salvation, self-contained devotions tend to emphasize in every possible way their own inherent values, particularly affective values. When proper attention is not given to the fact that we have access to the Father through Christ, when men become accustomed to see in Christ Himself primarily the appearance of God in the world who conceals Himself under the veil of the humanity, then forms of devotion will of psychological necessity be characterized by a sense of fear before the majesty of God, now directly encountered. The so-called "Apologies," which began to influence liturgical prayer during the early Middle Ages in the northern countries, are eloquent witness to this fact. It is quite understandable that men sought refuge with ever greater ardor in God’s Mother and that the appeal to her mediation took on greater significance in their prayer life. Particularly since the end of the tenth century the veneration of Mary has continued with increasingly greater vigor. The excessive attack of the Reformers against it only succeeded in giving it new vitality.
The early unreflecting prayer of the people simply sought Mary’s mediation with God. A certain ceremonious note enters into the thought-processes of such prayer when efforts are made to shape the popular forms of devotion within the structure of theological concepts. Thus Mary is seen as the Mediatrix before Christ, as Christ is the Mediator before God (a favorite thought of St. Bernard), and saints are depicted as interceding with Mary (as, for example, in Tintoretto’s painting of St. Francis interceding with Mary for the Poor Souls). Though the simple prayer of the people seeking Mary’s intercession before God reflected the mode of speech of liturgical tradition, there was this difference: the liturgy always holds fast to the mediation of Christ as the decisive form of our prayer (thus we pray: intercedente beata Dei Genetrice, per Christum Dominum nostrum – "by the intercession of the blessed Mother of God, through Christ Our Lord"), whereas in the consciousness of the people, Marian mediation was in a certain sense a substitute for the mediatorial role of Christ which was no longer clearly understood.
In addition to this Marian devotion we also find men seeking to emphasize the features of kindness and mercy in the picture of Christ Himself which could arouse and strengthen confidence. In a special way Christ’s bitter sufferings should not only move us to sympathy but likewise remind us of the great desire He has for our salvation. His wounds, then, should become a refuge for poor sinners.
At an earlier time, then, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was an attempt to present the picture of Christ in such a way that in Him would be seen the ultimate depths of God’s entire love and thus Christian hearts would be summoned to a more effective reciprocal love. There can be no doubt that this devotion became a school of the highest sanctity for countless souls. To prove this, one must only point to the innumerable religious communities that have placed their heroic works of love, their zeal for souls, their thirst for God under the title of the Sacred Heart.
On the other hand one would be closing his eyes to the facts, were he unwilling to see that wide circles are displeased with many of the current forms of the devotion. Among these are esthetically sensitive individuals who take offense at the ordinary pictures of the Sacred Heart and the less than classical prayer formulas, matter-of-fact people who are distressed by a systematic appeal to the emotions, and finally, those who maintain a cool reserve out of the belief that they have discovered something greater, much as they admit the sufficiency of devotion to the Sacred Heart for many souls.
On this point, however, it would seem that much of the antagonism to the devotion of the Sacred Heart among the well-disposed is only opposition to the most superficial forms of the devotion.1 The danger of a certain devitalization is certainly greatest in the case of a devotion which, of its entire nature, is based on the deepest kind of commitment. Father Lippert speaks of a glowing flame whose form alone remains in prayer books and devotions as in a void once the flame itself has died down (Von Seele zu Seele, Freiburg, 1925, p. 25). Yet this has not been the fate, in any notable way, of that form of the devotion which was born most directly of mystical experience, namely, the Sacred Heart devotion spread abroad by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. The far more reasoned form of this devotion, as presented by St. John Eudes – and joined by him to devotion to the Heart of Mary – has, perhaps, suffered much more content-wise in the popular forms of its practice.
Another attempt to bring out, in an image, the graciousness and friendliness of the Incarnate God and thus span the enormous distance between man and God is to be found in the devotion to the Infancy of Jesus. In its origins it is practically just another way of contemplating the same mystery from which all Marian devotion takes it rise: the mystery of the Incarnation. Hence this devotion reaches its first high-point simultaneously with the celebration of the Incarnation and its vivid portrayal in the crib-scene of St. Francis of Assisi at Gubbio. It attained new impetus from the movement which centered about Cardinal Berulle. The custom sprang up, in circles filled with his spirit, of celebrating a monthly feast of the Child Jesus on the 25th of each month, just as the 25th of March anticipated the mystery of Christmas. And in certain circles the devotion lives on everywhere today, with an emphasis, to be sure, on somewhat pretty and childish features which occasionally lead up to an unintentional disparagement of the Holy One.2
Related to this devotion, but born perhaps of a different spirit, is the devotion to the Holy Family. The last stages of the Middle Ages witnessed countless portrayals of the Holy Family as the childhood history of Jesus was lovingly contemplated, and the art of the Renaissance found one of its favorite themes here. Alongside its winning graciousness a new element gradually comes to the fore: the devotion offers a symbol, an exemplar of virtue. In a day when men were proclaiming the collapse of the family, Leo XIII tirelessly pointed to the example of the Holy Family and advocated its veneration. About 1890 a movement arose to promote the consecration of families to the Holy Family. We find here, then, various attempts to offset a threatened collapse of the family by means of a religious ideal – attempts which sooner or later must be transmuted into a progressive development of the total-ideal, into a mobilization of its whole inner force, if decisive success can truly be hoped for.
Along with this emphasis on a type, a moral ideal often presented in great detail, we also encounter a pronounced rational trend which, in more recent times particularly, accompanied forms of devotion arising from a stress on affective values. This trend is characterized by vigorous planning, by a computing of the goal to be sought in a given devotion. Not that this necessarily infers a wrong course of action. Indeed, such a trend can, in a certain sense, be taken for granted, knowing how planning proved its validity in the area of religious and pastoral life during the Counter-Reformation, and, in fact, had to do so. And yet there is always a danger in this process of going from the rational to the intellectualistic. This rational tendency, already characteristic of the times, was nourished by post-Tridentine theology which had gone back to clear concepts and had been forced by the Reformers to give attention in a special way to practical questions regarding the Christian life: to the virtues, to good works, to merit.
As we have previously seen, this period of resurgent dogmatic theology was rather inclined to transfer quite ingenuously its particularized concepts, primarily designed for scientific and apologetical clarification, to the area of the proclamation of the faith, and thus these concepts worked their way into catechisms and into prayer life. The Quietist had asserted that one need never, throughout his life, make an act of faith, of hope, and of love. Alexander VII condemned this proposition in 1665 (see Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1101). From this time on the custom spread of reciting acts of faith, hope and charity before or after the sermon at the parish Sunday Mass. This was often done in formulas which resembled theological definitions more than prayers, describing with scientific accuracy the material and formal objects of the respective virtue. Judging from the impression these formulas create us, the men of this time quite evidently lost sight of something, the fact, namely, that one also "exercises" faith when he recites the Apostles’ Creed, indeed practices faith. hope and love when he participates as a Catholic in divine worship. True, this was only done virtually in such cases, but there is no obligation to elicit acts of the theological virtues in a formal way and with a distinct act for each. Besides, it is very doubtful whether, from the psychological standpoint, the desired effect is best obtained by a logically clear definition.
Much the same is to be said about contrition. New, theologically exact formulations of a prayer appeared which, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, were spread everywhere in an amazing short time as the practice of perfect contrition – "the golden key to heaven."3 It was not long before these acts of contrition appeared in all catechisms and were recited from the pulpit on Sundays along with the acts of faith, hope and love, as well as the formulas for a good intention and the "offering up" of the Mass. At times this was done immediately after the Offene Schuld – the old, simple Confiteor in the vernacular – had been recited with the people. Obviously there was a lack of awareness here that the Offene Schuld was itself an exercise of contrition, an acknowledgement of guilt on the part of the contrite penitent in the sight of the sacred majesty of God and the entire court of heaven. There was this difference, however: the motives for contrition were not given with such completeness nor prepared with scientific precision, though on that very score better suited to gain a vital response from the one who was praying.
The "offering up" of the Mass bears the same theological stamp. By this act, which was in full conformity with the prevailing theological emphasis on the essence and efficacy of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the Mass was "offered up" as a sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving, petition and reparation. One would have realized, it seems, that actual participation in the celebration of Mass embraced all these points, not formally and with logical precision, to be sure, but more organically and in a form better adapted to man’s psychic life and the nature of prayer.
A predilection for the prayer of petition – a prayer largely concerned with the temporal and the material – is likewise bound up with this attitude of the spiritual life that is orientated toward planning and toward the practical. Not that this type of prayer is a distinctive feature of our times. Every age has confirmed the adage: need teaches prayer. This was true in early Christianity, whose prayer life is in many respects a good exemplar for us. When the faithful rushed to the graves of the martyrs and set out on pilgrimages, the motive-power behind it all was largely a hope of obtaining all manner of benefits. While a pure theocentrism of religio-moral life is a lofty ideal which we should never lose from sight, the pastoral ministry will have to be satisfied for the most part with the liturgy’s petition: sic transire per bona temporalia, ut non amittamus aeterna ("to so pass through the world of temporal goods, as not to lose those that are eternal"; cf., Oration, Third Sunday after Pentecost).
Nonetheless it would seem that the prayer of petition does have an undue preponderance in the popular conception of prayer today. This is connected with the loosening of the ties binding us to the liturgy which, as the divine worship of the Church, as the glorification of God by the Christian community, is essentially orientated to the prayer of worshipful adoration, whereas the individual soul, thrown back upon itself, is all too easily caught in the spell of its own needs. It is connected, too, with the way in which prayer has been built into our catechesis and our catechism. If it is connected with hope in the section on the theological virtues or brought in under the means of grace, then instruction on prayer is already based on anthropocentric considerations. That there is a difference between the modern and ancient spirit of prayer can be seen in this: the Fathers regularly closed their preaching with a doxology, while our preaching today almost invariably ends up with a reference to eternal happiness.
On the other hand Our Lord Himself taught us the prayer of petition, and in an especial way the petition for our daily bread, when He gave us the Our Father. The words clearly indicate a true request for the needs of our earthy life, but also the recognition that the gifts at our disposal come to us only from the hand of God. In this sense we offer "grace" before a spread table; we recognize the gifts as God’s gifts and we also pray that they may prove beneficial to us.
From a similar duality of thought the rich harvest of the Church’s blessings has grown out of a God-orientated liturgy and a land-rooted people. From earliest Christian times the Church blessed the firstlings of field and garden, indeed in such a way that this blessing was united to that greatest of blessings imparted to the Eucharistic Bread, as we still recall in those words of the Canon: per quem haec omnia semper bona creas ("through whom You always create all these good things"). She blesses home and farm, fire, food and drink, mother and child; she invokes a blessing against crop failure, storms, sickness.
Given the knowledge of nature and medicine prevalent during the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that the Christian people treasured these blessings largely because of the temporal benefits they hoped to obtain and at times superstitiously ascribed a power to objects blessed for their help and protection, contrary to the mind of the Church. The very uncertainty with which man faced a mysterious, slightly explored nature, brought along with it the danger that his prayer and church-going would become in great part an appeal to the power of religion and the Church to grant blessings.
We can expect, then, given such a frame of mind, that religious thought and action experienced, and still experiences, a certain upheaval with the impact of the natural sciences on popular consciousness. We now note a reaction among broad sectors of the rural population similar to the one produced a century earlier among townspeople by the so-called Enlightenment. Today the new scientific discoveries have reached the last outposts, through schools, transportation, travel, newspapers. With the advent of technological advances in rural economy, with farm-organizations and insurance companies and the like, today’s farmer faces the future with a certain optimistic over-evaluation of all these wonderful things. We all know that we should first look for help in the lightning-rod, in insurance policies, in the doctor and in hygiene; but we also know that the world has not ceased on that account to be God’s creation, that His omnipotence does not, as Deism contended, stand hopelessly apart from a perpetually enclosed natural causality.
We should, however, take cognizance of a far-reaching change with regard to religious life – to the advantage of religious life. The Church’s blessings have suffered no slight loss in the esteem they once had; their number, as well as that of exorcisms, has been considerably reduced. But as a compensation to this, we are now in a position to restore these blessings to their original purpose, namely, that in them we learn to accept earth-born gifts from the hand of God, that in them we see the saving power, which goes out from Christ, penetrating all the way down to the earthly creation and to the things of our daily use, sanctifying time and space, so that all these things may be our helpers, through the prayer of the Church, on our pilgrimage homewards to God. In this way religious life will be purified or alleviated of admixtures that are all too temporally egoistic and profit-seeking. We have no reason whatever to stand in the way of this purification.
A preacher or catechist would be doubly mistaken today were he to fashion the providence of the mighty Creator-God into an idyll of the fatherly anxiety of the "good God" and the pious self-will of His dear ones; were he to think that he should argue away the tragic which the Creator allows in nature and human life for our testing; were he desirous of presenting a vision of the world that contradicts our clearer understanding of the laws. He has implanted in nature – a vision that runs counter to the more sober mentality of man today. The desire for earthly assistance in the small cares of everyday life will seldom lead the mature man of our times into the Church and get him to pray. Hence the road is clear once again for a more direct and upright approach to God, for a religious life in which we can truly first seek the Kingdom of God and His justice, for an active participation in the liturgy in which we, in union with the entire Church, joyously praise the Father who is in heaven.
1 Translator’s Note The problem referred to here was still of vital concern twenty years later, as can be seen from Pius XII’s Encyclical, Haurietis Aquas, of May 15, 1956. Though written on the occasion of the centenary of the extension of the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the universal Church, this is no mere commemorative document. From the outset attention is called to the opinions of those who regard devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus "as less suited – not to say detrimental – to the more pressing spiritual needs of the Church and the human race in our times." Precisely in light of these opinions, Pius XII endeavors to show the singular excellence of this devotion by a lengthy study of "its nature in the light of divinely revealed truth." Concluding this study he notes: "From the explanations which We have given... it is perfectly clear that the faithful must trace devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus back to Sacred Scripture, tradition and the liturgy, if they wish to understand its real meaning and, through pious meditation, receive food to nourish and increase their religious fervor." As will be seen from the final section of this book (Chapter 12, "Guiding Principles for Devotion"), Jungmann’s basic orientation suggested just such a return to the sources for a true appreciation and fruitful practice of this devotion.
2 Translator’s Note In a footnote the author recalls how in a famous Advent sermon, 1933, Cardinal Faulhaber inveighed against a certain "infantilism" which, with its sweet references to "the Little Jesus and the little angels," dims the splendor of the Christmas mystery. See Judentum, Christentum, Germanentum, München o. J., p. 80.
3 Translator’s Note In a footnote the author observes that this practice achieved no slight gain insofar as it contributed to a better understanding of the process of justification, particularly in cases wherein the sacrament could not be received. On the debit side, however, one should note that from now on there will be a growing temptation to give up penitential practices, owing to confidence in the prescribed act of contrition, whereas in earlier days the performance of penance was appraised as an indispensable sign of a contrite disposition.