Amy Welborn Reads My Mind

The “changes” that Benedict made to the liturgical direction of the Church are not expressions of his aesthetic or taste. What Benedict did was to implement the Church’s liturgy in the Church’s  practice. There are documents. Decrees and such. Books. Rubrics. Believe it or not, Benedict’s reset button was really nothing more than pointing us to what we are supposed to be doing anyway. If you don’t believe me, read them yourself. There is a deeper theological and spiritual reasoning and structure as well, but really, the basic goal was: fidelity to what the Church offers. If you read Ratzinger on liturgy,  his thinking is quite pastoral. It basically comes down to: Every Catholic has the right to the  Church’s liturgy. 

The rest of her reflections are well worth reading. The above echoes my thoughts exactly. The liturgical reforms promoted by the Pope Emeritus were not conservative, or Bavarian, or Renaissance, or Gamber. They were pastoral. They were ecclesial. They followed the documents.

I often think back to the man I met outside Mass one day during the Colloquium in Chicago. He was a a maintenance worker at Loyola, a Catholic, and he was blown away by the beauty of the music at the Colloquium Mass. In his parish, he said, they did not have beautiful music like this. He wished they did.

In season and out of season, we work to make sure the People of God have the good things they are entitled to, according to the mind of the Church. It takes a lot of work, like any excellence. And it is worth all the effort.