Liturgy.........--···--··------.

Libuany

c ist e r c ia o f t he st r o bs e rv a nc VOL.6 N0.1 MARCH 1972

L I T U R G Y Vol ume 6, Number 1 / March 1972

EDITOR Is PAGE 1

SONG AND CELEBRATION 3Jean LEBON

THE CELEBRATION OF SEXT IN THE REFECTORY: A REPORT ON THE BRICQUEBECJean-Pierre CHATELI N

EXPERIMENT 7

PSYCHOPHONY IN THE MONASTERY or "MADAME AUCHER IN OUR MIDST" 17Cl ai re CUSSET

A CIRCULAR LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF OUR LITURGY COMMISSION 23Gerard DUBOIS

MEETI NG OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE FEDERATION OF DIOCESAN LITURGY COMMISSIONS, AT THE MONASTERY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, JANUARY

Anthony DELISI

1972 39

THE FOURTH GENERAL MEETI NG OF THE CISTERCIAN FRANCOPHONE LITURGY COMMISSION: BELVAL, NOVEMBER 10-1 3, 1971 43

Mari e-Cl ai re SACHOTTHREE ROYAL PSALMS WITH ANTIPHONS 71

Father Benedi ct of AvaFROM THE SINS OF MY YOUTH: AN ESSAY WITH THE TITLE 11AN ASPECT OFTHE CHANT REFORM CALLED 'BERNARDINE'" 81

Chrysogonus WADDELL

LITURGY Bulletin serves to share with others whatever thoughts and expe riences may contribute towards the development of a living liturgy for today.

Manuscripts should be forwarded to: Fr. ChrysogonusGethsemani Abbey

Trappist, Kentucky 40073 USA)

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EDITOR Is PAGE

So long as the undersigned is responsible for the redaction of

our English-version Liturgy O.C.S.O., it seems unlikely that the Editor 's Page is going to be remarkable for the profundity of the thoughts there expressed. In point of fact, what I offer in this current issue is only a sort of brief Newsletter touching on a few unrelated topics.

First, a word about Liturgy itself. Most of our readers are aware

that we also have a French version which goes by the title Liturgie O.C.S.O.When our Liturgy Colltlllissioµ first inaugurated this liturgy bulletin, it was presumed that the two versions (French and English) would always be

more or less identical as regards contents. This was an illusion which was soon dispelled. At a very early date, material contributed to one or the other language-edition dealt with matters so uni,quely French, or so- uniquely Anglo-American, that the idea of parallel publications proved impractical .Since that time, however, contributions from the English-speaking world have been all too rare; and most of the material to appear in these pages has come to us. from French-speaking monks and nuns. It would be most encouraging indeed, were more material to appear in original English versions, and not in the tortured English prose which represents my attempts at ren dering French articles into a rough English equivalent.

A more abundant in flux of English contributions would in no way diminish the steady and valu able flow of French contributions, but would simply mean a somewhat faster rhythm of publication.

Until the yery recent past, Dom Armand Veilleux of l1istassini, Canada, has been the equivalent of our ''Editor-in-chief". The pressure of abbatial duties has resulted in his request that a substitute be found, and his man tle has fallen on the very worthy shoulders of a confrere whom both Fr. Ar mand and I have

known and loved since our student days in Rome -Fr. Jean Eudes

David of Bricquebec . Readers of Liturgy are already acquainted with Fr. Jean-Eudes, thanks to his many and valuable contributions to these pages (which actually represent only a fraction of his

contribution s to our French bulletin Litu:rigie). Poet, Scripture scholar, theologian, musician, monk and priest -Fr.Jean-Eudes is "ye compleat liturgist''.

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'Dui;-ing the past several months, I've received a number of letters asking fo,r information about our Holy Week and Paschal Vigil project ap proved by our last General Chapter (April-May, 1971). Through some un accountable oversight, the project wasnl t submitted to the Sacred Congre gation for Divine Worship in the immediate aftermath of the General Chap ter. In late January I was with the President of our Liturgy -connnission, Fr. Grard Dubois, who, like me, had come to Rome to take part in several inter-Order meetings devoted to questions touching on the calendar, the Office, and a Monastic Lectionary Supplement (1'3,rd Nocturn" homilies), On this occasion we re-worked the "presentation text" in the light of recent legislation and developments . Fr. Gerard put everything into its final shape after his return to his monastery; and this was the version presented to the Holy See through the usual channels. I've heard nothing further by way of official correspondence . However, our Anglo-American Definitor,

Dom Bernard Johnson, has just informed me viva voae that the text has beenapproved on a temporary basis, pending further and more leisurely study of the project by the experts in the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.

Many of us are also deeply interested in the problem of inter-Order collaboration with a view to shaping up a monastic calendar common to the Benedictine Confederation and to the Cistercian Observances; and even more problematical is the question of a basic Office-structure and series of psalm-distribution schemes obligatory for the same monastic families. Af ter the inter-Order discussions held at Rome in early February, the Abbot General of the Connnon Observance, Dom Sighard Kleiner, took the initiative of contacting the Abbot Primate of the Benedictines as well as our own Ab bot General, with a view to arranging a "top-level" confrontation of the rpresentatives of the three Orders with Cardinal Tabera and Archbishop Bugnini. An interview had tentatively been projected for early April, if not late March. But so far, this plan has not been put into effect.

Deeply concerned as many of us might be, it would be a mistake to be come s o concerned that we lose our sensitivity to the really important things, Liturgy follows real life and authentic spiritual experience,

The future shape of our liturgy will be determined less by extrinsic

fac tors than by the quality and intensity of our life in Christ. Our real con tribution to li:.twg;i::ca,1 rene'Wal, then, is- going to be our life in the Spir

it, From that, all else will follow. (' s i.-

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SONG AND CELEBRATION *

There are a thousand diff e.rent ways of expressing love or friend-ship: f ran a p:>ern to a bouquet of f lowers; fran a sinple but deeply express ive gesture to the nost intense kind of silence, with inbetween stagesmarked by w::>rds in greater or lesser abundance. The variety is limitless!But one cannot interchange all these various fOllllS of expression; and itis real love alone which always f inds the perfect expression. However, this does not mean that the best fom of expression is always the ItDst ref ined one, or the nost solemn.

The same is true for prayer. Music is only one neans of expression a m::mg many others; and the value attached to our prayer is not to be neasured acoording to the richness of the means enployed. "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrif ice'' (Hos 6:6)• "I hate, I despise your feasts'' (Amos5:21 ) . These biblical citations serve to derr¥thologize the adage sanetinesused a bit thoughtlessly -To sillg is to pray twice.

Music and Unanimity But once this has been said, it renains true thatsin]ing is one of the privileged neans of

expressing our oc::mmmity prayer, because it f acilitates a certain kind of unanimity. Indeed, the very nature of our faith makes us pray with one single heart. How can we better signify this than by praying as of one sillgle voice? And how can we pray as of one single voice if we do not

have the support of song?

Prayer of the Whole Ma n · On the other hand, rrusic gives the words a resonance, a halo, an impetus of life which they

would not othe.l::wise have.

For quite sane tine we have been reacting -and rightly so -against a sort of mystic inebriation srrothered in billows of incense srroke and

the

* This a:l'ticZe appea:l's with the kind permission of the Author, who is di rector of the IMS at LiUe, France, and of the Editors of the magazinein which the French originaZ of this a:l'ticZe first appea:l'ed, Information liturgique aux communauts religieuses 14 (1971), pp .4-5.

The principZes here enunciated appZy no Zess weZl to the celebration of the Eucha:l'ist than to the celebration of the Office.

4

lush sounds of a ranantic organ: all of which is like a musty whiff of neo paganism, against which our f aith always has to be on its guard. rut could it be possible that the pendulun is swingin:J too far in the opposite direc

tiai? We a.re perhaps running the risk of celebratin:J in an overly cerebral manner, and of forgetting that we a.re oot only intellect but also affectivi ty which should also have its role in the expression of our prayer.

So f ar as God is ooncemed, it does oot matter much whether we sin} or whether we do not sin:J; but so· f ar as we a.re concerned, we have to be in volved in the totality of our be:inJ. When I pray , I sey what I am, but I also bec::ane what I say, I beccrce what I do. My prayer acts on me in a sort of boorerang return. If my prayer is only an act of my intellect, it willaf fect only my .intellect, without producirg rnuch of an ef fect on my af fectivi ty, and still less on my suboonscious. Now, it pertains to art to expressthe inexpressible, and thereby to penetrate within myself at all the dif ferent levels of my personality.

The Feast of the "Saved" lt>reover, is it a real celebration if we celebratein a purely cerebral manner? Where then is that

"feast" which man so badly needs? Where is that feast which se:rves as ·the prophetic and irreplaceable sign of "those who are saved"? Without this ex pression of joy at being saved, just what VJOuld our ccmm.mities be a sign of ? Aid it is quite clear that there is oo feast without music!

Rhytl!n and Contrast sane Christians react against singing. ("I.et us alone so that we can pray in pea.eel '' ) This reaction is nore

than just an q:p:>sition to singirg and to music as such; it expresses a dif f iculty arising fran an imbalance and an undue use of music as a means of pray:inJ. Let me explain.

If a celebration is 90.in;J to be dynamic, it has to have a rhytlmtic structure. No, it is oot a question of guitars, but of the structure ofthe ce'lebration., of its dynamism. This structure has its surmdts, its points of tension, its periods of release fran tension. Now, rhythn -and this is a law of lif e and of art -is based on contrast . In their f ailure to grasp this, sane choir directors, with the very best of intentions, exercize their

holy zeal by insistinJ that everyth.i.n] be stmg. The ef fect thus obtained

is the same deadly sameness characteristic in tines past of the "low Mass" , where all the texts were read, and were thus reduced to the indif ferentiated

Song and CeZebration 5

saneness where everything sounded the sane.

For the sake of c:x:mcreteness, here are bD exanq;>les of contrast:

- Contrast between song and \\Ord: Af ter camtunion, a good hymn hasunited the cx:mnunity in a unison song; then the celebrant follCMS t:hroU]h

· with the concluding prayer , but a SJX>k.en prayer. If this prayer is really spoken weZZ, is there anyone who fails to experience the fact that this text is full of the music which preceded?

- Contrast between silence and music: This above-mentioned hymn was

pre ceded by a real silence. And so one f elt that, even "t:lDugh the hymn was

very much sanethin::] which involved the whole cx:mnunity, it was also shot through with all the personal prayers expressed by each individual in si lence.

canbine these bvo exanq;>les, and you have a living structure with

plenty of roan for breathin::], a structure such as m one will f ind encumbering. In much the sane way, it was Claude , I think, who said, "The IOOSt beautif ul thin] about music is the silence whidl follCMS." My

dear brother-musici ens, let us make silence; or rather, let our nusic be in the service of silence1

I.et us have before all else a g ZobaZ percep tion of the celebration. I.et

our rhythms and our m:xlulatians not be the result of sheer f antasy , but the fruit of a liberty based an truth. If we really have this, our Christian brethren will be slowe;I; to get fed up with the Mass, our sisters will be less eager to get through the Of f ice as soon as :i;:ossible.

Truth This is my conclusion. Sin;Jin;J does not exist in itself . '!here are f irst of all people, a singin;J carmunity \\h.ich perfQtmS the act of

sin;Jin;J. Because singing is an act, a gesture -every bit as much as af l.aver which one offers, or an outstretched hand. And this act of singinghas to be an authentic act, a true gesture.

We discover this truth only when we situate the action within its con text in the celebration. Why do I sin] or not sing for the entrance riteor for the C'amrunion? Why do we ask the organ to be played during the pre paration of the gif ts? or af ter the hanily? '!he one responsible for these decisions always has to go beyond the letter of the rubrics, and be able to

justify his choice with a real reason. This he can do only if he puts him self within the context of the given cxmnunity; and this cx:mnunity he has to

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knCM throu:;Jh and through, he has to be aware of and feel its spiritua1

aspirations. There are sane days, sane periods or rocments, when the as sembly needs to sin], or to speak, or to remain silent.

We should sin], of cxrurse, and sin] well -so lcn,J as the quality ofour singin;:J is the sign of truth, so lon:J as we place our talent and our heart

in the service of prayer in cxnm:>n. But before all else, we have to sing "in spirit and in truth" •

Trans Zation, Gethsemani Abbey Jean LEB:N

7

THE CELEBRATION OF SEXT IN THE

REFECTORY A REPORT ON THE BRICQUEBEC

EXPERIMENT

GENESIS

For sare t:ine past there were already sane rranbers of the c::amnmity keenly aware of the ananaly and overloaded nature of the SUnday succession of Terce - High Mass - Sext - grace before meals - dinner - grace after meals.This led us to SU]gest to the camnmity, little by little, that,thanks to the possibilities afforded us by the loi-cadre, there was amtheri;x:>ssible and doubtless nore desirable way of doing things.

As the first stage, we detached Terce fran this ensanble so as to pro vide for its recitation in groups. This experience of an Office celebrated outside its usual settirg gave us an initial preparation enabling us to ac cept still further evolutions.

There was another factor which likewise intervened. Towards the begin ning of 1970, the celebration of the Little !burs beJan to integrate elanents of prayer more specifically attached to the period of the day or the activi tie which. ,f()I]'OO:d the :hlJrJediate oontext of the celebration. In this way the prayer of Sext quite naturally evoked the work which had :imrediately preceded,as well as the ireaJ. which. d Oa;in in just a few-minutes • • •we were notlong iJl teeling, er, tha,t ext follCMed by the meal w,lth its prayers be fore and af ter, fOJ::IOOd a sanewhat re;retable doublet. Mention was several times made of the possibility of a celebration in the refectocy;'·but thisdid not result in an inmediate cx:mmmity consensus. However, we were not very satisfied with our refectory prayers. A nunber of us found than too ponderous, too f ixed. With a view to providing an answer to the desire for an arrelioratal version, tb::>se in charge of the

liturgy shaped up a project. TlDugh this 'Benedicite" was maintained as an autanaoous prayer-fonnulacy, it see:ned to than that, in spite of everything, it ought oot to be reduced to too nod.est proportions. When this project becane the subject of criti cism, the request was once nore ma.de that Sext and the refectory prayers be joined in a single fOllllUlacy.

8

As a parallel devel.opnent to this liturgical evolution, the re-build ing and ref umishinJ of the storeys .inmediately above the refectory led us to realize to the full the importance of this place \\here the ccmnunitygathers several ti.mas daily far an "exercise" to which the I:bly Rule attaciles so much importance, as we well kncM • • •Vbat had before been only a big rec tangular rocm painted white and witmut character, acquired, through means involving a minimum of expense, a wann, pleasant atnK:>sphere. We retainedthe decorative brick pa.vement, mich is quite interesting; but we striand sanded down the walls so that the original stones DCM appear -an ex trenely pleasing ef fect. Between the large concrete beams which support the upper storey we suspended a f alse-ceiling made of slats separated by spa.ces s'blf f ed with absorba.nt material. The visual ef fect is good, and the acous tical result is excellent. This point deserves to be noted, because the

visual and acoustical enviromient thus created was an tant f actor which facilitated our experll'nent.

The arran;Jaoont of the tables also had its inq;x:>rtance. A vestige of the traditional arran;Jaoont was retained, though the tables were placed on either side of the reader 's p.llpit (situated between 0...0 central windc:Msopening onto the nonastery court ) , and the Superiors' table was placedin such

'a wey that it f aces the reader. This leaves a rather inp:>rtant area

free in the middle of the refectory; this spa.ce, which is well lighted, has its area delimited nore or less by the arrangement of the tables, and itfoIIllS at one and the. sane time both the center of the refectory and an ideal place far the cx:mnunity to gather.

Vestil;ul-eReader

C;ross ,. Of f iae

_ ,,I .I _ ,

···'

The Celebration of Sext in the Refeatory 9

When the work of reoonstxuction was f inished, the structure for a refectory celebration of Sext had already been sketched out by our group

several months earlier; and this structure, while integratin;J the meal ti.ne "Bened.icite'' , .included all the elements of , and retained the

charac ter of a canonical !bur. Further thought had also made it clear that an Of f ice of Sext celebrated in the ref ectory inmed.iately before the meal would make possible a better balance .in the horarium, and would thus fa cilitate the participation of a larger number of the brethren.

Af ter the new ref ectory had been re-occupied for a f eN days , the oanmunity launched the experiment on Easter Tuesday , April 13, 1971.

IMPLEMENI'ATION OF THE PIDJ.Err .We f irst of all gj:.ve an outline of the arra,nganent of the Off ice. Weshall next oonsider a few particular points which it seems opportune to stress, either because of the problems these entailed f or the carrying out of the project, or sinply by reason of their general .interest.

A.lbw the Of f i ce Is Cel ebrated

The em of rroming work Con weekdays) is marked by the Angelus rung inchurch.

Five minutes bef ore the Of f ice, the bells are rung in church again as a signal for the ccmnunity.

We gather in the central area of the refectory described above, and

stand either .in a circle or .in a square. There is no hard and f ast rule; it depends on the number of those present.

We then have a sort of station in silence. When everyone is ready, the

Superior makes the sign of the cross. This is the signal f or the beginningof the Of f ice. All make the sign of the cross, followed by a profound bc:M.

The opening verse is the usual "O God, care to my assistance • • •Glory be

to the Father • • • " (with Alleluia on Sundays and during the Easter season) .H;y.rnn ("Le Fils de. Dieu • • • ")A single psalm, alternated distich by distich between soloist and choir.

The psalm we use at :present is Psalm 66with the antiphon "The earth has yielded its fruit, ;t;or God, our God , has blessed us."

A. short ,rea,ding. As at the other Little Hours, this rea,ding is

chosen , as a general .rule., .in function of the Mass readings and of the particular lbur.

10

A slx>rt period of silence foll<:Med by a short responsory ch:>sen atthe discretion of the cantor in function of the reading or of the Hour.

A prayer said by the Hebdanadary , the there of which bears on the

Hour and the meal which is to follow.Then a short litany in which we generally find the following elements:- an introduction which includes a nention of Our Lady's intercession;

- three intentions:the first one is often general; the ranai.ning twoconcern our absent brethren and the departed.

This is fm:mulated. in such a way that acxx>lmt is taken of the Hour,of the meal, and occasional y even of the reading. For instance:

We c:xnmand ourselves to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin

Mary, M:>ther of God, and we pray to you, O lord:

For those Y.dlo hunger and thirst for justice.R. lord, have marcy.For our brothers detained by their work. R. lord•••For those who have cxxnpleted their task here below. R. lord...

' Then the Supeior introduces the recitation in cx::moon of the lord's

Prayer, and for this he uses the non-variable nnnition assigned to the Lit tle Hours: "And DCM let us all pray the lord's f>rayer

together."Imrediately after the lord's Prayer, the superior says a

blessin:J of the following kind: "May the everlasting King of glory grant us a place at his table in his Kingdon. R. Atren. "

Each of the brethren goes to his place for the meal .

B. Ranarks

1. The P l a ce Sane brethren might experience a bit of difficulty at the idea of celebrating an Office in the refectory; but

the surprise would doubtless be occasioned nnre by the simple fact of a cba.n:Je in practice, rather than by a really deep reason. The notion of the dignity of the place which could serve as an ejection is extremely rela

tive. In any case, the quasi-liturgical context accorded the meal by

nnnastic tradition seans to render the practice of having an Office in the refectory quite acceptable.

2. The Material Arrangenent Should we keep the traditional arrange-ment for the ''Benedicite" , with each

The CeZebration of Sext in the Refectory 11

m:mk at his place at table? We rejected. this solution for tw:> reasons: 0

- First of all, the question is one of celebrating that part of the Divine Of f ice which is the Hour of Sext. In other words, it is the "Bene dicite'' which is integrated with Sext, and not Sext with the ''Benedicite". It is preferable, then, that the arrangement adopted for the celebration not be the same as the arrangement of the cx:mnunity for the neal which is to f ollow.

- On the other hand, in our own refectory, the "Benedicite" arran;Jenentof the brethren, with each one at his place at table, 'WOUl.d not have suf ficiently respected the assanbly-aspect proper to the Off ice. It is true that, for meals, the entire ccmmmity is present (or at least, those who

can be present) ; and all are present in the sane place; but, for all that, they do not fonn a really ooherent assanbly. Scatterin:J separate groupsaround tables in a l.a;rge area, with still f urther gaps caused by the absence of sare of the brethren -all this corresponds better , if I dare sa::f so, to

the oonvenience of ef f icient table service rather than to the exigiencies ofthe liturgy.

On the contrary, the arran;Jaoont which we settled upon seems to answerI

well to these tw:> atiyes: to make a distinction between the celebrationof Sext and the meal which follows, and to gather the a:nmunity togethe,r in an assarbly of celebration, but in a way which is simple and not overly cere IOOili.ous.

The problan obviously oould well be dif ferent in other places.

One detail raises a question at the yery start, and it hqs its imp:>r tance. For architectural reasons, the cross was retained in the place it had previously occupied, "above" the ref ectory ere it would be nore prani nent. Should we not group ourselves in this area at one end of the refectory?

This IX>Ssibility was envisaged, and was certainly not excluded a priori.

But in the f inal analysis it seemed better to occupy the central area de

scribed above - at least for the beginning of the experiment:

u

- The central part of the refectory is really and truly the cen-ter of the locale, and it seems m::>re natural to foxrn a group there rather tllan at an extremity of the refectory. The better the ar ranc.:Jement f;ran a spatial standpoint, the nore it mideniably fos ters the authenticity of the celebration.

- Then too, 1:.akirg into acoount the general at:ran:Jenent of the place, the follll adopted f acilitates both the arrival of late-cx:mers and the table-serving.

- The rancirk wa,s made that , in point of f act, we have the same ar

ranc.:Jement m choir: there is 00 grouping around the crucif ix' butaround the altar (this is clear, and quite natural when the cruci f i)c is ne;t:ther an the altar, nor inmadiately behind it in the

cen ter, but off to one side) ; and our profound bcMs are usually madewith choir f acing choir (rarely towards the altar) , and not witlx>uta profound reason based an our f aith: the presence of the Risen

One m the midst of those who are gathered together in his nama.The crucif i)c serves only as a raninder or an evocation.

3. The S i SJllal f o r t h e Begirming o f the Of f i ce Nothing but the sign of

the cross made in silence by the Superior, and then by everyone together. No "shock" of bell-ringing (this is our practice, moreover, for all the Of f ices) : this fosters "pres ence" and attention to one another, recollection and tranquillity fran the

· very be:Ji.nrliJYJ of the celebration. It is with regard to points as minor asthis one that we can appreciate the very great importance of details in volved in the carrying out of a celebration.

4. The Psahoody It seaned less desirable to us to have too much psalloody

for this lbur, especially when , an Sundays and feast.days , this Of f ice follows the b;rief interval af ter the ooncelebrated Mass. re aver, it seared preferable to be able to sing the psalms by heart.

Acoordinjly, up to the present time we have used, as noted above, cnly Psalm 66, which is well adapted to this lbur both by reason of its characterot universal praise, of calli.n} down Godls blessing, and by reason of verse7, which is used as an antiphon at beginning and end:

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The Celebration of Sext in the Refectory 13

The earth has yielded it fruit, for God, our God, has blessed us.

Nevertheless, we envisage the progressive enrichment of this psalm:rly,

and a variety in the choice of the psaJms acx:x>rding to the day.

s. The Prayer The fo.xroulas we use sean suitable enough, but we need a a still greater variety.2 One cannot ask the Hebdana

daries always to be ;Q:rp.:rov;i.sing, and this is doubtless not even desirable. But a greater range of choice would make possible a better adaptation to the oonc:rete cirCL1TIStances, and would render easier the minor glosses or m:xiifi cations of the text such as oould effectively make these prayers really meaningful for everyone•••

It would be good to have in this repertory of follllUlas a careful bal ance betlYeen universal or general intentions(we ought oot to forget that the prayer we should be expl"essing is the prayer of the Church)and those requests which oonc:Eml m:>xe particularly the ccmmmity (we ought not to be any less mindful of the fact that the prayer which roust be put into words ls·· the prayer of this particular group of brethren living hie et nunc in these particular cirCL1TIStances).

6. The Litany The preceding rana.rk is oo less true far the

litany. It will already have been remarked how

the arrangementof the intentions Satisfies this exigency. But we want to a:nphasize thatthe proposed structure is oo more than a bare canvas needing to be filled in•••

It should be noted that the introduction to this litany includes a mention of Our Lady:one possible solution -one annng others -of the problem of "Marian antiphons". What we want is to ensure the presence of Our Lady at the very heart of the Office, and not in sarething tacked onat the end, or at the beginning as a kind of preamble. Her presence within our Office should be at one and the sane time consonant with her dignity, with our devotion, and should be integrated hanroniously in the developnent of our prayer. This

position, imnediately preced the lord's Prayer, seans to us to satisfy this exigency admirably well. But we repeat thatwe are fully aware that there are certainly other possible solutions.

In the example quoted above, the Virgin Mary is greeted as Mother of

God. This title, which for Tradition is the title par exceU,ence, and which

14

best expresses Ma.ty' s sup.i;e-oe digru:ty, allows of nus variations based on the current litlll9ical feast ot season. It also lends itself to adapta-· tions made according to our personal inspiration, thus enabling us

to even better express in · our devotion, and making it possible to thrCM into greater relief this 1'1a,ria,n element -. on condition, of oourse, that we re main within the bounds of disc;i;etion. Examples:

M:>the.r of God and Mother of the Church; M:>tller of God and Queen of Citeaux; Blessed anDng vanen; Favored by God; Th,rone of Wisdan• • •One can also saret.;bnes introduce an al lusion to sane.thing ;i,n the preceding reading or praye,r. The possibilityfor variable texts is considerable (think, for instance, of the Litany of Our Lady) ; but we insist on the f act that discretion is absolutely neces sary.3

7. The Blessing In the example given aboye, the Reader will have recognized the blessing given the reader of the

refectory in times past (do we need to recall, ha-rever, that this blessing concerns the entire assanbly as well as the reader?) . We adopted this text to start with simply because it was already conveniently at hand, and it has the advantage of clearly signifying that its ;function is to serve as the "blessing at table'' , which is also an element in this celebration, and npre particularly in the f inal section.

Nevertheless, here again it w::>uld be good to of fer the Superior a choice f ran anDng a number of variable fonmilas , according to the liturgical season.Think, far instance, of the dif f erent oolor or nuance this blessing \\OUld

take on in Lent or in Eastertime • .•

FRJITSWhat f ruits have we so f ar gathered f ran this experiment?

One manif est and brutal fact was , f irst of all, that the change was called for. When the Of f ice of Sext was celebrated in church, this Off ice was the one far whidl atten::iance was certainly the weakest. Since we have been celebrating Sext in the refectory, this Of f ice is one of the best so far as attendance is concerned, and this in a habitual marmer.

Apart fran this basic f act, which derives, no doubt, fran several rea sons, we can point out still otbe;J: advqntages:

- There is a. bette,r dj:ptinctian between the -various levels of celebra

tion: Sext does oot have the sane inp:>rtance as Mass or Vespers, and this

The Celebration of Sext in the Refectory 15

acoordin]ly is clearly evident in the Jnanner in which we solamize these various celebrations.

- A progressiye educa,tion, th.rough actual exper;i.ence on the part of the cx:mnunity, in a new style of celebration. Thus, it is striking to seeh:Jw· the arranganent adopted became progressively nore f lexible. In the be

g.inning, the toge was clumsy and rather rigid. Then, little by

little, we sa,w the camJUili taking on a certain f lexibility, so that n<:M

we can f ill the availa,ble space in a hanronious manner, or we can move asidewith:>Ut undue fuss so as to open ranks for a latecc::ner , or manif est with s.inplicity the concem and attention -we have for each other. We perceived that, little by little, the ''tone" of the various spoken interventions be

came simpler, no.re at the level of camnmication between brothers. It is also evident that the atnosphere is of ten calm and very interior. All this seans to mean an enr;i.chnent for the Off ice, and gives it a greater dignity.

There is, of course, still roan for progress. This was clear enough f ran a number of the remarks made in the preceding pages.

It is also quite clear that, in describing this experiment-experience, we have no intention of presenting our ON1l particular solutions as roodels to be mutated. We simply wanted to deal with a particular point, and bear

' s.inple witness to the enrichment we have recei:ved thanks to the lei-cadre.

Translation, Gethsemani Abbey Jean-Pierre CHATELrnBricquebec

N O T E S

1 A slight detail. • •For the f inal rep.rise, the psalm-ref rain .reads as follows in th:! version we have adopted :

Let the peoples praise you, o Gcxl;let all the peoples praise you.

But -we m:xlify the last line slightly: "Let all the peoples proclaim - " which leads, then, directly into the doxology: "Glor.y be to the Fa-ther • • • " In this way the trinitarian doxology becates of the object of the oonfession of f aith expressed in the f inal line of the psalm. Cfr. Jn 17:3.

2 It is self-evident that not all available folllllllas an&Wer suf f iciently to our concrete situation. The French version of this Liturgy bulletin has furnished us with a number of suitable texts (nos.12-13, Novanber1970 , and the current issue, no. 16 , February 1972) . But we still need

other texts alo:1l3' the lines of the follCMing :

16

lord, with your word you nourishedMary of Bet:hapy who listened at your feet,

and you received the devotion · of Martha who served you.

Through this meal we are about to take in your presence,ma,ke us more attentive to your \\Ord ,nore ready and willing in the service of our brethren,

today and ;for all eternity.3 We are not aware of undue exaggeration in speaking about the

:importance of this elarent in our celebration, brief though it be. It is a fact of experience that this quite simple appeal for·the prayer of OUr Lady, foll.CMed by one of the titles dear to Olristian (and Cistercian) tradi tion, makes it possible to express with real depth and in a very hunan, realistic manner, the intensity of our Marian devotion.To the extent that one can attarpt to explain this pherr.menon at the level of literary technique, it seans that it is precisely the possi bility of havin;J a variable foDnUla which is m:>st effective. The "ir ruption" of sarething unexpected within a fixed, pre-detennined setting or structure, but where this "sarething unexpected" is not an elsrent of surprise, fosters attention and ensures that the word spoken and received is marked with truth and authenticity.In this context, there is ro longer a question of quantity.As we remc::irked with regard to the prayer, the same holds true for every ' discreet, appropriate gloss or m:>dification of familiar faonulas - provided that the ccmnunity is prepared for this.

17

psycaopHON N THE MONASTERYor "MADAME AUCHER lN OUR MIDST

"

Transl ator 's Note : The title terrifies••.But it really seems to be a fair ly exaat translation of the original, Frenah: La psychophonie au monastere ou: ''Madame Auch.er parmi nous''· Contrary to one 's initiaZ impression, 'psyahophony '' is not a speaies of deadly viPU.s infeation or a special kind of mass psyahosi s; "but the T'X'ansZator is hard put to say precisely what it reaZly is. The massive Heath•s Standard French and English Dictionary, even with the 1955 Supplement, is of absolutely no help . Even the casual reader of the foZZowing Unes wiZZ easily gather, however, that ''psyahophony" must be some kind of physaal-spiritual disaipZine whiah comprises in its scope elements of voiae-training, eurhythmics, meditation, yoga.••

The adventure began on December 17, 1969. The Ccmnunity , like the rest of France, was in the grip of a f lu epidemic. At 9 A.M. on that norning,

three of us were called to Reverend Mother 's off ice: w:>uld we agree toleave for the rocmastery of Ia.val at noon of the sane day? A session on voice culture was to be held there from Decanber 18 to the 23rd • • •A good nunber of · those who had enrolled had to cancel their enrol.hrent because of

the f lu, and the organizers of the session were t.I.ying to f ill up the gaps • • •

Abraham, pack your bags and go to the land that I will shc:M you.

This oountry which we were going to discover and to begin to explore during the oourse of this session at Ia.val, under the direction of Mlle Michalon, was indeed a badly kn:>Wn, even unknown oountry -our own body.

We were going to leam hc:M our body, when rightly understocx:l and loved, can be a marvelous f actor of haxm:>ny within us and anong us, a \\Underful instru ment for camrunication, for sending out and receiving vibrations.

What were the beSt things we learned during the oourse of our f irst oontact with psy cbophony? HcM to breathe, hCM to relax, how to sleep, how to produce asound in a fully conscious act, hCM to ove.rc:x:::ne sta.ge-tright, hCM to listen, hCM to perceive the na,tural rhythm of our life, of life in general • • •

Fran April 14 to 19, 1970, we participated -this tiloo gladly and

whole heartedly -in the 100re advanced session directed by Madarre Aucher at

Angers. This session at Angers was marked f or us by two discoveries: the discovery of Madame Aucher, with her dynamism, her radiant spirit and

gCXJdness, her extra-

18

ordinazy gi:et for openness, CXJllllUil:i..ca"Uon, intui:tion; and then, the

dis oovery of riches tj.11 then unknown but yet doi:roant withjn us·' the

disoov ery of that factor of u.n!ty which a::mes about when we f ind and share withothers our intertor riches, Might I not say that, at Angers, we bettergrasped what love is, we better grasped love's power to liberate and to create? I think that Madane Aucher wanted to make us sensitive to the

filf icult problem of a:mnunicatian when she placed before our eyes, in her opening talk, the l.Drd who stretched out his ams on. the cross.

Durin} these days we came to realize particularly that Madame Aucher 's teaching went beyond, in all its dimensions, the l.llnits of what we usually

speak of as ''vocal teclmique'' • We had the feeling that many of our sisters would have been able to take fran her teaching a tasty, bracin3 f ruit, andthat even the Whole cx:mnunity could f ind a great deal of help in whathad to say. But, an the one hapd, we recognized our total inability to set ourselves up as "monitors of psychophony'' ; and, an the other hand, if still other sessions were to be organized, two or three sisters at best might be able to prof it fran these sessions.

Then one even.in;J , in the cou;rse of a prj,,vate conversation, Madame Au cher asked us about our monastery. How many nuns did we have? What was the average age? etc• • • • "I'd be happy to conduct a session of psychophony for your cx:mnunity." We could hardly believe our own ears. But then, hCM were

we goin{1to make our ccmnunity really want this session, since we were al ready receiving so Imlch help thanks to the tireless devotion of Mlle Gounard, the noted teacher of vocal technique?

It so happened that, a few days af ter our retum to the m::inastery , corwersation turned to the preparation of the coomuni:ty feastday "'1.ich traditionally takes place every year on Mothers' Day. We of fered to ini tiate our sisters into Madame Aucher 's method for spontaneous canposition. Proposal accepted. The technique was duly explained, and the volunteers divided into six groups. We had two weeks available, and the maxinrum ofliberty as regards creativity. In order to f acilitate the participation

,.of the greatest nunber possible, we also organized a workshop for free ex-pression with follllS and colors. Qlrs was the joy of discovering naturalgif ts ch had heretofore gone unsuspected; we had the joy of disoovering each other under a nfM aspect -talent for poetry, for IIUlSic, f or choreography, for humor -talents \'bi.ch all along had been prudently

slumbering

Psyohophony in the Monastey 19

wrapped up in cotton like Christmas-manger figurines in their cardboard boxes, and which, once awakened frcm this long, long sleep, uld be

able to give perfect expression to a whole wealth of rich experience so as to render it cx:mnunicable to others•••(This sort of thing is rare in a style of life which doesn t encourage much by way of relaxation in cx:mnon. )

The carmunity was converted. The canpositions were sent to

Au cher, along with an invitation for her to remember what she had proposed.

So fran Novariber 16 to 21, 1970, we had Madame Auch.er in our midst.

There were twenty-five sisters enrolled on the official list of participants; ten others asked to assist at the conferences as obsei:vers; and the evening choral rk gathered a still greater number of amateurs.A certain number of observers, however, soon abandoned their relatively passive role and becarreactive participants in all the rk and exercise; and they even asked forthe chance of havin} private sessions with Madane Aucher. The sane phenanenon took place at the second session held at a later date.

This second, IOC>re advanced session took place last Noveajber, fi:om the 15th to the 20th. Madane Auch.er was aca:mpanied by one of her pupils.Sev eral took note of a difference of intensity between

the two sessions.The first one had been awaited and follc:Med with enthusiasm, but without a real ly profound interior grasp of the essential of what was taught; the second session made it possible for a good number of us to experience this teach ing in a deeper , rnore personal way, so that the results produced were rnore conscious and more lasting .

Experience confi.nned Madane Auch.er s judgment; teaching which, in an initial stage, is grasped only confusedly and in part, makes its way in the sub-soil, only to expand and flourish above ground at a later stage of growth. In particular, this teaching attains its full efficacy when it can be received by the cx:mnunity as a whole -even though the levels of parti cipation may differ -and within the ccmnunity in the setting of its

day to day existence.

The first advantage of havin:1 such rshops within one's CMil m:mas -

let's be realistic -is financial:the cost of such a session roughly e quals the expense incurred by four or five members going to another cx:mnuni ty for a similar session.

20

AIX>ther tqge, at the level o;f our maW and hl.lllail carxiiti.on, is this; a session outside one's cmmunity i.nevitqbly necessitates time and the effort to edapt oneself to a dj,fferent environment (place, rorari un, persons, liturgical life, etc• • • ) , and all this represents a certain kind of going outside onets true self 1 one has the feeling of being sane

of a. stra,nger or outsider. But a session held in one' s own nonaste:ryis integrated into the setting and rhythm of camnmity lif e, so that the religious doesn •·t have to leave his normal surroundings. This means that there's no real ''dis-traction" or dispersion; silence and quiet remainjust as noxmal. And in this milieu of day to day life, each person re:nains perf ectly his true self , so that the OCll1lOil exercises are gone through with out dif f iculty or tension -even in the case of the nore timid individuals.

On the other hand - and always at the practical level -the exercises included in our session were in large measure adapted to our CMn liturgy,to our CMn church, to our own style• • • and to our CMn liabilities. Reoo.t:dingswere made , then subjected to criticism in c::amon; f aults were oorrect.ed, advice was given, we W'.)rked on new pieces, or went over old material, etc• • •

A much deeper benef it was situated at the level of our camrunity life of sisters living together. When teaching is received in OCllllOil, and fran the sane source, this can create a perception shared in OCllllOil , it can foster a oarnon ideal; and all this cannot f ail to facilitate unity in the area of liturgical expression. The session also gave us the C>pIX>rtunity to krXJW each other under a dif ferent aspect , to appreciate possibilities or qualities which Madane Aucher knew hcM to draw forth and bring to light;

it also helped us to better understand each other 's dif f iculties.It 's quite cer tain that our judgments became oonsiderably nore

serene, more objective, kinder. Finally, the f act that we had beoane oonscious of the way in which each person reveals hilllself or herself , and ocmnunicates with others by maans of the tone of one's voice and by one 's attitude -all this enabled us to observe and set aright the wey in which we ourselves present ourselves to others, and to get the knack of seeing how others present thanselves to us,so that we can know hcM best to be open to them.

There still remains to be stressed the nost :inp:::>rtant aspect: the bene

f it received at the spiritual level. This is also the nost dif f icult aspect

Psycihophony in the Monaster y 21

to describe: each of us perceived it in function of her own spiritual bent, and each of us will live it and develop it acce>r<llng to her own particular vocation. At the general level, this w::>uld doubtless provj.de plenty of material for study by a spec;i.alist in spirituality. Here I can do no no.re than try to point out a few orientations aitK>ng many others:

- First of all, it"s evj:,.dent that hampny in our relations with one's own self , with those who are around us -and even our hal:nony with all be.in;Js and with the cosnos -oone of this can be disassociated ;f:ran

the ha.l:nony of our relations with God.

- Next:• Help fo,r our preyer and especially for our lif e of prayer

throu:Jh the practice of ''cerebral respiratiai" , of maintaining an interior vision, and of havinJ a f lexible, open attitude;

• Integration, manducation, incarnation of the word as spoken, sung,rhythmed;

• Discipline and sublimation of instinctive drives;• Receptivity of one's whole being to the vibrations (whether of so\llld

or of silence) which reach us f ran every source; pc:Mer to receive the \\Ord, but also to camrunicate at a level beyond \\Ords; the pc:Mer of personalities who, while being in the \\Orld, are able to dif fuse peace, purity, love • • • ("This is the radiance of the saints, of contanplatives. '' - "But then, doyou know what this really maa.ns? the Incarnation!" - "But of course• • • ")

All these are f amiliar theres, but they take on a new intensity , a newreality \'tlich is bcxlily \\bile at the same being no.re truly spiritua.l.

We 're gratef ul to you, Madame Aucher 1

Trans lation Gethsemani Abbe y Claire ClJSSEI'

I.es Gard.esNovanber 29, 1971

M::>ther ,

23

A CIRCULAR LETTER

FROM THE PRESIDENT OF OUR LITURGY COMMI SSION

Note: This letteP was sent by FP. GePard Dubois, PY.esident of our OPder's LituPgy Corrunission, to all SupePiors of the OPdeP. The contents, however, are of general intePest both to Cistercian and Benedictine PeadePs fromthe Pank and file. The letter deals with two topics:

1- A Benedictine-Cistepcian pPoject foP a Calendarium Monasticum Gene rale.

2- The question of an Office-structure and psalter-arrangement comnon to the Benedictine OPder and the two Cistercian Observances.

o.c.s.o.Liturgy CamnissianDear Reverend Father ,

M::>nt-des-Cats February 19 , 1972

The purpose of this circular letter is to aa:pllnt you with the results of the survey undertaken last Decanber 28, dealing with the General Monastic Calendar, and also to give you the results of the meeting of the "mixed" Ccmnission (OSB-OCist-OCSO) mich met at Sant' Ansel.Iro, Rane, on February 1 and 2 of the current year.

To this report I' ll add a f ew ref lections meant to serve as a reply to:- ranarks or wishes expressed in the questiormaire retm:ns;- to the questions raised by our Procurator General, Dan Vincent Her-

mans, af ter his meeting with Dan Sighard Kleiner, Abbot General of the Camnon Observance. These questions were raised by Dan Vincent in his letter of February 16, sent to a number of dif ferent Abbots, in particular to the Presidents of the various Regional Conferences. My CMn reply is made at the request of Dan Vincent himself .

This circular letter, then, is divided into four parts.

I. RE&JLTS OF THE SURVEY OF DECEMBER 28, 1971

I received 75 replies f ran 41 nonasteries of nonks OJesides the personal reply by our Abbot General) a,nd f ran 33 nona.steries of nuns (or: 50.6% and

73.3 % , which.. canes to a total of 58.7% of our houses) .

24

For the npst part, evexyane is agreed that we can envisage a cx:irpro

mise on the points roted in the questionnaire. Changes .in the dates ofthe various celebrations o;t:;fer no dif f ;tculties. 'l\..U replies point out, however, that August 30 i$ the Aim.iversary of the Da:lication of a number ofour churdles; but in the particular calendar proper to each m:m.aste.t:y , the

cx:mnunities in question ca,n celebrate Sts. Am3deus and warren (or St. Amedeus only) on August 31.

However:1. A quj...te strong oppost,tion is against the suppression of M:mastic

All Saints, Novanber 13; 50 (25 + 25) • In other 'WOrds, thirds of the replies. Only 2 .replies essa:l agrearent, and 3 seared to express a di vided opinion. The ranaining 20 said nothing.

AmJ1l3' the .reasons in f avor of retaining the feast, in spite of theSola:nnity Of All Saints, Novanber 1:- Sane say that the liturgical texts oould express aspects of the

.nonastic lif e which .receive little or no menticn in the Novanber1st celebration;

- others point out that we're dealing with a f amily feast.- A nmnber answer the argurrent invoka:l in the d.ra.f t of the project (our m::>nastic saints are already included in the Novanber 1st celebration) by sayin:J that, if this argument is correct, we ought to suppress all the feasts or rnaroria.ls and be contentwith the Novanber 1st celebration. This reply is mt without its hurrorous aspect • ..but it 's mt wholly convincing. Th:>ugh it mightbe true that a g e n e r a 1 feast ought mt to suppress i n d i -y i d u a 1 feasts of the saints, it 's hard to see that we ought to have t'WO g e n e r a 1 "All Saints". The similarity between the t'WO was stressa:l in the Latin breviary, noreover , by the f actthat the antiphons for November 13 were borrowed straight fran the Off ice for Novanber 1.

2. There was m majority consensus reached, but a .rather :i.n'qxlrtant number (31: 18 + 13) were mt favorable to the introduction of a second feast of St. Penedict, especially during Lent.

- This ''doublet'' \\OUld not be in keeping with n.SOb of the GeneralNo;ons of the :F,anan Calendar;

- and the m::>tive which led us to opt for the July 11 sola:nnity (which was jn the Order 's calendar as the ..Translatio SPN Benedicti" at least £ran the 13th century till 1871) was precisely that of leav ing Lent relatively free of feasts, oo as to give primacy to the lenten liturgy.

- Moreover, since we already have two other feasts (o.r ad li.bitum sola:nnities) of patrons; the Foonders of c tea.ux, and St.Bernard, we have less reason than the Benedictines to introduce a second f east of St. Benedict (even though March 21 is also

the

A Cira-uZa.r Letter from the President of Our Liturgy Commission 25

anniversary of the foundation of citeaux} .

H:Mever, there were 3 ,qpTh$teries which expressei agt for a second feast on Ma,rch 21, and 2 others were di.vi.ded or hesitant. On the

contrary , 4 preferred that we care ha.ck to a single sol.elJility, March 21.

3. 16 m:masteries (9 + 7) were aga,inst admitting the Dedication of the Later as a f e a, s t on Novr 9. (The dedication of a churdl, it was said, is essentially a 1 o c a 1 f east.} 11other replies expressed agree ment and even satisf action with regard to the rank of celebration proposed.

4. For St. M a r t i n 9 replies asked why the marorial should be

raised to the rank of a feast, while 7 others expressed agrearent with the proposal.

5.On the ot.ha- point:7 pref er that St. ;I?eter Damia,n rauain optional;1prefers that Gregory of Nazia,nzen remain o!\January 27.

There were yet other desires expressed -but these faJ,led to concern those points which represent a departure of this draf t of a Calendariun Genera.le f rcm the decisions of the General Chapter of 1971; rather, these wishes represent abjections to the decisions of the General Chapter.They will be dealt with in the secx:md section of this report.

As regards the p r o c e d u r e to be followed in the instance in which the members of the mixed Cdmli.ssion OSB-OCist-OCSO can cane to an agreement:

monks (36 replied to this question) :29 agree to the Abbot General 's presenting the mixed

Ccmnission 's project for the appxobation of the Holy See; but one adds that, should a doubt arise, we ought to wait till the June neeting of the Consilium Generale;

1rallies in advance to whatever the majority of replies indicates;1refers the matter to the judgment of the President of the Liturgy Ccmnission;4 say tha,t we at least ought to have the advice of the Consiliun Generale, even though (one reply adds) the af fair is one of lesser.importance;

1wants to have a vote of the abl:x:>ts by correspondence.

26

nuns22 agree to the Abbot General's presentin] the project for the appro-

bation of the Holy See; ·

1wants a general oonsultaticn of the nonaste.ries on the f inal shai;eof the project;

1 says that we ought to have the advice of the Cansilium Generale.

II. REFLECTIONS NDJr SCME OF THE REMARKS MADE IN THE IONNAIRE RElURNS

A- On a n 0£ sepa,rate occasions (Camtl.ssion re[X>rts and minutes; Acts of the General Chapter of 1971 Jp.44 of the French text];

:Praenotaroa ofthe Ordos for 1971 and 1972) it was stated clearly that all the saints .inthe Ranan Calendar could be taken ad li.bitu:n by each m:mastery, but that the only saints which \'nlld listed in the Ordo or in the calendar for the whole Order would be: 1- o b 1ig a t o r y

celebrations, and

2.- celebrations p r o p e r to our Order .The General 1-Pnastic Calendar (draf t circulated last Decanber 28) adopts

a scmewhat dif ferent practice in that it also includes soma o p t i o n a 1 marorials :oot proper to us, and taken f ran the Ranan calendar. It makes, then,

a certain selection fran am:>n;J the Ranan mem:>rials whidt would :oot be obliga

tory for us (but this wouldnt t keep those who desire to do so f ran taking yetother celebrations fran the Ranan Calendar, even though these were not .re tained in our own calendar: once again, any celebration in the Ranan Calen dar can be adopted by any of our xoonasteries as an optional celebration) •

This n:eans, then, that tot>gw that St. Justin or St. Josefh the Worker or St.1 Ranuald once IOOX'e appear in the Dec. 28 calendar project really neans very little: they could have been celebrated even without being explicitlyrcentioned in the calendar; on the ccntrary, to regret the fact that, in the new calendar project, we f ind the optional nerorials of the First Ranan

Mar tyrs on June 30 (not an ''All Saints" for Ranan martyrs, but a celebration of the particular group marty,red in the Vatican Circus under Nero in 64 A.D.) , of St. Sixtus II, or of Pontian and HiPIX>lytus -this, too, has littlereal mean:in]: since these celebrations were already in the Ranan Calendar, they -were by that very title (and ranain so) f acultative for us. Noth:in] has

been changed, except that the explicit rcention in our calendarium Generale

has thereby resulted in a certain emphasis -which, of oourse, can be a rea son of satistac-0..on or of regret, deperding on one s personal preferences.

So too, to CCJgi;>l.$ a,bout the emission of St. Pius V or of St. George, or to express surprise that we 've ''excluded" or "suppressed" or "refused"

A CirauZa.r Letter from tfie President of Our Liturgy Commission 27

the Inmaculate Heart of Maxy, St. Maria Goretti, st. Damasus, or St. Nicholas -this simply has no real maaning: these nerorials are inscribed in the Ranan Calendar and are in no way excluded fran being celebrated by us, should we so desire; they simply renain optional for us, just as they are optional celebrations even in the Roman Calendar. There were no parti cular reasons to render than obligatory, nor even -in the

perspective ofthe General Mtnastic Calendar -to call special !..attention to than by an ex plicit mention.

On the contrary, one ndght question the f act that certain JnellPrials o

bligatory in the Rana.n Calendar were lef t o p t i o n a l in our own calen dar (but n o t suppressed) , such as the Dedication of the Lateran or the Guardian Angels. In the latter case, the reason was that, in keeping with our earlier tradition, the feast of September 29 proposed not just the three arch an:Jels, but St. Michael and a 1 1 the An:Jels. So did we have to .inp:>sethe obligation of celebrating a second ccnmarroration of a group of particular an:Jels (the October 2 celebration had been in our Cistercian calendar only since the 17th century; useless, then, to invoke St. Bernard) ? Helpful remarks withregard to these various cases can be found in the Minutes of the Liturgy can-mission at Viaceli (1969) and Roscrea U970) .

B- The object of the present revision was lbnited to the m:lnimum required to arrive at an understanding with the Benedictines and the othe,r Cistercians (OCist. or Camon Observance) concerning a c:x:moon p,roject for a General Mo-

nastic Calendar; and also to take account of other exigencies manif ested by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.

This is why:1- We did not feel that we had a, mandate to call into question the

Proper of the Order approved by the General Chapter of 1971. We were unable, then , to act upon certain suggestions such as that of grouping the

members of St.Bernard's f amily on the same day: Gerard, Humbeline• .• ; or that of making St. Bernard an obligatory solemnity or, on the contrary , a simple feast; or that of making St. Peter of Tarentaise obligatory:

,2- Still less could we have proposed new solutions for points ccmnonto the Roman calendar and our own, and already settled in the Ranan calendar:

- not only did the General Chapter of 1971 ratif y our confOJ'.Irtity with the Raoan prescript.ions, but, also,

- our departure f ran the Ranan nonns would have rendered our consensus

28

with the other m:mastic Orde;rs still iro,re dift'icult, since these 'WOUldhave had to accept our CMn ''particularities".

Moreover, it was unreasonable to hope that the lbly See \\Ould have

granted us anything we might have askai with regard to a departure fran the Ianan JlOllll. In spite of the ;fact that we•re retaining a latin but

non Ranan calendar, the Holy See has decreed certain ncmns which hold good even for this kind of calenda,r.

a- Thus, it ;is j:rc;x>ss ;ible to have a different o;r:ganizatim of the litur gical year (far inst.a.nee, by maintaining the Pentecost Octave) ;

b- .inp:>ssible, too, to .lllscribe a s o 1 e m n i t y or a f e a s t

a:m:oon to us and the Rana,n Calendar an a day other than that of the Ranan

Calendar (Instruction of June 24 , 1970 , n.23) . This holds good for Epiphany and for the Solannity of the Body and Blood of Christ: we have to take into acoount the no;on which f ixes these solemnities to their p roper

day - Jan.6 and the Thursday af ter Trinity Sunday in rountries where these days are

of precept; elsewhere, the Sunday following Jan. 1 an:1 the Sunday af ter Trin ity Sunday. Our

Calendar project has to be urrlerstood in the sane way. This principle holds good, too, with regard to other suggestions proposed: to aII>hasize the Christmas Octave by transferrin:j elsewhere the feasts of St.Stephen, the Holy Innocents, or the H:>ly Family; or to replace this last feast by that of the Holy Nane of Jesus; or to reduce St. Josepi to the rank of a feast.

c- It was sjmilarly ;i.Jrp:>ssible for us to re-introduce feasts which are oot proper to us, and which were dropped fran the Rana.n Calendar: the Precious Blood (July 1) , the Holy Narre of Jesus, the lbly Name of Mary, or even the Reception of the Crc:Mn of Thoms.

Sane of these requests for calendar changes derive, it would seen, fran an .lllsuff icient understanding of the Ranan refonn.

- 'llllls, the suppression of the :P e n t e c o s t O c t a v e doesn'tresultra\lly lack of devotion tcMards the H:>ly Spirit, Wt fran a perfectly correct (and ancient} understanding of the nature of the Easter Season, which is an extension of the Paschal Solanni.ty by 7 x 7 days: that is to say, by

an octave of weeks.The Easter Season is a single, great "day" of the Pasch. (This is why we m longer speak of the 1st, 2nd, 3ro• • •$llrldeys a f t e r

Easter, but rather of the- 2nd, 3rd, 4th• • •SUnday o f Easter.) The SOth

A CirauZar Letter from the FTesident of Our Li-tur>gy Commission 29

day c 1 o s e s this pe;t;i,od. 'lb prolon;J it by an additional week

would result fran a f lure to grasp the character and true nature of the Faster Sea.son -which is wha.t happened sta,rting with the

7th century. St. Ia:> knew oot.hin;J ot such. an Octa,ve aeter :Pentecost, and the Fa.stern Rites havealways retained the custan o;f closing the Easter Season on Pentecost evening. This is why it's incorrect to write that "the Fa.stern Cllristians must :think of us as ba:tbarians." We should note that, in the new Missal, the lastweek of the Faster Sea.son is devoted to the expectation of the lbly Spirit. Sane of the texts are even taken fran the fo.i:rrer Pentecost Octave; and the "Veni Creator" f its before Pentecost than af ter • • •

- The ;ijnposition of the Nane of Jesus is carmarorated in the solamity of January 1, which is the 8th day af ter isbnas, the day on 'Vbich the Nate of Jesus was actually given to the newo-bom Child.

There's oo reasonwhy one oouldn 't sing, ;for instance, the fa.nous "Iesu, dulcis neooria" during Benediction.

- The Precious Blood is celebrated a.t the saire Ume as the Body of Christ (Solannity of the Body and Blood of Christ) .

For a better under:rtanding of the Rana,n ref onn, see the of f icial camen

tary in the Latin edition (lane, 1969) of the CaZendariwn Romanwn.

III. RESULTS OF THE CALENDAR MEET AT SANT' ANSEIMO, FEBRUARY 1AND 2

A:- Fr. Dumas , o.s.B., a manber of the secretariate in the Sacred Congrega tion far Divine V«lrship, gave us to understand that this Congregation oon sidered it .inp)rta,nt that the Foman Calendar should be the basis of ourproper calendar , and that it uld not accept too great a singularity onthe part of us .naiks.

In point of f act, howeye,r, it seaned to us tha,t to adopt a p rio r ithe Pallan calendar, and to be satisf ied simply with adding our saints,-v.ould be to adopt a.· p r i n c ip 1e which might well ha.ve haxmful oon sequences at sane la,ter date -not only for the calendar (we wuld have to foll.cM in deta,il the J:uture evolution of the Foman Calendar with regard to the new saints who.will surely be added• • • ) but especially far other ques tions, the Off ice, for instance. If we adopt the above principle for the calendar, we might run the risk of always being told, nFollCM the Ranan Rite.''

30

We rejected the p,i;inciple dese,ribed above -that of an a prioX'i a lignment with the RalJan Wendar; but in order better to enSQI'e our own:p:>Sition, we wanted to avoid an \\hi.ch might serve as an obstacle to the oonsultors of the Sacred Congregation for Divine W::>rship, without in any wey being really .iluportant for ourselves. This is why we re-

exanined the list of feasts and of o b lig a t o r y nenorials in the :Ebnan Calendar , with. a vi to our not diverging fi:an it in too unreasonable a manner .

-For the feasts, the only difference was St. Lawrence, whan we had as a m e m o r ia 1 in our project. We felt that th.ere was no serious inoonvenience involved in our keeping it as a feast.

In much the same way, opposition to the feast of the Dedication ofthe Lateran didn't involye a majority (16 replies out of 75, with llexpress ing explicit a;Jreemmt) ; so we thought it best to ref rain fran opposing this feast in the narce of the Order.

- With. rega,rd to the 63 obligatory nerorials of the Ianan calendar:• only 26 {of which 2 -St. Benedict and st. Martin -had a higher

rank) were ;included in the project described in the letter of Decerrber 28.

This nunber seared too reduced to be defended in a discussion with the Sa cred Congregation, especially since the greater number of the menorials we anitted were already in our fonoer calendars (for us, the calendar approvedin 1965) .

• In order to obtain a nore balanced proportion, the Benedictinesadmitted as obligatory for than too the 10 msrorials which our own General Chapter of 1971had already accepted as obligatory {Paul Miki, Cyril and

Methcxlius, Polycarp, Charles I.Man.ga, Pius x, Our Lady of SorrcMS, Thereseof Lisieux, Presentation of OUr Lady, Martha, Mary , and Lazarus, Francisxavier) ; accordingly, for these saints now included am::>ng the obligatory me norials of the General M::mastic calendar, we' 11no lonJer have to

include than in the Proper of our order.• There were 9 other nenorials which seerm to be of such general

interest that it was a bit dif f icult to refuse t:ben as d:>ligatory in our present context: Tinothy and Titus, Perpetua and Felicity (since they

always cx:me in :rent, their celebration is by that very f act f acultative) , Justin,Boniface (a 100ilkl , Bona;ventu,re (;iroportant doctor of spirituality) , OUr Lady

'of the a:>sary.r Chqrles Bo,rraneo Conly represent.qtive of the Tri&ntine re-

A CirC!U Za:l' Letter from the Pl'esident of Our Liturgy Commission 31

newal) , Cecilia, Jolm o;f; the Cross. These nenorials \\Ould be obligatory.

• There were two other obligatory menorials in the Ranan calendar

which ooincide with IIetPrials proper to our General Monastic Calendar. These tv.o nonastic nenorials will have to be obligatory so that they can replace the Ranan ones: Theodore the Studite, November 12 (to replace Josaphat) ; and Gertrude, who remains on her dies nataUs (in the place of Elizabeth of

Hungary. In a pa,rticula,r calendar -in Gennany, for instance -Elizabethof Hungary could be giyen pxecedence over Gertrude, if there is a particular

·reason for this; a,nd Gert.rude would then be celebrated on the 16th) •

The rena.ining 16 marorials of the Ronan Calendar \\Ould be only facultative in the General Monastic Calendar (Francis de Sales, Jolm Bosa::>, .Agatha, John Baptist de la Salle, Cather;i.ne of Siena, Philip Neri, Anthony of Padua, !Duisde Gonza;rue, Alphons de Liguori, Jea,n-Ma.rie Via,nney, Clare, Mary Queen (we celebrate Our Lady under the title of Queen of Heaven and Earth on August 15) , Monica, Vincent de Paul, Gua,rdia,n Angels (included in the galaxy of angels celebrated on Septanber 29) , :Wey.

- St. Martin remains a feast as in our earlier project (only 9 replies

were opposed, so f ar qs our own Order is conce,rned. St. Benedict had a spe cial devotion towards St. Martin , "prophetis oc:mpar, apostolis conserte • • • ") .

- St. Peter Damian remains f acultative. Only 4 of the Ranan Rite op tional lllE!l"Orials have becane abligato.ry in the Qrdo Monasticus: Gertrude, as already explained, and the 3 saints alrea,dy accepted by our General Chapter of 1971: Anselm, Bede the venerqble, and Bnmo.

This neans that 45 of the 63 Ranan Rite rretDrials are likewise obliga tory in the General M:>nastic Calendar. 2 of these have a higher rank: St.

Benedict and St. Martin. (And the Benedictines, in their proper calendar, are also raising the rank of St. Grego.ry and St. Scholastica. }

B- Monastic SaintsThe neoorial of the Founders o;f; ctteaux f;L.xed in the General

Caleniar on Janua,ry 21; but our own Order (and the Ccmron Observance) , in raising the rank, tra,nsfers it to January 26 , and puts Sts. Tim:>thy and Ti tus on the 27th. The Benedictines ha,ve adopted the maoorial o;f; our Abbots

of ctteaux qs an ob]J.gato;ry ine:norial; and it seared suitable for us to do like wise wi.th. re:;q.rd to the memorial of the Abbots of Cluny, the list of which rJ:M mclud.es 1 besi.des Odo, Ma.leul, <Xii.lo and Ihlgh, P e t e r

the Vemrable.The date is May 11.

32

St. Theodore the Studi:te U>ee above) , the mercrial of the Transitus of St. Benedict on ]1arch 21 (which remains, in the General calendar, anerorial in keeping with the des;ire expressed by IIJallY in our OJ:der; but

since it always f alls in Lent, it au1:anqti.cally becx:mes a ;facultati.ve

mennrial) ; Pach:anius, Maur and Placid. This neans that there are, then, 6 obligatory nerorials \'bi.ch a,re p r o p e r to the General 1-bnastic Calendar; and, tothese, our a-m Qrde;r has added Aelred, Illtgard, Eugene III, and Guerric.

The feast of JYPnastic All saints 13} will be inscribed in our Order 's calendar (and that of the camon Observance) , since a rather large majority is in f avor of retaining it.

The points wch <Uff er fran the decisions of the General Chapter of 1971

are, then, the following:- 3 feasts; Dedication o;t; the Iateran · (faculta,tive mem:>rial in 1971) .

and of st. Lawrence and St. Martin (both ooligatory lYIEJOC>rials in 1971) .

- 12 m3tPrials are DCM obligatory rather than optional (ooe of which is

new: Theodore the Studite) ; for the list see the end of p. 30, and the 1st canplete paragraph on p. 31, to which should be added the Abbotsof Cluny.

- st. Hilarion has been replaced by st. Sabbas.- The change of dates nentioned in the letter of Decari>er 28. (The

date for St. Pachanius isn't yet certain; the adv;tce of specialists

has been asked} .

rJ. EVENI'S CWERED BY lXM VINCENI' ·S LEl'l'ER CF FEBWMY 16 , 1972.

On ;February 17 of the current y , Dan Vincent net with Dan Sighard Kleiner , Abl:x>t General of the Cistercian Order (camon Observance) • Dan

Sighard told Dan Vincent that the Ablx>t Pr:imate of the Benedictines had pre sented card:inal Tabe.ra (head of the Sac.red Congregation for Divine W":>rship) with the result of our calendar session at Sant ' AnselllD. The cardinal was

quite sati:afied; but "WOrd of IOOUth had it that M_µ". Bugnini was of a dif fer ent opinion: accardi.ng to him, we llD1lks ought to accept the Ianan Calendar

as is, and be content s:imply with adding to it our avn proper saints. Dan

Sighard Kleiner x-ecalled the f act that the Cistercians have always had their own proper liturgy, even though, for the Mass, they adopted for all intents and purposes the Mass

rite in the 17th century. Ikln Sighard is afraid that the result of our

havin} projects in CClt11Dil with the Benedictines, in keeping with the letter fran the Congregation dated July 8, 1971, will be

A Circ:uZar Letter from the President of Our Liturgy Commission 33

the eventual loss ot our rite to a particular liturgy. He agrees to the idea of a set of camion principles to detexmine the shape o;f the liturgy inthe various m:>nastic Orders; but he wants to maintain our own proper denani

nation "C i s t e r c i a n'' (even with regard to the calendar) •

Dem Ranbert Weakland, Abbot Primate of the Benedictines, is able to share this point of view; and he has agreed to speak about it with Cardinal Tabera af ter his return to Rane... around Faster, alon Sighard Kleinerand our own Abbot General (or, in his absence, Dem Vincent) ; but it's necessary that we are all really in agreanent.

Dem Vincent answered, f irst of all, that, in our own Order, we didn 't insist to the sane extent on the need of having a proper liturgy, since, inthe f inal analysis, the new Ranan Rite is richer in many respects than our own;

and, in point of fact, we've already adopted the Ronan liturgy in part.

But Dem Vincent has consulted others, and has asked what their opinion is.

It obviously pertains to the Abbots to say what they want with regard to this question. Here I can do no m:>re than indicate a few thanes for ref lec tion, in order to help fonn sane idea of the situation. What follCMS , then, is only a sort of status quaestionis.

1- The S a cred Ccn ] reqation for D i vine V«:>rsh i p and Its Desire for Unif o nnity

This desire is quite manifest; aiid -with regard to what concerns the calendar -we were informed of this when we met for the calendar sessionat Sant ' Anselm::>, as appears in the preceding report (see above, III A) . The reader will have noted that we didn ' t feel we ought to rally around

the Ranan Calendar pure and simple; while at the same time we wished to be perf ectly "reasonable" in the position we adopted.

Were it exclusively a question of the calendar, this concern for unifonni ty expressed by the Sacred Con]regation for Divine W:>rship

wouldn 't be too serious. But this policy rould well extend to other p:::>ints. (Recall, f or instance, what happened to our request for a Cistercian Ordo Missae. We al-so have to be concerned about the Cistercian Ritual.)

I believe that rather many want to ensure a certain pluralism which would respect our own pa,.rticula,r situation, which is cU.f;ferent ;fran what one f inds in a pa,rish. or mrotl9 the secula,r clergy. In this line we have to do all we

can to ruwe applied to our se what Pope Paul VI wrote to the Carthusians in April, 1971: "Your vocaticn has gradually given shape to a particular liturgy,

34

and this liturgy strivi.n;;J to mamtain, since it corresponds toyour solitary cont.anplatiye lif e. The Church does oot reject a certain pluralism in the man;i.festation of religious experience and in the expression of divine worship, so long as the dif f erent ways of seek.in;r Gcx1 and

honor.in;rhim counsel such a diversity. And so the Church approves th::>se sound nonastic traditions which, if they are observed in practice with great care, contribute a great deal to the growth of that £aith and spiritual

fervor which gave than birth." This, noreover, is in line with nn. 4 and 37-38 of the Constitution on the liturgy.

2- Should We Try to D;i,Sl;J,Ssocjate Ourselves f ran · the · Benedictines?a- Fran the standpoint of the Benedictines, we f ind a similar desire

for "pluralism" and a certain distance to be respected as regards dependance on the Ranan Rite. At our Calendar seesion, I took note of the fact that Dan Ranbert Weakland, Abbot Primate of the Benedictine ec..ttederation, waswholly decided to do what he could so tha,t ironks need not be constrainedto align tl'anselyes on the Rite pure and s.inq;>le, or to adopt a mti.fonn liturgy in all the ironasteries. In this sense we have ooth.ing to fear fran collaboration with the Benedictine brethren; indeed, if it's true that there is strength in union, then perhaps the Benedictines can lend us a support which we ought not to neglect.

b- It CX>Uld be objected, li<:Mever, that our Or/11 liturgical l.eg'islaticn is IIOre fitmly established than that of the Benedictines. There is a Cister cian "Rite" with its own proper liturgical books; and this is oot the

case with the Benedictines (see the article by Fr. Nivard Rondeau , in the veryf irst issue of Liturgy) . Would join.in;J f orces with the Benedictines d:>lige us to lose the advantage of our acquired right, so as to adopt a new "no nastic liturgy" which has no. juridical consistency? 'Ibis is what Dan

Sig hard Kleiner thinks, and he wants IIOSt particularly that our right to the Cistercian litw:gy should prevail.

H:Jwever, the follow ranarks should be nade:- Our acquired right to the Cistercian Rite is indeed well established,

but only in the context of an ensanble of liturgical legislation which the Holy See holds to be out of date since the liturgical refonn inaugurated by

Vatican II. We can, of course, appeal to papal bulls and indults, the Brief of Pius IX in 1871, and the Dec;i;ee of the Holy See dated 1913.But it's much

A Cirau z.a.x. Letter fro m the Pre[iident of Our Litui>f! Y Commission 35

to be fearai that this n 't :impress the Sacred Congregation to any great extent, since the Congregation f eels that the renew00 :ianan Rite is inspiredby the saI'OO spirit l'thfch an.iJnated tbe nonastic liturgy, SO that there' S ID

lDD;rer any real ,reqson for rnqk,tng a distinct.ion Mb/oon the oo.Moreover, the :Instruction of June 23, 1970 dealing with part:i.cular

calendars revokes all the privileges and i.ndults opp::>soo to the new litur gical no:ons (n.48) . Th;ts Instruction, of course, cannot contravene n.4Of the Litll.rgy Constitut;i,on which declares thq,t i.t "pres and fosters

in every way ' all legit.illlately :recognized rites -and this is our strong point. But we have got to indicate here the particular viewpoint and attitude of the manbers of the Sacred Con:;regation. It could well be, as Dan Sighard Kleiner suggested in his conversation with Dan Vincent, it ritight be necessary to appeal to tbe :Pope himsel.:e.

- h)ain, though th e s ro doubt as to the juridical existence of the Cistercian Rite, the theolo;Jical consistency' justifying such a rite is less well assured. This rite belon:;s to the sane f amily as the Ronan Rite, and is mated in the sane cultural soil. The Cistercian Rite, as a distinct rite, derives fran a coclieication anterior to the one characteristic ofthe cathedral liturgy, at a period when these codif ications didn 't pertainto the sole aut:.OOrity of the Aµ>stolic See.

But fran the m:roent the Ranan Rite and the other Latin rites cany out a refox:m based, on°e.fik tradition anterior to these codif ications, and

on the other hand, on the actual needs of our generation, it's dif f icult tosee in what respect our own "rite" should be characterized, apart f:ran points of detail, , particular usages, local adaptations -all inp:lrtant,of course, but much too minimal to constitute a proper "rite". This line of reasoning (already apparent during the course of the Liturgy Ccmnission sessions at Viaceli and Roscrea.) is exactly what notivated, one may believe,the article which appeared in the January, 1972 issue of Notitiae , pp. 17-18,which justif ied the abolition of the D o rn i n ic a n R i t e. Its juri d ica,l si tj._on the sqne a::1 ours (even though the Daninicans might be;irore involved tha,n we a,re in pastoral acitivity) .

Of course, we ought not to go so f ar as to urge the abolition of our rite: this lNOUld have practical inoonveniences, especially for our Ritual;but we ought not to have too high an estimation o,f the {30lidity of the founda

tions o a Cisterc 19.te•

•

36

- 'lb what extent w:mld a Cistercian Rite obli9e the tw:> Observancesto do the same and to a,dopt the same orientations with regard to the

libl.rgical novanent? I'm sj:nply asking the question. It 's chief ly at this level that there are sanet.Unes dif f erences of viewpoint between the Liturgy Camri.ssions of the two Ordgrs. This is doubtless what Dcll1 Vincent 's letter referred to -even though, at the February meetin:J at Sant' Anselm:>, therewas little occasion for these dif f erences to be really apparent. We alsohave to add the tu.rt.her practical dif f iculty: two dif ferent General Chapters, each one autonanous. How, in practice, can decisions be made in cx:mron?

c- But to return to the question of collaboration with the Benedictines,I believe that, as regards the calendar , such a collaboration presents no dif f iculty. But is it the sane for the other point m:mtianed in the Sacred Congregation 's letter o.t July 8, 1971 -that is to say, the structure of the Of£ice and the distribution of the psalms?

The Benedictines, of course, want as much as we do, even .irore, perhaps, that not:hin;J be i m p o s e d. But in their preparation of psalter-schenes to be proposed as ''nodels" , will it be possible to take into account our CMJl

concrete situation? I don't dare af f inn it. Take, for instance, our Sc:hene B. It represents one of many dif ferent ways of dividing the psalms over a b«>

week period, with the repetition of certain psalms. Objectively, it might not be signif icantly better than sane other schare; and it's understandabl e that the Benedictine experts an the mixed CCmnissian should look for a nore objec tive principle for the distribution of psalms: certain options, for instance,characteristic of the new Ranan Breviary. But we have a weightly p a s t o -r a 1 reason to justify our wish that, for us Cistercians, Schane B be re tained arrongthe schare-types to be prqx:>sed: nore than 50 of ·our nonasteries

already are us.in] it. can the Benedictines and ourselves cane to a practical agrea:nent? (So too for a sch.aoo dividing the psalms over a week-long period,without any repetitions. It's already alm:>st certain that the schene to reproposed will be that prepared by Fr. Ftiglister, and not our CMJl Schene c.)

It seans that, at this level, our dif ferent Orders have each its CMJl

needs corresp::md;i:,ng to cilf.terent situations, and tha,t the line of action requesta:l by the Sqcred Co1:9regation for Divine lj)rship will be extranely dif f icult to follc:M; it might even be impossible. We 'll doubtless have to

. 9ive a report about Ws to the Sacred Congregation. (We could also invokethe f act that our three schanes for psalm-distribution were al.ready approved

A Ci-.rCJU Za:r Lette:r from the President of OuP LituP(Jy Commission 31

"ad experinentun'' by the Sa.c;red Congrega.tion -o;i;; rather, the Consilium - in the indult Of Decenber 15, 1967, Pr.n.3394/67.}

Hav1rY:1 sa.id all the above , if the line of action prqx:>sErl by ran Sig hard. Kleiner seens better calculated to obtain the possibility of having our particular situation, our sound :m:>nastic traditions, and our neErl for "ell:x:w roan'' respected,Ipersonally am not opi;x::>sErl; quite the opposite (though I don t want to hide that f act that our refU]e behW a so-callErl ''Cistercian Rite" involves sore slight measure of artif ice) •

And it ranains for me only to excuse the length of this circular letter,and to assure you of my best wishes

In the !Drd,

f . Geratd .Dulx:>is (signed)

President of the LitQJ;gy ccmnissj.on

..

39

MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

OF THEFEDERATION OF DIOCESAN LITURGY COr+'IISSIONS

MEETI NG HELD AT THE MONASTERY OF THE HOLY SPIRITJanuary 1972

Nineteen members of the !bard of Directors of the Federation of Dioce san Liturgy Ccmnissions gathered at this Abbey of the Holy Spirit fran Janu ary 18 - 20 of the current year. This Federation was first set up two years ago for pranoting liturgy as the heart of Christian life, especially in the parish ccmnunity. As a professional organization of liturgists, they are to assist the Arrerican hierarchy and individual bishops in their leadership in the area of liturgical education and developtent. Their Constitutions give the following goals and purposes for the organization:

a- To foster and (X)();rdinate the wor.k of liturgical cx:mnissions as they affect the needs and utilize the resources of their people.

b- To gather, dispense and cxmmission infonna.tional materials which will aid individual cx::mni.ssions in car:rying out educational and praootional programs in their respective dioceses.

c- To oooperate with the Bishops'Carmittee on the Liturgy [=OCL]and its Secretariate in the sponsorship of national maetings of Diocesan Liturgical Camri.ssions.

d- To serve, in an adviso:ry capacity, the !CL, especially on matters tobe proposed to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops =NCCB].

e- To bring results of pastoral experience to the !CL.

f- To encourage and facilitate the legitimate adaptation of liturgical rites and cererronies to the Arrerican culture as envisioned by the Con stitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n.39.

g- To be the nediun through which diocesan cx::mni.ssions can contribute re spansibly and effectively in articulating the voice

of priests, reli gious, and laity in the developnent of liturgy.

40

At ti.mas the work of the Federation becares quite f rustrating. Like rrost liturgists, they have many suggestions to help i.nprove the liturcu.These in turn are coordinated and passed on tO the Anerican :ocr... The :ocL

in tum submits their choice to the NCCB for vote. During the past year saoo 15 propositions were presented to the OCL; and of these, only six were presented to the Anerican bishops to be voted upon -of which rrostwere rejected. O:lnrmln:Lon in the hand was one such point that f ailed to getto the f l<x>r to be reconsidered; and yet the Federation keeps speaking stroIYJ ly in f avor of it.

The Federation would like to have ;restuli.ed the. enti;te penitential rite of our present Ordo Missae. This rite is badly placed.

It rrore properly should follc:M the hanily and be associated with the sign of peace and recon ciliation. OUr entrance rite is too

cx:::nplex. For weekdays it might be reduced to a sinply greeting and prayer. This rite of introduction should stress the preparation for prayer rather than for penance. Mditional Eucharistic Prayers and a nore f lexible use of them is to be hoped for.

Duril'YJ the January m=eting held at this Abbey, the Board directed much of their ef f ort to the grass-roots level. It is hoped that xoore materials will be turned out for the education of the laity. Once this task is accx:mplished, it is hoped th.at nore positive ooncern will be fortha::ming f ran those in authority.

HaViIYJ kncw.n sare of the Board nanbers as fellc:M-students at the Univer sity of Notre Dane, and havil'YJ net others during their stay here, I f eel con f ident that they are cacq;ietent to accx:1Iq:>lish the tasks they have set for them selves. They have placed ne on their mailing-list, and I intend to fOJ:Ward material of interest to Liturgy.

The Federation of Diocesan Liturgy CCJnmissions lacks due representation by groups of religious. ;ct is hoped that saoo change wi.11be made in their ' Constitutions, and in the near future they intend to vote for a possible dlan.ge in thei.t' makeup, and to change their tiUe to "Federation of Diocesanand Provincial Liturgical cam:d.ssj:...ons''. Far the present, the only way a reli gious is able to beoaoo a of the orga,ni:_za,tion is·by being f irst a m:m ber of a local diocesan cx:mnission. This presents problems for us Cistercians.

Meeting of the Boa:l'd of Direators of the FDLC 41

I do hope that the day will a:ire when we will be able to share directlyin the positive work being done by the FDIC.

Anthony DELISIAl:bey of the Spirit

43

THE FOURTH GENERAL MEETING OF THE

CISTERCIAN FRANCOPHONE LITURGY COMMISSION BELVAL NOVEMBER 10 - 1 3, 1971

This year it was the Abbey of Belval (Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise) whichof fered the C.onmission its generous hospitality. The simple , smiling wel cxrre -attentive and yet discreet -given by the ..Mother Abbess and

her Ccmnunity was much appreciated by everyone taking part in the

sessions.

The than!p:roposed for our ref lections was that of "Litw:ycal 'play '(jeu) and the conditions it requires."

Our ireeting began on November 10 , 1971, at 2 :15 P .M. ; and the f irst session was operied by Fr. Gerard Dubois of Mont-des-cats, President of the Order 's Liturgy Camri.ssion, and. new President of the Cistercian Franoophone Liturgy Ccmnission (ran Eimlanuel Coutant, Abbot of Bellefontaine , had had toresign. for

reasons o health) .

First of all, a letter ;fran IXlm EMnanuel was read.He assured us thatwe would be remembered by him, and he gave his every encouragerrent. The feel ings of our group were evident; and Fr. Ga'ard expressed, by way of return,our CMn regret, our gratitude, and our best wishes for the newly resigned former President of our Ccmnission.

The new Secretary-Treasurer, Fr. Jean-Eudes David, Ironk of Bri , who remains in chaxge of the carmi.ttee for Texts, was next presented to

us; and he took up his duties as ncderator of the discussion without nore ado.

A brief introduction of each nenber taking part in the session ma.de us all aCXJ:Uaintanoes.

Besides the above mentioned President and Secretary, the follCMing man

bers were present:Fr. Clarent de Bounront {Bellefontaine) , head of the Music carmi.ttee. Fr. Paul Houix (T:imadeuc) , head of the Conmittee for Info:onation and

Fo.IInation; and member of Ccmnittee for Texts.

Sr. Eillnanuel (Soleilm:mt) , member of the Music c.cmni.ttee.

44

Sr. Jeannine Huyghe (Belval) , manber of the canmittee f or Inf o:rmatian and Foxma.tion.

Sr. Marie-Pierre Faure (Charrbarand) , member of the Ccmnittee f or Texts.Fr. Marie Goujot (Sept Fons) , member of the Carmittee for Texts.Fr. Paul-Emnanuel Spies (Orval) , nenber of the Music Ccmnittee.Fr. Placide Vernet (Citeaux) , nerrber of the carmittee for Info:rmation

and Fonna.tion.

The follcMing oollaborators or guests likewise took part in sane or all ofour sessions:

Fr. Guy Oury, o.S.B. (Solesnes) , Secretary of the Liturgy camdssion of the French Congregation, and liturgy chronicler of the magazine Esprit et Vie.

Fr. Matthieu Collin, o.s.B. (Pierre-qui-Vire) , who is in charge of liturgical fonna.tion in the French Province of the Subiaco Congregation.

Fr. Jean--Marie Hum, O.P., nenber of the National Center of Pastoral Liturgy , who stayed with us only a day, but gave us an im m:mse ailO'lmt of help.

Sr. Isabelle-Marie Brault, Canoness of St. Augustine, in charge of the Divine Off ice Carmittee of the National Center of Pasto ral Liturgy.

Sr. Jeanilbert Durantou, of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, head of the .Music Ccmnittee of the National Center of Pastoral Liturgy.

Sr. Marie-cl.aire Sachet, fran the monastecy of Poor Cl.ares at Besan c;an, callaborator for the Camri.ttee for Texts; she served as Secretary for this neeting.

Fr . Claude Bernard (Bellefontaine) , student at the Institut Superieur

de Liturgie, Paris; and also student at thegical .Music; collaborator for the camdttee for ·Texts.

Sr. Franooise Callerot (Les Gard.es) , collaborator for the carmittee f or Texts.

Sr. Marie-.xavier Coumont, Bernardine nun of Esquernes (Lille) , oollabo rator f or the Carmittee for Texts.

Sr· at'ig'itte, Cha,ntress Of :eelyal.

'!he Mother Abbess of Belval gave us the joy of having her take part in allour work sessions.

we were sany not to have with us Fr. Maur (Scxru.Ixront) , Fr. Nivard (Port du-Salut) , arxi Fr. Tarcisius (Rochefort) ; and we also missed our two greatfriends f ran the CFC -Fr. :Ebbert Gantoy, of ottignies, editor of Parooisse et Liturgie , and head of Lit-urgie et monasteres(he had to stay in Belgium for reasons of health) ; and Br. Pierre-Yves Emery of Taize', assiduous

collaborator

Cisteaian Francophone Liturgy Commission 45

on our Ccmnittee for Texts (he was detained by reason of a death in his family) .

We were happy to note throughout the course of our session an atnosphere of frankness, simplicity, and brotherly, active collaboration in sharing our experiences and points of view which, though perhaps quite diverse, were for all that ccmplarentary ! and, often enough, convergent.

I

The Secretary gave a brief survey of the prablan whi.ch was to occupy

us for these few days:

A good nunber of the various follIJS of prayer presuppose several ''actors" (fDloists, schola, choir, assembly} who dialo:;ue with each other in a kind of "dramaturgy". It "WOuld be a good thing if each of these actors were to make

his intei:vention according to his own particular m::x1e, and based on reasons proper to the various orders f ritual, literature, and psycholCXJY. Disoov eries certainly have to be ma.de as regards the norms fol' p:r>ope:r> functioningof liturgical genres such invitatories, resp:>nses and responsaries, troparia,litany-prayers, antiphons, ref rains of ever:y sort• • •Our first goal was that of discerning some of the princip"les which govern the propel'.1 functioning of these different Uturgiaa"l forms.

As an initial basis for discussion we had at hand an excellent synthesis report written by Fr. Maurice Coste of Tamie' af ter a ting organized in Septem

ber, 1971, at the nonaster:y of En-Calcat, by the group in charge of the distri bution of ''f iches" (or min'eographed copies} of the liturgical chants called forby the new Liturgy of the Hours. The purpose of this En-Calcat maeting, which was above all else a practical one, was that of making a choice of the bettermaterial distributed during the course of the last three years. But this straight way made it clear that, f irst of all, it "WOuld be necessar:y to ref lect a bit,in order to isolate those criteria needed to fonn an objective judgnent with rega:cd to the various elements of choral prayer, and to ensure a better orien tation of the work to be done in the future. And so the perspective adopted

was that of an Off ice which was oot simply ''translated" but rather "re-created" , in which the fo:ans, caref ully stu:lied, were adapted to the real exigencies ofa c:x:mmmity prayer authentic at ever:y possible level.

Our own efforts used this ref lection as the starting point.

46

The rapporteur touched only briefly on the question of the a n t i -

p h o n s, but went on to deal in greater detail with the i n v i t a t o - r i e s, according to the perspectives outlined in the last issue of thisLiturgy bulletin, Novent>er 1971 (Vol'l.ID'e 5, Number 3) pp.61-76 , under the title"Invitatories:Ieflections and Suggestions''. If we want the invitator to of fer a real invitation, and if we want the assembly's response to be a genuine response and not -as still too often happens -just a series of elarents indifferently juxtarx>sed, it seems that we have to re-think at depth the exi gencies of this literary fonn on the basis of a schana which would be nore dy namic arrl m:>re variable, arrl w:>uld allow for a number of different rx>ssibili ties (new types of refrains, glosses, oonto-texts) etc•••).

This brief initial expose gave rise to a lively discussion in which two distinct attitudes were clearly defined:

- For sarre participants, it seared evident that a good number of texts belonging to the Gregorian repertory-. especially in those sections which are less ancient -answer only .imperfectly or not at all to the exigencies of a true, oonscious, coherent dialogue. While it might be true that those who use these texts are not particularly disturbed by them, this is only because they have learned how to make the requisite adjustnents -adjustments which are of ten enough of a subtle kind. But the transition to the vernacular nodifiesthe way in which we apprehend such texts. This means that we have to advocate the re-oomposing of these foDIUllas; and these re-carpositions w:>uld be, then, nore respectful of the forgotten no:rms governing the various fo:rms of liturgi cal expression. Stress w:>uld also have to be placed on the need for a clear, detailed study of the principles which detennine the ftmction of, and interplay between these follllS of expression.

Those who defend this viewpoint based themselves on the experience of the authors and musicians faced with the concrete problems of carposing text and music. It was roted that their a.vn

exigencies were parallel to the needs ex pressed by a gr<JWin3 nurrber of those who make use of these catq?Ositions rDN that the

Office is prayed in the nother-tongue. There is no denying the fact that, for the tine being, we have to take into acootmt an aspiration in the direction o;! ooherence a,nd inner logic.

- Without denying in any way the value of the above observations, others eJq>ressed their fear with regard to a certain dogmatic rigidity, and stressed the need of adding a few nuances to the preceding analysis.We certainly ought

Cisteraian Franaophone Liturgy Corrnnission 47

to develop our efforts towards creativity in the direction of an excessive logic or rationalism and according to and overly conceptual type of logic; neither ought we to risk a too systematic application of rigid principles, such as might prove an obstacle to the liberty of canposers and authors.

Inner logic and coherence are not everything. This is clear enough!

M:>reover, during the actual perfo:rmance of the choral canposition, the nusic can renmy -at least in part -sare of the defects of the text which are much IIDre in evidence so long as one remains silrply at the level of the ma terial text. The act of singing can create an abros:Eilere capable of giving expression to sarething of the mystery being celebraterl•••It is also clear that there is roan in a text for surprising paradoxes, for poetic values in volving contrasts, etc•••

The discussion was still at an embryonic stage; but there were already

s o m e b a s i cq u e s t i o n s which could be discerned, and whichwere taken up and clarified in.the course of later work-sessions. For instance:

- As regards the truth or authenticity of the function of, and interplaybetween liturgical fonns -just where does the problem lie? Is iti n t h e f i r s t i n s t a n c e a question of structures? or does the real difficulty arise chiefly fran sone lack on the part of the creators and the perfo:oners?

- Can text and nusic be thought of<ifnaependent one of the other? How can one avoid the risk of one of these elanents dwarfing the other?

- What conception of music should we have with regard to this or that de tennined liturgical act? Will this music follll a single entity with the text, or will it s:irrply serve as a hunble ans of projecting the text with greater clarity (music of the sort used for stylized recitations)?

- we have already accepted the principle of liberty of choice.But

are we always oonscious of the results of the various choices which we make?If we have adopted this rather than sare other follll or literary genre, are we likewise gane to sul:mitting to the nollllS inl?Qserl by the particu lar choice we have made?

.... What should be our exigencies with regard to authol:'s and

ccrcposers? Is it not nonnal that they, rather than the

performers, be the ones who must face up to the difficulties which must be solved if the

48

liturgical carq;X>Sition is to function adequately?

In this way the different ai;proaches led us, by listening to one another, to dig deeper into the initial question, and give it a broader dimension.A first conclusion aoorged with great clarity:

The impo;r>tcmt thing is not to sta:l't with a priori ideas, and on the basis of ready-made definitions whiah might weii be too re striative. Rather, we first ha:ve to aaaept the faat that, within the gZobaZ deveZopment of a Ziturgiaai aeZebration, one and thesame attitude (e.g., the "response" to a reading) acm be trcmsZated or expressed in quite different forms (siZenae, responsary or simpZeresponse, tropaPion, psaZm , hyrrrn, eta...); having aaaepted this prin aipZe, we then ha:ve to refZeat on the funation proper to this partiau Zar aat in this or that paPtiauZaP aontext.

This provided us with our w o r k - rn e t h o d -rather along the lines of sarething "non-directive". This sort of approach certainly gives one less security than might be found in a series of magisterial exi;:ose's; and, no doubt about it, it is saoothing quite hesitant, uncertain; but it also calls far a greater personal involvenen.t if the satisfactory anS\\ler is to be found.This kind of approach is the direct fruit of experience, and it represents, as is obvious, only a preliminary attempt at reflection -an initial, sketchy reflec tion which has to be further developed in the closest cormection with the real life of the celebrating a:mnunities.

II

The second day was ext.rerrely rich in insights received fran one another, and we were able to group together a certain nurrber of important or interesting elenents. There were 'b.o approaches which kept constantly crisscrossing:

- The first was more concerned with the objective perfo:rmance of certain follIIS of liturgical music:responsaries or responses, troparia, litany prayers,various Mass chants•••

- The other approach envisaged rather problems of a IIDre general nature such as:• liturgy and life in the world of today;• liturgy as play; its deepest nature;

• the inter-relations established in the course of a lituJ:gical celebration between the individual psychology and life at the level of the oonmunity; reglization of the relationship between these 'b.o poles;

Cistercian Francophone Commission 49

• the need to educate "actors" to take part in the liturgical play, and in particular for everything vbich touches on the body-aspect or 'corporeity" of the celebration:gestures, postures, etc•••;

• Fonnation and further continual reflection based on the questions raised in the course of the neeting.

The following pages present a brief synthesis of the views exchanged with regard to these various :i;x:>ints.

1- Soma of the principles which govern the proper functioning of certain fonns of liturgical song

a- T h e R e s p o n s o r y As was said above, our discussion soon made it very clear tbat the

"responsory" was only one possible fo:rm of "res:i;x:>nse''given by the assembly to the word of God.('!'his point had already been made at the October 1969

ting at Les Gard.es .)

Thougl'iera.d started with eonsiderations dealing with fo:rms and structures,

we quickly arrived at yet nore fundanental questions of content and function.A quite provisional definition of the responsm:y as a "meditation chant with a responsorial fonn" was .imrediately called into question. Are we really dealing with a neditation? with a point-by-point meditation? No a priori so lution could be given. It was noted that, in the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, which was referred to, this function of ''meditation"(n.170) appears, upon analysis, in quite different ways: the responsory is supposed ''to give Ile\17 light for our understanding of the reading which has just preceded, to insert this reading into the

context of salvation history, to effect the transition fran the Old Testanent to the New, to transfo:rm the reading into prayer and conterrplation, or, finally, to obtain a pleasing vari ety by neans of the poetic beauty of the res:i;x:>nso:ry'' (n.169}.

'!'his General Instruction fails to deal with a problem already raised at the En-calcat ting, and which likewise spontaneously arose at Belval:Will not the p 1 a c e of the responsory

relative to the period of silence and the reading (responsory after the reading and the silence, or else responsoryafter the reading, but before the period of silence) affect sarewhat the actual celebration, and hence condition the content and the fonn? :Both schemas - reading-silence-responso:ry and reading.....res:i;x:>nsory-silence -are possible;one can have a legitimate preference for one rather than the other, and it

50

is by no neans forbidden to vary one 's choice. But we have to be keenly aware of how" the choice of one or the other m:xlifies the

structure, albeit the change might seen relatively minor and inoonsequential. Rather basic quastions were raised in this regard:

- Is the silence which follavs the reading a '':personal" silence? or a "camrunity'' silence?

- Sh:::>uld we leave each one free to listen, thanks to the

silence, to what the Spirit tells him? or are we going to propose for all a prayer in ccmron, that is to say, the responsory .innediately after the read ing, which would then serve to orient reflection and neditation inc:x:mmn?

- Would the responsory be an obstacle to the interior unity we are try ing to find (risk of dispersion because of too

frequent interruptions)? Or would the responsory be a lp which contributes to the unity of the celebration by prolonging a certain atm:>sphere?

- Which should we prefer: openness to life, to the caning or ''happening" of the word of God which resounds within ne? or the

fruitful constraint of a directive nethod which obliges ne to dig deeper into the mystery celebrated and to discover this or that source of riches?

- W'lat type of responsory is called for after a patristic reading?

Mention of sane of the observations of a "teclmical" nature made at En

calcat might help thrav light on this subject.

Insofar as the responsoxy is a ''response" to the reading, it can be struc tured in various ways.If the responsory cares after the period of silence, it can take the fonn of an acclamation or of a thanksgiving of a very general na ture. If the responsory is sung irnrrediately after the reading, the link between responsory-text and the oontent of the

preceding reading can be closer and nore apparent. But this link ought not to be understood as a literal reprise ofa phrase of the text which just been listened to. As in any dialogue, if there is a response, this response ought to mark a progress relative to the question raised for us by the reading.

In a certain manner, the responsory shoula a c t u a 1 i z ethe reading and make it possible for each

ne\i:)er of the ccmnunity to be involved simultaneously at the level of the individual

Cisteraian Francophone Commission 51

person and at the level of the entire oonmunity. (For instance, the substi tution of "we" far ''I'' in the refrain, or other similar, slight nodifications of the biblical texts make it possible to effect a better application of the neaning to the situation of the asserrbly.)

Not every literary genre lends itself equally well to the

exigencies of a dete:a:nined liturgical fonn. A narrative text, for exanple, is unsuitable, as a general rule, for the literary fonn of a responsory. If, then, in this or that particular set of cirC1.m1.Stances, a narrative text seans suitable as an adequate rrode of response, we should find SOitE fonn other than that of the

reSIX>Jlsory in order to utilize this narrative text as a response to the reading .

At Belval, as at En-Calcat, the purpose of a doxology at the end of a responsory was called into question. Except for rare cases in which the re sponsories thanselves are wholly daxological, the correct link. between the doxology and the reprise is oten hazardous, sanetimes even outrageously cx:mi cal.

Objection was also made to the practice of dividing the responsory (as distinct fran the verset) into two parts, with the

reprise limited to the second part.This imposes yet another constraint on the carp::>ser, and offers the executants no real advantage.

During the whole course of this study, the preoccupation was not that of finding ready-made solutions or sure-fire fonnulas; rather, it was a question of our becaning aware of the exigencies imposed with regard to this or that particular 1iturgical fonn -exigencies which have to be well understcx:x:i in any serious effort at adaptation and creation. And are not our options tribu tary to the particular way in which we think. of the ccmmmity and the rolethe cx:mmmity has to play in the course of the liturgical action?

It appeared that there was a unaninous aspiration in the

direction of greater spontaneity and less rigidity in the use and perfonnance of liturgi cal pieces. Paradoxically, it is, in the final analysis, with a view to fa cilitating the roaxi.nn.lm of a kind of spontaneity in the use of traditional.eolJ[)S insisted on the. obliga;tion o;t the author$ ot texts to

$ul:mit than"."

selves to the "rules of the garre''• In no way is this to be thought of as a limitation of onets creativity. It was once more stressed that one 's creativi-

52

ty could already be exercised at the level of simply choosing which elanents one wishes to arploy. There is likewise a scope for creativity in the choice of the perfarners or "actors'': we all know

that the sane text read by dif ferent readers produces different effects, depending on the reader. As re gards listening to the "WOrd of God

and the camrunity response which should be given to this reading, we

asked whether we ought to go still further, and en visage new fo:onulas nearer real life. Here and there exper.inents have already been made with such texts.It "WOuld be a question of preparing for the reading precisely as a ccmnunity; of listening to this reading together, so as to arrive at a real sharing of the liturgy; and of enabling each irrlividual to express before one's brothers or sisters what the Word and Spirit might have awakened within one's deepest self. This formula for listening to the 'WOrdof God is the daily bread of small apostolic groups, and especially of yO\.mgste.rs. uld it not be a gocx1 thing to introduce this approach into our nonastic oan

nnmities, .in function of our possibilities, our needs, and our resources? At any rate, we cannot afford to refuse the evidence: the way in which we approachthe Scriptures today is different from what it was in the past -not fundanel.tal ly different, of course, but different at the level of culture; and this cannot fail to affect to sane degree the style of our response.

b- T h e T r o p a r i o n Not much will be said about the troparion

in this report, since a detailed study by Fr.Jean-Eudes David of Briwill probably appear in the next issue of this Liturgy bulletin.In this article the Autlx:>r will study the literary fonn of the troparion, particularly under the aspect of play :situation of thevarious actors or perfonrers, diversification of roles, articulation of the ele mants of dialogue, conditions requisite for authenticity.

Here we shall stress only the fact that, in spite of the evident differences between a troparion and a responsory, there are analogies cxmron to the twofoIJllS, particularly as regards the link between the elerrents of dialogue and the need for consistency and logic in the texts assigned

the persons woo have roles to play in the perfonnance of these liturgical fonns.

c... T h e L i t a n y - p r a y e r As before, our reflection about

this liturgical foxm went considera bly beyond the mere teclmical aspects. We began with a discussion about the diversification of the roles played by the participants:the role of the autl:Dr

Cistercian Francophone Corronission 53

or authors of the petitions and final prayer, the role of the one or ones reading or singing the petitions, the role of the one presiding, the role of the assembly which listens and then responds.

It was asked whether it is a good thing for the author or cx:>np0ser to be the inte:rpreter and executant of his CMn text or music. We can easily agree that there are S<YCE tlrlngs which only the creator will kn.CM how to "feel" and cx::mnunicate to others, since these things are his CMn in a ver:y particular way. But it is also true that a text or piece of music as inter preted by one of the brethren can occasion new disooveries for the creator of the conposition. The solution to these minor problems of distribution of functions depend in part on the a:mrrunity situation. The differentiation ofroles make.it possible for a greater number of "actors1' to play a part in the liturgical drama or play; and this distribution of roles am::mg a greater num. ber seems perhaps preferable to using fewer 11actors''.

This problem brought up the question of listening to others and to being open to them; and this in turn led to a discussion about s p o n t a n e o u s p e t i t i o n s in the litany-prayer -a formular:y which lends itself well to spontaneous expressions of this sort.The possibility for each to formulate his CMn petitions struck us as irrg;:iortant and rewarding as regards personal in volverrent. The various remarks made in this oontext brought out the following points:

- Spontaneous petitions by individuals are a test by which one can gauge the level of camnmity ooncem.

- Such petitions sorretimes make it possible, then, to ask oneself questions at depth; and, in any case, they can provoke a self-questioning on the part of those who are listening (guests, for instance).Petitions such as these produce an effect on others -sometimes even a shock. We haveto be oonscious of this, and appreciate the element of risk involved .

- We have to take care to safeguard the overall unity of this prayer-formu lar:y; but we also ought to reoognize the fact that spontaneous petitions serve admirably to integrate the

"unexpected''within a structured en semble. It is true that the result is sanetirres su:rprise, a rupture in the rhythm of celebration, inadequate or imperfect fonnulations; but we also have to realize that this involves a mutual education effected at the level of the carmnmity, and that this can foster oonmunity prcqress

54

to a oonsiderable extent. However, it is the celebrant who is re sponsilile for gathering together and surrming up and,

perhaps, even placing these petitions in their proper oontext. Sane of the Office structures currently in use in our camrunities provide for an intro ductory nonition .imrediately before the IDrd's Prayer, but also imre diately after a series of spontaneous petitions.A nonition at this spot is ideal for unifying the preceding petitions.

This insertion of ''real life" in our celebrations is an important point to which we shall return.

If the litany-prayer in the strict sense is to serve its ftmction, there are several conditions which have to be net:

- There should be a certain harrogeneity between the various intentions, an overall rll.ythm for the enserrble.

- The response by the comm.mity should be adapted to the intentions.Adoxological acclamation ought not to be stmg after a petition for for giveness or sarething similar.This response should be simple and "open", that is to say, suitable to serve as a link between particular inten tions and general intentions.

Here again, it would be a good thing to have a certain variety as regards

the fonn of the litany-prayer.

The r e s p o n s o r i a l p

s a l m and the A l l e l u i a

V e r s e

It seems to be clear that at Mass, especially when there are only t:v.o read- ings, the response to

the first reading can vary: silence, responsorial psalm, alleluia-psalm•••

Should a r e s p o n s o r i a 1 p s a 1 m be used, we are ( evidently faced with the same problem of having a ooherent 1IR1Sical and textual link be tween the refrain and what the psalmist sings -a problem already discussed with regard to the responsories. It should be noted, as was already done at the En-calcat neeting, that "a certain critical eye with regard to the

choice

of refrains proposed by the (official) lectionaries is not to be

excluded, since not everything is what it should be in these books."

An.other question was asked:Is the responsorial psalm a "neditation· song" or a reading? The several historical facts which were briefly recalled author-

Cistercian Francophone Corronission 55

ize one to accept divergent viewpoints. But no matter which viewpoint one accepts, it should be renenbered that not all psalms have the same character. h .': have to know just hav to rrake the best use of the various kinds of psalms, and vary our practice according to each particular case.

The problem of the a 1 1 e 1 u i a v e r s e was treated at greater length. What is its function? What should be its general tenor, its rhythm? Should it be considered as an elarent of transition linking what precedes with what canes after? The General Instruction for the Missal presents it ratheras a preparation for the Gospel. But just how is this alleluia verse going to introduce the Gospel? Is it already a listening to a Gospel-text, a "pre-nedi tation"? Sane of the examples given in the

Mass Iectionary -particularly for the Sunday-cycle -would incline one to say Yes. Considered in itself, this emphasis on a precise theme central to the Gospel which follCMS has its impor tance; but from the standpoint of the overall dynamism of the celebration, this anticipation of the Gospel-text is not wholly satisfying. Is there not even a risk. taking away from the illlpact of the Gospel which follavs?

Could not this alleluia verse be rather an a c c 1 a m a t i o n or c a l l i n g u p o n Christ, who is present anong us on this particular day, accarplishing through his presence and action what the Gospel proclaimsand the Old Testarrent foretells? And would it not be to our advantage to have as our starting i:oint our avn life in the concrete, so that our lives can find neaning through a confrontation of our real life with the Gospel which is pro clairred? Further study in this area is to be encouraged.

As regards the fo:r:m of the alleluia verse, the various remarks were con vergent. The quasi-textual "reprise" (anticipated!) of certain Gospel-texts l.ll1.der the fo:r:m of a rather long strophe does not necessarily appear as the prac tice best adapted to the context of the rite. A brief verse or a series of short verses with alleluia acclamations between repetitions to accanpany the procession or the sinple presentation of the Book would provide a tonal dllnen. sion and action nore in the fo:r:m of a shout or cry , cormating the dynamism of joyous personal involvarent. It seems indeed that, for the future,

we should direct our efforts towards shaping up a series of alleluia verses of this sort,with provision being made for a certain variety of thematic content.

Here again we found ourselves dealing with two concerns which often arose

56

in the course of these sessions: a concern to ensure a certain anount of variety in the expression of our liturgical play, as well as a concern to contrive a reasonable balance between the elements of celebration, and to provide for a good overall rhythm. It was noted that this effort towards creative discer.nrrent, far fran cutting us off from Tradition, will, on the contrary, make it possible for us to rediscover the living sources. History, after all, has its constants which always correspond to a grasp of a truth which is at one and the sane tirre human and divine.

2- Reflection on soma problems of a general nature

The remarks madea- L i t u r

g yf o r t h e

a n d l i f ew o r l d o f

i n a n dt o d a y

above allow us to put our finger an a certain number

of difficulties fran which we all suffer :tenacious prejudices, inhibitions which provoke rigidity and a too great unifo:rmity in our celebrations.Per haps we were able to take cognizance of the full extent of the malaise, and firxl an insight as regards the evolution called for if our liturgy is to bea t o t a 1e x p e r i e n c e. Do we not have to redisoover the 1 a wo.f 1 i f e, which is essentially pennanence th.rough dynamism and differen tiation?

Liturgy, which is supr;osed to be an authentic sign of the living God,

can and ought to open upon real life at all its various levels:

- psychological, by a serene, joyous expression of our affectivity, of our being present to the world -a presence which is not isolated, but united to the presence of our brothers and sisters;

- literary, bylneans of a rediscovery of living fonns of camrunication and dialogue;

- bodily expression, by neans of a flexible integration of our corporeality into the liturgical play.A great deal is at stake. Fr.Hun and Sr.Isa

belle-Marie of the National Center of Pastoral Liturgy did not hesitate tact fully but also energetically to bring us face to face

with o u r r e s p o n s i b i 1 i t y a s P e o p 1 e o f G o d: will our monastic life really be able to be present to the world by reason of the involvement of the nonastic liturgy in the concerns of the world? Will we be able to discover a type of language or expression adapted to our CMn particular situation in the Church?

Cistercian Francophone Commission 57

During the exchange of views between Fr. Hum and the nenbers of the Carmittee f or Texts -a discussion dealing with the creation of texts - there were a number of remarks made along the same lines.

In our present attempts to shape up an adequate fo:rmulation of an au

thentic prayer, the needs a.re indeed i:rrrrense. An active collaboration of all the living forces of the Church is proving nore and nore necessary and urgent. What is expected of us? THE IDST PERFE.cI' EXPRESSION POSSIBLE OF A

LIFE LIVED AUTHENTICALLY AND AT DEPTH -a lif e which. is radical' and a spir itual sinplicity which. is nothing else but the f inal word about an experience of God f ollowed through to its utrrost limit. 't\brk created in such a climate of exigency carmot f ail to get across; and it wears well.

But for all this,we still have to acquire a suf f icient p a s t o r a 1 s e n s i t i v i t y such as will enable us to avoid certain expressions which. a.re too bound upwith our own culture, and which m;tght be, for other nenbe;rs of the Church,an obstacle to be overa:me or-.J.y with great dif f iculty. This is a big program. There is no question of our having to run around the world, but rather of our having to be perpetually listening to the world in an attitude of seeking, of being available, of being open and s:y:mpa.thetic. Perhaps it is a question of

a c o n v e r s i o n such as ought to break down our many dif ferent interior barriers, so as to put us as really as possible at a level with the

world which is being built up or destroyed under our very eyes a world

which, for all that, too oten srnething distant and f oreign for us. As rronks and nuns, we have to t:cy to live essentially in what is unseen; but do we know suf f icient!y how to c o n t e m p 1a t e t h e r e a 1 i t y o f t h ew o r 1 d, how to decipher whatever happens as a sign or a sacramant, hc:M to integrate and assimilate it until we fonn only one entity with it, so as to express it at last in a prayer which wells forth f ran a human nature shared by

all nen, but made f ruitful by the Spirit? We have to disclose to each other the unsuspected dinensions of reality. But in order to do this, we have todiscover, in the midst of all the nanbers of the People of God, a c o m m u - n i t y w i t h a c o n t e m p l a t i v e and e v a n g e l i c a lo u t 1o o k, a profound "Yes'' to the other person who, perhaps, has needs other than our CMrl., but who nevertheless challenges us and of fers us a stimu lus. lf it is the Spirit 'Who is at work in us, he will stop \\Orking only when we shall have placed each. and all of our talents -of ten buried and lef

t un-

58

exploited -at the service of our brethren , however close or distant the de gree of kinship might be. If we are willing to pay this price, we have a chance of discovering, while at the same time remaining ourselves, and re maining f aithf ul to our vocation, an adequate language to express our prayer

, so that, through their contact with us, others may in turn f ind an adequate

expression of their own prayer. Helping the People of God, however we can,to f ind a way of praying, can be a way for us to proclaim the Gosfel and tobe apostles.

In the concrete, ought not this to camrl.t us, fersonally collective ly, to a re-thinking of our nanner of thinking about the liturgy, to accepting the f act that different ones of us hold dif f erent positions, to setting up small working-groups or study-groups of feople who are willing to work in close

collaboration with others and to share the f ruits of their '\".Urk? There certainly remains a great deal to be done along the lines of such a s h a r i n g a s a C h u r c h in spiritual goods, experiences and projects, for the benef it of all.

A concern to have our liturgy shafed up by lif e at its nost authentic should be evident not only when a hymn or a prayer is canposed, but even when

there is question of only minor details -as when , for instance, a reading has to be presented. Sanetirres it takes only a brief introduction , or a sarewhat nore arrple title to provide the reason which justi f ies the choice

of this or that text, or to actualize the reading to sare extent. And are not our hanilies so many interrogations which take their rise f ran real life?A n of other examples could be given. Further ref lection in this areais lled ;f;or • • •

b- L it u r g y a s ''p 1a y" If we are atterrpting to ef fect a better integration into our liturgy

of the weight and drama of real life, can we still Sfeak of liturgy as ''play"? It would seem that this word ''play'' is oot particularly serious. W::>uld it not risk encouraging a certain kind of infantilism such as we are trying

preciselyto escafe, were we to prarote the idea of liturgy as "play''?

The dif f iculty is a real one; we felt it keenly. But, f ar f rom incitiIXJ us to put aside the notion of play, this dif f iculty f orced us to dig still deeper into the concept.

Cistercian Francophone Corronission 59

Is liturgy really play? Yes, to the extent to which it a s s u m e s the w h o l e o f l i f e i n t o t h e

d o m a i n o f t h es y m b o 1 i c, which reveals its f u n d a m e n t a 1 m e a n i n g. Art (and is not liturgy sacred art?) ought to help us rea:wer the spiritual childhcxxl of the Gospel, with its rote of s p o n t a n e it y, o f p r o-

f o u n d 1ib e r t y, o ;f a b a n d o n m e n t t o g r a c e - all of which takes place within an area delimited by certain rules freely accepted and willed. "The liturgy" , writes Fr . Cocagnac, "is a spiritual garden in which God has been pleased to place his children so as to make itpossible for than to play in his presence. " In play, as in liturgy, everything

is g r a t u i t o u s and requires ar.. . interior and IlRltual a v a i 1 a - b i 1 i t y and r e a d i n e s s. The liturgy can be the privileged place which makes it possible once again to f ind, at the heart of a 'WOrld all tooof ten hardened, sad, · and restless, the m e a n i n g o f t h e f e a s t, the p r i z e o f e n c o u n t e r , o f c o m m u n i o n. And who does not feel the need for this kind of experience?

But, is it p:>ssible always to be celebrating a f east? Does this not risk sing $cxreth;ing artilicial on us? The heart ts not always joyful; each clay

has its own particular tone or color; suf fering, too, ou:;ht to f ind its node of expression ;in the liturgy .• •This is true; but when we speak of ''f east'' , this does not nean external solemnity or superf icial, artif icial gaity. The

tua). ;feast to whicll ipan ii? cqlled by Jesus Christ, the risen lord, isf ully realized only at the texm of a conversion , and its expression is subjectto human rhythms. A certain :intensity in the perception of the Mystery can;EW a oonrete expre$sion in the hllmble$t of celebrations. 'I'o celebrate a;!;east neans to :manifest but also to arouse or prevoke ......- an attentive love wh.i,ch is born of f aith and is kept vigilant.

Now, we know that love is inventive, and this is true even in the ways

love f inds of acting discreetly. Love can f ind quite dilf erent ways of ex pressing itself , and the choice of means varies according to the circurrstancesot the nnrent. The question is nore of quality than of quantity. we kn<M, too,s:ince Saint-Exu¢ry1s The Littie Prince, that love has need of "rites" - and these rites are not to be conf used with an auta:natism such as we

reject. The IIPdif ication of a single point of detail ts enough, at tilres, to signify a presence. lf this "presence'' is rot there, or if one 's f reedom is insuf-

60

ficient, the result is going to be, of rourse, boredom and uneasiness: the feeling that one is putting on a f arce. But in such circumstances,it is help:Eul to submit oneself to 'What Fr. lineau has called the ''violence of the rite'' (Notes de pastorale U turgique 91 Iavril 1971] , pp. 14-16) : "to play the gane obliges one to conversion. ''

A feast can and should make itself known each day in a dif ferent manner; but we should like to :i;oint out that the r h y t h m s of life (day, week, inportant liturgical seasons, etc.• .) have to be respected. We noted in the course of our discussion a certain insistence on the need for p r e p a r a t i o n (rarote or praxilnate: ai:riving in choir, getting the Off ice started, etc• • • ) , and of w a i t i n g (knowing how to handle transitions fran one part of the celebration to another , periods of silence, etc..•) . All thisis needed if we are to interiorize the celebration , and beccme fully and con sciously involved, and be able, as a result , to share this experience

with others. A number of ref lectionsI n d i y i d u a l p s y c h o l o g yand c o m m u n i t y l i f e

made in the rourse of this session stressed the :irn-

:i;ortance of the problem of"l i s t e n i n g''. Many f ailures of liturgy as play have their cause in the f act that, consciously or unconsciously, we t:hxow up interior partitions and isolate ourselves f ran what is happening. On the rontrary , an openness to one another will foster the element of play in liturgy, and will make it :i;ossible for all the elem:mts whidl make up the liturgy to develop organically and ina hanronious manner.

Though the question of p o l y p h o n i c m u s i c was raised ina dif ferent context (that of the respective balance between the various elements of the order of sound, and the advantage of having an alternation between single line nelodies and part-singing} , this question of part-singing becane, at thispoint, the occasion for sarre quite interesting ref lections. The suitability of this kind of nrusic is sarretines called into question, even nr::M : in the name of the exigencies of sobriety and utter sinplicity , there are sane 'Who do not hesitate to assert that polyphony ''is not nonastic. ''

We might ask whether , in certain cases -but this remark is obviouslynot to be generalized -a resistence of this sort arises fran the f act that the

Cistercian Francophone Corronission 61

individual might possilily experience a certain dif f iculty in entering into relations with others. For polyy;ilonic nrusic of this sort signif ies to an eminent degree what a ccmnuni.ty is seeking to realize: agreement or haxrcony in diversity. It makes it possible f or each one to f ind the place which is really his (each one has his own vocal range) ; but at the same tine it pre supposes that one is constantly attentive to others, that one is open and respectf ul of others, and that one i.s willing · to adapt oneself to others in order to accarplish i.n all its fulness the ccmron work of praise and intercession. Psychologically and spiritually, polyphonic song -with all that it pre-supposes -can constitute, when used in m::xieration, an excellent school for nonastic fonnation.

In the liturgy, concern for one 's brother can and should be constantly apparent -in the way, for instance, that a nonk reads aloud (is he really reading f or the sake of the others?) , or in the way that the periods of silence are observed, etc.

When speaking· of liturgy as play, we were led 1 obviously , to speak ofp o s t u r e s and g e s t u r e s. We used as our starting point a f ew examples such as the kiss of peace, which is the sign and gesture of ccmnuni.on. It appeared that we here had a whole human ritual , an ensemble of spontaneous and meaningf ul ges;tures which we have to re-learn i.n the school of life, soas better to express our relation to our brethren , and give expression in a JtP.re authentic way to those sentiments which can nonnally f ind a place in our litu;rgy. We haye to know how to use the J:x::x:1y as an inst.ruirent of ccmnunica tion which calls into action one 's deepest personality. This is why we should be happy if training in the expressive use of one s lxx1y were to becare a part of our general nonastic fonnation.

The d i f f i c u 1 t i e s of ten met with in this area of expression in general throw a great deal of light on a certain number of inhiliitions,mental blocks; saretines there. is question of an outright refusal to give oneself to others. The personal dif f iculty of ten f elt by a celebrant during the celebration of the Eucharist, when he tJ:ys to enter into a true

relationship with the assembly, can derive in part f ran a poor arrangerrent of the liturgi cal space, or f rom the f act that the various ''actors" are poorly arranged in the space assigned them for their function; but there are also other causesof a nore profound nature. For instance, is the celebrant really willing to

62

look at others and be looked at in turn? In other circumstances, the cele

brant might be a bit uneasy by reason of the uncertainty which still subsists as regards the deli:rnitation of various functions (the role of the celebrant and the participation of the abbot in the celebration still raises a prablanf or sare, it \\Uuld seeml. In brief , the question is not so sinple. It be carres still no,re cauplex f ran the f act that , over and arove these dif f iculties of a psychologi cal order, one superllrq:x:>ses certain conceptions of

nonastic lif e which, though not stated in so :many v.urds, w0uld tend to tum rronks into quasi hexmits placed side by side -rren who have renounced for all .tine all ex pression of deep ''f eelings". When the

dif f iculties at this deep level are problans of conscience, we cannot, obviously, sweep them lightly away. Butthe question is doubtless worth being raised in this context: If we are to re-discover the elerrent of the ''natural'' in liturgy as play, will this not

demand on our part a veritable conversion? The game we are playing makes itnecessary f or us to RE-DISCOVER THAT IDLY LIBERI'Y OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD, WHICH, lN THE JOY AND SIMPLICITY CHARACI'ERISI'IC OF THE FIRST CHRISI'IAN COM4UNITY,OOGHI' 'IO MAKE rr POSSIBLE FOR US 'IO GIVE AN OOTWARD, CONCREI'E EXPRESSION OF'IDTAL TRUTH TO THE MYSI'ERY OF OOR ca.MJNION.

d- E d u c a t i o n of the "a c t o r s" and of the c o m m u n i t y

The preceding pages of this report have given an indica tion of the worth and value

of liturgical "play , and have shown how important it is to do everything possibleto make it work. But each and every participant in our session also realized a bit better how very dif f icult it is to enter into one 's own role, and to make the other ''actors" enter f ully into their respective roles, so as to en

ure, at every level, the. optimum conditions f or expression.

How are we going to help our a::mnunities?

The f unction of the liturgical leader or ''animater'' is here extremely im

portant. Obviously, he is going to have to try to give a good exarrple; but he

will also have to explain a great deal, and repeat the same things of ten. Using daily practice (and especially mistakes} as his starting point, he will foster ref lection by the remarks he makes to individuals and to the cc:mnunity as a whole; and he will encourage f urther progress by his ref erence to the very na ture of the topi,.cs under discussion and to the laws of human psychology, rather than by any ref erence to ire.re rubrics. In brief , he will have to act with tact

Cistercian Francophone Commission 63

and charity if he is to effectively achi.eve a last!n9 result in his role as educator•••and he himsel,f will have to accept education ,fran his own brothers or sisters. Because, since the liturgy is the work of the Spirit,we oughtnot lose sight of the fact that the Spirit is at the heart of the cx:mmmity, and that he often reveals tO the very least irember what is best. So the one in charge should arrange everything in such a way that each individual hasa chance to take part in the play.

M e a n so f f o r m a t i o nand c o n t i n u a l r e f l e c t i o n

Various propositions and suggestions were offered :

- provide the ccmnunities with a Directory for the use of the celebrants;.... present a biblio:rraphy with carrmentacy on each item;... it would be a good thing if the basic liturgical fonnation were to in-: clude an anthropolo:JY.

'As regards gestures and postures, a few provisional titles were given: the article 1'G61.uflexion1' in the Dictionnaire de Spiritua Zite; the brochure by H.Caffarel, Le corps et Za priere , Editions du Feu Nou veau, 1971; various articles by Dam G.OUry, in Esprit et Vie.

It was proposed -and with insistence -that each of the themes touched on in the course of this meeting should be taken up again and treated at great er depth in substantial articles to be published in future issues of this bul letin on liturgy . fure than ever before, Liturg y should be the instrurrentof reflection, infonnation, and exchange which it is supposed to be . Collabo ration between a:mnunities and a sharing of their experiences in things litur gical would be extranely fruitful. It is clear, of course, that we have raised many different questions; but it will take much time and work to explore the implications of these questions and address ourselves to the various studies and elements of solution.

Much along the sa:rre lines it was suggested, but discreetly, that

other sessions(on a larger scale) take up again and pursue further the reflection undertaken and begun in this present session; the therrecould perhaps be : "Liturgical play as a :ftmction of relation'' or "The conditions for a free, personal involvement in the liturgy". At any rate, though these problems are by no means unfamiliar, we still have to do a great deal in order to discover in the concrete all that an authentic liturgical life implies -a life lived

64

at depth, a life which is at one and the s time deeply personal and yet deeply at the level of ccmnunity; a life wltlch has its own specif ic character, and yet remains open and in the service of the entire Church. Here we arenot ooncemed -and this bears repetition ...-- to provide ready-made answersand recipes; rather, we wish s.inl?ly to help our carrmunities to make their own self -diagnosis and to draw their own oonclusions with due regard to their own ;rhythm of evolution and the bold imperatives of the Spirit Creator.

II

We spent the third day dealing with the reports of the various Sub-cmt missions and with a fEM questions about the functions of the Canmission.

1- F o r m a t i o n Sub-ccmnission Fr. Paul Houix, who is the headof this Sub-cx:mnission, had already

given his report on the f irst day of the ting, since he had to return tohis nonastery for the blessing of the new abbot of Timadeuc.

He explained how he envisaged the role of the head of the Fonnation Sub carmri.ssion. In point of f act, at the level of the entire Cistercian Order

there is no Central Fonnation Ccmnission, but only regional secretaries for questions of fonnation; and these can be helped by assistants. The result is that the role of the head of the Cistercian Francophone Ccmnission 's "Infonna tion-Fo:onation Sub-ccmnission" would ooincide with that of the

Assistant f orLiturigcal Matters, who works with the regional Fonnation secretaries -

Fr . Ma.ur (SooUDIDnt) and Fr. Herve (Timadeuc) for nonks, and Sr. M:>nique (Laval)and Sr . Jean (Ubexy) for nuns.

The discussion which follCMed this expose! brought out the neoossity , none theless, of having within our Cistercian Francophone Carmission a sub-ccmnission ooncemed with "Infonnation-Fannation'' . This is not to say that our Ccmnission has to take in hand the actual formation in things liturgical of our nonk.s and

nuns (in the f inal analysis, this task pertains to the abbot or abbess, who

is responsible for the liturgical fonna.tion of the cx:mnunity • .•) ; nor does itmean that we £ail to recognize the services rendered by the Secretary f or For mation with whan we always ought to oollaborate. Our Conmission, however, carmot but be ooncerned with the '1doctrinal" aspect .llrplicit Pl. any liturgical refo:rm; and we should like to of f er our help to the extent possible to the variousnonks and nuns in charge of fonnation programs. We acoordingly can only conf illll

Cisteraian Franaophone Commission 65

the February , 1968 Statute of our Ccmnission, as approved at Laval -ac count being taken of the f act, of course, that, at Our Lady of Gard.es

in1969 , we f used the Third Sub-ccmni.ssion ("Formation") and the Fourth ( "In f ormation") into a single Sub-a:mnission.

iJ.hls Suh-camnission accordingly should be alert to the various needs ofthe rronasteries, and shouldy, on the one hand, to provide them with inf

or mation, help than to make

progress in the area of liturgy, of fer them rreansof receiving a fonnation in things liturgical, give them guidance in the taskof discerning those who can best take care of their needs, and encourage col laboration in the preparation of this liturgy Bulletin .• .; on the other hand, this Sub-ccmnission should work in close collaboration with other organisms both within the Order and without -and this in a spirit of active coopera tion.

During the past year, the activities of this Sub-cx:mnission were devotedto a fEM concrete projects; specialcattention was given to the problem of f ind ing ways of receiving a fonnation:

- Fr. Philippe Rouillard, o.s.B. (Wisques) , thanks to his close

contacts with Paul, was able to direct three-day liturgy sessions in several of our nonasteries -Sept-Fons , Darbes, Maubec, Aiguebelle, Neiges, Tamie, Tirnadeuc.

Subsequent canm:mts resulting f ran these initiatives were quite favorable. It would seem advantageous, then, to ask such lecturers invited by this or that m:mastery to make themselves kncMn to other groups; it might be possible for

them to be of service to still other nonasteries. The Sub-oonmission could as sme the responsibility f or coordinating the various sessions.

- fureover , contacts have been made with a viEM to drawing up an up-to-date report with regard to what is being done in the area of liturgical formation.On the one hand it is clear enm:gh that there is a general desire and need of a serious formation; on the other hand, there is a real need to coordinate ef

forts. The result of this is that steps have been taken to have the Sub-ccmni.s sion establish pennanent contact with Fr . Matthieu Collin, who is in charge of liturgical f ormation in the French Province of the Subiaco Congregation. There

are also certain projects involving collaboration with the National Center for l?astoral Liturgy and with still other groups, such as the Conmission for Wanen

Contemplative Religious (CRCC} •

Study-projects (ire.etings, tapes • • • } have given rise to high hopes. Putting theory into practice is doubtless going to take a great deal of tine and

66

effort, on the part of entire camrunities as well as on the part of those in charge of various areas of concem.M:>reover, there is also a need for real canpetence•••But if our ccmnunities and those in charge of the liturgy are going to have a solid liturgical fonnation, we have to :be willing to pay the price.

As regards the fo:rmation of specialists, it is a matter of regret that

so few nonks and nuns of our Order are sent to the liturgy institutes in Paris and in Rane.we have only one student specializing in liturgy at the present tine.

2- T e x t s SUb-camiission

Fr.Jean-Eudes gave a progress report of the work being done. This work is

proceeding at a good pace. Since a rather detailed presentation of the ious projects was recently given in the August, 1971 issue of the French version of this Bulletin, pp. (9)-(14), there was no reason to go into further details at our Belval meeting.Here we shall only note that a neeting of the Sub-c6mnission for Texts took place immediately before the plenary session which net at Belval. There were two and a-half days of work, and the neeting proved to be a fruitful one. Everyone knows what a great need we have for new texts of high quality. The work done by the Cistercian Francophone Coomission is generally much appre ciated both within the Order and elsewhere; and the Sub-carrmission is encour- ages to continue its serious work in this area.

3- M u s i c or C h a n t Sub-camnission

Fr.Clement de Boumont in his tum gave a report on the work done by

his Sub-com- mission:

A c t i v i t i e s o f t h e t y e ar (since the last neeting of the Cistercian Francophone Corrmission}:

In cooperation with the group ''Chant et lt>nasteres11 , which has

expanded so as to beoorre an inter-Order organisn, a nunber of sessions were organized:

- A workshop for cc:rrp:>sers, under the direction of Victor Martin: a 2-week session held last January and February at the Benedictine nuns of Vanves in the suburb of Paris; and again at Orval, last July and AU3Ust.

- Psychophony under the direction of Madane Aucher: introducto:r:y course for nonks at Port-du-Salut, last March; advanced course for nuns, last Octo ber , at Laval.

- A study session held at Orval, last July, under the direction of Madarre;I?eerboarn; the topic dealt with our search for an ascesis suited to our own

Cistercian Francophone Commission 67

time, and with our p r e p a r a t i o n for using our bodies as a means of expression in the liturgy .

- A session offering an introduction to nrusic according to the Orff method had been planned for August, but it had to be cancelled be cause of the illness of the director, Fr. Schollaert.

Plans for next year:

- A "WOrkshop with with the composer Victor Martin is planned for January and February in Paris, at the Dames de PAssamption; a surrmer work shop will be held, probably at Tournay, in the Benedictine nonastery.

- A course of advanced psychophony under the direction of Madame Aucher, to be held in March at the Prerronstratensians of M::>ndaye (calvados).

- A v.orkshop on the use of the body, directed by Madame Peerl::xx:m in August, once again at Tournay.

- Choral conducting and leading a liturgical assembly (nonastic), under the direction of cesar Geoffray -a session for nonks and nuns at the Benedictine nuns of Pradines, wire, next June.

- An introduction to music, Under the direction of Fr. Schollaert.Details are still indefinite.

- An attempt will be made to organize regional groups interested in ccm

posing nrusic.

- Possible organization of yet another v.orksh.op for composers, under the direction of Victor Martin .

These last tv.o projects are under particular study by our Sub-a:mnission and by Fr.Matthieu Collin, o.s.B., who is in charge of liturgical questionsin the French Province of the SUbiaco Congregation(Pierre-gui-vire).Details have still to be finalized . Circular letters will eventually be sent to our Superiors and other interested parties, giving further infonnation.

The sessions on psychophony directed by Madame Aucher:

The sessions mentioned al:xJve were open to participants coming from various nonasteries, both from within the Order and fran without.

The general sessions ;resulted in a keen interest in psychophony on the part of a number of religious in charge of the liturgy in their various camrunities.

68

These sessions helped · ;i.nd.ividuals to disoover not only the laws of oorrect singing (voice culture}, but also the deep roots :mus;tc has, and the reper cussions it affects throughout out entire human organism, both physical and spiritual. So the idea emerged of organizing six-day sessions within various camrunities. In this way the individual commmity could profit even rrore ex tensively than is possible when only one or two members take part in a general session held elsewhere. Within the Order and withJut, sessions have beenheld or will be held:

- at Les Gardes , November 1970 (beginners) and 1971 (advanced);- at the Poor Clares of Nantes, January 1971 and June 1972;- at the CctnTelites of Avranches, June 1971 and June or July 1972;

- at the Benedictine nuns of Liege, August 1971;- at the Canrelites of Arras, late October 1971; advanced oourse in 1972;

- Jbm.inican nuns of Taulignan (the session will take place at Marseille), November 1971;

- at the Religieuses de La Pcmneraye (Maine-et-Ioire), Decerrber 1971;

- at the Canrelites of Liesse (Aisne), January 1972;- at T.imadeuc, May 1972.

Though outsiders can, of oourse, be invited, the number of participants in such sessions ought not to exceed 25.

The physical chlture sessions of Madane Peerboan :

The importance of this work was particularly noted by the tID

Francophone secrataries '(Europe) for the various questions touching on rronastic fonnation.

This discipline is the fruit of a ooncem to discover as deeply as possi... ble to roots of expression -of which chant is only a single particular aspect . This study of the domain of the bodily and peysical has proved to be of fUn d.a:rrental importance at the level of the rronk 's general fonnation. Acoordingly, it is the Secretariate for Fonnation which is officially in charge of this area of training within the Order -though always in union with others similarly charged in the other rronastic Orders.

The Music and Chant SUb-carmri.ssion can only rejoice to see this area of study exploited as a result of the enoouragerrent it had given the initiatives of the group ''Chant et Jvbnasteres" sare tine ago. The

next ;issue of the bulle-

Cistercian Francophone Corronission 69

tin edited by this group, Prier ensemble, will publish a rep::>rt written by

one of the participants of the Orval session.

There were further discussions devoted to questions of organization and affiliation with other liturgical organs of the French hierarchy -matters of little interest for readers outside France

Our President, Fr. Gerard, closed the session. The participants parted, happy to have IIEt together in this shared experience which, thanks to the discussions and projects examined, promises even nore abundant fruits for the future. This was an experience rich with the graces of prayer and of frater nal joy.

Translated (with occasional adaptations), Gethsemani Abbey

1- Sing a new song to the Lor<l; f or he has worked won-ders. HisO n,1 G•

r Fm

l

71

THREE ROYAL PSALMS WITH ANTIPHONSBY

FATHER BENEDICT OF AVA

Mel ody wi th Guitar-chord Symbol s

PSALM 97

c ,

J ;. i ' I J

l j .r: J J

r:lght hand and his ho- ly ann have brought sal- va- tion. The

E ""'" EM1 c1o c:ll=

Lord has made known his sal- va- tion ; has shown his jus-

r I ·;

na- tions . He has re- mem-bered his truth and lovetice to the

f or the house of Is-ra- el. 2- All the ends

. F C;1 DI'? ,

of the earth have

n p\

J

earth , ring out your joy. Sing psalms to the Lord with theE M, c c. c#:-

J - <t J> J

h I J'_ r , ; h P. P

harp with the sound of mu-sic. With tn.un-pets and the sound of

72

r r r p I f - J&: t ; ' I f _ n

the . horn ac-claim the King, theLord. 3- Let the sea and all C F ,

;.riv-ers clap their Frw.ip

J fl p. J J lhands and the hills ring out their joy

1 1 I i J r. r Jat the pres-ence of the Lord:

Cf. od:for he

comes, he comes to rule

t I ! J the earth. He will rule the world with jus-tice and the

)'. I f r IIpeo-ples with fair-ness.

A N T I P H 0 N S

ANTIPHON 1 c A..b:! 3 _ c;.1

ij I . !! l j

h ' ' } I "' . I J . . I

The Lord comes to rule the peo-ples with fair....ness.

ANTIPHON 2

B P

t1 I t;

All the ends of the earth have seen the sal-va-tion of our God .

G i

q JJ )> ·

nr 1

c

Three Royal Psalms with Antiphons 73

ANTIPHON 3

r The Lord has made known his sah va-tion to the na-tions.

ANTIPHON 4

®t t °f J J J J t J · lHis sal-va-tion

is known

to the ends of the earth.ANTIPHON 5i I 4 A• ;1I :p IJc_

Ih J J jThe Lord comes to rule the earth with jus-tice.

ANTIPHON 6

(Jj t r 1 'J ] IFj t f J J 0 ISing to the Lord a new song, for he has done mar- ve-lous deeds.

ANTIPHON 7m E'\I t='

J p r F l I J J - I =:;_ 1.I J_ IIGreat and wonder,ful are all your works, Lord,

mighty God!

ANTI PHON 8 P.r.IQ e

ij\ I t-:3 I =t i s I

- II

Re- joice at the pres-ence of the Lord!

® )_

74

1- The Lord is king,(7 h,,

Jz<)"J I

PSALM 96

r r J J Ilet earth re- joice, let all the

I 3 J tJ J I J

coast-lands be glad. Cloud and dark-ness are his rai-ment;F G-m,

I -· r I c2 If rhis throne, jus-tice and right . A fire pre-

pares his path; it burns up his foes on every side.Cc, [? 1' A V"!

ij I f J J J I V J r I "'2trthe

; earth trem-bles at the sight . 2- The moun-tains melt

Q fy J J I u J _( (E" ( F e i . J I IThe skies pro- claim his jus-tice; all peo-plesc., F GM1

J I l J - 1 r r J "' I r r r · Isee his glo-ry. Let those who serve i-dols be a-

® J) 1 J'" f 1 z 1 '.;"' ;Jdr J 1 Fj2 11shamed. those who boast of their woi"{h-less . gods.

fAll . you spi.t::·dts, wor- ship him.

+c,.,,

,

tjk -

Three Royai Psaims with AntiphQns 75

i= c,....,, c, l= G- n,,

Gi - f t2 I - r r I ,

plI z.J?) I :..i 3 --

3- Zi-on hears and is glad; the peo-ple of Ju-dahc.,I I

b

I Ari l iI I@ ;J ;6J-: JJI -re- J OlCe be-cause of your judg-ments, 0 Lord.

E Gr!!] 1 c. , e @ I 1 r r ft? I '

For you in- deed are the high a-hoveF

earth,

a-I= hove all spir-

C.J

I r r "'J I 0 i r r r I J J "J.. Iits. 4- The Lord loves those who hate e vil; he

t t) I * 13 I 1 - J J IV Lt I 0

I J J I J J - I f J " I r r

from the wick-ed. F

Light shines forth for the

IJ- J I IJ?kf'J I I J J Jjust and

A

just, in the Lord; give glo-ry to his ho- ly name .

A N T I P H 0 N S

G r )

•III d I

A 1i gh t wi l l shi ne on us th i s day: the Lord i s born f or us .

3

F

I

76

ANTlPHON 2

&iB o F #= F

? j J ,I I J j r I t F EJ t r rThe Lord is king, the most high o-ver al l the earth .

ANTIPHON. 3

@t:.. 1 J J I r r (?.q i]r JI :IAl l you spi r-i ts, wor - ship him !

if - ;I Q IF

r r I J ; J 0 II.Be gl ad, al l you up-ri ght of heart !

ANTIPHON 5ij4 n J I+ I h 4

I - J I t II

t!>.,;: c.1Great are your judg .,, ments, 0 Lord!

ANTIPHON 6W\., . c.., r::

J 2> IANTIPHON 7

The Lord i s a l ight for the just .

C4:

ij .,

3f

I I- 2 jt t I IIAl - l e - l u- i a, Al - l e - l u - ia.

ANTIPHON 8

ij - '2 . Ic..,

1 0 I I '2 IIRe- joice, you just i n the Lord!

J I I J j 1=C,.cMi,

t lf

Three Royal Psalms with Antiphons 77

PSALM 95

1- 0 sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord, all the

l1earth.

007sin.g to the Lord, bl s s h i s name

. , P ro claim his help

¥ r 1 l= J J J 1 I r 1

c;. d.,,, ,

J l=J HAi

I J' . ft

f ._ t - n I $J J Pb I r- 2 > I J J lpraise, . to be feared a- bove all gods; the gods of the

' c,..., I\ ., D D

J J J " T- f J ) j .heath-ens are naught

.(;.

n I J - f J 1

It was the Lord who made the heav-ens,

E :e l f J J J J J J I

t his are maj-es-ty and state

andpow-er and splen-dor in h:i5

j ; J* 1 Ifur c, ,

t ; J J J I t ;r· Iaho- ly place. J- Give the Lord, you fam-i-lies of peo-ples,

f m? J J t::t:r I ? J EdOq ?

J J I At-. l J

l l a 01give the Lord glo-ry and pow-er, give the Lord the glo-ryA-1

L t n I J

""I!·1 J J j ;

of his name . Bring an off-'ring and en-ter his courts, wor-ship

f r I J 1J fl>1f n J J J I Ji j r Ithe Lord in his tem-ple. 0 earth, trem-ble be- fore hlln .

' M l M · I

" iJ )

78

0 0

P I ; ) l J J l - i J> l l 14-Pro- claim to the na-tions: 'God is

King. ' The world he made

Er-,, E , A, GrM Ai

)firm in its place; he will judge the peo-ples in fair-ness.

Let the

bears re- joice, all the trees of the wood shout for

joy

A97&..,<.. A ,

®t n =l - t ;1 £ J 1 I J . t- r ;J J J J l 1 5 j J J Fl

rule the earth . With jus-tice he will e the world, he will

J J J J -; I - f IIjudge

the peo-ples with his truth.

ANTIPHON l

A N T I P H 0 N S

A 1

I J - J .k JTo- day is born our

Sav-ior,

Christ the

Lord .

ANTIPHON 2

Give the Lord glo-ry d hon-or.

r A

-

'U!t

Three Royal Psalms with Antiphons 79

ANTIPHON 3

t - r r . v I :. ,_ _ I J_ t r. t.d ;_ i 1'- 11Pro-claim his mar-ve-lous deeds to all the na-tions.

ANTIPHON 4

The Lord our God comes in strength .

ANTIPHON 5

;' > I

D

1:

1 1, t µ I r D t - II

Let heav-en and earth ex- ult in joy.ANTIPHON 6

- D t;t> D

=rf, I f- J r I t iThe Lord comes to judge the earth.

ANTIPHON 7

F E t>

· Al-le-lu-ia, Christ our Pasch is ris-enl

Father BenedictOUr lady of the Assumption

81

FROM THE SINS OF MY YOUTH: AN ESSAY WITH THE

TITLE

"AN ASPECT OF THE CHANT REFORM CALLED 'BERNARDINE '"

Editor's Apology:

Typing and translating the reports of the Cistercian Francophone Com mission is always a frustrating and rewarding experience. The substance of the material and the style of expression are not without their challenges; but the effort to come to grips with the matter discussed rarely fails to prove stimulating. Page 46 of the current issue

of Liturgy was, for me, a case in point. I refer to the section which deals with the emergence of two distinct attitudes relative to texts and their function in the liturgy. If I may be pardoned for attempting to render the somewhat subtle analysis in Peter Rabbit language

1- Some people tend to analyze, define, and then reform and reshape the matter analyzed so that it will conform with their definition.

2- Other people feel less need for absolutely consistent logic and a rigid application of principles.

I personal ly was delighted to read that there are other besides myself who are a bit chary of what one might call a certain "dogmatic rigidity" with re gard to liturgical forms and texts, since it does a great deal to relieve my guilt feelings at my lamentable inability, in spite of earnest efforts on my part, to get excited over the inconsistencies in the post-Vatican II liturgy

or in the pre-Vatican II liturgy, for that matter. I know, for instance, that a really sensitive person who has analyzed the structure and content of the ideal Conununion antiphon ought to be upset about a text such as the new Conununion antiphon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter:

The Lord says:I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, that man bears fruit in plenty. Alleluia.

In my more professori al moments, I dare say I would insist on re-writing the text so that it would function better as a Conununion

antiphon. I would doubtless avoid an opening text such as "The Lord says: "I am the vine •••etc ."

82

How much better it would be to have a direct address sung to the Lord by the group of connnunicants

You, 0 Lord, are the vine,and we are the branches, alleluia!

Then the Cantor, assuming the role of Jesus, would dialogue with us in a series of versets suitable for Communion:

Verset Whoever remains in me, with me in him, that man bears fruit in plenty.

Refrain You, 0 Lord, are the vine,and we are the branches, alleluia!

Verse By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.

Refrai n You, 0 Lord •••

I frankly am persuaded that a re-casting of the material along these lines is called for. But the text even as it now stands in the final draft of the ICEL translation, ought not to be considered an insurmountable obstacle to our entering into the Communion-action with joy and gusto .And if I go to Connnunion fuming about the insensitivity of the ICEL translators or the crass stupidityof the Consilium experts who obviously didn't even know what the literary struc ture of a Communion antiphon ought to be •••

My reserve with regard to "excessive logic or rationalism" in this area is of long standing. Which brings me to the subject of the following pages,

which I offer to the reader with a certain amount of justifiable embarrassment.

The topic is rather ad rem, since it deals with a liturgical reform characteris tic of our Order in its "Golden Age", and based to a horrendous measure pre cisely on a program of reason and logic.

Once upon a time I was deeply concerned about the chances of a radical re vision of our Order's chant books. My position was that the function of the chant was to ensure a deeper contact with the sacred texts, and that the more authentic the chant version, the greater would be the guarantee that this fruit ful contact would be fostered. Like most other Cistercians interested in the Order's chant, I deemed the majority of "Cistercian particularities" so many mistakes, and regretted intensely the chant-reforming work effected under St.Bernard's personal aegis around 1147, when the Order 's chant was revised so as to make it conform with abstract ideas about chant theory formulated by

ancient musicologists who clearly didn 't know what they were writing about. Later on

An Aspect of the Chant Ref orm CaZZed "Bernardine" 83

a closer contact with hitherto unexplored documentation threw much new light on the chant reform I considered it my special mission to malign•••But this is a different story, and here I want simply to insist that the following pages were written before illumination came, and are filled with errors of fact -some of which I shall identify by editorial asides inserted in the original text. My chief hypothesis, however, remains unchanged.

This article dates back to 1962. I was on the verge of being shipped off to Rome for higher studies, and my Abbot's secretary, poor man, was desperately trying to supply me with the requisite academic qualifications for pursuing higher studies. I suddenly found that, over the years, I had been exposed toan astonishing number of official academic courses . Dom Vital 's Thursday morning rubrics conference became a six-year course in liturgy, of all things; and

Fr. Louis' talks to the Juniors became a systematic course in ascetical andmystical theology •••In the interests of preserving some semblance of academic seriousness, Fr. Louis told me to scribble down an essay about something spiri tual and/or Cistercian, and that my grade for my six years of exposure to things ascetical and mystical would be based on my essay. So I dashed off in a single day the following pages on a topic with which I had been preoccupied for some time previously. In re-scanning the script, I suspect that I must have been reading my much loved and admired Fr. Jules Monchanin

at the time: elliptic phrases and passages of unbearable••.density (?). I feel a bit silly about exposing the reader to a text which obviously should be re-written; but I simply don 't have time for this at present, and the text, as imperfect and hilarious as it is, suffices nonetheless to make a point pertinent for us in our present con text of liturgical reform. As for Fr. Louis, he found the conclusion veryinteresting; and, after remarking, "I wonder if you are totally fair to

Abelard - his complexity, sensitivity, etc.", he added: "I think you

have got something."

His parting shot, however, was: "Wishing you a very happy and fruitful timein Rome and EVERYWHERE you go!..-(emphasis h i s).

AN ASPECT OF THE CHANT REFORM CALLED "BERNARDI NE"

'Ihese tet:ms are not convertible. It is true that

Civilization and CUlture one :i.nplies the other; true also that we

often use these rds as if they point to one and the same reality. But civilization is not culture, nor culture civilization.

84

Culture (Bildung) : ad intra; interiority; the incidence fran which one views reality; the lif e of the spirit.

Omnis gloria eius f iliae regis ab intus.

Civilization (Kultur) : ab intra ad extra; incarnation; f loweringof the spiritual in and thrmh the material; transfo:rmation of the pre existent through spiritual activity: Spiritus Danini replevit orban terrarum.

Cistercian Culture and Civilization OUr Fathers rejoiced in their hum

ble possession of a lof ty culture:celsitudo perfectionis • • .Christus habitans per f idem in oordibus.They rejoiced, too, in a way of lif e which for a long time gave admirable and . coherent expression to who and what they had becane in Christo . Their Consuetudines , the acoount-books of the early granges, Cistercian calligra phy - all these bear witness, each in its own way. Fontenay , Chiaravalle,Thoronet: for those who see and listen , nore than eloquent ooncerning theman who built them and the spiritual ambiant that gave them rise. Mass, vol urre.s and space, light and shadc:M suggest what Saint Bernard makes explicitin his semens. Architecture that springs fran a theology of red.errptive Incarnation and eschatological transfonnation.

Decay But it is also true that we f ind precisely in this area warning signs of future decay. Hautea:nbe 's eager thrust skyward (hCM

dif ferent fran Fontenay !) rings f alse. And why? Because this dangerously near-Gothic yearning smacks of eras ,not of the Father 's agape given us in Christ and through his Spirit. A slight thing, this straining uµvard of a church t.a>Jer. But does it not irrply a view of reality at odds with what is nost authentically our Cistercian heritage?

- The Chant OUr chant, like our architecture, ref lects our Fathers' innervision of things. And it is the purpose of these pages to take

note of and examine ye,ry brief ly -sane of the spiritual attitudes which under-girded the several 12th centw:y Cistercian chant refo:r:ns .

Earliest Cistercian Chant Misnarer. There was no specif ically Cistercianchant for many years. There was a chant sung

An Aspect of tfie Chant Ref orm CaU ed "BernaPdine" 85

at primitive cfteaux, but this was only part of the legacy bequeathed to

New Monastery by Molesne, which had received its own chant tradition thanks to Saint Robert 's agency, who had brought it f ran his nonastery of Montier la-Celle. And to this latter place it had been brought f ran Saint-:sehigne de Dijon, the place fran which the Venerable William 's nonastic refonn had spread f irst south to Italy, then northwards to Normandy and even elsewhere. Now this chant, linked indirectly with St-Ben.igne, was no ordinary kind of chant. It was the fniit of a refonn ef fected nany decades previously atSt-&migne. W Uliam's panegyrist, Radulphus GlabeJ'.', infonns us that:

quidquid in psallendo choris suorum psallebatur , die ac nocte tam in antiphonis quam in responsoriis vel hymti.s oorrigendo et enendancb ad tantum direxit [GuillielmusJ rectitudinem, utnullus decentius ac rectius psallere contigit in tota ecclesiaramana.1

1 Vita S . GuiUie lmi Abbatis , in .Mabillon, Acta $anatorum O .S.B., T.8, p.294.

It should be borne in mind, then, that the earliest aox>pus cantus at Ct'teauxdif f ered from the standard ''unpurif ied" Ranan chant. 2

2 Recently I caxre across a microf ilm of a 12th century antiphonary f ran Mon tier-la-Celle. It should attract nore notice than it has, since it f aithf ully ref lects the St-Benigne tradition preserved -presuma):>ly -at both

:r.t:>lesme and primitive c"tteaux until satetine after 1109.

EDITOR'S EMBARRASSED NOTE :All the above business about the chant of primitive Citeaux being beholden to St-Bnigne de Dijon via Montier-la-Celle and Molesmeis, alas, nonsense. Later, in Europe, I discovered that the "Montier la-Celle Antiphonary" referred to above in Note 2, is really from Montieramey -Troyes, Bibliothque Municipale, ms. 721. I further concluded, after a great deal of manuscript-collation, that, whilethe breviary mss. of Montier-la-Celle and Molesme are virtually identi cal, contacts with the particular StBnigne de Dijon tradition aretoo tenuous to be anything but fortuitous. My theory, then, thatthe early chant at Ctteaux was that of St-Benigne, and that it differed, th.erefore, from the standard version, is s:tmply untenable.

The Saint Ste?1en Harding Period

No need to sketch here even brief ly the features proper to lif e in New :r.t:>nastery.

Enough to say that there was a thrust or novanent starting fran the general

86

and dif f used to what was nore concrete, nore clearly def ined. Everyone involved knew well enough what they were af ter an integral (because quite literal) observance of the Ho ty Ru te . But it took tine to learn by experi ence all that this involved; and it was only under Saint Stephen Harding

that the application of the RW.e 's directives was extended specif ically to

absolutely every elenent of the life our Fathers embraced.

NOTE : Nowadays I would tend to hold that- -the "application of the Rule's directives to absolutely every element of the life our Fathers embraced" was effected during the immediate aftermath of the reception of the so called Roman Privilege in 1100 the papal approbation of the splinter group of Molesme-departees, and of their way of life based on a stricter adherence to the prescription s of the Hoty Ru te, The further evolution effected under Saint Stephen Harding seems simply to have carried a bit further the thrust of the initial drastic reform, and to have provided the necessary structures for implementing the original program of monastic life in a rapidly changing historical context (system of filiations, General Chapter etc •••).

It is well known that Saint Stephen sent to Milan for a copy of those hymns really written by Saint Ambrose (the only kioo of hymn canonized by the Rule [hymnus = ambrosianum] , according to a corrm:m and perhaps correct interpretation.

NOTE : Actually, St. Benedict seems to reserve the technical term ambro sia:num to passages dealing with Vigils, Lauds, and Vespers; elsewhere he uses the term hymnus. P o s s i b 1 y his intention was to assignthe standard Milanese hymns to these three principal Hours, while allow for the use of non-Ambrose-authored hymns at the other Hours.

Less well kncMn is the fact that, at this early period, the Graduate then in use was n o t revised. This is surprising at f irst glance; for the a:rn

panion-tate -the antiphonary -was discarded in favor of a version based in whole or in part on the f annus Metz Antiphonary, which could boast of beinga f air copy of the best Gregorian exanplar once kept at Rare in days long past. Why did not the Graduate suf f er the same f ate as the antiphonary brought f ran.MJlesrre? Possibly because the White .MJnks ' Graduate still belonged to the standard tradition found alnost everywhere in Burgundy and stern Europe takenas a whole (and excluding pocket-areas such as Ireland, Spain, . the region around Milan• • • ) ; whereas the antiphonary usoo by the early Cistercians had been much

re...-workoo by William of Dijon, and departed notably fran the ordinary run of antiphonaxies. And so, when the question of the authenticity of this antiphona-

An Aspeet of the Chant Reform CaZ"led "Bernardine" 87

cy arose, it would have been examined in the light of the best mmuscript tradition which could be found; and, when the Cistercian tare was found de

fective, it would have been discared and replaced by the best version avail able.

ANOTHER EMBARRASSED NOTE;l don•t know where l: picked up the idea that the early book of Mass chants brought to New Monastery from Molesme was n o t reformed at the same time the antiphonary wa reformed under Saint StephenHarding. Possibly I argued myself into this position because we have no documents which speak of our Fathers adopting the Metz Groadua Ze , while we do have Saint Bernard ts explicit references to the adoptionof the Metz Ant 'pnonarium. Unfortunately for my conjecture, I was la ter to find and identify a few folios from a primitive Cistercian groa duale -folios used as guard-leaves for a ms . from Cfteaux now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. The melodies have the identical charac teristics typical of other 12th/13th century examples of Metz-derived chants; and one can only tentatively conclude that, after a certain peri od during which the Molesme tradition of chant was followed at the New Monastery, the Molesme-derived groa.dua'le and antiphonar>i 'wn of fieii were both replaced by new versions based on the Metz tradition.For those rare individuals interested :tn questions as esoteric as the origins and early evolution of the Order s 12th century liturgical books,a fairly recent presentation of the status quaestions may- be found in two con_eerence-papers r gave at the first two Cistercian Symposia held in the States, and printed as "The Or:tg:tn and Early Evolution of the Cistercian Antiphonary: Reflections on Two Cistercian Chant Reforms",:tn The Cistez>a-ian Spirit Spencer, Massachusetts 1970), pp.190-223; and "The Early Cistercian Experience of Liturgy," in Ru Ze and Life(Spencer, Massachusetts 1971}, pp.77-115.

The ene,rgent of all these f acts is this: Saint Stephen was content to satis fy his passion for the authentic with the best that tradition could of fer as noxmative. There were, however, abjections -and apparently rather violent ones. Acooiding to Saint Bernard, writing at a much

later date, it was known

f rom the start that the much boasted Metz Antiphonary was really quite a sor cy af fair, f illed with blunders of the worst sort, both as regards text and nrusic: in aunibus paene contemptibilis.

And yet this controverted tare was adopted. Later we shall see why.

Those writers who would deny Saint Ber-

The So.--called 'Bernardire Refoxm nard a major role in the liturgical re form ef fected under his presidency sonetine before 1147 a:re sw:ely

wrong. 3

3 The sequence of events would have been sooewhat as follows: a- formation of a chant camrl.ssion under Saint Bernard t s presidency, saretirre af ter

114Q; b- fo tion of editorial principles; c- correction of the Mass chants;

88

d- pranulgation of the oorrected or :revised Graduate by the General Chapter of soma unspecif ied year; e- reactions against the revised Mass chants

by certain ''Patres et damini" (alm:>st certainly the ''Old Guard'' at ctteaux) ; oorrection (a bit less stringent) of the Antiphonacy; g- pranulgation of the same, probably at the General Chapter of 1147.

The documents which serve as sources for a study of this refoxm are these: 1- Regut.ae de cwte musiaa, a theoretical expose of what the chantshould be, authored by Guy of Ch.erlieu at the request of his quondam Novicemaster at Clairvaux, William (who also served as one of Saint Bernard 's rrost

faithful secretaries, only to be sent to En:Jland as f irst abbot of Rievaulx); datable to sane year af ter 1132.This early work furnished material laterinoorporated into the pref ace 2- De aorreatione gradaU.s, which, af f ixed to the GzoaduaZe, explained the reasons for the chan:Jes made. The

:revised Anti phonary enjoyed an even no.re elaborate introductory treatise, i.e., 3- De aantu seu aorreot{,one antiphonarii. Two other writings are connected with theAntiphonary, i.e., the letter 4- ''Bernardus humilis abbas", found usually atthe beginning of the nore ancient -manuscript copies of the Antiphonary,

and se.:tVing as a brief of pranulgation; and 5- the TonaZe, a sort of

catechismof Cistercian chant, aff ixed by way of a post-script to the Ant;i.phonary. Ex

cept ,for the letter of Saj:nt Bernard, all these writings seem to oorre directly or indirectly fran the same pen, tentatively identif ied as that of Guy of Cher l;leu. But the claims of authorship do not ooncern us here.!NOTE : The question

of authorship connected w:i:th these various texts is to be treated in a disser.. tation being written at the present time by one of the more brill:tant of the

pupils of the noted musicologbt, Gilbert Reaney -Cecily Sweeney, who has al ready made valuable contributions to the series Coropus Saripto;r>UJ71 de Musiaa, published by the American lnstitute of Musicology.] End of Footnote 3,

Saint Bernard's 'WOrds are fonnal: both text and lIILlSic stocxl in need of

revision. The reform, indeed, touched upon the texts before touching upon the music. And

when Saint Bernard info:ans us in his letter "Bernardus huni.lis abbas" that he

enlisted the aid of nen skilled in things musical, he says nothing about helpreceived in the work of revising the texts them.selve.s. Everything suggests that these textual revisions were made by the President himself , 4

4 lt would re well to x-ecall here :Dean Ieclercq' e rema,rks a;bout Se.int Bemard 's

An Aspeat of the Chant Ref orm Ca7:led ''Bernardine" 89

familiarity with, and indebtedness to the Of f ice. Surely no one would have been so c::atp!tent as Saint Bernard to asSUlle the responsibility for these revisions; and surely oo one would have suf fered so nruch as Saint Bernard

by those texts sfor correction... End of Foot ..note 4 .

The point, then, · that I 'WOUld emphasize, is this:that the liturgical refo:r::m unfolded in t w o stages:

a- at the level of the t e x t s;b- at the level of the m u s i c.

Further, \ve lllllSt dissh bet\\1een:

a- the editorial principles adopted for these revisions;b- and the ncre rerote, but exceedingly nore interesting spiritual atti

tudes and oonvictions which governed the choice of these principles. We shall reserve our discussion of the latter till the last.

The Textual ReVisions The editorial principles operative in the revisionof the texts fall under three headings:

1- The Re s pc?tlSOry Versets The history of the responsory versets of the

Ranan Of f ice tradition is extrexely c:mplex. During the pericxl under oonsidera tion, it of ten happened that one and the sane text would be used for three or even four respa:nsory versets of tbe sane Night Of f ice. To avoid this duplica tion of texts, new verses were easily eoough supplied by Saint Bernard 's inven

tiveness in sare instances, but by his reoourse to other manuscripts in :rrost instances. Guy of Cherlieu emits nention of yet another principle governingthe repl.acerrent of certain verset-texts. Of ten the old Antiphonary wedded

a verset with an ill-matched responsory. For instance, in one exaq>le a.'verse£ran Psalm 72, which was used in the verset, was attached to an Isaiah-inspired responsory. In the vast majority of instances in "'1.ich this kind of mis-match jng was encountered in the Stephen Antiphonary, the verset ceded toa text which fo.i:ned m:>re of a literary unity with the body of the responsory: Isaian respa:nsory - Isaian verset.

2- Ccmmmion Chants Here the prablan was nore of the mJSical order. The

Ranan Off ices supplied material only for nine responsories in a Night Of f ice. When a larger number was needed (twelve in the m:m.astic cursus) the material had to be purloined f ran other sources, or else be newly carposed. Of ten e

rough, the 'an a it;tpbon ot the proper Mass was transposed to the Off ice,

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and a verset appended to it. The Cistercian refos, ' insisted on the preservation of the distinctive llllSical styles and fo:ons proper to the two distinct liturgical forms, each of which has its own function: a

ccmmmion antiphon is rot a responsory. Therefore, no ccmmmion antipl:X>n was eyer to serve thinly disguised as a responsory. Hence, cx:mnuni.on anti J;il.ons which heretofore had also served as respensories were generally re placed by ''authentic" responsories taken fran various sources; less of tenthe t e x t of the camrunion antiphon was retained, but f itted with a newnelody.5

5 A few cases escaped our refoorers • zeal: "Tanto tenpore" (Saints Philip and Janes) appears in both Mass and Off ice with the sane text a n d

music. So too ''Gaudete iusti'' (All ts) , used both in Mass and Of f ice.!Marginal note added by Fr. Louis:

n 't they repeat things they liked?]

Maybe because these are tremendous? DidEnd of Foot-note 5.

3- Apocryphal and Theologically Debatable TextsThe texts suppressed or arended in this large catego:ry throw llR.lch light on Saint Bernard, Exe

gete and Christian Thinker. Certain texts were wholly excised because of their patently apocryphal character; for instance, the charming text ''Quern

quaeritis" , found both as antiphon and responso:ry in the Christmas Off iceof the pre-Bernardine Antiphonary. AccDrding to the ancient Cistercian reading, the new-born Inf ant appeared surrounded by angels, "in chore

angelorum. " Now, in which Gospel, pray tell is t h i sdetail to be found? Or oon

sider the venerable but so very apocryphal responsory-text, ''Silron Petre antequam" , which purports to be 'l'rJOrds of Christ addressed to Saint Peter.that is said is, indeed, harmless enoujl, but -and this is the point -the text represents a re-oonstructicn based on no Gospel text. And so "Sinon;i;>etre antequam•• yielded to our own nore biblical "Quern diC1.mt hanines" in

the o,tll)ed .Antiphona,ry. Ot.ba' texts involved interpretations or re-workings of

Scriptural texts applied in a manner too abusive even for Saint Bernard. A typical case in point is the fonrer 4th responso:ry for the Third Sunday of Lent: Ioseph dun intraret in terram Aegypti l.in:;Juam quam non novit audi-;rit• • •Here fragnents fran Psalm 80 -which is about . M o s e s and the

E x o d u s fratJ F.gypt -serve to descr:ibe J o s e p h and bis P r o. s o .,.. d o s ;into Egypt. True, th.e -ve.ry best of the anc ent antiphonaries oontain

A.n A.s eot of the Chant Eefo:rm CaU ed "Bernardine" 91

this astonishing text; but this consideration was not enough to save itfrc:an excision in the purged Cistercian repertory. But many of the changes were nore nodest in scope -even though the change of a single word sc:ne

had considerable theological inplications. Take as an exan;>le the f arrous J?urif icat"ion responsory, ''Gaude Maria Virgo". Only o n e

word

was altered by Saint Pemard, but how telling an alteration! In the earlier version, the nonks had sung that we k n o w {scimus} that the Archangel Gabriel proclaimed the virginal-conception of OUr Lord. Saint Bernard, nore than ever sensiti"ve about sudl distinctions af ter the Abelard af f air, re placed ''we know'' by ''we b e li e v e'' (credinnls) . (Wlich is also the reading of fered by the better manuscript-tradition. ) Other changes -minor ones,and without obvious theological implications -were made solely to bring into agree.nent Scriptural passages used in dif ferent contexts in slightly dif ferent versions: spirit of textual oonoordism.

J1u$ i ccU. Rev.ts i ons The J?u.relY JUUSical revi:swns need detain us even lessthan the textua,l ones. In ages past, chant theorists

had analyzed the repertoire cmp:>Sed in ages even -no,re distant, and had then proceeded, on the basis of their analyses , to draw up rules -rules whidl all too of ten failed to square with the musical phenarenon analyzed. The

Cis tercians were arrong the f irst, though. not the f irst, to take seriously andact UJ?On the mrrns canonized :oy the theorists.

Melodies exoeedi.n;J the range deared proper were arcputa.ted or transposed at the of f ending point. M:x1al c:arpmetration was wholly eliroinated. The accidental B-f lat (and here the en;ilasis is on the word a c c i d e n t a 1, that is to say, the adventit:i.ous , the superinposed ab extra) -the acciden. tal was avoided wherever possible by a nurrt>er of cx:xrplicated proceedures too;involved to be described here. M:!lodies judged too ''arcibi:.guous" from a JIPdal point of view were re.-cast so as to leave absolutely no doubt as to the precise nodality • • •

It is clear, then, that the changes etfected were justif ied wholly by speculative principles folll'lllated by the theorists. Saint Stepien Harding had sought a ''pure'' tradition in the best manuscripts then available (for the An tiphonary, this was the .?£tz Antiphonary} . But for Saint Bernard

and his col leagues, a 1 1 manuscripb,.traditions were, when examined, at f ault; for

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none fulf ;illed satisf actorily the exigencies of chant as folllllllated by the

prof essional -musicologists. Hence the refm:ners' own very logical modus a. gene# : the revision of the nelodies in the light of the principles fonnulated by the musico-scien"Usts sudl as Berno of Reichnau, (Pseuao,..) Odo

of Ch.my, Guido of Arezzo, i'.Jbhn of A.ff lighsn.

NOTELater I was to discover a quite different aspect of the reforming work of our Cistercian chant experts. 'l'hou3'h many, many changes were introduced in the name of correct theory of nrusic, nest of the changes actually brought the truly corrupt Metz version intoaccord with the standard version used in nost parts of Europe. Saint Bernard was also responsible for introducing many recently c::x::ITp)sed texts and nelodies of a nore popular type.

Arrl this brings us to a brief consideration of the basic idea or intui tion which makes a bit nore carprehensible all this carpulsive spirit of con fonnism to abstract principles fonm.tl.ated by theorists who did not reallyknav what they were talking about.

The Image-Likeness 1-k>tiv The dynamism of the image-likeness notiv in Cistercian (and non-Cistercian} write.rs of the

12th centu:r:y is too apparent to call for discussion. In fact, it would not be

t o o much of an over-simplif ication to sum up their asceticisn and lt¥Sti cism (what God hath joined together • • • ) as a rerovery of a likeness lost by sin (persoanl as well as origira.1) and as a growth into one 's true stature in Christo. Man "s natu,re has been over-laid, corrupted. l-bnasticism neans , arrong other things, then, the realization, in the existential order , of what.man r e a l 1y is. Man has to beoc:ma, in and through Christ, conformedto his own true nature.

Is it surprising to f ind this idea at work in every danain of Cistercian culture? Architecture, grange-econany, chant: each has its own nature which must be respected. In the chant, love for novelty, sensuality, accidents of history -all these had conspired, our Fathers felt, to corrupt and over-lay the true nature of chant. As early as Ca,roundl 1132, Guy of <::rerlieu had de

scribed the so-called corruption of the Order 's chant as a perarrbulation through

the regio dissimi Zitud'l- is. The true nature of the chant, then, had been ob

scured by the adventitious-, the extraneous rt violence had to be done to the

An Aspeat of the Chant Ref om CaZ"led 11Berna:r'dine" 93

oorrupt chant in order to restore it to its pristine purity, this violence was , obviously, wholly reasonable. Until row the Kingdan of heaven suf fer eth violence, and only the 'Violent• • • It was true -and the refoxners were patently proud of the f act :,_ that the revised Cistercian chant was wholly sui: gene:r'ts , departing fran all other versions of the sarre reperto:ry accepted in the Church Uniyersal. As the Author of the Cistercian chant-treatise De

aantu bragged:Contra usum anru.1.lm ecclesi..arum Antiphonari.um hoc oor;ri9e OO-:"'

acti sumus, ma,g nUnirum n a t u r a m qtla1Il 1lSum a,eniulantes • • •

M:>reover, these Cistercian editors were insistent in their recognition of the purely r a t i o n a l or logical basis for the changes perpetrated:

Si ergo opus singulare, et ab omnibus antiphonariis diversum fe cisse reprehenclinnlr, id nobis restat solatii, quod nostrum ab aliis r a t i o

fecit diversun.

The emergent f ran all this, then, is sinply that in the restoration of the chant to its true nature, the nature of the chant was reduced to sa:ne tlri.ng which oould be explained and analyzed. in terms of the precise sciences or disciplines of kncMledge. The refo:on of the music evolved, as a result, in two stages:

f.;i:;rstly, a specula,4.",ve analysis, rot o;f the living chant, but of the chant as existing' in the brains of theorists;

seoondly , the re-working of those nelodies which ''did rot belong" • Procrustenses redivivi.• •

An Evaluation of the Refo.Jlll The inadequacies of the work accat{>lished inthis refo:on becaoo ever more apparent. I am

not here ooncerned with this point. I a m, however , interested in what might have led these second and third generation Cistercians to lose their way in their attatJpt to solve a problem which very likely wasn 't really too

muchof a problem (at least, if the chant sung under Saint Stephen Harding still canfonned in the main with the genuine western tradition. styled ''gregorian''.

NOTE :As a matter of fact as I was later to discover much to my utter aston ishment, the celebrated Metz chant had actually degenerated into a mis erable chant 11dialect11 , and was indeed chock-full of m::tstakes, and wholly ncontemptible in al-inos·t every respect"'. Th:ts :ts what

the earliest Cistercians- adopted n the. na ot autlientt_ct.ty-.

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Certainly the pxen¢se t cbant ha$ a nat wl¢dt, i.P. the ententia,l or... der, must be respected Ur-ore than respected. -.- loved) - this is, o,f course, wholly valid. What is at fault, though,. is the reduction of the

nature of chant to p.recise, clea,rly established analyses expressed in lapidary foxmulae. This streak of "rationalism'' is an elarent fol.llld in other danains of Cister-c;tan culture of this period; for there really does seem to have been a need feltto .reduce many elements of Cistercian life to the point of clarity and precision

the ma.tter at ha,nd could be easily fathaood a,nd cane to gx-ips with.

It is one thing to build an asceticisn on the restoration..-of -the-likeness p oxm . for here we k.now through Revelation wha,t OUl;:' t,rue nature is, for the Father has revealed this in Christ Jesus. But apparently chant and the other fonrs of art belong to a scm:!What diff erent danain; and the analyses . and principles of these early Cistercians squared badly with the reality they were atterrpting to interpret. and reform.

Why this need for clar;tty of detail, precision, expressibility in quasi- mathematical forrmtlae? Perhaps it was because of the charisma,t;tc nature of JIPnasticism. We live always with a certain elarent of 'risk ' • The unfore- seen and the dif ficult to l.lllderstand are part of this kind of life. In such conditions, one 9f ten c:x:rrpensates for this obscurity by the atterrpt to achieve,in other danains, security, order, lucid intelligibility. Those who are already on the nountain }?eak, those who have already entered into the luminous Cloud, need not worcy about such things, Isuppose. But nost of us are still clinging for dear life to the bottom of the 1muntain; and if there are sore thingswhich we do know capnot be tmderstood in the scholastic sense of the term, there a r e other things which we can rope with in tenns of clarity and pre cisions; and at least here• • •

Or perhaps the tendency whim CaJre to full f lower in .Al:>e1ard was also p.resent in yario degx-ees annng sane o;f our Fathers.There but for the grace o;e God went Berna;rd • • •:Prly it is true that our ba,sic ideas and intuitions cluster around scne single dynamic point which relates and -unities them all.But it is also quite probaDle that not all our ideas, oot all our intuitions

axe absorbed and marged, or enter into a positive relationship with the others. Negative, unabsorbed, unrelated and even contrary things swim aimlessly around the central cluster. Possibly. A.t any rate, X sanet:btes ask myself if the

An Aspect of the Chant Reform CaU ed "Bernardine" 95

violence of Saint Berna,rd ts encounter with Abelard did not involve rrore than a clash of credos. Did Saint Bernard perhaps recognize sarething of himself in Abelard, sanething irreooncilable with his understanding of the

Christian situation of 1I1ail before GOO? Was there perhaps sanething of astreak of Abelard s ''rationalism'' in a number of the seoond and third genera tion Cistercians, a tendency which was oot always quite overcx:me by what was most dynamic and vital in their spiritual experience?

Perhaps, perhaps not. At any rate, nore and nore ladmire the wisdan of Saint Stephen.

Saint Stephen Harding and the "Authentic" Saint Stephen 's passion for truth

was without alloy. And yet, he

seerred in all things to sense that the search for total Truth oould be ob structed by preoccupation with particular truths. Now, no single truth can be apprehended by us in all its relations. F.ach object upon which we focus our attention is fecund with quasi-inf inite {X>Ssibilities. By far the vast

majority of the realities we enoounter must be lef t unexplored, not out ofany inf idelity or disregard for Truth, but precisely in virtue of our f idelityto Truth. Martha , Martha, U N u M necessarium est• • •Not truths which are

peripheral, but central, all-including T.EUTH. Hence the great wisdan of Saint Stephen in even the practical order of things. When the question of the Or der 's chant arose, he did the best he could to obtain a genuine solution toto the problan. Then, having found what seened to be the best {X>Ssible solu

tion, he accepted it. And that was that. Perhaps Saint Stephen was oot a

clever thinker or even a profound one. Nothing indicates that he was very interested in subtle analyses of things spiritual and the like. Ibwever,Saint Stephen Harding was certainly arrong those who oould say: Non eloguimur lllagna, sed vivimus. And, af ter his death, it \'.UUld sean that lif e at cf:teaux became a:nq:>licated for too nany nonk.s• • • think.

Chrysogonus WADDELLGethsauani