Episode 6 – How the Liturgy Informs and Transforms the Culture

This week David talks to Charlie about how the liturgy and not socio-economic factors is the most powerful influence on the culture. And how it is the beauty of an authentic liturgical culture that is the driving force. 

We quote John Paul II from his encyclical Centesimus Annus

[...I]t is not possible to understand man on the basis of economics alone, nor to define him simply on the basis of class membership. Man is understood in a more complete way when he is situated within the sphere of culture through his language, history, and the position he takes towards the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work, and death. At the heart of every culture lies the attitude man takes to the greatest mystery: the mystery of God. Different cultures are basically different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence. When this question is eliminated, the culture and moral life of nations are corrupted.

, and Pope Pius XII who wrote the encyclical Mediator Dei on the liturgy, and included reference to sacred art. We refer to the following passage:

"195. What We have said about music, applies to the other fine arts, especially to architecture, sculpture and painting. Recent works of art which lend themselves to the materials of modern composition, should not be universally despised and rejected through prejudice. Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive "symbolism," and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist. Thus modern art will be able to join its voice to that wonderful choir of praise to which have contributed, in honor of the Catholic faith, the greatest artists throughout the centuries. Nevertheless, in keeping with the duty of Our office, We cannot help deploring and condemning those works of art, recently introduced by some, which seem to be a distortion and perversion of true art and which at times openly shock Christian taste, modesty and devotion, and shamefully offend the true religious sense. These must be entirely excluded and banished from our churches, like "anything else that is not in keeping with the sanctity of the place."

And consider the following pictures. From the Baroque period of the 17th century:

St Jerome Reading by Georges De La Tours, French 17th century

A portrait painted by St Anthony Van Dyck when a teenager and a student of Rubens. Flemish, 17th century.

Landscape by Corot, French, 19th century

And we consider the following buildings in our discussion of the Victorian Neo-Gothic

St Mary's Catholic Cathedral, designed by AW Pugin, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, england, 19th century.

St Mary's Newcastle-upon-Tyne, interior.

The Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool, England, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert-Scott, begun early 20th century, completed 1978.

Paddy's Wigwam - the Catholic Cathedral, Liverpool, start and completed in the 1960s.

The K-2 telephone box, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, with Queen Elizabeth Tower housing Big Ben, in the background, designed by AW Pugin.

Street furniture that is derived from and points to the liturgical culture. Icons of the English landscape - the red letter box and the red phone box.

Episode 3 - The Domestic Church and the New Evangelization

These are two old ideas that are new to many people today, and surprisingly they are connected. Pope Benedict XVI told us that the driving force for the New Evangelization is the Domestic Church. Prayer in the home focussed on a place set aside for it and marked by sacred images goes back to Roman times; the method of seeking to evangelize the post-Christian West termed the New Evangelization. So while the problem is new - how do we convert people whose parents or grandparents were Christian and think they already know enough about the Faith to know they don't like it? - the answer is the same as it ever was. We must be supernaturally transformed, shining with the love of Christ so people want what we have! And it is prayer in the Domestic Church that plays a crucial part in that personal transformation.

Links and quotes: 

“Therefore, it must be emphasized once more that the pastoral intervention of the Church in support of the family is a matter of urgency. Every effort should be made to strengthen and develop pastoral care for the family, which should be treated as a real matter of priority, in the certainty that future evangelization depends largely on the domestic Church.”

— Pope Benedict XVI, address to the PLENARY ASSEMBLY OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY, Clementine Hall, Thursday, 1 December 2011

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO PARTICIPANTS AT THE PLENARY ASSEMBLY OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY, Clementine Hall, Thursday, 1 December 2011

“The family is the first school of prayer where, from their infancy, children learn to perceive God thanks to the teaching and example of their parents. An authentically Christian education cannot neglect the experience of prayer. If we do not learn to pray in the family, it will be difficult to fill this gap later.”

— John Paul II, Weekly address, the Vatican, Dec 2011

Weekly address, the Vatican, Dec 2011

Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger: on the New Evangelization

Way of Beauty blog article: The New Evangelization and the Domestic Church - Pope Benedict XVI on the connection between the two

Pictures of Roman home altars and dining arrangements, followed by a modern icon corner: