The following (quotes) were also in the program on the talk I heard Friday Night. The one I posted beforehand remains my favorite. But these are priceless, as well.
" The holiness of tradition consists, not primarily in its utility and usefullness, but in its durability. Forms of prayer that, for a hundred, two hundred, and three hundred years, have become real houses of prayer that believers can enter with ease must be given the protection due to every object that is withdrawn from profane use and dedicated to God."
"How can a man be made to see that he is leaving the present time behind if the space he enters is totally dominated by the presence of one particular individual? How wise the old liturgy was when it prescribed that the congregation should not see the priest's face - his distractedness or coldness or ( even more importantly) his devotion and emotion."
"What I do not want to do, when participating in Holy Mass, is to be 'active', since I have good reason to distrust the instincts of my mind and my senses. What 'active' role, for instance, did the Apostles play at the Last Supper?...What I want to find in Holy Mass is the happiness of the man in the New Testament who sits on the periphery and watches Christ passing by. This is what Holy Mass is about, and that is why the Sacrifice of the Mass is seen in the context of the Jews' Exodus meal: 'For it is the Pasch, the Lord's passing.'"
"Art alone has the means of fullfilling Christ's command at the meal of Holy Thursday, namely, to make the memoria, the repeated, ever-new, making present of the sacrifice of Christ, to which he himself gave unbloody form. Great works of the world of art have this unlimited presence...Christ desired to make his sacrifice ever-present, and so he poured it into the shape of liturgical art."
1 comment:
Isn't fun to read a book and get really excited!
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