David N. Power
Foundation for Pluralism in Sacramental Expression:
Keeping Memory, pp. 194 - 209.
Summary. David Power proposes that keeping peoples' own memories alive is at the root of both pluralism and communion in diversity in celebrating the sacramental memorial of Jesus Christ. This means placing present efforts to open sacramental action to a greater cultural diversity within the context of history. Power explores his thesis by first considering the pluralism of expression in today's liturgies. Here, he notes that what is at stake in the development of liturgical language and expression is a people's history, its memory of its own past and traditions, the things which hand on a sense of solidarity with those who went before, the true embodiment of Christ in a people's own history and culture.
Next, Power suggests that by pursuing the invitation of Jubilee 2000 to a purification of memories, we can further our efforts to open sacramental action to a greater cultural diversity within the context of history. The ritual and narrative of sacramental memorial are faced with the memory of suffering and the call to confession and apology for past actions of the church. Power continues with a look at the practice of remembering through the body and through narrative. Finally, he considers the importance of testimonies that invite the church to take their voices into the commemoration of Christ's death. Power comments that in these days for the purification of memories, to render apology for the past, to ask forgiveness for the past, is to express solidarity with the past's sinfulness and to ask for a change of memory. None of this, he says, can be done without heeding the testimonies that rise up from the past.
In conclusion, Power emphasizes that the very foundation to a greater cultural pluralism in the sacramental liturgy of the church is to allow peoples' stories to leave their mark on the memorial of Christ. It is to tell the story of Christ in such a way that it gathers in their stories, respecting the modalities of cultural expression through which they are told. It is to interpret these lives even as they are revealed to be the place of the divine kenosis in human history, the place where the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection continues to be proclaimed and fulfilled.
Clare V. Johnson
The Children's Eucharistic Prayers:
A Model of Liturgical Inculturation, pp. 209 - 227.
Summary. In 1973 the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments promulgated the Directory for Masses with Children (DMC). Clare Johnson writes that this unprecedented initiative was in direct response to the Vatican II's call for the adaptation of the liturgy to various kinds of groups and cultures, children having long been identified as a group with acknowledged adaptational need. Johnson points out, however, that while scholarship has recognized the development of the DMC and the Children's Eucharistic Prayers (CEPs) as an example of liturgical adaptation, it has not emphasized the unique nature and singular success of the detailed process by which such liturgical adaptation was achieved.
Johnson's focus is to place in dialogue the CEPs and liturgical inculturation, which date from slightly different historical time-frames. The CEPs were developed in the atmosphere of liturgical transition and experimentation immediately following Vatican II in the early 1970s, while liturgical inculturation was developed in the late 1970s and more specifically in following decades. Johnson suggests that the methodology used to formulate the CEPs in light of the more recent understandings of liturgical inculturation illuminates the prophetic and highly advanced nature of the CEPs, as an example of dynamic interaction between the Roman editio typica and the "culture" of children. In support of her proposition, Johnson notes Vatican II's model for liturgical reform and then recounts the development of the CEPs, which diverged somewhat from the model of adaptation suggested by Vatican II. She goes on to identify ten principles of the "culture" of children which undergird the CEPs.
Johnson concludes by urging a fuller development of this topic and listing the questions to be addressed in a more comprehensive exploration. She underscores the importance of such a project by commenting that the CEPs are a model of liturgical inculturation in which a dynamic interaction between the Roman editio typica and a local "culture" resulted in the development of a new liturgical form. The CEPs, she adds, are seen as a concrete historical evidence that the process of liturgical inculturation can and does work.
Gerard S. Sloyan
Some Thoughts on Bible Translations, pp. 228 - 249.
Summary. Gerard Sloyan begins his consideration of various translations of the Bible by noting that the literal interpretation of figurative speech is an important method of control: rendering words or phrases in literal fashion as a means of protecting sensibilities or preserving familiarities, thereby keeping the translator in control of the reader. Sloyan proceeds to summarize the evolution of the revisions of several Bible translations in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Next, Sloyan comments on the impossibility of a "word for word" translation. Here, he draws two conclusions, namely, that all renderings from one tongue to another are approximations and that what people consider a "good" translation is one that does not strike them amiss in their first language. Sloyan also comments briefly on the need for translations to be sensitive to the poetic nature of the biblical tongue.
Sloyan then offers his thoughts on comparing English translations of the Bible. This is followed by a discussion of whether U.S. Catholics received a new lectionary in 1998. His consideration of this question leads him to conclude that the "New Lectionary" of 1998 is by and large new only in its return to the earlier 1987 NAB translation, along with material like Psalm Responses, Alleluia and Gospel Verses and the like from the 1968 translations of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. In his closing remarks, Sloyan comments that one should not adopt a magisterial stance in presuming to name the "best" Bible translations. He adds that doing so would be folly.
Nathan D. Mitchell
The Amen Corner, pp. 250 - 259.
Summary. Does human emotion have any part to play in Christian liturgy? Should it? Nathan Mitchell poses these questions and suggests that a new understanding of ritual, one that fully embraces our complex human physiology, will shed light on the role of emotion in liturgical celebrations.
Mitchell proposes that we imagine ritual as an ars amatoria, that is, "the art of making love," in which the inextinguishable human desire to bond or "connect" with others (including God) is negotiated in ritual patterns that are reverent and respectful, based on mutual recognition and regard. He argues that this art is learned, but it is also rooted, more radically, in our neural physiology. Ritual, Mitchell says, is ars amatoria because it is precisely the emotional quality of human word and gesture that lets us have relationships, that enables us to connect and form communities.
In support of his argument that ritual is ars amatoria, Mitchell first looks at the source of "care." He then explores ritual as that which tries to negotiate the complex exchanges between the two systems of the human brain, the limbic and the neocortical. From this, Mitchell concludes that ritual deals with emotion as it is processed, negotiated, in groups. We know, the world - and each other - not only intellectually but emotionally. The same holds true, Mitchell says, for our knowledge of God. We know God as much through our bodies and emotions as through our intellect. To know God ritually is thus to know God emotionally.
Music Reviews
Lord, Open our Lips: Musical Help for Leaders of the Liturgy. Church Publishing Incorporated. Music book with three compact discs ($37.95), 1999. Review by Judith M. Kubicki, C.S.S.F., pp. 260 - 262.
Your Kingdom Come by Christopher Willcock. Oregon Catholic Press, Portland, Oregon. Choral Songbook ($9.95); Cassette ($10.95); Compact Disc ($16.95) 1997. Review by Judith M. Kubicki, C.S.S.F., pp. 262 - 264.
Liturgical Hymns Old and New. Kevin Mayhew Limited, Suffolk, Great Britain. People=s copy (standard) (, 3.75); people=s copy (plastic) (, 4.75); melody/guitar (, 16.50); organ/choir (, 29.99), 1999. Review by Judith M. Kubicki, C.S.S.F., pp. 264 - 267.
Music and the Mass: A Practical Guide for Ministers of Music. By David Haas. Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago, Illinois. Soft cover, 129 pp. ($16.00), 1998. Review by Judith M. Kubicki, C.S.S.F., pp. 267 - 269.
Book Reviews
Festival Icons for the Christian Year. By John Baggley. Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir=s Seminary Press 2000. Pages, 180. Paper, $18.95. ISBN: 0-88141-201-5. Review by David W. Fagerberg, pp. 270 - 271.
Reviving Sacred Speech: The Meaning of Liturgical Language. Second Thoughts on Christ in Sacred Speech. By Gail Ramshaw. Akron, Ohio: OSL Publications 2000. Pages, xiv + 181. Paper, $15.00. ISBN 1-878009-36-2. Review by Martin Connell, pp. 271 - 273.
Bodies of Worship: Explorations in Theory and Practice. Edited by Bruce Morrill. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press 1999. Pages, v + 180. Paper, $15.95. ISBN 0-8146-2529-0. Review by Brett Webb-Mitchell, pp. 273 - 275.
The Reform of the Papacy: The Costly Path to Christian Unity. By John R. Quinn. Ut Unum Sint: Studies on Papal Primacy. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, A Herder and Herder Book 1999. Pages, 189. Cloth, $19.95. ISBN 0824518268. Review by Michael J. Himes, pp. 276 - 277.
My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach. By Calvin R. Stapert. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2000. Pages, 241. Paper, $16.00. ISBN 0802844723. Review by Alan Barthel, pp. 277 - 278.
The Holy Preaching: The Sacramentality of the Word in the Liturgical Assembly. By Paul Janowiak S.J. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press (A Pueblo Book) 2000. Pages, 203. Cloth, $24.95. ISBN: 0-8146-6180-7. Review by James Donohue, C.R., pp. 278 - 280.
Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song. By Brian Wren. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2000. Pages, 422. Paper, $22.95. ISBN 0-66425-6708. Review by Thomas H. Troeger, pp. 280 - 281.
Woman Officeholders in Early Christianity. Epigraphical and Literary Studies. By Ute E. Eisen. Translated by Linda M. Maloney. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press 2000. [Ger. 1996]. Pages, 322. Paper, $49.95. ISBN 0-8146-5950-0. Review by Pheme Perkins, pp. 281 - 283.
Spaces for Spirit: Adorning the Church. By Nancy Chinn. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications 1998. Pages, viii + 72. Forty pages of color plates + color and black and white photographs in the text. Paper, $26.00. ISBN 1-56854-242-9. Review by Mark A. Torgerson, pp. 283 - 285.
Changing Churches: The Local Church and the Structures of Change. Edited by Michael Warren. Portland, Oregon: Pastoral Press 2000. Pages, 262. Paper, $12.95. ISBN 1-5692-90334. Review by Victor Klimoski, pp. 285 - 286.
Communion Ecclesiology. By Dennis Doyle. Maryknoll: Orbis Books 2000. Pages, 195. Paper, $24.00. ISBN 1-57075-327-x. Review by Brother Jeffrey Gros F.S.C., pp. 286 - 288.
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