From May 28 to 31, 2019, Una Voce Canada members Theresa V and her daughter Maria attended a Sacred Liturgy Conference called “The Living Waters of the Eucharist” in Spokane, Washington. Members of the Latin Mass communities at Sts. Joachim and Ann Parish in Aldergrove, British Columbia, and Holy Family Parish in Vancouver, they were assisted by a bursary from Una Voce Canada. In a two-part series, they share what they have learned and experienced.
Part 1: Information, Impressions, and Inspiration, by Theresa V | Part 2: The Living Waters in the Sacred Liturgy, by Maria V
All photos courtesy of Marc Salvatore / SacredLiturgyConference.org.
For information about Una Voce Canada’s bursary program, please email info@unavocecanada.org.
***
The Sacred Liturgy Conference held in in Spokane was titled “The Living Waters of the Eucharist.” This theme was chosen because it is a metaphor God uses in the Old Testament to represent right worship, and a metaphor Christ Himself chooses to use in reference to his Body and Blood. This image is rich in meaning, tying in the Old Testament prefigurements, and continues to be not just a prominent symbol throughout the Church’s traditions but also the reality, finding its ultimate fulfillment in the Eucharist, the pinnacle of Christian worship.
References to living water are found throughout the Old Testament, where the idea of living water meant moving or flowing water. Scripture begins with it in the first book, with God watering the garden of Paradise with a spring [Gen 2:6, 10], and ends with it in the last book, with the fountain of life coming from the Throne of the Lamb [Rev 22:1-2]. Living water is applied to Divine Worship in the book of Jeremias, when the people have abandoned the Lord and turned to the worship of idols. The priests of the Temple having turned their backs on the Holy of Holies, God immediately uses the metaphor of living water for right worship of Him, in speaking of these liturgical abuses: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” [Jer 2:13]. God identifies living water with a right relationship to Him, Himself being the Source; the broken vessels are representative of false worship.
This symbolism can be better understood when the role fresh water had for the Jews is understood. There was a twofold cleansing power of water in the Old Law: regular water was to be used for filth, and fresh, “living water” for ritual impurity [Zech 13:1]. But this is raised by God to another level: while uncleanness, the effect of sin, is washed away by water [Lev. 15:13], we also see that for the cleansing of moral evil, or sin, blood is necessary. Here it is clear that blood has a cleansing quality, acting as water on the spiritual level. God explains the reason for this to Moses: blood was the symbol of life – consequently to take something’s blood meant to take its life. “For the life of all flesh is in the blood” [Lev. 17:14]. It was for this reason that the Jews were forbidden to drink the blood of a creature, for God is the Author of life – only He may take it. If God is the Source of life, then a rejection of Him would necessarily mean death, and ever since the fall, this has been the punishment for sin. This reality was represented in the Old Covenant with animal sacrifices, to drive home to the people the graveness of sin and the concept of spiritual death that the soul suffers as a result of it. Just as the sprinkling of the doorposts with the blood of a lamb saved the Israelites from death, so God also commanded that the people be sprinkled with the blood of sacrifice to wash away their sin.
To take this a step further: In the prophet Ezechiel’s famous vision (the Vidi aquam sung at Mass during Eastertide), he saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple, from the altar [Ez 47:1]. In the Temple in Jerusalem, this was the same side from which the mixture of blood and water from the sacrifices was channelled out. Since blood represents life, so living water, which cleanses sin, means, in the language of the Old Testament, flowing water mixed with blood. Therefore the water that he saw, which made the sea fresh, was bloody water – the image of that which flowed forth from Jesus’ body, which He identifies as the True Temple, the new place of worship, as John makes sure to point out in his Gospel: “He was speaking of the temple of his body” [Jn 2:21]. St. Paul, previously a pious Jew who understood the significance of this imagery, sums it all up in his epistle to the Hebrews: “For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ?” [Heb. 9:14].
Dr. Nathan Schmiedicke explained in his talk that the key to this symbolism is found in the incident in John’s gospel when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well. Here Christ Himself explains the meaning of living water in the context of the true worship of God. John starts out with two references: he points out that they met at the sixth hour (the only other time he mentions the sixth hour is at the Last Supper), and he mentions Jesus’ thirst, which parallels the thirst of Calvary. Then early in the dialogue, Jesus offers the woman the true living water that gives salvation: “The water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting” [Jn 4:14]. This ties in the symbolic meaning of living water in Divine Worship – He offers this as the solution to the problem she brings up about the schism of Samaria, which concerned the place of worship. Jesus says instead that the new worship of the Father will be in spirit and truth. Elsewhere, He states that He is the Truth [Jn 14:6]; He is then, with these words, identifying Himself as the New Temple, and His body as the new location of worship – it is from It that the living waters will spring. This chapter on living water is followed by Our Lord’s discourse on the Eucharist two chapters later. He declares that whoever shall eat of His body and drink of His blood will have life [Jn 6:55]. This is connected to an episode in the following chapter, where Jesus makes the curious statement that in the man who believes, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” [Jn 7:38, Douay-Rheims] – a passage that makes sense only in light of Chapter 6. The living water He speaks of is clearly a reference to the Eucharist.
All of this profound symbolism is fulfilled in every detail in the life of the Church. This is especially apparent with Holy Water, used for the blessing of objects and people in order to set them apart for sacred purposes; this is accomplished in its two functions: the cleansing of evil and the bringing of grace. Baptism is a sacrament of living water. In the Early Church, the Rite of Baptism required the person to be submerged in “living water,” that is, flowing and fresh if possible, to bring home the symbolism of the cleansing effect it has on the soul. Baptism with other water was permitted but not preferred [Didache, ch. 7]. This is done now by pouring water over the head of the one to be baptized, in order to create flowing water.
The use of Holy Water is fundamental to the liturgy, and as such is present from the beginning of Mass in the Sprinkling Rite to the Ablutions after Communion. It is used to purify and consecrate everything used for sacred purposes. This is not ordinary water – it is Living, Saving, Holy Water. The prayers of exorcism said over it give it the power to protect against evil, and the blessings fill it with the life of the Holy Ghost, that it might transmit actual grace. It is a great tragedy in the history of the Church that neither of these elements is present in the formula for blessing water after the recent reform of the liturgy, as Bishop Robert Vasa pointed out in his talk on Holy Water, but instead there is a shift in focus to the symbolic meaning of the water, with invocations that the people be inwardly renewed through its use instead.
Since the Eucharist is the source of living water for the Church, so also is the vehicle of its transmission – the Tradition of Christ and the Apostles, and the traditions of the Church. Ecclesial traditions refine and build up through divine guidance the teaching of Christ and the Apostles; and as the teachings of Christ and the Apostles are the channel of grace in the life of the Church, so are the ceremonies that contain them and transmit them. To help him explain the the relationship between the teachings of Christ and the Apostles and the ceremonial traditions that encompass them, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski drew from the concept of the intimate connection between sign and reality. It is apparent, he explained, that there is an intimate connection between what we do and how we do it. This concept is precisely the basis of the Seven Sacraments – they are sacred signs for the transmission of grace. We see that a sacrament consists of two parts: the matter and the form. The matter, or sign, not only represents the reality but is necessary to it, even containing it. This principle applies to all the symbolic gestures that accompany the transmission of grace: they contain the meaning of the Gospels; in fact they are a non-verbal explanation of it. This gives dignity and importance to every detail of rituals, and every word said. There is, then, a fundamental problem with an attitude of deconstruction of what some may think are superfluous externals, in an attempt to return to essentials – because if you tamper with the way a sacrament is administered, it is the sacrament itself that is being tampered with; or if you change the words of a prayer, you change the essence of the prayer itself. As Kwasniewski pointed out, there must be a coherence between what we say and what we mean, and if they are in contradiction, we may as well be talking about different realities. According to the Council of Trent, “it beseemeth, that holy things be administered in a holy manner, and of all holy things this sacrifice is the most holy.”1 We must therefore conclude that this, the clothing of our prayers, ought to be harmonized with the inner meaning it contains.
The traditions of the liturgy supply us with life-giving waters by satisfying our thirst for truth, both directly – by subordinating Scripture to the Eucharist, its true context – and indirectly – by decorating it in such a way as to allow for no other interpretation except what it is. Truth is manifested through every rubric, because each is rich with symbolism, in continuity with Hebrew tradition and history, and done so as to make its fulfillment clearly visible. These trimmings do not distract us; on the contrary, they bring clarity.
Aristotle taught that what a thing is, or its substance, is known to us through its sensible attributes, or accidents.2 As we know from experience, substance and accidents are never found apart from each other; and since we know substance through accidents, then that means the way in which we perceive truth is the means to truth. It is said that there are two doors to truth – and beauty is the back door. The Mass of the Ages brings us through both: directly through instruction, and indirectly through ceremony. This is what makes the externals of the Mass so important – they are our mediated interaction with Christ.
These also instill the proper attitudes in us, training us before we even think about them. If the way Mass is celebrated instills reverence for the sacred, then so is the understanding imparted that we are in the presence of God. This is true too of the use of a sacred language, which is set apart for Divine Worship, along with vestments, sacred music, and so on. Through all this beauty and grandeur is manifested to us the emptiness of earthly pleasures compared with the savour of heavenly delight. As Dr. Kwasniewski put it, we are not caught up in externals but caught up by them. In his book Liturgy and Personality, Dietrich von Hildebrand argues that the externals of the Mass also build habits of virtue and so change us. Not only do they provide us with worthy prayer but they also teach us how to pray. Their role is essential, because, as Ryan Topping observed, “a truth unadorned is a truth often ignored.”3 This is the function of traditions – they are the riverbed through which flow the living waters of the Eucharist.
Perhaps part of the reason they are particularly refreshing lies in the way they demonstrate the unchanging endurance of the Church. G.K. Chesterton spoke of this when he said: “The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.”4 This is what makes the Tridentine Mass so appealing to the young – it contains that which endures beyond generational trend, fad, and fashion. And they can hardly reject it for the same reason it has been rejected in the past – that it is old-fashioned – because now it is new to them.
For this reason, Church tradition brings about renewal. And renewal is direly needed – but the only means of renewal is recourse to the living waters that freshen the stagnant sea of our time. It is not surprising that a notable lack of reverence, and even of belief in the Eucharist, followed the shift from the central focus on the Mass as a Sacrifice to a focus on the community – the perspective that has brought about much of the damage. The only solution is a return; the only way forward is back. As canon lawyer Magdalen Ross concluded in her talk, the only way to renewal is restoration. And she is right, as we are already seeing the effects of a return to Tradition – visible as the youthful face of the Traditional Movement. Because of the lack of encounter with the Sacred, people are thirsty for it – and the thirstier we are, the more welcoming and satisfying is its living water when we find it. In fact, the new generation has several advantages in the reception of their ancient Catholic heritage, concerning which I am fortunate enough to speak of for myself. First, tradition now is not and cannot be taken for granted, because most of us did not grow up in it; and because we cannot take it for granted, it takes a conscious effort to search out, thereby making us relearn and rediscover the reasons behind it all, which a previous generation had forgotten. And finally, we get it all at once – it is like converting to the Church all over again. We see it with fresh eyes, because it is all new to us.
One of the main themes that ran throughout the conference was an introduction to the theory and spirituality behind Gregorian chant, given by various experts on the subject as well as by musicians themselves. It was explained as being connected with the main theme in the following way: our last end is perpetual contemplation of the presence of the Word of God; but because the Eucharist is the Word of God made present to us, a fitting medium is necessary for contemplation of this mystery while on earth. One of the primary ways the Traditional Mass does this is through the medium of Gregorian chant. Through it we are given the means to live heaven now, the life of contemplation. It has for this reason been endorsed and upheld as the music to be used at Mass by popes through the centuries, and we have been instructed to learn and use it. Therefore it is profitable to explore the reasons why it was given “pride of place” as being “specially suited to the Roman liturgy,”5 as stated in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the document on the liturgy promulgated by the Second Vatican Council.
Just as the Tradition handed down to us from the Apostles is clothed in sacred ceremonies, so also are our prayers clothed in a sacred language – and that language is likewise clothed in chant. It is interesting to note that all religions do not use ordinary language for their worship – for extraordinary purposes, extraordinary words are used. But why sung? St. Augustine famously said that to sing is to pray twice. That is because you double the meaning and amplify it with the way you say it. Again, as pointed out earlier, it is how the words are said. But it also involves more of the human person – the heart. St. Augustine also said that a song is a thing of love:6 it is only the lover who sings.
Chanting also ties in Jewish tradition. The Old Testament liturgy was divided into two parts: the sacrifices and the chanting of the Psalter. It is from this treasury handed down to us that chant originates, and many of the modes used today still maintain a similarity to the ancient Hebrew chants of the time of Christ, such as the Tonus Peregrinus, the tone used for Psalm 113 chanted at Vespers, which has survived virtually unchanged from its Hebrew origins. It is perhaps the greatest endorsement that could be given to any form of music – to know that it was what Our Lord Himself would have sung.
Not only was chant used for worship but also all songs and canticles prior to modern times used the modal system, and so were forms of chant. In fact, chant contains the largest body of developed melody. Though the chants used in the liturgy are Semitic in origin, they were also influenced by the music of ancient Greece and Rome. Like many of the other trappings of the Mass, such as the vestments and the language, they were taken from the surrounding cultures around which they developed, and elevated and adapted for ecclesiastical use, which in turn became their means of preservation after their ordinary use had ceased. It is this fact – the fact that these things are no longer found except in the context of the Mass – that makes their character solely sacred.
One of the main reasons chant is specially suited to singing Scripture is that it grew up with the texts, and so is connected with them right from the beginning. In fact, the melodies developed directly from them – so much so that they cannot stand alone apart from the text, because they follow the rhythm of the words themselves. It is for this reason that they reinforce the primacy of word. As the Reverend Gabriel Thomas Mosher, OP, observed, chant is a musical interpretation of Scripture, a “word painting,” a sort of exegesis of text. It unpacks it. In fact, it expresses more than the words can – that is, the spirit of the text. And it is an interpretation that we can trust – it was developed and prayed by saints. Because of its contemplative nature, it is the meditation of sacred scripture, it is not just a poetic elaboration – it gives its hearers a musical Lectio Divina.
Since it was composed and developed in the context of silence, peace, and prayer, it is no surprise that it works best in this context; and it is this that makes it so suited to meditation. This also means that it contains this quality in itself: it is silence articulated, so to speak. In particular, its nature expresses a resonance with living water. It has a flow, a fluidity – not a beat. It is always moving, not stagnant or static, always building up to or coming from somewhere. This is due to the constant interplay between Arsus and Thesis, the lightening and repose. It is a quality characteristic of moving water, particularly waves, or light, for that matter. In this way, it especially mirrors Creation and participates in the Divine Plan – as all these are representative of life. Because chant breathes, it is representative of the spirit, and is therefore spiritual not only in its content but also in its very essence; it has a quality that is wholly mystical and otherworldly. But it is also the most natural to man: that is, it is specially adapted to his nature, as the union of body and soul. It does contain emotions, but they are moderated, as it excites the intellect primarily, and works from the top downward, so to speak, and in this way orders the human person. Aristotle strongly believed in this capability that music has of “creating a particular quality of character in the soul.”7
If arrhythmic flow is symbolic of the spirit, then music that mirrors the body – specifically that which is focused upon beat, such as the beat of the heart – excites the passions and is likewise representative of the constraints of the flesh. Taken to its extreme, music that is composed almost entirely of rhythm has its origins in pagan cult and demonic worship, because of its disordered nature – that of appealing to the animal part of man. This disordering effect is likewise transmitted to society. Plato is often paraphrased as having said that “when the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake.”8 It was he who also said: “Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its laws.” Such is the formative power of music, whether used for good or evil.
Because chant is not restrained by beat, it is specially adapted to melody, and has far more freedom of expression. This freedom extends also in the use of modality: it has moods that we are not familiar with, that are especially prevalent with the proper moods of the liturgical feasts and seasons because they express feelings such as solemn joy, devoutness, consolation in sadness, and feelings both mystical and angelic. Whereas other music is primarily earthly, chant allows the people to be at one in spirit with the activities of the sacrifice. This is active participation at its best – participation in the heavenly liturgy. It is such unaccompanied vocalization that elevates the human voice – the noblest instrument. And lastly, because it is the music of the angels, there is a supremacy of unison singing that allows men to sing una voce, with one voice, the praises of God.
With this study of Sacred Tradition encapsulated by the study of sacred music, the 2019 Sacred Liturgy Conference was an intense learning experience for me and all who were privileged to attend, enriching our understanding of the Sublime Mystery of our Faith and putting into practice what was taught in the lectures by participation at the recitation of the Office of Lauds and attendance at the Ordinary Form and Extraordinary Form Masses, the highlight of which was a Pontifical High Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes. My heartfelt thanks go to Una Voce Canada for making it possible for us to attend! “Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus”: “As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God” [Ps 41:2].
1 Council of Trent [Session 22, Chapter IV, pg 156].
2 Metaphysics VIII: “because the essential forms are not known to us per se, they must be disclosed through certain accidents which are signs of that form” [1042b9-1043a28: “Form Inferred from Accidental Differences in Sensible Substances”].
3 The Elements of Rhetoric; Ryan N.S. Topping.
4 The Catholic Church and Conversion; G.K. Chesterton.
5 Sacrosanctum Concilium; [Chapter VI, 116].
6 Let us sing to the Lord a song of Love; St. Augustine of Hippo [Eastertide Sermon 34.1-3, 5-6; CCL 41, 424-426].
7 Metaphysics [VIII:1340b:10–13]; Aristotle [Barker & 1984-89, 1:176].
8 Republic, Book IV, Plato: “when the modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them” [paraphrased].
Pingback: Part 1: Information, Impressions, and Inspiration (Sacred Liturgy Conference 2019) | Una Voce Canada