As you probably know, Pope Benedict has been using the Wednesday General Audiences as a means of catechesis on the great figures of early Christianity – beginning two years ago with the Apostles (collected here in book form. I did a study guide for parish discussion groups available for free download here (pdf) or for purchase in bulk here. Oh, and by the way, the Vatican Publishing House has just put out a gorgeous hardback edition of the catechesis on the Apostles – lavishly illustrated with 60 pieces of art. It’s really nice. Michael brought a copy home, but only for a visit. It had to go back to the office. If you live in Rome, I guess you could probably find a copy, but otherwise…I don’t know.)
The last two figures Pope Benedict has spoken about have two things in common. They are not exactly well known and they both give us much to contemplate regarding liturgy. With Benedict’s own strong emphasis on the importance of liturgy in mind, let’s take a look.
(I’d add that in reflecting on these catecheses, it is important that he emphasizes that both figures thought, wrote and taught in times of great theological controversies. Christological mainly, of course. Note how he approaches this and what he praises in their own approaches.)
Last week, he spoke on Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite . Now I know you’re thinking, “What? Who? And why should I care?” Well, even if you don’t think you care, read on, because as usual, In exploring this obscure (in more senses than one) figure, Benedict gives us a lot to think about.
He begins with an explanation of who this figure is, the source of the name (Acts 17) and the gist of his thinking:
If five centuries later, the author of these books chose the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite, this implies that he had the intention of placing Greek wisdom at the service of the Gospel, promoting an encounter between culture and Greek intelligence with the announcement of Christ; he wanted to do what that Dionysius aimed to do, that is, that Greek thought would meet with the proclamation of St. Paul. Being Greek, he wanted to be a disciple of St. Paul and in this way, a disciple of Christ.
Benedict then makes the liturgical connections:
He thus transformed the polytheistic image into praise of the Creator and his creatures. In this way, we can discover the essential characteristics of his thought: Before all, it is cosmic praise. All of creation speaks of God and is a praise of God. Given that the creature is a praise of God, the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius becomes a liturgical theology: God is found above all praising him, not just reflecting. And liturgy is not something constructed by us, something invented so as to have a religious experience for a certain amount of time. It consists in singing with the choir of the creatures and entering into the cosmic reality itself. And thus the liturgy, apparently only ecclesiastical, becomes ample and great, it unites us with the language of all creatures. He says: God cannot be spoken of in an abstract way; to speak of God is always — he uses the Greek word — a “hymnein,” an elevating of hymns to God with the great song of creatures, which is reflected and made concrete in liturgical praise.
Nevertheless, if his theology is cosmic, ecclesial and liturgical, it is also profoundly personal. I think it is the first great mystic theology. Moreover, the word “mystic” acquires with him a new meaning. Until this epoch, for Christians, this word was equivalent to the word “sacramental,” that is, that which pertains to the “mysterion,” sacrament. With him, the word “mystic” becomes more personal, more intimate: It expresses the path of the soul toward God.
He ends by pointing out how Dionysius’s project applies to our contemporary dialogue:
Today, Dionysius the Areopagite has a new relevance: He is presented as a great mediator in the modern dialogue between Christianity and the mystical theologies of Asia, marked by the conviction that it is impossible to say who God is, that only negative expressions can be used to speak of him; that God can only be spoken of with “no,” and that it is only possible to reach him by entering into this experience of “no.” And here is seen a similarity between the thought of the Areopagite and that of the Asian religions. He can be today a mediator like he was between the Greek spirit and the Gospel.
In this context, it can be seen that dialogue does not accept superficiality. Precisely when one enters into the depths of the encounter with Christ, an ample space for dialogue also opens. When one finds the light of truth, he realizes that it is a light for everyone; polemics disappear and it is possible to understand one another, or at least, speak to one another, draw closer together. The path of dialogue consists precisely in being close to God in Christ, in the depths of the encounter with him, in the experience of the truth, which opens us to the light and helps us to go out to meet others — the light of truth, the light of love. In the end, he tells us: Take the path of the experience, of the humble experience of faith, every day. Then, the heart is made big and can see and also illuminate reason so that it sees the beauty of God. Let us ask the Lord that he help us today too to place the wisdom of our time at the service of the Gospel, discovering again the beauty of the faith, of the encounter with God in Christ.
Ignatius has recently published a book on Dionysius – more information here.
In yesterday’s L’Osservatore Romano, Don Nicolas Lux elaborated. A post at NLM has the translation
Yesterday, the subject was Romanus the Melodist:
Romanus the Melodist, born around the year 490 in Emesa (today Homs) in Syria. Theologian, poet, composer, he belongs to the group of theologians that have transformed theology into poetry. We think of his countryman, St. Ephraim of Syria, who lived 200 years before he did. We can also think of theologians of the West, such as Ambrose, whose hymns form part of our liturgy and touch our hearts to this day; or in a theologian, a thinker of great vigor, such as St. Thomas, gave us the hymns of the feast of Corpus Christi, which we celebrate tomorrow; we think in St. John of the Cross and in many others. Faith is love, and so it creates poetry and music. Faith is joy, and so it creates beauty.
Romanus the Melodist is one of these, poet, theologian and composer. He learned the foundations of Greek and Syrian culture in his native city, and then moved to Beritus (now Beirut), to complete his classical education and knowledge of rhetoric. After being ordained permanent deacon — around 515 — he was a preacher in this city for three years. He then moved to Constantinople, until the end of the reign of Anastasius I — around 518 — and from there he settled in at the monastery of the Church of the Theotokos, Mother of God.
A key moment of his life took place there: the Synaxar tells us that Mary appeared to him in his dreams and gave him the gift of poetic charism. Mary, in fact, asked him to swallow a scroll. Upon waking the next day, it was Christmas, Romanus began to recite from the pulpit: “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent” (Hymn On the Nativity, I. Proemium). He became in this way a preacher-cantor until his death (around 555).
He goes on, explaining Romanus’ process. This is fascinating:
Romanus is known in history as one of the most representative authors of liturgical hymns. At the time the homily was for the faithful practically the only opportunity of catechesis. Thus Romanus was not only an eminent witness of the religious sentiment of his day, but also of a lively and original method of catechesis. Through his compositions we can see the creativity of this form of catechesis, of the creativity of the theological thought, of the aesthetic and the sacred hymnography of the era.
The place where Romanus preached was a shrine on the outskirts of Constantinople: he would ascend the pulpit, located in the center of the Church, and he would speak to the community using a rather elaborate setting — he used images on the walls or icons on the pulpit to illustrate his homilies, and even used dialogue. He recited chanted metrical hymns, called kontakia. The word “kontakion” –“small rod” — seems to make reference to the small rod around which he rolled the scroll of the liturgical manuscript, or another such scroll. There are 89 kontakia attributed today to Romanus, but tradition attributes a thousand to him.
In Romanus, each kontakion is composed of stanzas, at the most 18-24, with the same number of syllables structured according to the model of the first stanza (irmo); the rhythmic accents of the verses of all the stanzas are modeled according to the “irmo.” Each stanza ends with a refrain (efimnio), in general identical, to create poetic unity.
Furthermore, the beginning of each stanza indicates the name of the author (acrostico), frequently preceded with the adjective “humble.” A prayer referring to the celebrated or evoked events ends the hymn.
Upon ending the biblical reading, Romanus sung the Proemium, generally in the form of a prayer or supplication. He thus announced the theme of the homily, explaining the refrain that was repeated all together at the end of each stanza, which he recited aloud in cadence.
And
Romanus did not use the solemn Byzantine Greek of the imperial court, but the simple Greek that was close to the language of the people. I would like to cite here an example of his lively and very personal way of speaking about the Lord Jesus: he calls him the “spring that does not burn and the light against the shadows,” and says: “I desire to have you in my hands like a lamp; / in fact, he who carries the light among man is illuminated without being burned. / Illuminate me, then, you who are the light that never burns out” (The Presentation, or Feast of Encounter, 8).
The strength of conviction in his preaching was based on the great coherence between his words and his life. One prayer says: “Make clean my tongue, my savior, open my mouth / and, after having filled it, penetrate my heart so that I may act / that I be coherent with my words” (Mission of the Apostles, 2).
After elucidating Romanos’ primary themes, he ends:
Palpitating humanity, arduous faith and profound humility pervade the songs of Romanus the Melodist. This great poet and composer reminds us of the entire treasure of Christian culture, born of faith, born of the heart that has found Christ, the Son of God. From this contact of the heart with the truth that is love, culture is born, the entire great Christian culture.
And if the faith continues to live, this cultural inheritance will not die, but rather it will continue to live and be current. Icons continue to speak to the hearts of believers to this day, they are not things of the past. The cathedrals are not medieval monuments, rather houses of life, where we feel “at home”: where we find God and each other. Neither is great music — the Gregorian chant, Bach or Mozart — something of the past, rather it lives in the vitality of the liturgy and our faith.
If faith is alive, Christian culture will never be “outdated,” but rather will remain alive and current. And if faith is alive, we can respond to the imperative that is always repeated in the psalms: “Sing an new song unto the Lord.”
Creativity, innovation, new song, new culture, and presence of the entire cultural inheritance are not mutually exclusive, but one reality: the presence of the beauty of God and of the joy of being his sons and daughters.
Mike Aquilina had a post a while back on Romanos and the Birth of Mary.
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