Pope Francis is pushed in a wheelchair by his aide, Sandro Mariotti, as he leaves an audience with students and professors of Rome’s Pontifical Institute of Liturgy at St. Anselm, May 7 at the Vatican. The Pope said that the celebration of the liturgy and the study of it should lead to greater unity in the church, not division and squabbles.
There is an old saying: “During Holy Week, there is nothing more useless than a Jesuit.” The magnificent liturgies of that holiest of times requires a profound liturgical sense. Members of the Society of Jesus have never been known for their liturgical flair and Pope Francis is no exception. When he presides, it is in a very unembellished, straightforward manner.
Consequently, his remarks to the members of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute last weekend (May 7) were a bit surprising. No one should be surprised that a man of such spiritual solidity entertains deep spiritual sentiments about the liturgy, but to hear him share them was a rare insight into what makes the Holy Father tick.
Much of the attention has focused on his remarks about liturgical formalism. “I would like to underline the danger, the temptation of liturgical formalism: going after forms, formalities rather than reality, as we see today in those movements that try to go backwards and deny Vatican Council II itself,” the Pope said. “In this way, the celebration is recitation, it is some-thing without life, without joy.” (Emphasis in original.)
The key phrase there is “deny Vatican Council II.” We have all attended post-conciliar liturgies that lack joy. But it is when the liturgy becomes a weapon in the culture wars, when doubts are raised about Vatican II and its legitimacy, when liturgy becomes an ideological expression rather than an ecclesial one, that is where the Holy Spirit is shut out and the in-breaking of the divine mystery is nullified.
Francis did not mince words here: “When liturgical life becomes something of a banner of division, there is the odor of the devil, the deceiver, in there.”