Organic Development in the Catholic Liturgy: Distinguishing Improvements from Corruptions
traditionsanity.substack.com
History shows us that the Catholic liturgy does change over time owing to concrete decisions made here and there by individuals, like a collective literary enterprise in which many human authors contribute the successive chapters. These decisions can be either good or bad, can be evaluated as improvements or corruptions depending on their merits or demerits. The fact that we are not dealing with a purely spontaneous natural phenomenon like the growth of a plant or an animal rules out a naïvely literal application of the terms “organic” and “inorganic.” At the same time, liturgy in its slow growth over many centuries, in which the native conservatism of the Church holds on to what has been inherited, bears a great resemblance to the slow growth of a massive oak tree that becomes ever more fully what it was meant to be from the acorn onward, and which reaches a certain maturity (it does not grow forever).
Organic Development in the Catholic Liturgy: Distinguishing Improvements from Corruptions
Organic Development in the Catholic Liturgy…
Organic Development in the Catholic Liturgy: Distinguishing Improvements from Corruptions
History shows us that the Catholic liturgy does change over time owing to concrete decisions made here and there by individuals, like a collective literary enterprise in which many human authors contribute the successive chapters. These decisions can be either good or bad, can be evaluated as improvements or corruptions depending on their merits or demerits. The fact that we are not dealing with a purely spontaneous natural phenomenon like the growth of a plant or an animal rules out a naïvely literal application of the terms “organic” and “inorganic.” At the same time, liturgy in its slow growth over many centuries, in which the native conservatism of the Church holds on to what has been inherited, bears a great resemblance to the slow growth of a massive oak tree that becomes ever more fully what it was meant to be from the acorn onward, and which reaches a certain maturity (it does not grow forever).