h t t p : / / f s s p n l a n d . w o r d p r e s s . c o m /
commissioned to carry on the apostolate of Christian unity as their communityaim.The Chair of Unity Octave was also approved as a Catholic devotion by PopeBenedict XV in an Apostolic Brief in 1916. In 1921, at their annual meeting inWashington, the Catholic hierarchy of the United States unanimously adoptedthe Octave for all the dioceses in the country.Under the patronage of St. Peter, the rst Vicar of Christ, Bishop of Rome,and St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, the Chair of Unity Octave has ourishedand grown. It is now observed in many parts of the world.
The Liturgical Movement in Germany – Development andCriticism
One notes that liturgy had the most extraordinary and most visible rise in therst half of the 20th century. It developed from a peripheral theological science tothat of a necessary and important principal subject, and one that is certainly of great interest to many faithful throughout the world, even outside of an academiccontext.In Germany, the liturgical movement (liturgische Bewegung) was, at rst,conned to academic circles. In 1918, the abbey of Maria Laach introduced therst ‘community Mass’ (Gemeinschaftsmesse) that was, in fact, a dialogued Mass.The Catholic youth enthusiastically adopted the new manner of celebrating theliturgy. (In the 1920s, a dialogued Mass was celebrated by Italian youth in thepresence of Pius XI, with all singing the Pater.) The spontaneously growing newliturgical practice was from the start accompanied and claried by a theologywhich united strictly scientic, even historicoarechaeological investigation withproclamation and piety. Especially effective in the area of liturgical formationwas Romano Guardini (1885-1961) with his Vom Geist der Liturgie (1918), Litur-gische Bildung (1923), Von heiligen Zeichen (1927), and his scriptural-theologicalintroduction, Der Herr (1937). He led to reading and reection on Holy Scripture,but also encouraged that the world should be taken seriously and interpretedwith the eyes of faith.The texts of the Ordinary of the Mass, published by three communities notedfor common prayer in the ’Community Mass’, give a picture of the growing litur-gical and religious and pedagogical experience: The Gemeinschaftliche Andachtzur Feier der heiligen Messe, published by Guardini in 1920, provided the textof the Mass only with paraphrasing interpretive additions. The Missa composedin 1924 by Fr. Joseph Kramp (1886-1940) for the ’Union of New Germany’ led tothe praying aloud of the entire Mass from the prayers at the foot of the altar tothe Last Gospel except for the canon, without making any distinction betweenhe public prayers of the priest and congregation and the private prayers of thepriest. This booklet was an expression of the rst excess of zeal in which peoplefelt that the community nature of the Mass was expressed by the fact that allprayed everything, which threatened to lead to an empty, loud operation and sup-plied welcome material to critics. The Kirchengebet published in 1928 by LudwigWolker made the newer knowledge its own, especially in the later issues, and, inaccord with the ’High Mass Rule’, asked which prayers belonged to the priest, thereader, and the congregation. Respectively, and which were to be prayed quietly.
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