Too much talk of sin and suffering

INSPIRATION IN
THE Li TURGY
By Michael de la Bedoyere
N another page of this issue we are privileged to print an article by Fr. Conrad Pepler, O.P., to which we would draw the particular attention of readers serious about Christianity in the modern world.
At first sight it may be surprising that we should single out this article as being of so wide an importance. Its main subject is the problem of the artist especially in connection with art in and for our churches, and the article was written as a result of controversy in our pages on this very practical matter, yet one. it would seem, of rather specialised interest.
But readers of the article will see that Fr. Pepler moves from the specialised question to general principles of the whole life and attitude of a Christian and Catholic society. He shows how the contemporary Christian artist has been affected by what one might call the "off-centre" attitude towards religious life, worship and the Liturgy which is. or should he. par excellence. the key to all Christian values and the whole tenor of the truly Catholic mind.
He notes how the Christian artist today tends only to see certain highlights, as it were, of the Christian theme, and dwells in particular on suffering and pain as his theme so that his whole work seems darkened, rendered gloomy and. perhaps, even contorted by this emphasis.
The same could be said of the Christian writer who so readily dwells on sin and the darkness and distortion of modern life even as it is lived by the Christian himself.
External -View SISt Fl concentration on suffering end sin is by no means novel.
though today it is expressed more self-consciously, in a more introverted way, than before. It goes back to the Reformation and beyond it, and it seems to have resulted from Christianity finding itself pushed to one side of the secular world and emphasising more and more the contrast between Christian values and the values of the world.
The habitual expression of Christian life. instead of springing from within the spiritual richness. variety and order of the full liturgical spirit, has become a contrast between Christian values and worldly values. and as such something almost negative. naturally enough realised in art and literature in terms of shock, pain, suffering, denial.
Sin in literature: the Passion (worked to the uttermost possibilities of paradox in God suffering), in representational art — these have expressed this attitude of the Christian. seeking his inspiration not from within Christianity but from an external clash between two worlds.
test we be misunderstood. we must point out that in saying this we are not denying the immense importance of suffering, evil and sin in any Christian outlook. The Liturgy, for that matter, is full of these themes. But in the Liturgy they are part of a pattern, a drama, of which the theme is conquest and joy—the supreme happiness and triumph of God, and with Him of all who trust in Him and make Him, rather than themselves, the focus of their attention, will and love.
Coronation example WHAT prompted us to make these comments was, oddly enough, the Coronation and especi ally the part which television played in the Coronation.
For the first time in history a whole nation could be said to have been present at a great liturgical and yet secular or temporal function in which our society itself dedicated itself to Almighty God in the person of its Queen.
It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this common and persona! participation of millions in a ceremony of immense beauty, solemnity and joy.
While there was much else to make this Coronation unique. television enabled the people as a whole—and in future years their number will increase with the technical perfecting of their participation—to identify themselves with the historic ss-mholism of a great society.
Can one doubt that the sense of happiness, colour, uplifting which has succeeded'the event and marked the social joy of a people was largely due to this realisation of personal presence, personal union, with the ceremony and-pageant?
It seems to us that here was an example of the kind of organic unity which should bind Christians together if their Faith and values are to be expressed socially, as well as individually, as they were meant.
How it applies THE Coronation itself is essentially a religious, a Christian, function handed down from Catholic times and, alas. now shorn of the Mass which once linked directly with Heaven the order of super-nature which the Incarnation set into the order of nature. In it the secular world was visibly bound with the spiritual. All the proper emotions and feelings of a great world society find their proper place around the altar of the Sacrifice through which God conquered and brought the world sal
ration, revealing through His Church the means to realise that salvation.
Even the relaxing of the tension in all the jollifications in town, village and back street across the face of the country flows naturally and rightly from the dedication.
Life cannot of course be normally live in that concentrated way, any more than every day can be a great feast day. But it is precisely the genius of the Liturgy to provide in its manifold aspects, in its seasonal changes, in its variations, above all in its essentially public. visible character a focus and an inspiration for common life and common realisation of all the fundamental values of life so that we can be spiritually knit together and come sto express that spiritual quality in temporal matters.
We are apt to think of the Liturgy too much in terms of specific churchgoing, or specific prayers, which perforce are beyond the practical reach, if not the taste. of so many. But its spirit. its message. its symbolism, once realised. can and should spread far beyond the few who carry It out in its fullness.
Getting together AlTS influence on art and literature and indeed every aspect of Christian life should be paramount—and this does not meat. at all that we should all aspire to be vowed religious or even to be pious, as that word is usually understood. It is in our work, our action, our selfexpression. our recreations, our pleasures that we should as a body and as individuals express in due order the manifold values for which the Liturgy, which is our Faith in its central relation and service of God, In his article Fr. Pepler has suggested the need for closer contact between Catholics engaged in a directive or creative way in the subject about which he wntes, and he has offered the means. It is that kind of articulation, of pooling, at all levels and in many places. which could, it seems to us, help a Christian society to he conscious of itself and all that it stands for, and thus return to the Christian centre from which the full expression and fruitfulness of its work depends. Again. we do not mean more sodalities or societies, or even fuller membership of these, excellent as they are. for their specific ends, but something more like the just being together in order to be and to become more socially conscious of the values for ordinary life and avocations which flow from our Faith. At certain levels. at any rate. the participation of non-Catholic Christians could be very helpful.
We need to realise ourselves together and in terms of all we stand for, temporally as much as spiritually, in a way that has, we think. some analogy with the socially consciousness of the nation in these last days.
The Difficultr
INHERE is of course a danger here, if the real point is misunderstood. It is not difficult to get Catholics together as a religious minority distinct from the general body of the people. Nor is it difficult to get the more fervent Catholics together as a minority distinct from the general body of Catholics.
But both these types of groupings for mutual support. co-operation and increase of mutual fervour and action suffer from the same defect of an external or specialised They are looking from outside in. Catholics as Catholics tend to stand together against the outer world. The more fervent specialise in one aspect of Catholicity, their own spiritual development or some form of action to make others more fervent or useful.
The real problem is how to help us all to be more conscious together of a Christianity, which is not sectarianly or even, in the narrower sense, apostolically hounded — Christian values, temporal as well as spiritual, which can inspire from within all expressions of Christian life, Christian work, Christian inspiration, all of which go to the making of a Christian society, even if that society is forced, in present circumstances, to be distinct and different from secularist society.