{"id":76692,"date":"2022-12-09T10:11:28","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T15:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldcatholicnews.com\/metaphysical-beauty-made-visible-onepeterfive\/"},"modified":"2022-12-09T10:11:28","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T15:11:28","slug":"metaphysical-beauty-made-visible-onepeterfive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldcatholicnews.com\/metaphysical-beauty-made-visible-onepeterfive\/","title":{"rendered":"Metaphysical Beauty made Visible – OnePeterFive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Man\u2019s purpose in life is to know, love, and serve God with all of his mind, heart, and strength. This succinct answer to the world\u2019s most vexed question holds compelling poetic beauty. Its strong, rhythmic monosyllables are like the rap of a snare drum which steadies troops in the face of battle.<\/p>\n

Yet, one wonders, what actually is its implementation? How<\/em> does one know, love, and serve God? And how does one really<\/em> give all?<\/p>\n

While reading Peter Kwasniewski\u2019s recently published The Once and Future Roman Rite<\/em>, the answer appeared to me as quite simple: To fulfill his purpose in life, man need look no further than the liturgy. The liturgy is the environment par excellence<\/em> in which man may seek to know, love, and serve God with every fiber of his being.<\/p>\n

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But if man\u2019s ultimate fulfillment is found in the liturgy, then it stands to reason that the form <\/em>of that liturgy is of crucial importance. Kwasniewski writes:<\/p>\n

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The essence of the Church\u2019s liturgy is simple: it is contained in the temple of the Heart of Christ, our Eternal High Priest, where perfect worship of the Father in the Spirit resides. But the \u201cclothing\u201d of that worship is of decisive importance to us, who interact with Our Lord through His visible Body, the Church, and through her visible rites. How these rites are structured, performed, and participated in will inevitably influence our understanding of the mysteries of the Faith and our ability to live them out (12).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In his first chapter, Kwasniewski compellingly discloses the role of tradition in nurturing the sacred rites, sanctifying man, and ultimately glorifying God. He refutes the objection that only validity matters with an insightful analysis of substance and accident. \u201cI am aware of only one instance where, by divine power, substance is separated from accident,\u201d he writes, \u201cnamely, in the miracle of transubstantiation,\u201d and then goes on to explain that the substance of the liturgy is inextricably bound to its accidents, thus making the accidents (over which the Church has dominion) of vital importance (17).<\/p>\n

Later, Kwasniewski links this analysis to his discussion of tradition\u2019s beauty:<\/p>\n

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Beauty happens, so to speak, where there is a clarity<\/em> about what the thing<\/em> itself is<\/em>. When someone is attracted to the traditional liturgy for its sights and sounds, it is not because he is stuck on these things but because these things coalesce around the reality, the Sacrifice of the Cross, and make it stand forth with a satisfying clarity. The surface qualities (or \u201caccidents\u201d) so harmonize with the nature of the mystery that the result is the splendor<\/em> of the truth<\/em> (25).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kwasniewski has uncovered a subtle but crucial reality often overlooked by even the most erudite, namely, the sublime harmony produced by the union of the metaphysical beauty of the Cross and the physical (sense-perceived) beauty of the sacred rites. Scoffers dismiss the importance of this harmony or, like the tone deaf, deny its existence altogether; for them, the traditional liturgy is nothing but a show of smells and bells, a distraction, an embarrassing and irrelevant display. In the words of the Psalmist, such critics \u201chave ears but do not hear.\u201d Kwasniewski\u2019s illuminating defense of liturgical beauty in the physical realm not as a mere aesthetic pleasure, but as an indispensable (and inextricable) accident to the substance of the reality itself, comes as a stroke of pedagogical genius and vindicates the multitude of faithful who have heard this harmony with the ears of their own hearts and sought to promote and defend it.<\/p>\n

One may still wonder, though, where the traditional liturgy comes from, and what exactly differentiates its genesis from the rites which appeared following the Second Vatican Council. In his second chapter, Kwasniewski provides a wide historical and theological account of what organic development really means, and he formulates concrete laws of organic development based on his vast knowledge of traditional rites both Eastern and Western. Perhaps the most helpful portion in this chapter is his explanation of the rate of change in liturgical development and how it has varied over the ages. Kwasniewski\u2019s insights dispel myths and misconceptions of antiquarians and Modernists alike.<\/p>\n

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Other chapters address, from various angles, what it means to say that a rite is \u201ctraditional\u201d (or not), and what is really required if one is dealing with the Roman <\/em>rite, as distinguished from many other Christian rites. He resoundingly argues that the Novus Ordo is not and cannot be considered the Roman rite\u2014it is a new rite altogether, built out of manipulated and transformed elements from the Roman rite and much new material\u2014and that, in fact, the Roman rite has more in common with the Byzantine liturgy than it has with the Novus Ordo. This claim may seem surprising to some, but Kwasniewski\u2019s arguments are detailed and convincing.<\/p>\n