The New Missal (From the Middle Ages continues to the Italian Renaissance) - my notes - Theology

The late Middle Ages goes to the Italian Renaissance and so we move away from cosmic. Rome and Italy is taking leadership again. This humanistic shift is rural to urban, from universe to human. Awareness of human achievement is giving praise to God. There is a return to a sense of the significance etc…- music - complexity. In Gothic there is a window to God. Here the surface needs to fill up. Art and music are dialogue for you - an aesthetic sense. The Reformation - Culture and the scandal of the wealth and politics. The rest of Europe is experiencing the plaque. The show and birthing of culture. Luther - needs to divorce. The Catholic response - Arrival of Trent - 25 sessions over 18 years. Trent is the first council that they need theologians. First having theologians consulting, in order to recover early forms of the mass. If it is going to overcome what led to Protestants Luther separation. We need to go to what was before. This is going to lead to the Trinitarian mass. What comes out of Trent? Suppress physical barriers to the altar. You create a very open church (no pews). You create a church that is back to the original - open, bringing people closer to the altar by moving the choir to the balcony. Emphasize the connection of the ritual to the cross and sacrifice as human participation in God’s saving labours. (It is interesting that in my own church the choir has moved from the balcony to the front and the Creed from Trent is recited rather than the apostles creed) Connect the ritual through scripture, and architecture and the communion of saints as members are now of God’s reign. No longer cosmic. Jesuits design their churches so that you can have a religious play before mass. The importance of preaching in vernacular for catechesis - (that is why they broke away). The mass of Pius V is basically the mass of 1000. There is a new form of education. You take a mystery of faith and music - theme of music - liturgy; Articulating it separately. Make the church a home for people so people feel comfortable. It had great promise. But it is an unfinished reform. There was limited use of the vernacular. The protestants used it and it did not want to be too protestant. Then comes the Enlightment and the French Revolution…… to be continued.