Abstract
This work is an important addition to the scholarly treatment of the history of the Eucharist as celebrated in the West. It is 75 years since Josef Jungmann first published his Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum sollemnia). Since then Missarum sollemnia has been indispensable for all students of liturgy. Many other works have been published since, but none that looked at the subject in such detail and considered the full historical sweep of 20 centuries. On the first page of this new work, Lang acknowledges that Missarum sollemnia retains its pride of place and ‘is still indispensable for its command of primary sources’ (p. 1). Yet the main contribution of this new work is its examination and summary of most of the relevant scholarship in the decades since Jungmann’s final edition. In this sense, this new work deserves also to be read by those who study the history of Western liturgy and are in particular interested in Lang’s synthesis of more recent scholarship and his wealth of bibliographical material.
Lang explains in the introduction that while he was writing for a theological and pastoral audience he ‘also had in mind students of history in general and, in particular, students of the history of architecture, art, music and literature, who are in need of a compact guide to the Roman Mass since it has been such a powerful social and cultural force in Western civilization’ (p. 2). While I believe that this goal has been admirably met, as I will propose below, this secondary goal is the paradoxically main weakness of this new treatment.
Lang works through the history of the Eucharist as celebrated in the West and the gradual formation and later dominance of the Roman Rite. Each of the nine chapters is valuable and all of them build on the relevant literature. In a number of instances one could debate with Lang’s preferences in the reconstruction of liturgical history, such as his valuation of other scholarship on the presence of the ‘words of institution’ in the Anaphora Addai and Mari (p. 89) or his overreliance on Martimort’s proposal that the Roman Mass never had a system of three readings, including Old Testament readings (p. 160) (Lang fails to consider the important 1993 contribution of Philippe Bernard to the debate). Unsurprisingly, I would disagree with his analysis of the evidence of an early adoption of an ad orientem position of the celebrant as he presides the Eucharist (pp. 204–12).
On a deeper level, my hesitancy about this book is precisely because it finishes with the liturgical reforms of the Council of Trent. Obviously, scholars are at liberty to start and finish their academic treatments where they see fit and this book is not incomplete or too short to justify publication as an individual volume. However, Lang would have been advised to carry the work forward to the present day in a second volume. Leaving the work as it is feeds in to the misunderstanding that liturgy reached its apex with the Council of Trent or that the Church has seen no worthwhile developments in the last five centuries.
I willingly admit that this volume serves the needs of some students of the history of Christian art and music of earlier ages. But the needs of the theologian or pastoral minister are different to those of the historian. Lang proposes a vision of liturgy whereby the ‘personal and emotive liturgical expression’ of the priest as a spiritual actor with a strongly penitential understanding of the Eucharist is seen as still having a weighty importance today (pp. 234–38). I think it is valuable for us to appreciate how people in the Middle Ages benefited from such spirituality and it is undoubtedly wrong to propose that we are more enlightened than all of our ancestors. The Church in every age, has the mission of drawing humanity closer to the mysteries of redemption. Obviously, Christians today do need to reappropriate certain penitential aspects of Christian revelation. However, it is overly simplistic to hint that the liturgy of some earlier age is better suited to the spiritual needs of present-day Christians than the liturgical forms that are officially promulgated for current use. Vatican II’s analysis of the absolute need for liturgical reform cannot be denied: ‘For the liturgy is made up of immutable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change. These not only may but ought to be changed with the passage of time if they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have become unsuited to it’ (Sacrosanctum concilium 21).
Let me stress that Lang does not explicitly contradict anything in the Council or the current Magisterium. However, by deliberately finishing his book where he does, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the 16th century is being held out as the apex of the liturgical experience of the Eucharist. In fact, the current Magisterium of Pope Francis teaches that ‘the liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite’ (Traditionis Custodes 1)
This criticism is given in the hope that this work will receive a wide readership, all readers can benefit from Lang’s erudition and reassessment of the past. But I would suggest that the true value of the work will be in dialogue with it. Students would do well to consult the primary and secondary sources that Lang refers to and dialogue with his analysis. In conclusion, I also hope that Lang will reconsider this work’s status as a single volume history of the Roman Mass and dedicate himself to composing a second volume that brings the history forward to our own times, thus providing relevant and much needed scholarship for today’s theologian and pastoral minister.