"North of the limes there were vast regions of 'barbarians,' people regarded as having no culture and no orderly religion, but wild Germanic tribes with strange deities and beliefs."
The present tense would be equally fitting . . .
But in seriousness, the notion of sacred cosmology is utterly foreign to the modern mind, and thus (mostly) foreign to the liturgy it produced.
Ironic, given that modernity (as experienced in the west), with its expanded cosmos, is marked by acute anxiety concerning the ostensibly anthropocentric character of Christianity. You would predict that such anxiety would prompt a cosmological turn in liturgy, even as modernity's shrinking globe yielded sensitivity to religious variation and produced an analogous universalist turn in soteriology. But the very opposite occurred: the liturgy took an anthropological turn. Obviously, there are other salient aspects of modernity that explain this (e.g., an exaggerated humanism and psychologism, a democratical and leveling spirit, symbolic illiteracy, and so on). Still, an interesting dynamic.
It's as many have said (esp. Catherine Pickstock): the reform of the liturgy was not only modern, it was ultramodern, and just at a time when modernity's cracks were impossible to ignore and something quite different was needed.
There are also positive references to the north: latera aquilonis civitas regis magni. 'On the side of the north wind is the city of the Great King' from Psalm 47. I have heard that this was in prophetic reference to the conversion of the pagan nations after the coming of Christ. I heard once about how the physical movement of the Book from the Epistle side of the altar to the Gospel side and then back again i.e. south to north and then back to south again represents the Jews receiving the Law first and then the conversion of the Gentiles with the preaching of the Gospel and then the apostasy of the Gentiles at the end of time and the return of the Gospel to the Jews.
"North of the limes there were vast regions of 'barbarians,' people regarded as having no culture and no orderly religion, but wild Germanic tribes with strange deities and beliefs."
The present tense would be equally fitting . . .
But in seriousness, the notion of sacred cosmology is utterly foreign to the modern mind, and thus (mostly) foreign to the liturgy it produced.
Ironic, given that modernity (as experienced in the west), with its expanded cosmos, is marked by acute anxiety concerning the ostensibly anthropocentric character of Christianity. You would predict that such anxiety would prompt a cosmological turn in liturgy, even as modernity's shrinking globe yielded sensitivity to religious variation and produced an analogous universalist turn in soteriology. But the very opposite occurred: the liturgy took an anthropological turn. Obviously, there are other salient aspects of modernity that explain this (e.g., an exaggerated humanism and psychologism, a democratical and leveling spirit, symbolic illiteracy, and so on). Still, an interesting dynamic.
Brilliant point!
It's as many have said (esp. Catherine Pickstock): the reform of the liturgy was not only modern, it was ultramodern, and just at a time when modernity's cracks were impossible to ignore and something quite different was needed.
This is incredibly fascinating. Thank you. Shared it with my family.
There are also positive references to the north: latera aquilonis civitas regis magni. 'On the side of the north wind is the city of the Great King' from Psalm 47. I have heard that this was in prophetic reference to the conversion of the pagan nations after the coming of Christ. I heard once about how the physical movement of the Book from the Epistle side of the altar to the Gospel side and then back again i.e. south to north and then back to south again represents the Jews receiving the Law first and then the conversion of the Gentiles with the preaching of the Gospel and then the apostasy of the Gentiles at the end of time and the return of the Gospel to the Jews.
Whoa! This is really hitting the spot for me, but I'll have to have a few listens before I start to comprehend.