Concelebratie zoals wij deze kennen "behoort niet tot de Latijnse liturgische traditie"

 

Fragmenten uit een toespraak van kardinaal Canizares bij de voorstelling van het boek van Msgr. Guillaume Derville 'La concélébration eucharistique. Du symbole à la réalité' aan de Pauselijke Universiteit Santa Croce op 5 maart 2012. (Bron)

The historical panorama that Msgr. Derville offers us, even if it is —as he modestly points out— only a brief summary, is sufficient to let us glimpse areas of obscurity, that show the absence of clear data on Eucharistic celebration in the earliest times of the Church. At the same time, and without falling into a ingenuous “archaeologism”, it does provide us with enough information to be able to state that concelebration, in the genuine tradition of the Church, whether eastern or western, is an extraordinary, solemn and public rite, normally presided over by the Bishop or his delegate, surrounded by his presbyterium and by the entire community of the faithful. But the daily concelebrations of priests only, which are practised “privately”, so to speak, in the eastern Churches instead of Masses celebrated individually or “more privato”, do not form part of the Latin liturgical tradition.

This widening of the faculty to concelebrate needs to be moderated, as we can see when we read the Council texts. And it is logical that it should be so: the purpose of concelebration is not to solve problems of logistics or organization, but rather to make the Paschal mystery present, manifesting the unity of the priesthood that is born of the Eucharist. 

When the number of concelebrants is too large, you lose one of the essential aspects of the concelebration. When it is almost impossible to synchronize the words and gestures not reserved to the principal celebrant, when the concelebrants are distant from the altar and the offerings, when there are not vestments for some of them, when there is a lack of harmony in the colour or the shape of the vestments, all this can obscure the manifestation of the unity of the priesthood. And we cannot forget that it is precisely this manifestation which justified the widening of the faculty to concelebrate.
As long ago as 1965 Cardinal Lercaro, president of the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra liturgia, wrote a letter to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences, alerting them to the danger of treating concelebration as simply a way of dealing with practical problems. And he reminded them that it could be opportune to encourage it, if it helped the piety of faithful and priests.

Net zoals de werken van U.M. Lang en kardinaal J. Ratzinger destijds het vraagstuk 'versus orientem' beslissend beantwoord hebben en directe aanleiding geweest zijn tot hervorming in de zin van herstel, zo kan ook dit werk ertoe bijdragen om misconcepties over concelebratie te herstellen, alhoewel de historische date omtrent concelebratie waar kardinaal Canizares naar verwijst reeds langer bekend zijn. Het blijft interessant deze evolutie te volgen!