Abbey-Roads2

Vatican II and the New Springtime.

I think one focus of study for anyone who entered religious life since the 1970’s has been the Documents of Vatican II - at least that was the case for me.  Over the years I return to ’spot check’ certain points in the Conciliar Documents, while recently, I’ve been reading them more closely.  After all, Pope Benedict XVI stands by the Second Vatican Council and recommends we reread the documents from our vantage point of 40 years after…

“And thus it seems to me that we must rediscover the great heritage of the Council, which is not a “spirit” reconstructed behind the texts, but the great conciliar texts themselves, reread today with the experiences that we have had and that have born fruit in so many movements, in so many new religious communities.” - Benedict XVI informal Q and A with priests of Auronzo di Cadore, 2007 

In retrospect, I’ve often been surprised by the positive outlook the Conciliar Popes have taken regarding the Council, beginning with Blessed John XXIII when he convened the assembly in 1962.  Addressing the Council Fathers, John XXIII spoke of the “happy circumstances under which the Ecumenical Council commences.”  (No disrespect intended, but what spiritual realm was he living in?  It was the height of the Cold War, among other things.)  The Pope continued:

In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure.  In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin… We feel we must disagree with these prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster…”  John XXIII, Opening Speech, October 11, 1962

Who were the prophets of gloom and what were they saying to the Holy Father, and why was the Pope so convinced to the contrary?  Especially when his predecessor, Pius XII had not been all that optimistic for the future?

Affirming the Council.

While on vacation this past summer, Pope Benedict admitted the difficulties which followed in the wake of the Council, even hinting at a personal disillusionment, yet true to form, he proposes a rather positive outlook for the true teaching  of Vatican II.

“I, too, lived through Vatican Council II, coming to Saint Peter’s Basilica with great enthusiasm and seeing how new doors were opening. It really seemed to be the new Pentecost, in which the Church would once again be able to convince humanity. After the Church’s withdrawal from the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it seemed that the Church and the world were coming together again, and that there was a rebirth of a Christian world and of a Church of the world and truly open to the world.

We had such great hopes, but in reality things proved to be more difficult. Nonetheless, it is still true that the great legacy of the Council, which opened a new road, is a “magna carta” of the Church’s path, very essential and fundamental.”- Q and A at Auronzo di Cadore.

In between the extremes - there is the fruit.

Pope Benedict, just as his predecessor, speaks positively of the Second Vatican Council, despite the confusion which the Council appears to have generated over the years.  Benedict XVI compares it to the turmoil which followed other Councils, especially the Council of Nicaea.

“In his book on the Holy Spirit, saint Basil compares the Church’s situation after the Council of Nicaea to a nighttime naval battle, in which no one recognizes another, but everyone is pitted against everyone else. It really was a situation of total chaos: this is how saint Basil paints in vivid colors the drama of the period following the Council of Nicaea. 

So it is not now, in retrospect, such a great surprise how difficult it was at first for all of us to digest the Council, this great message. To imbue this into the life of the Church, to receive it, such that it becomes the Church’s life, to assimilate it into the various realities of the Church is a form of suffering, and it is only in suffering that growth is realized. To grow is always to suffer as well, because it means leaving one condition and passing to another.”- Q and A at Auronzo di Cadore.

Spiritual rain…

The Holy Father went on to point to two great upheavals in the last century which seemed to have complicated the growth expected from the Council.  These disorientations took place with the “cultural revolution”  of the late 1960’s, followed by “the fall into nihilism after 1989″ -both of which led to even greater confusion after the Council.  However, Pope Benedict see’s a silver lining beneath the apparent confusion. 

“It seems very important to me that we can now see with open eyes how much that was positive also grew following the Council: in the renewal of the liturgy, in the synods – Roman synods, universal synods, diocesan synods – in the parish structures, in collaboration, in the new responsibility of laypeople, in intercultural and intercontinental shared responsibility, in a new experience of the Church’s catholicity, of the unanimity that grows in humility, and nonetheless is the true hope of the world.”- Q and A at Auronzo di Cadore.

Really?  I guess we ought to have the same hope the post-Conciliar Popes have had.  Although the seemingly apparent disconnect with reality reminds me of  Evelyn Waugh’s illustration of a popular Protestant misunderstanding concerning papal infallibility:

“Suppose the Pope looked up, saw a cloud and said, “It’s going to rain”, would that be bound to happen?
“Oh yes, Father.”
“But suppose it didn’t?”
“I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it.”  - Brideshead Revisited.

I’m certain I am too sinful to see all the fruits of Vatican II.  Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.