“God continues to act
in the midst of this temporary uncertainty”
Víctor Gualán holds a degree in Liturgy and a Masters in Liturgical Music from the Ateneo Sant'Anselmo in Rome. He currently teaches at the Faculty of Theology of the Franciscan Institute “Bernardino Echeverría” in Quito.
What is liturgy for you?
Liturgy for me, as a religious and a believer, is a concrete and sure way in which God continues to carry out his work of redemption in our human history, in the midst of his people and in each particular history. It is the Mystery of the Risen Christ put into action - even though I prefer the image put on stage - through particular forms: objects, persons and moments, which become concrete in the life of the universal community that is the Church and each specific community. It is the action of God through the Paschal Mystery of Christ; and, at the same time, it is also our fragile and often insufficient response to that sacred action, in the Church, in which God is always the “principal protagonist”, and we are its “secondary actors”. So our very fragile and human actions and forms are always a response to a work that greatly surpasses us.
How can we improve liturgical life in our communities of SSCC brothers?
To improve the liturgical life of our communities, a good start would be a trained and lucid awareness of the objective and sacred value of what is at stake in liturgical actions. This would help in the way we exercise our religious consecration. Equally such awareness could reveal to us the image of God that is hidden in our personal and community religious imagination.
I also see it as important to take the time necessary to adequately prepare our acts of liturgical celebration. We need to ensure that we are not taking “these things” for granted and/or considering ”these things” as not very important. We need to avoid thinking that we have nothing new to learn that we haven’t already been taught or acquired in our theological and pastoral formation or in our religious and priestly formation and that we do not reduce liturgy to following some criteria or norms that can kill a “certain spirit”.
At the time of preparation and in the actual celebration it is important to use objective and theological criteria so as not to allow the liturgy to be dominated by purely aesthetic tastes or the pretext of practical pastoral care. Avoid too, preparing liturgy according to what my likes are or what the “people” want, all the time sacrificing the criterion of truth of sanctifying efficacy of what is an always greater work.
It is important to maintain an attitude of humble obedient submission to a Mystery greater than ourselves, and to its symbolic-sacramental manifestations, upon which our life of faith depends, that is, our relationship with God and our consecration at its fundamental centre as a concrete response to that manifestation. Good preparation, always subject to evaluation, will give weight, strength and taste to the spiritual-sacramental life we live.
Some elements to be attended to in the liturgy of the hours
It is important for the celebration of a liturgy which in itself is ecclesial and communitarian, to adequately care for the religious environment, to ensure that the place for fraternal prayer and the encounter with God does not remain as a mere observance of the schedule or a mere “sounding” of the lips, of a hasty or dispassionate reading but rather that it resonates with the heart and involves the whole being of each one and the community.
It is important to observe the objective rhythm of the so-called “veritas horarum” or times of celebration of the Church and the Congregation and not reduce it to the desires and wills of our personal and particular times, however valuable they may be.
We must be careful to define clearly in the programme or schedule of the life of the community the times in which we are going to celebrate as a community. These times should be understood as a time of ecclesial-sacramental communion that ought not to be postponed.
To know, or at least to read, the instructions that come at the beginning of the texts that serve as a guide and that come as suggestions and alternatives for the celebration. To know how to manage all the possibilities that the celebration of the hours offers us.
Wherever it is possible, the singing or chanting, that is the musical recitation of the psalmody, is very useful for meditation and to go deeper into the sacred text. It should be undertaken not only in a solemn aesthetic way or in a way that involves useless lengthening, or as if it was something reserved for experts in art but, above all, as a spiritual and fruitful way of savouring and introjecting or incarnating into our personal and community life the Song of the Lord expressed in Hymns, Songs and biblical Psalms.
The serene and restful alternation between reading, meditation, silence, singing and body posture can help us to move from a prayer that is only vocal to one that is totally bodily and spiritual, a conscious, active, internal and external participation, as the Second Vatican Council asks in the Constitution on the Liturgy (SC 11).
What would be a good structure or format for worship?
From my beginnings in the Congregation, the practice of Eucharistic adoration has always been seen in relationship to its reparative dimension, at least in discourse. This has been highlighted as most characteristic of our religious life as Sacred Hearts, and through the years I have seen a diversity of practices and customs in the different communities and countries, always assuming that “this is how it should be”; however, our tradition is framed in the great tradition of the Church, something which we consider obvious and presume, though in practice it is not like that, because so often we try to reinvent what the Church has already celebrated for centuries. Without a doubt, it is valuable to highlight the diverse and concrete contributions of our spirituality, but also to evidence our ecclesial sacramental communion with the long tradition of Eucharistic adoration (often devaluingly called devotional), that can enrich or universalise our valuable community practices. For this reason a good structure would integrate the possibilities that the “ritual of Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass” affords us, and from these ecclesial bases it would then be possible to integrate the typical and unique richness of our reparative spirituality.
There are a number of structures or ways that have been proposed and continue to be proposed from different places where the Congregation carries out its ministry. In my opinion this could give the idea that Eucharistic adoration comes to depend more on the good will or the personal creativity initiatives of those in charge of each community and work. This does not mean that it is not important to elaborate a common and basic outline that highlights this particular dimension of the spirituality of reparation, not only at textual or ritual level, but also at the symbolic level, with the possibility of recovering classic texts and historical rites and symbols typical of our spirituality, adapting them to our communities and lay groups in communion with the universal Church.
More than having or proposing a defined and unique format for living our personal and community adoration, and one that is practical and useful, I think that the first thing is to understand that community Eucharistic adoration is directly linked to the Mass, from which it flows sacramentally. It can be lived as a time of God, in that the Eucharistic Mystery is at work in the life and mission of the community expressed in contemplative, adoring and reparatory silence, as the sacrament of the Spirit that gives concrete structure to the time of adoration that is reparatory. A humble and reverent silence that structures the few and different moments of words, songs, gestures and symbols that give form to this time - whether long or short - of encounter with Christ. May God be the one who acts in “truth” among the worshippers and those who “benefit” indirectly from these moments of reparation, those who have asked to be remembered in the community's ministry of intercession. (The idea comes to mind that our consecration also implies being ministers of reparation through adoration, where we carry the sins of humanity on our shoulders which, in my opinion, is represented by the symbol of the red cape that many brothers wore for their personal adoration).
This is a feature that we could take care of in our community Eucharist
It has always made me think of that subtle difference that many of us have when we come to the Eucharist: among ourselves, a certain spirit of wanting simplicity in the celebration in the community, which can imply doing the minimum and automatically, if not carelessly, and making the ‘ex opere operato’ of the sacrament an almost magical act that acts by itself. Then there is the other form that takes place in front of the people, in whose presence we become “produced and stylized” as a result of celebrations that seek to accommodate our personal theological sympathies and opinions and the taste of the people, and which show a certain spirit of piety and spiritual devotion. I believe that it is important to have unity and coherence in the way we present the Mystery of Christ as something ecclesial and common in the midst of our so varied and pluralistic forms.
To care for or to prepare means to give value to what is fundamental in our ministerial consecration, trying not to establish differences between masses or eucharists for the people and masses or celebrations for us, as if our consecration has given us special privileges or rights in regards to God's action in its central sacramental form that is the eucharist. This can only serve to reinforce the much criticised clericalism in our Church today.
I also think that it is necessary to take care of the preparation of the Mass as a whole, and not just the homily or sermon or religious discourse, so that the whole celebration, well done in itself, shines with noble simplicity, which does not mean ritual or symbolic negligence or certain “genius” and “spiritual” improvisations or, on the other hand, a strident and magnificent external form that is diluted on the surface.
I think that if the objectivity and sacredness of the Mystery of God disappears in our Eucharistic celebrations, they can become a mere external obligation that lacks the interior and sanctifying implications of the work of the Risen One.
You are making your debut as head of the Vicarage of San Damiano de Molokai in Quito. What strikes you about the liturgy of the simple people?
There is no prayer or gesture that is in each of the faithful that has not previously been in the millennial sacramental practice of the Church. In other words, the liturgy and the so-called popular devotion or simple religious life of the people come from the same source and have the same purpose. The importance of having a formation in this area of liturgy helps to channel and unite these forces of God's grace, or seeds of the Word that are part of the same project, that of God, and his desire for the sanctification of all peoples and of each individual person. Thus the value of what is usually said about the liturgy of the people lies in its direct and indirect relationship and dependence on what the Church celebrates and has celebrated in every time and place where the work of Christ has been celebrated in different forms and which are kept in the memory of the hearts of the various peoples and continue to be alive and active. Some very ancient liturgies that remain in the memory and faith of the faithful are expressed in their language and in their very every day and noble forms. The key, then, is to know how to gather, accompany, and renew “those seeds, so old and so new” of the one faith of the Church, of the one spirit that remains infused in the popular memory, which preserves what is important, even if the reforms and renewals of the councils continue their course forward.
You are also in charge of vocation promotion in the area of Ecuador. Is there hope for new vocations?
This is a question that has been on the lips and minds at our meetings and community gatherings for years. It is evident that there is a lack of vocations and that young people are less interested in staying in our communities as they begin to explore their vocation. Hope remains, even though new ways of animating vocations have been and continue to be tried. I remain convinced that if our community and spiritual life are not the first means of animating vocations, are not attractive on account of it strength and truthfulness, there is no strategy or plan that can be effective. There are young people, there are people searching for their vocation, there are appointed animators, but I believe that there is a lack of community interest and conviction to get involved in this activity, an activity that cannot be left to only one or a few designated brothers.
How the brothers living out this time of year?
These months of confinement leave us facing each other, taking on the weight of ordinary life and its sacred value, which is lived in the smallest gestures of brotherhood. Without doubt, we have taken on board, on account of this situation, the value of accompanying each other - brothers of various generations that we are, in this local community of Quito. Although each one remains connected, in some way, to his respective pastorals, we share among ourselves the concerns and joys of our laity in the pastoral works for whom we pray and whom we accompany. This is something that is lived spontaneously and even the agreements and meetings are held in the framework of an ordinary naturalness that makes us feel co-responsible, each one contributing his wealth of services and trying to support each other in our weaknesses. The spiritual life organises our moments of the day, prayer and the Eucharistic celebration unite us to a project that is greater than our own needs and interests and that keeps us connected to the needs of the whole world, in the midst of the hope that God continues to act in the midst of this temporal uncertainty.
06/02/2020