"Liturgy and Personality", de Dietrich von Hildebrand

Publicado originalmente em Março de 1943, “Liturgy and Personality” foi um dos primeiros livros escritos em inglês por Dietrich von Hildebrand depois da sua chegada aos Estados Unidos: trata-se de uma obra brilhante, na qual o seu autor discorre com enorme e intensa elevação espiritual acerca de um tema que lhe era caríssimo - o da liturgia católica, o da absoluta centralidade desta na vida cristã e de todos os efeitos benéficos que da mesma decorrem para quem a vive de forma integral e totalmente consciente. Hoje, decorridos quase setenta anos desde a sua publicação, “Liturgy and Personality” continua a ser uma notável apologia da liturgia da Igreja do Ocidente (uma das mais belas que já li), bem demonstrativa do verdadeiro amor que Dietrich von Hildebrand tinha - entre outras manifestações desta - à Missa Tradicional de rito latino-gregoriano (amor confirmado em pleno nos anos conturbados após o Concílio Vaticano II por um texto absolutamente fulcral como “The Case for Latin Mass”).

Ora, pelas razões acima indicadas, “Liturgy and Personality” é uma obra merecedora da atenta leitura por parte de todos os católicos tradicionalistas, ademais de na actualidade ser um magnífico repositório que lhes permite recapitular toda a essência, todas as razões profundas do combate em defesa da liturgia da tradição.

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The Liturgy is pervaded with this spirit of awakeness. The Liturgy is a vigil in itself in the highest sense of the word and organically draws all who live in it into this spirit. In liturgical prayer, we emerge from the grip of our interests and worries, the tension centered in our labors, the immediate goals of practical life, the importunate “mincing” of being which the visible world offers; we emerge towards the great things that are eternally and invariably important, towards the mysterium Divinitatis, the mysterium Trinitatis, the mysterium Incarnationis, the mysterium misericordiae et caritatis, the magnalia Dei, the great deeds of God, the mystery of the Suffering Christ and the Eucharist. We emerge from the visible, not just to cast a fleeting glance on that world of mysteries, but to abide in it at length, believing, hoping, loving, thanking, praying, asking. All this, is the expressed accomplishment of awakeness. We sacrifice and pray during the Hours of the day, not in order to become awake but in order to glorify God. Yet this deep, broad stream of liturgical prayer before God is the actualization of being awake. Participation in the prayer of Christ means to be awake in the highest sense of the word. The performing of the Liturgy means also being awake to ourselves and our true metaphysical situation. Thanks to the Liturgy, we stand consciously where we objectively stand in truth. Here the cardboard houses of pride collapses; all the illusions of concupiscence, all repression, all flight from God and from oneself, all self-beguilement which is implied in turning away from the reality, all of this falls to pieces. Our sin, our guilt, our responsibility, death, which none of us can escape, the danger of eternal damnation, our nothingness before God, God’s infinite mercy, our redemption through the blood of Christ, all stand revealed before us. In the Liturgy which we perform through, with, and in Christ, who is eternal Truth, we are placed into Truth. All semblance and twilight are dispelled through Lumen Christi; all is laid bare in that light - ourselves, our condition, our vocation.

All earthly goods, our earthly actions and designs, are also placed in their right place in conspectus Dei. To be awake is not only extended to eternal things but also to transient and earthly ones. The Liturgy is in itself awakeness in the highest sense of the world, and it leads, moreover, all who live in it to being awake.

Dietrich von Hildebrand, in “Liturgy and Personality” - New York and Toronto, Longmans, Green and Co., Second edition, 1943 - páginas 120 a 122.