On Nobility in the Faith, Especially the Liturgy
Rev. Mr. Shawn Gould
Originally posted on 5/9/2010

The Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, refers in a number of passages to the liturgy as being properly “noble.” The rites of the Church, for example, are to “be distinguished by noble simplicity.” (SC 34) It names the fine arts as “among the noblest activities of man’s genius.” (SC 122) It exhorts bishops to ensure that sacred art is characterized by “noble beauty.” (SC124) The question I pose to you, the reader, is what is meant by the notion of nobility, at least in the liturgical context.

I would like to eliminate one possibility at the start. It almost certainly is not intended to restrict the worship of God in the Church to the highest levels of Europe’s landed aristocracy. A “nobleman” in Britain is someone who has a title, traditionally associated with a landholding, that makes one a peer. The term “noble” is derived from the Latin “nobilis” and originally means well-known or renowned. The nobility are those who because of their office (or an office held by an ancestor) have become widely known.

One very much doubts that the council fathers were saying that the liturgy should simply be performed by and for the upper classes. No, the term “noble” has acquired a derivative, but more broadly applicable meaning. Because of their leisure and wealth, the nobility of Europe were able to cultivate learning, refined their manners, and were patrons of the arts. Their role in the government of their countries ideally required of them self-sacrifice and great virtue, particularly wisdom and courage. They were, in short, looked to as models of what was possible and best in human life (although many doubtless failed in this regard). Consequently, when the Church speaks of the liturgy as being celebrated in a noble fashion, I would suggest that the term “noble” encompasses a number of related concepts, such as excellence, dignity, beauty, and elevation.

The liturgy should be noble, that is it should be excellent. If in the liturgy we are fulfilling the highest end or goal of our life, which is the worship of God, then it should be the task to which we devote the best of ourselves. It should not be mediocre. The materials, the coordination of the ministers, servers, and people, the music performed all should be of the highest quality of which we are capable. What a particular community is capable of will certainly depend on circumstances. A mass said furtively in a barn because the authorities have destroyed the church and outlawed the faith could be tremendously excellent under the circumstances. But when our circumstances are as we find them in the U.S., where free worship is not only guaranteed by the law but is a daily lived fact, worship in a barn should not be our standard.

The liturgy should be noble, that is it should be dignified and elevated. In the liturgy, the life of heaven and the life of earth meet, particularly in the Eucharist. This is why an older and wiser vision of ecclesial architecture and art represented the presence of angels and saints in the church, especially in the sanctuary. In the liturgy we are being transformed by the grace of the Holy Spirit into heavenly creatures of radiant glory. The gestures, music, and words should be consistent not only with the dignity of God whom we worship, but also ourselves, made in the image and likeness of God and being divinized by the power of the grace given to us through the Christ and his Church. The point of the liturgy is not simply to put on display our every-day lives. The liturgy should elevate our minds and hearts to the glory of God and the promise of eternal life given to us by Christ. There should be something unique and almost other-worldly about the liturgy.

The liturgy should be noble, that is it should be beautiful. Beauty is thought by some to be in the eye of the beholder, a mere matter of taste that cannot be subjected to an objective standard. And certainly it is difficult to articulate an objective norm of beauty. But I would like to suggest at least one objective characteristic of beauty that is pertinent to the Church’s worship. If something is beautiful, the make of it clearly reveals its form. In other words, the liturgy will be more beautiful, and therefore more noble, the more clearly the church building, the music, the art, and the gestures show everyone that what is going on is the worship of the one, true, all-good and eternal God. Everyone knows a beautiful church when they see one. No one thinks that the cathedrals of Chartres or Notre Dame in Paris are ugly. Neither do they think these buildings are anything but churches. A church that really looks like a church probably could not easily be used for anything but the liturgy. A building that is multi-purpose or that could be easily imagined to have another use probably does not fulfill the requirement of exemplifying the form of a space dedicated to worship. In music, the beauty of sacred music will be greater the more clearly the music itself, not simply the words, of their own nature draw our minds and hearts to God.

I realize that the above is exceedingly inadequate to the task of exploring fully the notion of nobility in the liturgy. My guess, however, is that most of us know true nobility when we see and hear it. Nothing that we do of ourselves is truly worthy of the worship of God. We can never match his glory and give him what he deserves, so to speak. But we can use the very gifts he has given us to offer him our praise and thanks. And it isn’t difficult to see what we are capable of. Human artists and musicians, influenced by grace, have created works of great beauty for the faith. The impression that I have formed as I have compared our efforts of the past five or six decades with our efforts over the past ten or eleven centuries, is that we have become rather comfortable with doing less than our predecessors accomplished in more trying circumstances than we experience today. Perhaps now is the time to take stock of our priorities and to dedicate more of our time and effort to increasing the excellence, dignity, and nobility of our worship of God.