Robert Hovda: The Amen Corner, edited by John F. Baldovin
Smith, Karen Sue
HOVDA'S GREAT AMEN ROBERT HOVDA The Amen Corner John F. Baldovin, Editor The Liturgical Press, $15.95, 254 pp. Karen Sue Smith Readers of these thirty-one essays will understand why Robert...
...parishes should celebrate fewer Masses in general and better ones in particular-all with music...
...And he could use a light touch when criticizing, as when he feigned curiosity about the term "institutional church," wondering what other kind there was...
...What Hovda wanted most was to promote the reign of God by setting a liturgical table "from which no one is excluded, where all are one and all are free...
...In liturgy "we act out the reign of God, where we are without distinction equally loved, equally invited to make our own the revealed truth of God's words, equally reverenced and honored with water and incense and kisses and touches, equally sharing the holy plate and the holy cup...
...Of course, the world needs improvement...
...that worship be allotted an appropriate portion of the parish budget...
...As for opinions, Hovda had many: he thought highly visible liturgical ministers of all types should wear vestments...
...She is currently researching the life of New York Times reporter Anne O'Hare McCormick...
...KAREN SUE SMITH is editor oj'Church magazine, published by the National Pastoral Life Center, New York...
...The parish is a gathering of sinners-a self-image no assembly can forget or deny without robbing the liturgy of its transforming role in their corporate and personal lives...
...and that artists be consulted about things liturgical-from the vestments to the vessels, from the interior lighting to the choreography of processions...
...disdain for anything that might give rise to "liturgical stars...
...Karen Sue Smith Readers of these thirty-one essays will understand why Robert Hovda, who died in 1992, was highly regarded as a liturgist, and why his reflections are as important to the church today as during the ten years (1983-92) in which he composed them for Worship magazine...
...His ecclesiology is responsible for his sure-footedness...
...Despite the pace of reform, its direction, or the number of obstacles in its way, he never sounds lost or uncertain of its course...
...He insisted that all liturgical ministers be selected on the basis of talent and competence...
...Sunday celebrations without a priest should never be accepted as the norm...
...Only sinners, Hovda said, need liturgy...
...To young liturgists, he advised, "Why not get your teeth into the tradition, deeply enough to taste and savor, to acquire a foundation, and then trust yourself and the community you serve to make the applications...
...that music leaders be trained professionals...
...Only the sick, Jesus said, need a physician...
...Liturgy is, Hovda writes, "the primary indispensable source" for the Christian life...
...its ritual elements- all the nonverbal and symbolic parts-are as important as the words and texts...
...inclusion of gays and lesbians (along with the poor, the disabled, ethnic minorities, and women) in his frequent mention of society's oppressed and marginalized groups...
...The conviction that liturgy was an equalizer animated many of Hovda's writings: warnings to priests and other "proROBERT P. IMBELLI, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, teaches systematic theology at Boston College...
...God's word does not supply what we have the brains and the imaginations to create," he wrote...
...maleness and celibacy should not be criteria for ordination...
...Hovda thought that reform, like ritual, must be steeped in the church's tradition, connecting the ancient with the present...
...teaching that the assembly-not the presider-is the primary celebrant of the Mass...
...He joined the Episcopal church as a student and the Catholic church in 1943, becoming a lifelong advocate of ecumenism...
...and his suggestion that such groups "should exercise roles of leadership in liturgy...
...Hovda is surefooted without being arrogant...
...Throughout the volume Hovda chronicles, guides, addresses, and, occasionally, issues warnings about the ongoing liturgical renewal, but he never sounds depressed, cynical, or even surprised...
...He rejects the image of the church as a retreat from the world or as a towering alternative to it, the church described in the novels of Evelyn Waugh...
...I found refreshing Hovda's vision of congregations in which mature Christian adults make decisions of import based on their own faith, knowledge of church tradition, and experience of society at large...
...In liturgy we find "our sameness and commonness before the holy one...
...In Hovda's view, the church is not a perfect society but a work in progress (or at least in process), a "pilgrim entity, full of debate, controversy, and turmoil...
...He argued that humanity hungers for bread and for beauty, and that both must be satisfied...
...He preached solidarity despite human differences and celebrated a liturgy that relentlessly challenged self-satisfaction...
...Despite his inclusiveness, Hovda held to high standards...
...Hovda believed that liturgy, having formed believers in the ways of reconciliation, ought to enable them to resolve conflict with other peoples and other nations...
...Hovda opposed what he called "a classic red herring" brought up by many of his fellow advocates for the poor: that the church's expenditures on beauty were made at their expense...
...we are reduced "to creature size...
...That was the goal toward which he worked in writing these essays and in his priestly ministry as well.iestly ministry as well...
...peace liturgies are the only kind we celebrate, he would say...
...Yet Hovda publicly credited the good intentions of those who disagreed with him...
...So Hovda railed especially against the Western belief in rugged individualism, which he thought inimical to the very essence of liturgy and its corporate, communal identity...
...With reconciliation as the heart of liturgy, he saw implicit and natural connections...
...Since liturgy weds the biblical word to the sacramental deed, the practice of liturgy slowly transforms the assembly, the church, the world...
...fessional" liturgists-men and women- against the evils of clericalism...
...Hovda eschewed the church-versus-world dualism and reminded readers that the church exists "for the world, the world God loves...
...A Scandinavian from Minnesota, Hovda was once president of the Minneapolis Council of Methodist Youth...
...He expected conflicts and celebrated differences...
...The liturgy he envisioned is simple, dignified, and beautiful...
...Hovda's early contacts with the Catholic Worker and his pacifism, developed before World War II, cemented his concern for justice and peace...
...Hovda was sanguine about the future of the liturgy...
...Liturgy is a "parable in action," inviting us "respectfully into an environment in which godly decisions not only are appropriate but are the only ones that make sense...
Vol. 122 • April 1995 • No. 7
