Above: Lambert Beauduin
Image in the Public Domain
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LAMBERT BEAUDUIN (AUGUST 4, 1873-JANUARY 11, 1960)
Belgian Roman Catholic Priest and Pioneer of Liturgical Renewal
Octave Beauduin, born near Liêge, Belgium, on August 4, 1873, came from a wealthy, liberal, and devout family. Every evening the family and servants gathered for devotions. Beauduin, ordained a priest in 1897, carried that devout. progressive spirit into his adult life. After teaching at a minor seminary for two years, our saint joined the Labor Chaplain movement in 1899. He, as part of that movement, one controversial with much of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, ministered to industrial workers who might otherwise be alienated from the Church.
Eventually Beauduin left the Labor Chaplain movement for the Order of Saint Benedict, becoming Lambert in 1907. At the monastery at Mount César our saint, influenced by the prior, Columba Marmion (1858-1923), developed a deep appreciation for the liturgy.
This was controversial. (What was not controversial?) From 1909 to 1921 Beauduin was at the center of the Belgian liturgical movement. He argued against individualism, secularism, the neglect of prayer, and other ills, classifying them as explanations for the neglect of liturgy as the center of Christian piety. This was the crux of Liturgy, the Life of the Church (1914; English-language translation, 1926). He favored, among other things, High Masses, Vespers and Compline as parish services, and the participation of all present at Masses.
Beauduin was also a student of Eastern Christianity. He, from 1921 a professor of theology at the Pontifical Atheneum of Sant’Anselmo, Rome, opened a biritual monastery at Amay in 1926. That year he began to publish Irénikon, a journal of studies of Eastern Christianity. All this was, of course, controversial, as was his openness to dialogue with Anglicans.
Thus, from 1931 to 1951, Beuduin was in involuntary exile from Belgium. He served as the chaplain to two French convents, influenced Virgil Michel (1890-1938), helped to found the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique in Paris in 1943, and, the following year, renewed a friendship with Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope St. John XXIII (1881-1963).
Beauduin returned to Belgium in 1951. He settled at the monastery he had founded, relocated to Chevetogne. There, after years of suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, our saint died on January 11, 1960. He was 86 years old.
Much of what Beauduin recommended became reality. Nevertheless, the necessity of heeding his sage counsel, especially in ways churches have not followed it, remains.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JUNE 12, 2018 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF EDWIN PAXTON HOOD, ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER, PHILANTHROPIST, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF CHRISTIAN DAVID JAESCHKE, GERMAN MORAVIAN ORGANIST AND COMPOSER; AND HIS GRANDSON, HENRI MARC VOLDEMAR VOULLAIRE, MORAVIAN COMPOSER AND MINISTER
THE FEAST OF ENMEGAHBOWN, EPISCOPAL PRIEST AND MISSIONARY TO THE OJIBWA NATION
THE FEAST OF JOSEPH DACRE CARLYLE, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
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Within the hour, while seeking a good proper for liturgists in official volumes from various denominations, I found no such thing. So I wrote a prayer and selected the readings.
Holy God, whose majesty surpasses all human definitions and capacity to grasp,
thank you for those (especially Lambert Beauduin.)
who have nurtured and encouraged the reverent worship of you.
May their work inspire us to worship you in knowledge, truth, and beauty.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1 Chronicles 25:1-8
Psalm 145
Revelation 15:1-4
John 4:19-26
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 27, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JAMES INTERCISUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR
THE FEAST OF HENRY SLOANE COFFIN, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGIAN
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