LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

Liturgical Movement: translation

   General term for efforts to renew and reinvigorate liturgy, primarily in Roman Catholicism but also in some Protestant traditions, by encouraging the active participation of congregants, restoring the communal sense of the Eucharist, eliminating rituals no longer understood, emphasizing the liturgical year, and by many other means. Although there was some interest in liturgical reform in 18th-century France, the most prominent campaigner was Prosper Guéranger, who also founded the Abbey of St. Pierre at Solesmes, where he and his colleagues did research to recover Gregorian chant. His attention to liturgy spurred a great wave of interest in historical liturgy, ancient texts, and liturgical reform that has not yet abated. The place and quality of sacred music in practical liturgy remains a central issue.

   See also Cecilian Movement; Oxford Movement; Witt, Franz Xaver.