A Connection?

As I read the January 6th address of Msgr. Guido Marini to priets, I kept coming back to this posting by Andrea Tornielli last August:

The newspaper [Il Giornale] today published a paper devoted to "propositions" voted on last March by the plenary meeting of the Congregation for Divine Worship, presented to Benedict XVI by Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera on April 4th. It contains a first outline of the "reform the reform" liturgy that Ratzinger would see implemented, underlining the importance of reverent worship, putting a stop to creativity and abuse, giving more presence to the Latin language in the new rite, publishing bilingual missals (with the Latin text opposite), reconsidering the matter of the "versus orientem" [ad orientem] orientation at least during the consecration [i.e. during the Eucharistic prayer], reiterating that the use of distributing Communion in the hand is an indult, an extraordinary fact, but that the [normative] custom of the law must remain to receive the host on the tongue.

All this, however, will be prepared and presented in the Ratzingerian style: not any short-term document, no sudden imposition destined to go unheeded. Rather, a long and patient work from the grass roots ["from below"], that involves the episcopate. The point of departure and arrival is the conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.

What kept getting to me were the main points supposedly in this "reform of the reform" document (Bold in red above), and how they echo the main points in Msgr. Marini's address:

The Sacred Liturgy, God’s great gift to the Church (reverent worship/ stopping creativity)

The orientation of liturgical prayer (ad orientem worship)

Adoration and union with God (communion on the tongue)

Active Participation

Sacred or liturgical music (greater presence of Latin language)

I wonder if this isn't the beginning of that "long and patient work from the grass roots"... the points that Tornielli claimed were in the "reform of the reform" document and the points that Msgr. Marini made in his address are identical. Note also that Tornielli said that the departure and return point is Sacrosanctum Concilium... while Msgr. Marini's address largely concerns an interpretation of the Vatican II reforms in continuity with tradition, quoting frequently from Sacrosanctum Concilium.

I can't help thinking that there is something here that has been carefully thought out.