Romano Guardini and the Liturgical Movement

The Liturgical Movement, maintains Guardini, was born, not made. It came apparently into existence from a universally expressed desire for a life more fully and symbolically Catholic.From whatever sources this movement sprang it is certain that in Romano Guardini it found its most able interpreter. In France, Germany and elsewhere this liturgical revival coincided exactly with the publication and translation of Guardini’s Sinn der Kirche and Geist der Liturgie.Perhaps a certain parallel may be found between the rebirth of metaphysics and the liturgical revival. Both movements have the same foundations, both spring from the need of some absolute order, and both are heralded as an escape from individualism.Guardini shows how the liturgy, by incorporating all revealed truth, insists on the existence of an established order. Through collective prayer it offers an escape from the individualism of the times.