Noble Simplicity Reconsidered

Noble simplicity: these all-too-well-known words are often bandied about liberally by the church restorers, self-appointed liturgists and other hangers-on of the present era of the Church. They're used to justify felt banners, tree branches, and those hideously ubiquitous dead plants that show up during Lent. It's interesting, though, that their first use in ecclesial parlance is a very brief, almost passing, reference in Sacrosanctum Concilium (no. 34), which was considered fully implemented in a Congregation for Divine Worship document some years later through some almost infintesimal changes in pontifical ceremonial. That's it!

No liturgical hijinks, clown masses, sanctuaries covered in beeswax, or otherwise. There's no mention of abolishing incense or such fantastic and wonderful additions such as assisting priests in copes, subdeacons with humerals or cloth-of-gold vestments. It doesn't even really become connected with church design until a later edition of the IGRM, and Sacrosanctum Concilium, for that matter, suggests, not "noble simplicity," but "noble beauty" for church design.

The phrase is, admittedly, a problematical one by its vagueness. However, if one traces it back to its historical origins, one finds some very surprising, and perhaps wonderful things, as architect Duncan Stroik writes: "The art historian, Winckelmann used 'noble simplicity' as early as 1755 to describe the genuine work of art that combined sensual and spiritual elements as well as beauty and moral ideas into one sublime form." In Winckelmann's case, this was found in Greek sculpture, not OCP liturgical clip art gnomes.

The accent seems to be on 'noble' rather than 'simplicity,' and the coordination and combination of many themes into one great whole: much like the polyphony which Sacrosanctum Concilium urges to be preserved. Or the way an ideal mass brings forth all the senses: tasting the Host, smelling the incense, seeing the glitter and gleam of the church, hearing the glorious Gregorian chant. That is the sort of noble simplicity which has always historically characterized the Roman rite, especially in its Tridentine incarnation, and in the (very rare) proper celebration of the Missa Normativa: minute complexity coordinated and knit into one overarching and comprehensible whole. This is the noble simplicity I want.