Saint Romanus The Melodist

www.vatican.va
Holy See English
Papal Archive
Benedict XVI
Audiences 2008 (Wed 21 May 2008)

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080521_en.html

Relevant passages:

To this day, images still speak to the hearts of believers, they are not relics of the past. Cathedrals are not mediaeval monuments but rather houses of life in which we feel "at home" and where we meet God and one another. Nor is great music - Gregorian chant, Bach or Mozart - something of the past; rather, it lives on in the vitality of the liturgy and in our faith. If faith is alive, Christian culture can never become "obsolete" but on the contrary will remain alive and present. And if faith is alive, today too we can respond to the imperative that is ceaselessly repeated in the Psalms: "O Sing to the Lord a new song" (Ps 98[97]: 1). Creativity, innovation, a new song, a new culture and the presence of the entire cultural heritage are not mutually exclusive but form one reality: they are the presence of God's beauty and the joy of being his children.

From the Greeting in English
http://www.zenit.org/article-22651?l=english

Romanus shows us the power of symbolic communication which, in the liturgy, joins earth to heaven and uses imagery, poetry and song to lift our minds to God’s truth.

Pseudo-Dionysius

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080514_it.html

http://www.zenit.org/article-22588?l=english

Relevant passages:

It is interesting that Pseudo-Dionysius would have dared to avail precisely of this thought to show the truth of Christ; to transform this polytheistic universe into a cosmos created by God, in the harmony of the cosmos of God, where every force is praise of God, and show this great harmony, this symphony of the cosmos that goes from the seraphim to the angels and archangels, to man and all the creatures, which together reflect the beauty of God and are praise of God.

He thus transformed the polytheistic image into praise of the Creator and his creatures. In this way, we can discover the essential characteristics of his thought: Before all, it is cosmic praise. All of creation speaks of God and is a praise of God. Given that the creature is a praise of God, the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius becomes a liturgical theology: God is found above all praising him, not just reflecting. And liturgy is not something constructed by us, something invented so as to have a religious experience for a certain amount of time. It consists in singing with the choir of the creatures and entering into the cosmic reality itself. And thus the liturgy, apparently only ecclesiastical, becomes ample and great, it unites us with the language of all creatures. He says: God cannot be spoken of in an abstract way; to speak of God is always -- he uses the Greek word -- a "hymnein," an elevating of hymns to God with the great song of creatures, which is reflected and made concrete in liturgical praise.

Nevertheless, if his theology is cosmic, ecclesial and liturgical, it is also profoundly personal.