June 4 and 5th

You may have heard that beginning on the First Sunday of Advent at the end of November, there will be some changes to the words that we use at Mass. The Mass will not change, but the words will change.

These changes are the result of years of work by translators to more accurately reflect the meaning of the Latin texts from which our Mass is derived. That Latin text is known as the Roman missal. The translators worked to make our English version more accurate, more Scriptural in its imagery and more noble in its tone.

Over the next few months we will prepare for those changes by taking a few minutes at each Sunday Mass to review the Liturgical Principles that guide those changes and then to review the changes themselves.

In 1963 the Bishops of the world gathered in Rome for the Second Vatican Council to assist Pope John 23rd in bringing about what he called “aggiornamento” or renewal in the Church.

The first document to come out of that four year meeting was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy…which describes some basic principles that guide our Catholic worship. It is these principles, these basic beliefs about how we worship that will not change.

The Bishops understood that our worship expresses our deepest belief….As we worship, so we believe.  And as we believe, so we worship.  We will spend a little time covering these basic principles in the coming week.  Remember, it’s the same Mass, just a few different words…

June 11th and 12th

Last week we heard about the Constitution on the Sacred liturgy,  the first document to come out of the Second Vatican Council, which was called by Pope John the 23rd to bring about a renewal in the Church. 

Remember that this document contains some basic principles about Catholic worship, and though the Roman Missal translation is changing, these basic principles will remain.  The first of these principles is that Christ is present in the liturgy.

This may sound obvious to you, but for some, meeting Christ in the Liturgy is not the primary reason for attending Mass.  People may go for a wedding or a graduation, but find it more difficult to attend mass just to attend Mass. Every single Mass, regardless of what celebrations we attach to it, is about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  So a wedding Mass, a funeral Mass, a graduation Mass—all of  these are about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Unless we have celebrated, thought about, spoken about, and sung about life, death, and the resurrection of Jesus, we have not participated in Catholic Worship. 

This is the first basic principle of Catholic worship.

Christ is present in the liturgy.

Christ is present in the person of the priest; Christ is present in the Eucharistic elements (the Body and Blood of Christ); Christ is present in the Sacraments, in the words of Scripture and as Jesus tells us in St Matthew’s Gospel, in the people gathered for prayer.

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them”

June 18th and 19th

The Document generated from the Second Vatican Council that guides Catholic worship is called the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. In this document are various principles that have and will remain unchanged concerning what we believe about worship and the liturgy.  The first of these unchanging principles is that Christ is present in the liturgy.

The second is that the earthy liturgy, the liturgy we are celebrating now, is a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy, meaning that when we unite as Catholics to celebrate the Mass, we unite as a Church, a community of pilgrims, journeying toward Christ, who sits at the right hand of God. 

We worship as the whole body of Christ because, as Church, as community, we are the body of Christ.  It is Christ who leads us in worship, and in this worship, this union, we get a glimpse of what heaven is like…all of us, before God, in community, calling each of us to our best selves.

This sense of community leads us directly into our third principle, that the liturgy is the source and summit of the Church’s activity and power.  We worship for two reasons, to give praise to God and to become holy. It is through the liturgy that these two ends are most effectively achieved. 

Every activity of the Church…prayers, devotions, education…are meant to help us praise God and to achieve holiness, and it is in the liturgy that we are united through common prayers and actions that are universal to us all.  Christ is present in the liturgy, as our first principle reminds us, but it is through these two or three gathered in his name that gives the liturgy the power it has and points us toward the greater heavenly reality.

No matter what our vocation in life, we are all called to be holy through our baptism.  As creator of universe and the source of every good gift, God is deserving of our praise.

June 25th and 26th

Our first three principles, as documented in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, that will remain unchanged when the Roman Missal translations take effect are that Christ is present in the Liturgy, the earthly liturgy is a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy, and the liturgy is the source and summit of the Church’s activity and power. 

The document lists a fourth basic principle of Catholic worship…that the church earnestly desires that all the faithful be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgical celebrations called for by the very nature of the liturgy.  

The church recognizes that in order for worship to be best expressed, the worshippers themselves must understand what and why we do what we do.  This is best achieved by our engagement and participation in the liturgy.  Each person who attends or presides, or participates in the celebration of the Liturgy has a role.  If that role isn’t fulfilled, the full potential of the power of the liturgy is not reached.  Remember it is through the gathered community at the liturgy that we praise God, achieve holiness, and understand a little better what heaven is like.

There are different kinds of participation and each has its appropriate time in the context of the Mass.  There is outward participation, inward participation and even a place for silence.  We will look more closely at these next week.

July 2nd and 3rd

Our fourth principle of Catholic worship, as stated in the Constiytution on the Sacred Liturgy, is that we are all called to full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgy.  There are two types of participation, exterior or outward participation and interior or inward participation. 

Exterior participation is that which can be observed.  We participate outwardly by all the things we do as people in the pews…singing, praying, sitting, kneeling, eating, drinking, and responding.  Even silence has its proper place.  There are times in the mass when prayerful silence is observed.  This is a time to reflect on what you have just heard or done.

After the Second Vatican Council recommended that the Mass be celebrated in languages other than Latin, the scope of how we could outwardly participate broadened greatly.  This was a monumental change in our church, and enriched the ways we could participate more actively.

Outward participation is an important component of our worship as Catholics, but more is required of us than merely singing songs, saying words, and kneeling appropriately.  It is equally important that the words we say, the songs we sing, the postures we adopt, and the Eucharist we take are experienced by our hearts and not just our bodies.  We want to experience the liturgy more than just an automatic response to the parts every one else plays while we remain distracted or disengaged

We want to have inward participation in the Mass.  We are called to be intentional about what we are saying and doing.  We are called to approach the liturgy with the thought that we are going to participate to the best of our ability.  We may not get every word or sing every note, but it should be our intention to listen to what God has to say to us…and then to take it with us into our lives outside of the liturgy.  It is the liturgy, the coming together in community and praising God—the living, dying, and rising with Christ—that  informs our very lives throughout the week. 

In other words, what we do on Sunday should affect how we live Monday through Saturday.  It is a privilege and a duty of every baptized person to participate in the liturgy.