Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, both
before and after his election to the See of Rome, has written and
spoken extensively about the sacred liturgy. His work in this field
derives from his theological expertise as well as from his extensive
pastoral experience, supplemented by what he learned from his
world-wide travels and international discussions. He has made his
own the words of the Second Vatican Council: "From the liturgy, and
especially from the Eucharist as from a fountain, grace is channeled
to us, and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification
of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as
toward their goal, are most powerfully achieved."
The Pope says, "What we previously knew
only in theory has become for us a practical experience: the Church
stands and falls with the liturgy. When the adoration of the divine
Trinity declines, when the faith no longer appears in its fullness
in the liturgy of the Church, when man’s words, his thoughts, his
intentions are suffocating him, the faith will have lost the place
where it is expressed and where it dwells. For that reason, the true
celebration of the sacred liturgy is the center of any renewal of
the Church whatever."
The Holy Father states, "Theology of the
liturgy means that God acts through Christ in the liturgy, and that
we cannot act but through Him and with Him. Of ourselves, we cannot
construct the way to God. This way does not open up unless God
Himself becomes the way. And again, the ways of man which do not
lead to God are non-ways. In the liturgy the Word Himself speaks to
us, and not only does He speak, He comes with His Body and His Soul,
His Flesh and His Blood, His Divinity and His Humanity, in order to
unite us to Himself, to make of us one single body. In the Christian
liturgy, the whole history of salvation, even more, the history of
all human searching for God is present, assumed, and brought to its
goal. The Christian liturgy is a cosmic liturgy. It embraces the
whole of creation which ‘awaits with impatience the revelation of
the sons of God’ (Romans 8:9)."
The Pope uses the gesture of kneeling to
draw attention to the cosmic nature of our Catholic liturgy. "I
would like to refer the gesture which is central to worship...
namely, the practice of kneeling. We know that the Lord knelt to
pray (Luke 22:41), that Stephen (Acts of the Apostles 7:60), Peter
(Acts of the Apostles 9:40, and Paul (Acts of the Apostles 20:36)
did so too. The hymn to Christ in Philippians (2:6-11) speaks of the
cosmic liturgy as bending of the knee at the name of Jesus, seeing
in it a fulfillment of the Isaian prophecy (Isaiah 45:23) of the
sovereignty of the God of Israel. In bending the knee at the name of
Jesus, the Church is acting in all truth. She is entering into the
cosmic gesture, paying homage to the Victor and thereby going over
to the Victor’s side. For in bending the knee we signify that we are
imitating and adopting the attitude of ‘Him, Who, though He was in
the form of God...yet humbled Himself unto death.’ In this way, by
combining the prophetic word of the Old Covenant and the manner of
life of Jesus Christ, the Letter to the Philippians has taken up the
sign of kneeling, which it regards as the appropriate posture for
Christians to adopt at the name of Jesus, and has given it a cosmic
significance in salvation history. Here the bodily gesture attains
the status of a confession of faith in Christ. Words could not
replace such a confession."
Pope Benedict XVI says, "If we can
describe the central meaning of the Christian liturgy as the ‘Feast
of the Resurrection’, its formative core is worship. In worship
death is overcome and love is made possible. Worship is truth. It
follows that the liturgy has a cosmic and universal dimension. The
(Catholic) community does not become a community by mutual
interaction. It receives its being as a gift from an already
existing completeness, a totality. This is why liturgy cannot be
‘made’. This is why it simply has to be received as a given reality
and continually revitalized. This is why its universality is
expressed in a form binding on the whole Church, committed to the
local congregation in the form of a ‘rite’. As a `Feast’ liturgy
goes beyond the realm of what can be made and manipulated... The
obligatory character of the essential parts of the liturgy
guarantees the true freedom of the faithful. It makes sure that they
are not victims of something fabricated by an individual or a group,
that they are sharing in the same liturgy that binds the priest, the
Bishop, and the Pope."
"Christian liturgy is cosmic liturgy, as
Saint Paul tells us in the Letter to the Philippians. It must never
renounce this dignity, however attractive it may seem to work with
small groups and construct home made liturgies. What is exciting
about Christian liturgy is that it lifts us up out of our narrow
sphere and lets us share in the truth. The aim of all liturgical
renewal must be to bring to light this liberating greatness."
The Holy Father at many times and places
has spoken and written about the words "active participation" which
the Second Vatican Council borrowed from Pope Saint Pius X, who, in
his encyclical "Tra le solicitudine", declared that "the primary and
indispensable source of the true Christian spirit is active
participation in the public worship of the Church (the liturgy)."
The Pope, however, says this concept often is "fatally narrowed
down, giving the impression that active participation is only
present where there is evidence of external activity-speaking,
singing, preaching, other liturgical action." Even the Second
Vatican Council, he points out, claims that silence too is a mode of
active participation, as are receptivity, perception, being moved,
etc. Claiming otherwise produces, he notes, a "diminished view of
man which reduces him to what is verbally intelligible."
Pope Benedict XVI, in reference to the laity’s participation in
the sacred liturgy, frequently cites Saint Paul’s saying, "I exhort
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God to present your bodies
as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God, your spiritual
service." He notes that the laity (and the clergy as well) in the
words of Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 6:17) are to be in the liturgy
"united to the Lord" thus becoming "one spirit with Him".
Liturgically then, "there is only one action, His and ours, ours
because we become one body and spirit with Him. The uniqueness of
the Eucharistic liturgy lies precisely in the fact that God Himself
is acting and that we are drawn into that action of God. Everything
else is secondary. The liturgy derives its greatness from what it
is, not from what we make of it. The liturgy is not an expression of
the consciousness of a community... It is a revelation received in
faith and prayer, and its measure is consequently the faith of the
Church in which that revelation is received. What is essential is
the link to the Church which, for her part, is united in faith in
the Lord. The obedience of faith guarantees the unity of the liturgy
beyond the frontiers of place and time, and so lets us experience
the unity of the Church, the Church as the homeland of the heart."