July 13, 2025 - Pastor Message
July 13, 2025JUBILEE 2025 SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM
JUBILEE 2025
SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM
“The sacred council has set out to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian lives of the faithful; to adapt more closely to the needs of our age those institutions which are subject to change; to encourage whatever can promote the unity of all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever serves to call all of humanity into the Church’s fold. Accordingly it sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy” (Sacrosanctum concilium [SC] 1, Vatican Council II, trans. Austin Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, Costello Publishing Co., Northport, NY, 1996).
Thus begins the inaugural document of Vatican Council II, Sacrosanctum concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. We continue our jubilee year reflection on the constitutions of Vatican Council II, which concluded sixty years ago. The constitution on the liturgy has garnered the most attention as its changes have had the most immediate and visible impact on our lives, but those changes are often misunderstood and have been frequently misapplied, leading to significant confusion in the Church and, because of that confusion, some disaffection. It is my hope that by reflecting on what the document actually says, not on what people have heard that it says, we will come to a greater appreciation of the reforms of the liturgy set forth by Vatican II.
So the million dollar question when considering a constitution on the liturgy is - what is liturgy? It is worth quoting the document at length: “To accomplish so great a work [the work of our salvation] Christ is always present in his Church, especially in liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass both in the person of the minister…and most of all in the Eucharistic species. By his power he is present in the sacraments so that when anybody baptizes it is really Christ himself who baptizes. He is present in his word since it is he himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read. Lastly, he is present when the Church prays and sings, for he has promised, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20)...The liturgy, then, is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of women and men is given expression in symbols perceptible by the senses and is carried out in ways appropriate to each of them. In it, complete and definitive public worship is performed by the mystical body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members” (SC, 7).
Liturgy, then, is the prayer of the whole Body of Christ, the Church, in her head, who is the true minister of every liturgy, and her members, who are joined to him. This doesn’t mean that every public form of prayer is liturgical. For example, a public praying of the stations of the cross, while it can be very fruitful in the spiritual life of the participants, is not the prayer of the whole Church. It is what we call devotional prayer, which we can pray together but still essentially remains the prayer of the individuals gathered there. Liturgical prayer is the opposite of that. It is first and foremost the prayer of the Church, by the Church, for the Church, to which her members are called and join in as members of the Church to continue the saving work of Christ, not of individuals who voluntarily join together for their individual benefit, though there is certainly plenty of individual benefit to be found in the liturgy. Liturgy is primarily, though not exclusively, celebrated in the sacraments, especially the Mass, and that is the primary focus of Sacrosanctum concilium.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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