0
0
Image: The last supper painted by Juan de Juanes (16th century)
Pope Francis’ message to the pontifical liturgical institute
Consistory Hall – Saturday, 7 May 2022
‘Liturgical life must lead to greater ecclesial unity’
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am happy to receive you on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its foundation. It was a response to the growing need of the People of God to live and participate more intensely in the liturgical life of the Church; a requirement that found in the Second Vatican Council the illuminating verification with the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium. By now, the dedication of your institution to the study of the liturgy is well recognized. Experts trained in your classrooms promote the liturgical life of many dioceses in very different cultural contexts.
Three dimensions emerge clearly from the Conciliar impulse to the renewal of liturgical life. The first is active and fruitful participation in the liturgy; the second is ecclesial communion animated by the celebration of the Eucharist and the Sacraments of the Church; and the third is the impulse to the evangelizing mission starting from the liturgical life that involves all the baptized. The Pontifical Liturgical Institute is at the service of this threefold need.
Active participation in liturgical life
First of all, formation to live and promote active participation in liturgical life. The in-depth and scientific study of the Liturgy must spur you to foster, as the Council wanted, this fundamental dimension of Christian life. The key here is to educate people to enter into the spirit of the liturgy. And to know how to do it is necessary to be imbued with this spirit. To Saint Anselm, I would like to say, this should happen: to be imbued with the spirit of the liturgy, to feel its mystery, with ever new amazement. The liturgy is not possessed, no, it is not a profession: the liturgy is learned, the liturgy is celebrated. To arrive at this attitude of celebrating the liturgy. And one participates actively only to the extent that one enters into this spirit of celebration. It is not a question of rites, it is the mystery of Christ, who once and for all revealed and fulfilled the sacred, the sacrifice and the priesthood. Worship in spirit and truth. All this, in your Institute, must be meditated, assimilated, I would say “breathed”. At the school of the Scriptures, of the Fathers, of Tradition, of the Saints. Only in this way can participation be translated into a greater sense of the Church, which makes us live evangelically in every age and in every circumstance. And this attitude of celebrating also suffers temptations. On this I would like to emphasize the danger, the temptation of liturgical formalism: to go after forms, formalities more than reality, as we see today in those movements that try a little to go back and deny precisely the Second Vatican Council. Then celebration is acting, it is something without life, without joy.
Ecclesial communion
Your dedication to liturgical study, on the part of both professors and students, also makes you grow in ecclesial communion. Liturgical life, in fact, opens us to the other, to the closest and farthest from the Church, in our common belonging to Christ. Giving glory to God in the liturgy finds its confirmation in love of neighbour, in the commitment to live as brothers and sisters in everyday situations, in the community in which I find myself, with its merits and limitations. This is the path to true sanctification. Therefore, the formation of the People of God is a fundamental task for living a fully ecclesial liturgical life.
Evangelical mission
And the third aspect. Every liturgical celebration always ends with the mission. What we live and celebrate leads us to go out to meet others, to meet the world around us, to meet the joys and needs of so many who perhaps live without knowing the gift of God. Genuine liturgical life, especially the Eucharist, always impels us to charity, which is above all openness and attention to others. This attitude always begins and is based on prayer, especially liturgical prayer. And this dimension also opens us to dialogue, to encounter, to the ecumenical spirit, to acceptance.
I have briefly dwelt on these three fundamental dimensions. I emphasize again that liturgical life, and the study of it, must lead to greater ecclesial unity, not to division. When liturgical life is a banner of division, there is the smell of the devil in there, the deceiver. It is not possible to worship God and at the same time make the liturgy a battlefield for questions that are not essential, indeed, for outdated questions and to take sides, starting with the liturgy, with ideologies that divide the Church. The Gospel and the Tradition of the Church call us to be firmly united on the essential, and to share legitimate differences in the harmony of the Spirit. That is why the Council wished to prepare abundantly the table of the Word of God and the Eucharist, to make possible the presence of God in the midst of his People. Thus the Church, through liturgical prayer, prolongs the work of Christ in the midst of the men and women of every age, and also in the midst of creation, dispensing the grace of his sacramental presence. The liturgy must be studied while remaining faithful to this mystery of the Church.
It is true that every reform creates resistance. I remember, I was a boy, when Pius XII began with the first liturgical reform, the first one: ‘you can drink water before communion’, ‘fasting for an hour’ … “ “But that’s against the sanctity of the Eucharist!”,they tore their clothes off. Then, the evening Mass: “But, how come, the Mass is in the morning!”. Then, the reform of the Easter Triduum: “But how, on the Sabbath the Lord must rise, now they postpone it to Sunday, to Saturday evening, on Sunday they don’t ring the bells… And where do the twelve prophecies go?” All these things scandalized closed minds. It also happens today. Indeed, these closed minds use liturgical schemes to defend their point of view. Using the liturgy: this is the drama we are experiencing in ecclesial groups that distance themselves from the Church, questioning the Council, the authority of the bishops…, in order to preserve tradition. And the liturgy is used for this.
The challenges of our world and the present moment are very strong. The Church needs today as always to live by the liturgy. The Council Fathers did a great job to ensure that this was the case. We must continue this task of forming of being formed by the liturgy. The Blessed Virgin Mary together with the Apostles prayed, broke the Bread and lived charity with everyone. Through their intercession, may the Church’s liturgy make this model of Christian life present today and always.
I thank you for the service you render to the Church and I encourage you to carry it forward in the joy of the Spirit. I bless you from my heart. And I ask you to please pray for me. Thank you.
