By The pontiff’s Aug. 26 general audience addressed the reasons for the Church’s recent liturgical reforms.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV has described the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council as necessary to encourage active participation by the faithful.
“Since the gestures and words of the sacred liturgy are critical to realizing this experience, the participation of the faithful cannot be passive,” Leo said. “The liturgical reform promoted by the Second Vatican Council is thus firmly rooted in the living tradition of the Church.”
During his general audience at the Vatican on Aug. 26, the pontiff concluded his summer catechesis on the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. The audience was held in St. Peter’s Basilica because of Rome’s high summer temperatures.
The faithful cannot be passive during the liturgy
Leo defended the Council Fathers’ decision at the Second Vatican Council to reform the liturgy, citing a letter St. Paul VI wrote as Archbishop of Milan to encourage the faithful’s participation.
“Motivated by these convictions, the future Pope Saint Paul VI affirmed that the faithful ‘cannot and must no longer remain silent and passive. Their physical presence cannot be reconciled with their spiritual absence,’” Leo said.
The pope also explained that the liturgy has divine aspects that cannot change and human elements that can change to promote the faithful’s participation.
“When the Church carries out a reform of the liturgy — a constant process of development across the centuries — there is an important distinction to be made between the divine, immutable elements, and the human elements, which may undergo various modifications.”
“The need arose for the faithful to celebrate the liturgies more consciously and actively, not ‘as strangers and silent spectators,’ but participating fully in the salvific mystery,” Leo added
Liturgical reform began long before Vatican II
The church’s present liturgy was established in 1969 following the Second Vatican Council. It replaced the older Tridentine liturgy, standardized since the Council of Trent in 1570.
The Tridentine liturgy, also called the Traditional Latin Mass, was largely replaced after the council. Pope Benedict XVI allowed greater access to it in 2007, but Pope Francis restricted access in 2021.
The pope also explained that the liturgical reform began long before the Second Vatican Council, under several popes.
“The assertion that the faithful should not attend celebrations ’as strangers or silent spectators’ had already been raised in Pius XI’s Apostolic Constitution Divini Cultus.”
Leo also recalled Pope Pius XII’s reform of the Tridentine Holy Week liturgy in 1955, in which he “rescheduled to the hours corresponding to the events of Easter, after they had for centuries been brought forward to the morning hours.”
The pope also recalled the interventions of St. John XXIII, who called for the Second Vatican Council in 1959. Leo explained that John XXIII contributed to the church’s liturgical reform by simplifying “the rubrics of the Breviary and the Missal,… in which he referred the proposal of fundamental principles for a reform of the liturgy.”
“Indeed, since the liturgy is a living entity, throughout the centuries it has always been subject to developments and changes,” Leo added.
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Cue the nattering nabobs of negativity complaining about “reverence “ , “banal hymns” , “bad homilies” and praying in the vernacular rather than silently in your head.
Do you believe Jesus Christ was a “nattering nabob of negativity” when He condemned irreverence?
Do you regard Jesus as a nattering nabobs of negativity since he admonished us for our failures of reverence?
From what branch of pseudo-Catholicism does Leo function to make such foolhardy observations? Reverance is not passivity and giggling at liturgical abuse is not participation in the sacred.
Balderdash. The traditional meaning of active participation is to share, partake, PARTICIPATE in the knowledge and receipt of GOD’S GRACE in the SACRAMENT OF THE MASS. It has little to do with moving one’s body one way or another in an externally sensible manner.
Standing up and sitting down (versus a predominant kneeling at Low Mass of the UA), putting down and putting up kneelers (thereby forcing all to participate or join in hearing the banging sound of kneelers hitting wooden pews), patting our neighbors’ backs or hands or shoulders, sending a kiss of peace, singing silly songs composed by the St. Louis Jesuits? What effect do such things have on receipt of God’s grace???
As if that isn’t enough to do the job, how about chatting throughout Mass with one’s close neighbor, dressing in immodest clothes in order to “open oneself up” to closer contact with God, chewing gum, or scrolling the I-phone to follow sport scores during Mass, using the I-phone camera app to take a picture of your child standing beside you, or to text a dear friend. How about all that as active participation? Let me know if any of those do the job for you.
Not to mention those who “paticipate” in a giggling footrace towards the door after receiving the Eucharist, which they treat like chewing gum.
And for those who want to meditate with their encounter with Our Lord in the Eucharist, we are only allowed, typically, one to two minutes before interruption by announcements for the latest parish party where the whole sense of purpose of the mass is to entertain ourselves and worship “our community.”.
I remember being told that towards the end of the Latin Mass’s heyday, many parishioners were not participating in the Mass. They wouldn’t say the prayers at the foot of the altar since the servers said them instead, and maybe other than the Kyrie, or the Sanctus, they wouldn’t do anything other than try to follow along in the translation missal (which seems to be more like working than praying) or quietly say the rosary to themselves during the Mass, which is not the time or place for it, since the Mass is a communal act of prayer.
When I was a small boy, the Latin Mass was something confusing to me. I had zero idea what was going on. That changed after going to the English Mass and the Byzantine Rite. I actually could tell what was going on.
I think what Pope Leo means by active participation is by singing the liturgical hymns, hearing the word of the Lord in a language that you speak every day, truly understanding what the Mass actually is, and being able to give God your 1% without having to look inside a 1962 hand missal in order to do so.
Active participation of the faithful in the liturgy has multiple benefits. Pilgrims need to be nourished with appropriate doses of liturgy for their onward journey.
Journey to where??? And “faithful” to what?? Platitudes always lead to dead ends as corrupt self-indulgent “doses” of liturgies morphing into self-worship illustrate. Community worshiping community becomes boring and then “journey” towards abandoning and semblance of faith.
You want “active participation”? There are denominations where it is customary for the Congregation to say “amen’ to every thing the minister says during the “service”.
That’s common in Catholic Churches during the homily as well. It’s regional and accepted. Shouts of “hallelujah” too. I first experienced it during a stint at the Catholic run health clinic in the Bahamas. Was there for all of Lent and Easter. Never been to a more joyful Easter Sunday Mass 🙂
Amen!
“Doses of liturgy”?
“…the ‘Canon’–is really more than speech; it is ‘actio’ in the highest sense of the word. For what happens in it is that the human ‘actio’ […] steps back and makes way for the ‘actio divina,’ the action of God. In this ‘oratio’ the priest speaks with the ‘I’ of the Lord–‘THIS is my Body’, THIS is my Blood.’ He knows that he is not speaking from his own resources but in virtue of the Sacrament that he has received, he has become the voice of Someone Else, who is now speaking and acting. This action of God, which takes place through huiman speech, is the real ‘action’ for which all of creation is in expectation [….]
“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, therefore, secondary [….]
“…participation in the Liturgy of the Word (reading, singing0 is to be distinguished from the sacramental celebration proper [….] if the liturgy degenerates into general activity, then we have radically misunderstood the ‘theo-drama’ of the liturgy and lapsed almost into parody [….] liturgical education today, of both priests and laity, is deficient to a deplorable extent. Much remains to be done here [like dumping the split-finger Woodstock “sign of peace”!]” (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “The Spirit of the Liturgy,” Ignatius, 2000).
Doses of liturgy”?!!!
Instead, we read: “The pope also explained that the liturgy has divine aspects that cannot change and human elements that can change to promote the faithful’s participation.”
While the analogy isn’t perfect, for those not old enough to remember, there was a 1980’s corporate debacle called “New Coke” (Let’s call it Novus Coke), where the KO C-Suite geniuses noticed declining sales and conducted taste tests that indicated people preferred the more saccharine taste of their ascendant rival Pepsi. They tinkered with the formula and the reaction was so negative that the old formula was brought back as “Coke Classic” within three months. The new version was continued as “Coke II” until 2002, with a brief co-branding reprisal in 2019.
At least Coca Cola’s management based its decision based test data and realized it was alienating its customers swiftly. They didn’t insist that there would only be “one coke” or insult the people that preferred it and require them to get permission slips to drink the legacy formulation.
So here we are six plus decades later. Twenty or so percent of Catholics are weekly attendees at Mass, so they aren’t there at all- so forget “actively” participating, whatever that means.
Attendees, as other posters have noted, exhibit impropriety and irreverence-especially when the “Holly-Lillies” grace us with their semiannual presence. And then there’s the insipid hymns such as “Our God is an Awesome God” (are there others, are they not awesome).
The ultimate irony is that there’s another article here about Vietnamese youth being attracted to the Latin Mass.
I used to think Belloc’s quip about “knavish imbecility” was unduly harsh and one of the sort of florid expressions writers use to sell books. I’m beginning to think he was restrained and charitable.
And what is with this constant issue?
Hosting Server Connect Timeout
HTTP 502 — Unable to Connect to the Origin Server
Hosting Server Connect Timeout
HTTP 502 — Unable to Connect to the Origin Server
This was an irritating thing. Glad I’m not the only one with this problem. For awhile, I thought something was wrong with my device.
TPR: I too find it endlessly frustrating to write something in the combox only to have the site default to “Unable to connect…” And the problem heppens increasingly of late.
Ditto. Upon giving previously, I asked that it be restricted to CWR for new technology. My last request didn’t designate that. Maybe we should all restrict our donations to this purpose.
Didn’t Carl recently say the platform was being changed?? When? Are the increasing recent disruptions part of the change-over? We hope?!?
Yes – this happens all the time! It’s frustrating, especially when it causes you to lose your whole post in the process.
The Eucharist is not soda pop and the Liturgy is not a consumer good. Your analogy fails.
And you fail to read. “While the analogy isn’t perfect”
You fail at understanding analogy.
It seems that Jesus disagrees with your characterization of the liturgy. At Mark 2:27, He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The liturgy is a good for men, and men indeed consume the goodness of God during the it. Ergo, a consumer good.
You fail at understanding analogy.
The comparison is perfect. TPR hardly inferred disrespect for the Eucharist, just the opposite. The overwhelming majority of NO mass attendees have become so deconditioned towards reverence, they don’t believe in the Real Presence and do treat the Eucharist like candy. High prelates have an obligation before God to be even more responsive to the meaning of trashing Sacramental life than business execs are to product. The rate of those partaking in regular confession among self-identified Catholics in now down to about five percent from the 70 percent prior to radical liturgical changes.
There are those of us who care about reality.
You fail at understanding analogy.
At Mark 2:27, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” It seems that Jesus disagrees with your characterization of the liturgy as something not good for man who does indeed consume his good God within the liturgy.
There were 3 specific changes called for in Sacrosanctum Concilium: some use of the vernacular, while preserving the use of Latin (if there’s no Latin in a parish’s Mass, it isn’t adhering to Vatican 2), an increase in Scripture (yet nowhere was it suggested that removing the Scripture already there was acceptable, paragraph 23 seems to indicate the opposite), and an allowance for concelebration. Also, the use of Gregorian chant was intended to be expanded (if a parish has none, it isn’t adhering to Vatican 2).
Nothing whatsoever was said about altering the ordinary or the proper prayers, or the canon. Both were heavily edited, with many things being removed altogether and other things inserted that have never been part of the Latin Church’s tradition. It is difficult to imagine how changing the words is necessary for active participation. Were the old words too hard, because modern mature Catholics are dumber? Did what was expressed need to be changed, because the Church believes different things now? Was there a concern that more things needed to be different at every Mass, so that novelty would keep people more focused and actually participating?
Nothing was said in SC about altering the incense and bells, altar rails, patten, and vestments, or the gestures and positions of the ministers at Mass. And yet, out it all went.