Bishops speak on Liturgy.

In our March 1999 issue, we reported on the statement of conclusions drawn up in November 1998 by the bishops of Australia and the Cardinal Prefects of six leading Vatican Congregations concerning the crisis of faith in Australia (News in brief, pp. 29-30). Because of its importance we have excerpted the section on the liturgy here.

Liturgy: the life of the Church

It is important that the sacred Liturgy as a whole be appreciated in all its profundity and mystery. The Liturgy is more than a recollection of past events, a means of imparting knowledge, or a vehicle for expressing the faith and life of the celebrating community. It is fundamentally the manifestation of God's initiative and his loving will to save, expressed in the Paschal Mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ, made present and efficacious by the Holy Spirit. In the Liturgy, Christ's work is carried forward by the Church until the end of time.

The Council spoke therefore of the Liturgy as the summit or high point toward which the activity of the Church tends and the fountainhead from which all her strength flows. By their participation in the earthly Liturgy, all the faithful are formed in right conduct and prepared for that Liturgy in the heavenly city to which we journey as pilgrims.

The celebration of the Liturgy is therefore never a private action of the celebrant or of the community gathered in a particular place, but an act of the Church as such, in intimate union with Christ her Head. Accordingly, an insistence on "good liturgy" is right and useful as long as the expression is not misunderstood as meaning a human virtuoso, external performance or "choreography". Rather, all participants should accommodate and subordinate themselves and their manner of thinking, acting, and speaking to the great gift and mystery of God's Redemption, and to the person of Christ, our sole Sayiour, with a special reverence for the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist at the Mass and reserved in the tabernacle.

Since it lies at the centre of the Church's life, the Liturgy manifests the Church's very nature and directs it consciously and explicitly toward its ultimate goal. The Church is seen most perfectly in the celebration of the Eucharist, presided over by the bishop of the diocese, surrounded by his priests, his deacons, and the community of the faithful.

This ideal phenomenon is realized in varying degrees in circumstances where the bishop is not able to be present and where he is represented ordinarily by a priest. Even in such circumstances, the bishop remains the essential point of reference and the celebration necessarily reflects the nature of the Church as a "structured communion" whose nature is reflected in an "ordered exercise of liturgical action." It is when each takes part in the Liturgy according to his or her specific role in the Body of Christ that the whole Body is built up most effectively.

In today's rapidly changing world, it is all the more necessary to return constantly to the authentic teaching of the Church on the Liturgy, as found in the liturgical texts themselves and among many other authoritative sources, as reaffirmed and explained in a lucid and accessible manner in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Many people today call for a more "transcendental" Liturgy, and indeed liturgical celebrations must be permeated with a proper religious sense born of faith in unseen realities. Care must be given to the beauty and elegance of the vestments, sacred vessels, surroundings, and furnishings, and to the eloquence of the words and actions themselves, to factors which will encourage the participation of the faithful, and to catechesis concerning the meaning of the liturgical signs.

At the same time the Liturgy must be a living event, accessible to the people. There is a need in catechesis, in all pastoral care, and in liturgical celebration itself to involve all Catholics, above all the young, more fully in the Liturgy and help them to understand and live out its meaning. The Church in Australia, as in other countries, faces a notable decline in recent years in the numbers of Catholics attending Sunday Mass, a situation which calls for a pastoral response.