Part Ninth
We begin this Part Nine with the subject of liturgical formation, which is the faithful. I have chosen, as a starting point, the four canons of the Code of Canon Law that make the descending process of the theme clear: the subject of liturgical formation is the faithful. But who are the faithful? They are the people of God.
Can. 204 – § 1. The faithful are those who, having been incorporated into Christ through baptism, are constituted the people of God and therefore, having been made sharers in their proper way in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, are called to carry out, according to the condition proper to each, the mission that God has entrusted to the Church to accomplish in the world.
The faithful are the baptised.
Can. 207 – § 1 By divine institution there are in the Church, among the faithful, sacred ministers, who in law are also called clerics; the other faithful are also called lay persons.
Can. 208 Among all the faithful, by virtue of their regeneration in Christ, there is true equality in dignity and in action, and through this equality all cooperate in the building up of the Body of Christ, according to the condition and duties proper to each.
What distinguishes the three persons is their function, as in the Trinity: what distinguishes the three persons is the mission they have to fulfil for salvation. This is why clerics and laity have their own formation, according to the service to the Church that they must perform.
Can. 217 The faithful, insofar as they are called through baptism to lead a life in conformity with the doctrine of the Gospel, have a right to Christian education, by which they can be formed to attain the maturity of the human person and at the same time to know and live the mystery of salvation.
The law states that the faithful are the recipients of Christian education and also of liturgical education. Therefore, the entire people of God and the faithful, so that they may be formed and transformed into the image of Christ: this is the object, this is the motive for receiving human and Christian formation, because they are subjects by right, because they are baptised and have the duty to live the Christian life.
EDUCATION: is the process by which information is transmitted to determine the acquisition of knowledge, skills and competences for which a necessary verification of the measure of learning offered is presupposed, through examinations, tests. Tests to determine the corresponding titles and grades.
EDUCATION: this is a particular human activity involving the transmission of knowledge from more experienced individuals to less experienced ones in the field of behaviour, habits and attitudes.
The striking thing in education is the transmission through subjects and institutions: schools, educators, pastors, those who work within a Church in the various ministries also become educators in the liturgy. Indeed, pastors through the ars celebrandi become educators.
We will see how in Desiderio Desirevi, but also in the ministry of the previous popes, starting with Pius X with Among the Concerns, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, there is a desire for education in the Church. So an education to the liturgy, but also an education from the liturgy through thears celebrandi, formation and participation.
FORMATION: is a process of psychophysical development and intellectual, cultural, social and personal growth, which considers the subject of formation from the point of view of life experiences that shape choices, inclinations, behaviour.
It is evident that these three terms are part of a process that is local, but if we look carefully, it is the process that takes place in sacramental catechesis: we know the praenotanda of the liturgical books, so we have the instruction, but this is not enough for formation it is necessary to start a process of acquisition that is not through verification: I know what No. 1 of the praenotanda says, but it is how I live all this in my daily life: we celebrate what we live and we live what we celebrate. All this must become formative and educational, for me and for others.
Education is the intermediate part of the process
These three terms are fundamental with regard to catechesis. Pastors should, both at the parish and diocesan level and at the level of Catholic schools, adopt this methodology of Christian initiation: try to find a way of expression for the sacraments that has, yes, education, but above all, formation, through educators. Because education is centred on witnessing, it is one’s own Christian life, one’s own liturgical life that is called into question, because educators do not improvise.
Now, precisely through celebrating, Desiderio Desideravi places education from celebration at the centre, because through celebrating as a vital act we will see its importance, guided by the great master Romano Guardini. In fact, we note how it is the celebration itself that teaches us to live the following of Christ, but since this is not magic, everything depends on the subjects that put it into action: that is why one Mass is not worth another and one president is not worth another!!!
I remember the phrase of a young man who said after the Christmas Mass: there was everything, but there was nothing, because the subjects had failed to implement the presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of his Church, because the celebration had been sloppy and boring.
In fact, the rite does not exist if there is no one to celebrate it, the symbols must be decoded and made vital through words and gestures.
Hence not only providing content, but accompanying to experience, through celebrating. In Desiderio Desideravi the verb to accompany recurs frequently. Particularly in No 47, the sign of the cross is mentioned, and guiding in acquiring the meaning of words and rites is emphasised.
Pastors are educators of the people of God.
The presidency is the place of formation and accompaniment.
It is important that there is a presidency that enables the faithful to participate actively and consciously in the SC 48 celebration. This often on the part of the clergy always seems, or almost always seems, to be a concession.
Is the participation of the people of God in the celebrations a concession of the one who presides or a right? We got the answer from the Code of Canon Law, from Sacrosanctum Concilium and we will also see it from Montini’s 1958 pastoral letter is also the thinking of Guardini and the greats of the Liturgical Movement. The participation of the faithful in the liturgy is a right because, being part of the celebrating assembly, they exercise their own role within a liturgical celebration. Indeed, the people of God have their own role in the ars celebrandi. Unfortunately, the non-recognition of the role pertaining to the people of God happens when the priest is unclear or does not believe in the Council’s dictates and keeps the assembly on the sidelines, centralising the various parts of the celebration on him: enacting self-referentiality.
Participation is the object of liturgical formation, which means celebrating the mystery of Christ in a full, conscious and active manner.
Participation means taking part in a form of activity with one’s own presence, with one’s own adhesion, with direct interest, making an effective contribution to the fulfilment of the activity itself, whereby participation is the way to ground belonging to the Church.
In the dialogues, the assembly performs the rite, let us recall what Justin and the Church Fathers affirm about the AMEN with which the Eucharistic prayer closes, which the one who presides proclaims in the name of the celebrating assembly and not in his own name.
The celebrating assembly, taking part in the rite, adheres to it and is directly interested so that the mystery of Christ is fulfilled and its belonging to the Church is strengthened. To take part in order to belong, or to belong because one takes part.
Participating together with other faithful in the celebration of the mystery of Christ makes one self-conscious of one’s Christian identity. This is the focus of the apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi and should also be the focus of pastoral activity.
Participating together in the celebration of the rite instils the experience of feeling oneself as the body of Christ. Guardini argues that liturgical formation is the celebration itself. And this is also the theme of the first part of Desiderio Desideravi: which argues that the liturgy, as Sacrosactum Concilium no. 10 states, is culmen and fons of the Christian life, per ritus et preces et per signa sensibilia.
I invite you to read Desiderio Desideravi together with the theologian and liturgist Romano Guardini and Card, Giovanni Battista Montini Archbishop of the Milanese Church. Who wrote the aforementioned pastoral letter onliturgical education in 1958.
Looking at these two contributions will help us to read DD, on the topics of liturgical education and liturgical education.
Guardini argues that the liturgy is a vital form in action.
Without a form, the spiritual life becomes dull, loses its freshness, its strength, its uniqueness.
Guardini’s interest focuses on form, but he also has a concern for formation. In fact, for Guardini the foundation of liturgical formation is the revelation that occurs in the liturgical epiphany that becomes actualization and thus believing experience. Liturgical formation, according to Guardini, should not be about the best celebratory expression, because then it would not be form but would be formula; this is an interesting distinction: not the expression, but the act where there is liturgical action with all its range of languages. So the object would be the formula if it were only a celebratory expression, instead the authentic implementation of the form is the invitation as a vital act. The central point of Guardini’s liturgical thought concerns the central conception of the rite as the place of the stripping of the ego to give space to God, revealed in Christ is the object and subject of the liturgical action shared with us by grace. This centrality is inescapable (= that cannot be avoided), hence Guardini states that by participating in the liturgy man encounters God. In fact the rite grants the encounter with God, not through my act, while celebrating, for Guardini celebrating is the vital act, a gratuitous act, because God offers himself through grace.
Talking a lot about preparation, instruction, education, Guardini states, continually sends man back to himself, makes him gravitate around his own ego, making him lose his liberating gaze towards God. The formative power of the liturgy lies in the fact that it guards self-expression to keep one’s gaze fixed on God the almighty creator who arranges everything with order and beauty. The liturgy is the human way of standing before God with faith, therefore for Guardini liturgy and faith are two inseparable fundamental pillars, because faith is not born from me, it is born in me and becomes present in me, because Christ came into the world and faith is the beginning as a movement of correspondence aroused by God himself. It is clear that in Guardini’s thinking the self must be smeared, made evanescently present, because it is the body that celebrates, but it does not have to be central. Formation for celebrating, for Guardini, must aim at actualising the rite, that is, being present in the act that is lived.
Man acts in the liturgy by the grace of God, so his acting consists in letting God do it . His participation is a being made worthy ; his being worthy is a being made worthy to participate. Guardini continues: To be formed there is no need other than to take part, since the liturgy is a reality into which one enters. The liturgical action works not concepts or good intentions, but the radiating, the vibrating, the becoming audible to the ear, the visible to the eye, the tangible to the hand, per signa sensibilia, it is God who makes Himself visible, audible, perceptible not through the concept we have of Him and not through a purpose, a good disposition. So it is necessary to restore man’s contact with God, this is the purpose of the liturgy and it happens because man feels touched, called by the divine reality, involved in a participatory relationship with it.
God acts through the liturgical act, man can only enjoy it if he learns to place himself in the school of the rite.
A) Formation in the liturgy
It is important to focus on this aspect of formation to the liturgy, which was not present in Guardini. In no. 27 we read: The fundamental question is, therefore, this: how to recover the capacity to live the liturgical action in its fullness? The reform of the Council has this as its goal. The challenge is very demanding because modern man – not all cultures in the same way – has lost the ability to engage with the symbolic action that is an essential feature of the liturgical act.
The ability to live the liturgical celebration in its fullness certainly depends on liturgical formation for it to then be a formation to the liturgy. These two characteristics cannot be separated. Guardini’s thinking seems to be inclined towards such a separation, but it must be an implication: instruction, education, formation. Thus, the ability to live the liturgical action to the full is the goal of the Liturgical Reform. I recall that the reform of liturgical books is of no use if there is no attitude and reception of the spirit of the Liturgical Reform.
In No. 31 […] how can we grow in the capacity to live the liturgical action to the full? How can we continue to be amazed by what happens in the celebration before our eyes? We need a serious and vital liturgical formation.
Remember the concept of the vital act in Guardini!
Here, formation is a commitment for the formator and the formed.
35. Channels must be found for formation as a study of the liturgy: starting with the liturgical movement, much has been done in this regard, with valuable contributions from many scholars and academic institutions. However, it is necessary to disseminate this knowledge outside the academic sphere, in an accessible manner, so that every believer grows in a knowledge of the theological meaning of the liturgy – this is the decisive and founding question of all knowledge and every liturgical practice – as well as the development of Christian celebration, acquiring the ability to understand euchological texts, ritual dynamisms and their anthropological significance.
The Pope invites us to ensure that every believer, who is a subject by right, understands his role in the ars celebrandi and that he becomes aware that he is not a spectator or simply a person who obeys orders and responds when he must respond, but that the faithful know that he has a role that is his own and that it must not be usurped by other ministries. The ministries in the liturgy are important, but that of the celebrating assembly is indispensable, yet it is the one least trained. In fact, one is concerned with the formation of a service (e.g. Lector; cantor; acolyte, etc.) but the formation of the assembly’s ministry is generally left out in the local Churches. A study should be conducted to find a way to make our liturgical assemblies aware of their role. Do we realise the urgency of this in our church communities and also in religious communities….?
We grasp this problem in the dialogues during liturgical celebrations. SC 30 In order to promote active participation, the acclamations of the faithful, the responses, the singing of the psalms, the antiphons, the hymns, as well as the actions and gestures and the attitude of the body should be taken care of. Sacred silence should also be observed in due time.
The care of all these parts creates the rite. It is necessary to reiterate that the faithful, the celebrating assembly, has an irreplaceable role and therefore every believer must become aware of this, and this is the task of the pastors with their way of exercising the presiding service. This is a demanding service that requires great patience, but above all the pastor must be aware of its fundamental importance.
In the dialogues during the celebration, it is the bride who responds to the bridegroom. (DD 35).
Unfortunately, a fear is perceived in the clergy towards the formation of the laity.
B) Liturgical training in maieutics, i.e. accompanying the faithful
36 I think of the normality of our assemblies that gather to celebrate the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day […]: ordained ministers perform a pastoral action of primary importance when they take the baptised faithful by the hand to lead them into the repeated experience of Easter. Let us always remember that it is the Church, the Body of Christ, the celebrating subject, not just the priest. The knowledge that comes from study is only a first step to enter into the mystery celebrated. It is evident that in order to lead the brothers and sisters, the ministers who preside over the assembly must know the way both by having studied it on the map of theological science and by having frequented it in the practice of a living experience of faith, nourished by prayer, certainly not only as a commitment to be fulfilled. On the day of ordination, every presbyter is told by the bishop: ‘Account for what you are going to do, imitate what you are going to celebrate, conform your life to the mystery of the cross of Christ the Lord ’ (Cf. Ritual of the ordination of the bishop of presbyters and deacons, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992, p. 184).
C) Formation from the liturgy
40 […] each one, according to his vocation, from participation in the liturgical celebration [will be formed]. Even the study knowledge I have just mentioned, so that it does not become rationalism, must be functional to the realisation of the formative action of the Liturgy in every believer in Christ.
The fullness of our formation is conformation to Christ
41 […] it is not a question of a mental, abstract process, but of becoming Him. This is the purpose for which the Spirit has been given whose action is always and only to make the Body of Christ. It is so with the Eucharistic bread, it is so for every baptised person called to become more and more what they received as a gift in baptism, that is, to be a member of the Body of Christ. Leo the Great writes: ‘Our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ tends to nothing other than to make us become what we eat’. (Cf. Leo Magnus, Sermo XII: De Passion III,7).
The liturgy is made up of things of actions, it is an experience and not an abstract concept: it is the experience of the encounter with Christ in which the Spirit is through. It is fundamental that the one who presides is conscious of being the vessel, who asks the Father on behalf of the celebrating assembly to send the Spirit who transforms the bread and wine into the risen Christ, that is, into the Living One. For it is the Living One that the Church must then witness in daily life: we celebrate what we live, we live what we celebrate.
It is also important for the one who presides and also for those who concelebrate to have a good patristic education. Even just a reading of the mystagogical Catecheses of the Fathers, especially when celebrating the sacraments of Christian initiation.
Mystagogy originated in the 2nd/4th century, so in the study of liturgy it is important to have access to the writings of the Church Fathers.
42 This existential involvement happens – in continuity and coherence with the method of incarnation – via the sacraments. The liturgy is made of things that are exactly the opposite of spiritual abstractions: bread, wine, oil, water, perfume, fire, ashes, stone, cloth, colours, body, words, sounds, silences, gestures, space, movement, action, order, time, light.
Guardini’s problem is that sensitive perception is covered by abstraction. This makes perception difficult. So one cannot perceive a beautiful celebration from a sloppy, disorderly one, in which instead of the Living One there is the presider or the pseudo-director who does not have the scans of the celebration.
It has not been understood that Christ became incarnate to be perceptible to our senses. That is why the liturgy is made up of things that, through sacramental means, become the essence of the rite. All creation is an expression of the Father’s love and to be an encounter with God, but an incarnate, crucified and resurrected God who then returned to the Father.
The fact that DD juxtaposes liturgical matter with creation is very important, because DD states that the problem of the non-perception of symbols, or man’s inability to control symbols, and also the inability to know God the creator, or to recognise things as creatures, because we cooperate, but we are not the creators of the essence, so also the liturgy is something that is given by the Father for the Son in the Spirit, that is why self-referentiality must not have a place within it.
44 Guardini writes: ‘This outlines the first task of the work of liturgical formation: man must become capable of symbols again’. (R. GUARDINI, Liturgical Formation, Brescia, 2022, p. 60).
How difficult this task is: today people understand symbols that revolve around information technology, artificial intelligence. Today, we have lost the ability to read the symbolic, because we have lost our wonder in front of creation. Unfortunately, even in liturgical celebrations, the concept of the already given has entered ; of having always done it this way; of celebrating with a minimum of symbolism and this makes what we do superfluous. Think how all this affects the world of adolescents and young people: there was everything, but there was nothing!
In liturgy formation, it would be enough to make the faithful understand the richness of the euchological texts (= the texts of prayer: the so-called major ones: the Eucharistic prayers and the so-called minor ones: the presidential prayers: the collection; prayer over the offerings; prayer after communion).
We take up the text of DD. 44.
This commitment concerns everyone, ordained ministers and the faithful. The task is not easy because modern man has become illiterate, he can no longer read symbols, he hardly even suspects their existence. This also happens with the symbol of our body. It is a symbol because it is an intimate union of soul and body […] but treated in a paradoxical way, now treated almost obsessively by teaching the myth of eternal youth, now reduced to a materiality to which all dignity is denied.
If a person is not aware of the dignity of his body, and consequently that of others, how can he understand when he is told that he is the Body of Christ. This concept also applies when one speaks of fatherhood in a catechesis, to make one understand the fatherhood of God. In fact, we must bear in mind what experiences of paternity our hearers may have today and make the concept of transcendence clear: earthly paternity is one thing, divine paternity is another. Liturgical language is not immanent, it is always transcendent.
Let us return to DD 44
Every symbol is at the same time powerful and fragile: if it is not respected, if it is not treated for what it is, it breaks down, loses strength, becomes insignificant.
The symbol becomes fragile, and therefore insignificant, when one is incapable of reading its importance, when one is incapable of offering it the right setting. The liturgy is founded on symbolic capacity; if this loses its meaning, the rite does not hold up and becomes insignificant. The saddest situation is when one reads an insignificant, sloppy rite as a beautiful celebration. It means we have hit rock bottom. We are like a person who thinks he is elegant and instead dresses very badly, but to whom no one can say anything because he lacks a sense of self-criticism.
DD 44 […] Having lost the ability to understand the symbolic value of the body and of every creature makes the symbolic language of the liturgy almost inaccessible to modern man. It is not a matter, however, of renouncing such language […] but of recovering the capacity to pose and understand the symbols of the Liturgy […]. Now, the truth is always given, it is we priests and nuns who must be able to decode the symbolic language of the Liturgy and teach this art to the people of God. In fact, Pope Francis, again in n. 44, adds: We must not despair, because in man this dimension […] is constitutive and, despite the evils of materialism and spiritualism – both denying the unity of body and soul – it is always ready to re-emerge, like any truth.
45. The question we ask ourselves, then, is how to return to being capable of symbols? How to return to knowing how to read them in order to live them? We know well that the celebration of the sacraments is – by God’s grace – effective in itself (ex opere operato), but this does not guarantee the full involvement of people without an adequate way of standing in front of the language of the celebration (cf. Ecclesiology of Sacrosanctum Concilium) Symbolic reading is not a matter of mental knowledge, of acquiring concepts, but it is vital experience.
For a baptised person to celebrate is not only a right, it is also a duty.
Now, if a person has never smelt oil, he cannot imagine it. In a celebration, the senses are also important, such as smell, touch, sight. Unfortunately it can still happen that between the presbytery and the assembly there is a distance that prevents one from seeing, from touching, from feeling….In fact, if during a baptism one could perceive the sound of water, it would be performative (indicative), because the people of God, through the symbol, need to create empathy, to create emotions. The celebration in which one knows how to read and live the symbolic, generates in the people of God the desire to return…. unfortunately, celebratory sloppiness also generates the opposite sense: I will never set foot in this church again!
46 First of all, we must regain trust in creation. I mean to say that things – with which the sacraments ‘are made’ – come from God, are oriented towards Him and were taken up by Him, especially with the incarnation, so that they might become instruments of salvation, vehicles of the Spirit, channels of grace […] we must prepare ourselves for them with a new, non-superficial, respectful, grateful gaze. From their origin they contain the seed of the sanctifying grace of the sacraments.
It is not a matter of having experience, but of trusting in creation, it is not easy, but it is important, because the things with which the sacraments are made, come from God. Back to the point: Creator/creature. Guardini teaches: God is the factor, we are the recipients of divine action and we cooperate so that God is manifested in the celebration. Things were taken over by God, especially in the incarnation so that they could become instruments of salvation, vehicles of the Spirit, channels of Grace. We must prepare ourselves for them, this is the attitude of those who have confidence and with a gaze that is not superficial. This must be a commitment for every Christian.
47 Another decisive issue – again reflecting on how the liturgy forms us – is the education needed to acquire the inner attitude that enables us to place and understand liturgical symbols. I express it simply. I am thinking of parents and, even more so, grandparents, but also of our pastors and catechists. Many of us learned the power of liturgical gestures – such as the sign of the cross, kneeling, the formulas of our faith – from them. We may not have a vivid memory of it, but we can easily imagine the gesture of a larger hand taking the small hand of a child and slowly accompanying it as it traces the sign of our salvation for the first time.
The movement is accompanied by the words, also slow, as if to take possession of every moment of that gesture, of the whole body: ‘In the name of the Father…and of the Son…and of the Holy Spirit…Amen’. To then let go of the child’s hand and watch him repeat alone, ready to come to his aid, that gesture now delivered, like a garment that will grow with him, dressing him in the way that only the Spirit knows.
This is a fact that recalls the previous concepts: liturgical education takes place at the stage of sacramental catechesis. In fact, if the Christian community makes children and adolescents experience a liturgical experience that makes sense, at all stages (I am thinking of the scout experiential method, and here I am speaking from experience; or the experiential liturgical education with the groups of ministries), the method of serious play should be adopted, through which liturgical theology can be learnt, instead of keeping the children inside a catechism classroom forced to listen to a boring lecture!
The educator can be the parish priest, a parent, a catechist, a scout leader, unfortunately, it cannot be said of a schoolmaster, because this is discriminatory towards the Church, and there is a lot to be said here, even with regard to the Catholic school…….!
The great educator is the one who is always beside the one he has to educate, but never replaces him. Moreover, the great educator, Jesus of Nazareth, used the same method with his disciples.
Again No 47 […] From that moment on, that gesture, its symbolic force, belongs to us, or rather, we belong to that gesture, it gives us form, we are formed by it. There is no need for too much talk, it is not necessary to have understood everything about that gesture: it is necessary to be small both in handing it over and in receiving it. The rest is the work of the Spirit. Thus we have been initiated into symbolic language. Of this wealth we cannot allow ourselves to be robbed. As we grow we may have more means to understand, but always on the condition that we remain small.
That gesture becomes a load of symbols, it becomes belonging: it is we who belong to that gesture, because it forms us, we are formed by it, we become that cross. We must be small, the humility of the educator and the humility of the educand: small both in handing it over and in receiving it The rite frees us from self-referentiality, as Guardine says, if we allow it. The rest is the work of the Spirit.
We are in 1958. The Archbishop is speaking to his faithful during the Lenten season in the same manner as we have treated our theme in Desiderio Desideravi.
Montini states that
10 ‘ the Liturgy demonstrates a stupendous formative capacity that makes its own and strengthens the religious instruction of children and adults, of simple people and men of culture […]’. Formation is performative, that is, the liturgy needs instruction and formation.
Formation needs instruction and communication
‘Although the purpose of the liturgy is not to educate, but to put us in communication with God, it nevertheless, in this way, puts us in the right relationship with all the reality that is around Him and that exists for Him’.
It is noticeable how this source is present in Desiderio Desideravi. In fact, the pope states that the liturgy is not pedagogical. Moreover, Francis speaks of communication with Christ, being Christ and cyme in relationship with all creation.
12. […] it is necessary to ensure that the prayer of the Church flourishes again,,,,it is necessary that the divine action, doctrinal and sacramental, responds to human cooperation, not only of the clergy, but also of the faithful in such a way that there is an admirable fusion and balance between the opus operatum (= what God does) and the opus operantis (= what the Church does) ….
13 Now: can we say that today this participation of the Christian people in the first and sublime prayer of the Church is taking place? Montini already asked himself this question in 1958!
On 29 June 2022, the same question is asked by Pope Francis. Pius X asked the same question and Sacrosanctum Concilium also asked it. Perhaps it would be opportune to take more care of these points, both for the clergy and then for the people of God, but first it is urgent to resume the formation of the clergy, here I am reminded of St. Vincent’s Tuesday Lectures: he understood that if the clergy are not sufficiently formed in the Council’s ecclesiology, pastoral work can prove useless. Not least because a clergy refractory to the Council’s ecclesiology fears the layman trained in the Council’s pastoral theology, because the latter could bring out the true face of such a clergy.
We, Priests of the Mission, have two works in Italy that concern the formation of clergy: the Alberoni College in Piacenza and the Ecclesiastical Boarding School in Rome in the Collegio Leoniano. As Rector of the Ecclesiastical Boarding School, I know how important it is to educate young priests in the spirit of the Liturgical Reform, but this must be taken care of assiduously and daily, to live what St Vincent recommended.
21 First of all, the liturgical assembly must be well cared for. It must take on, as best it can, the aspect and sense of community. The liturgy is not the action of priests alone, but also of the faithful, in the forms of participation proper to them […].
22 All this calls for care, which seems to be of simple organisational value: the timetable, especially well thought out according to the opportunity of the faithful, fixed and sober; then the light, the pews, the local arrangement of the faithful, the centrality of the altar; but these cares have a reference to our assembly that we could call theological: it is a matter of composing that people of God that forms the Church.
How to animate an assembly? First of all by making it participate in its own ministry. Then we say that the assembled assembly is a sign of the bride Church of Christ, but then can we actually say that all this is visible? It can be seen in the cohesion of being the celebrating subject during liturgical actions, where cohesion does not mortify the person, but rather promotes it because it makes them experience being an ecclesial subject. This is because clergy must teach that during liturgical celebrations privacy does not exist. People are part of a Church that celebrates and actions and prayers that deny this belonging must not be performed. Clergy must instil in the faithful an awareness of being Church.
We cannot be content to have the temple full of people, to have an amorphous crowd of those present, an insignificant mass that attends, spiritually distracted, or without inner unity, the sacred rite. We must strive to give composure to those present, an order, a conscience, so as to constitute the sacred atmosphere in which the religious rite takes place. Nor is it a matter of simply demanding a polite demeanour, as is required for a performance; we must instil in everyone the sense of a common action, of participation.
The work of making the assembly regain a sense of unity is not easy, but Montini affirms that the recovery of this form is fundamental, because the faithful must realise that they are the Church, that they are the bride of Christ, so that in the dialogue with the one who presides this is increasingly manifest: think of the Amen at the end of the doxology!
We see how for Montini liturgical formation is formation to the Church, which he places at the centre of his thinking in the sign of the celebrating assembly. One could say that Montini’s ecclesiological vision completes Guardini’s ecclesiological vision.
48 One way to preserve and to grow in the vital understanding of the symbols of the Liturgy is certainly to care for the art of celebrating […].
How does an assembly become aware of being Church? Through the ars celebrandi.
50 From these brief outlines, it is clear that the art of celebrating cannot be improvised. Like any art, it requires assiduous application […].
This is the reason why the ars celebrandi cannot be improvised, because it must be a daily application: one learns while celebrating, it is a matter of permanent training. It is necessary to ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to never feel like arrivals in the ars celebrandi, and that He grants us to ask, to observe, to learn from the liturgy masters so as not to fall into the sin of self-referentiality: using the rite to sit in first place, which is then the occasion to point out to those who are prepared that you have not understood anything of what you have celebrated, and unfortunately the signs are noticeable, because the symbolism is not respected.
It is also necessary to understand that the General Ordinary of the Roman Missal and the praenotanda of the individual Rituals are the basis on which to build the art of celebrating. It is essential to know the liturgical theology underlying the rubrics!
In No. 50 we read: Every tool can be useful, but it must always be subject to the nature of the Liturgy and the action of the Spirit. What is needed is a diligent dedication to the celebration, letting the celebration itself transmit its art to us. Guardini writes: ‘We must realise how deeply we are still rooted in individualism and subjectivism, how unaccustomed we are to the call of greatness and how small the measure of our religious life is. A sense of the greatness of prayer must be reawakened, the will to involve our existence in it as well. But the way to these goals is discipline, the renunciation of a soft sentimentality; serious work, carried out in obedience to the Church, in relation to our religious being and behaviour’. (cf. R. GUARDINI, Liturgical Formation , Brescia, 2022, p. 139).
Where do we stand? The inner intention functions as a manifestation of the art of celebrating. Being there means I am here, now hic et nunc! Am I present in the liturgical action? This question is to be asked of each member of the celebrating assembly: priest and faithful.
Participation through a particular form gives the assembly the opportunity to realise that it is the Body of Christ: acclamation!
We know that liturgical participation generates belonging, in the sense that it makes it active, full and conscious, as an ecclesiogenetic celebratory experience that generates and qualifies the Church, making it visible as a praying body that prays and sings gathered as an Assembly around the one Altar. Belonging to the Church is the promotion of sentire cum Ecclesia is a pastoral priority in the context of liturgical celebration.
The Assembly as the Body of Christ congregated to live the most concrete experience of being part of the actual Event of the Paschal Mystery. The fundamental passage from the individual to the ecclesial we takes place. From prayer to life, this takes place in an active participation: the mind and heart – as St Benedict stated – must be united Cf. SC. 11).
In fact, in actively participating in the liturgy the faithful bring into play a level of integral investment of their person, since it is an active, full and conscious participation both internally and externally (SC. 19).
15 ‘[…] This participation:
(a) must first of all be internal: and by it the faithful conform their minds to the words they speak and hear and cooperate with divine grace (SC 11).
b) it must, however, also be external and by this they manifest internal participation through gestures and the attitude of the body, acclamations, dialogue and song (SC30)’.
It is clear that when we speak of internal participation we do not mean devotional: me listening to my Mass, but instead there is nothing more active than an internal and integral participation in a celebration. In fact, it is an intentional participation, in which the person, in his or her totality of being is an active part in a celebration, is an active part of the celebrating assembly.
In fact, it is a liturgical participation to the test: the complex perception of the experience of us in the contemporary cultural context.
For the recovery of the identity of the liturgical assembly: observation of the liturgical phenomenon of the congregatio Ecclesiae so as to make the assembly regain its identity as a Body that celebrates the Lord.
Liturgical Constitution Sacosanctum Concilium (1963).
In order to promote active participation, the faithful’s acclamations, responses, chanting of the psalms, antiphons, hymns, as well as actions and gestures and the attitude of the body are to be taken care of. Sacred silence should be observed, even in due time (SC 30).
Consciously acclaiming allows the assembly to fulfil, as Church, the role of the Bride of Christ.
Acclamation also depends very much on the presidency. Indeed, if the doxology is proposed in a flat manner: the paten and chalice are barely raised – remember the danger of presiding at the bare minimum? – the doxology is not sung, but even if it is pronounced, it is done in a way that is manifest: the Eucharistic prayer is finally finished, we are almost at the end of the celebration, one cannot expect the celebrating assembly to acclaim an Amen as it should, indeed it is a good thing that someone remembers to say Amen! Let us keep in mind that, unfortunately, a Christian community is the mirror of its pastor.
there is nothing more solemn and festive in sacred celebrations than an assembly that, as a whole, expresses its faith through song. Therefore, the active participation of the entire people, which is manifested through song, should be promoted with every care, according to this order:
Include first of all the acclamations, the responses to the greetings of the priest and ministers and the litany prayers; also, the antiphons, the psalms, the intercalary verses or refrains, the hymns and canticles
Dearly beloved,
I apologise for the length of this ninth and final part of theArs celebrandi, unfortunately I had no other choice.
I hope it will be useful for your Christian life and in your pastoral work and service of the poor.
The care of celebrations manifests for a high percentage the life of a parish and also that of our Houses. Because liturgy is the source and summit of Christian life, and therefore also of ours.
Our celebrations should attract people who live close to our Houses and parishes. It should be nice for the laity to pray with us! Our liturgy manifests our brothers and sisters living together, or a group of people living together, where the law of the fittest prevails.
At this difficult time when it seems that in Italy our charism is dying, through our celebrations, we enable the young people whom the Holy Spirit is calling to serve the Church according to the charism of St. Vincent and St. Louise, (and they are not few!), to respond to the call they have received, but it is necessary to sew new clothes in order to insert new patches. I believe that in Italy, despite what appears, the Holy Spirit continues to call young people to live as Priests of the Mission and Daughters of Charity…perhaps the problem is ours more than theirs!
Allow me to propose a meditation that I often follow in my attempt to follow the Risen One.
Rereading the great book, The Betrothed, let us try to ask ourselves in which characters we find ourselves: in Father Christopher, in Cardinal Federigo, or in Don Abbondio, or in the Capuchin Provincial?
In Renzo, or in Don Rodrigo, in Count Uncle, or rather in the lawyer Azzeccagarbugli?
I wish everyone to live Ordinary Time well. Good work.
By Fr Giorgio Bontempi C.M.
