The act that brings us into contact with God
The Church becomes visible in many ways: in charitable action, in mission projects, in the personal apostolate that every Christian must carry out in his own walk of life. However the place in which she is fully experienced as Church is in the Liturgy; it is the act in which we believe that God enters our reality and we can encounter Him, we can touch Him. It is the act in which we come into contact with God: He comes to us and we are illuminated by Him.
BENEDICT XVI. General Audience, 3/10/2012
A sacred action surpassing all others
The Liturgy […] is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek. […]
Every liturgical celebration, being an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.
ST. PAUL VI. Sacrosanctum concilium,
Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, 4/12/1963
Means by which the priestly mission of Christ is prolonged
The divine Redeemer has so willed it that the priestly life, begun with the supplication and sacrifice of His mortal Body, should continue without intermission down the ages in His Mystical Body which is the Church. That is why He established a visible priesthood to offer everywhere the clean oblation […].
In obedience, therefore, to her Founder’s behest, the Church prolongs the priestly mission of Jesus Christ mainly by means of the sacred Liturgy. She does this in the first place at the altar, where constantly the Sacrifice of the Cross is represented and with a single difference in the manner of its offering, renewed.
PIUS XII.
Mediator Dei, 20/11/1947
To stand in the Lord’s presence: the “profession” of the priest
What does this “being a priest of Jesus Christ” mean? The Second Canon of our Missal, probably compiled in Rome already at the end of the 2nd century, describes the essence of the priestly ministry with the words with which, in the Book of Deuteronomy (cf. Dt 18:5, 7), the essence of the Old Testament priesthood is described: astare coram te et tibi ministrare. There are therefore two duties that define the essence of the priestly ministry: in the first place, “to stand in His presence.”
In the Book of Deuteronomy this is read in the context of the preceding disposition, according to which priests do not receive any portion of land in the Holy Land – they live of God and for God. They did not attend to the usual work necessary to sustain daily life. Their profession was to “stand in the Lord’s presence” – to look to Him, to be there for Him. Hence, ultimately, the word indicated a life in God’s presence, and with this also a ministry of representing others. As the others cultivated the land, from which the priest also lived, so he kept the world open to God, he had to live with his gaze on Him.
BENEDICT XVI.
Homily, 20/3/2008
The soul of daily life
Now let us move on to the second word that the Second Canon repeats from the Old Testament text – “to stand in Your presence and serve You.” […] We must learn to increasingly understand the sacred Liturgy in all its essence, to develop a living familiarity with it, so that it becomes the soul of our daily life. It is then that we celebrate in the correct way; it is then that the ars celebrandi, the art of celebrating, emerges by itself. In this art there must be nothing artificial. If the Liturgy is the central duty of the priest, this also means that prayer must be a primary reality […].
No one is closer to his master than the servant who has access to the most private dimensions of his life. In this sense “to serve” means closeness, it requires familiarity. This familiarity also bears a danger: when we continually encounter the sacred it risks becoming habitual for us. In this way, reverential fear is extinguished. […] We must ceaselessly struggle against this becoming accustomed to the extraordinary reality, against the indifference of the heart, always recognizing our insufficiency anew and the grace that there is in the fact that He consigned Himself into our hands.
BENEDICT XVI.
Homily, 20/3/2008
A dignified Liturgy, even in poor communities
The Liturgy should always be dignified, even in small and poor communities; it should be open to the active and informed participation of the different members of the assembly, each according to their category and vocation; that it judiciously use the various authorised forms of expression, without indulging in fanciful, improvised or poorly studied creativity, which the norms do not allow, precisely because it would distort their meaning; that the Liturgy truly initiates into the mystery of God, through its atmosphere of recollection and the quality of the readings and songs. […] Let us ensure that our Masses reveal the “mystery of Faith” and have its appeal.
ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Speech, 24/9/1982
the centrality of Christ must stand out in the celebration
The Liturgy is not the memory of past events, but is the living presence of the Paschal Mystery of Christ who transcends and unites times and places. If in the celebration the centrality of Christ did not emerge, we would not have Christian Liturgy, totally dependent on the Lord and sustained by His creative presence. […]
It is not, therefore, the individual – priest or member of the faithful – or the group celebrating the Liturgy, but the Liturgy is primarily God’s action through the Church which has her own history, her rich tradition and her creativity. This universality and fundamental openness, which is proper to the whole of the Liturgy, is one of the reasons why it cannot be conceived of or modified by the individual community or by experts, but must be faithful to the forms of the universal Church.
BENEDICT XVI.
General Audience, 3/10/2012
An image of eternity
In a Liturgy completely centred on God, we can see, in its rituals and chant, an image of eternity.[…] In the light of this, I ask you to celebrate the sacred Liturgy with your gaze fixed on God within the communion of saints, the living Church of every time and place, so that it will truly be an expression of the sublime beauty of the God who has called men and women to be His friends!
BENEDICT XVI.
Speech, 9/9/2007
A glimpse of Heaven on earth
The mystery brought about in the Liturgy is truly great. It opens a glimpse of Heaven on earth, and the perennial hymn of praise rises from the community of believers in unison with the hymn of heavenly Jerusalem: “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.”
JOHN PAUL II.
Spiritus et Sponsa, 4/12/2003
