Liturgically Speaking: Full, Active, Conscious Participation in the Liturgy

One of the main themes of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (SC) from the Second Vatican Council was full, active, conscious participation in the liturgy.  Consider the following quote from the Council:

Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism. (SC 14)

The very nature of the liturgy demands this kind of participation, and our right to participate in this way flows from our baptism.  So much was this a concern, that the council called this kind of participation in the Liturgy its primary aim:

In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work. (SC 14)

This wasn’t the first time the Church had talked about active participation in the Liturgy by all the faithful.  Sixty years prior, Pope Pius X was calling for the same thing:

Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. (Tra le Sollecitudini, Instruction on Sacred Music, Pope Pius X, November 22, 1903)

The question arose after the Council, however, what is meant by full, active, conscious participation in the liturgy?  Not everyone agreed, and this meant variations in practice at Sunday Masses.  Pope Benedict XVI has written:

“But what does this active participation come down to?  What does it mean that we have to do?  Unfortunately, the word was very quickly misunderstood to mean something external, entailing a need for general activity, as if as many people as possible, as often as possible, should be visibly engaged in action.  (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 171).

No, this active participation does not necessitate that we’re all doing something external throughout the liturgy.  Certainly, some of these external actions (gestures, postures, responses, etc.) manifest active participation:

To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence. (SC 30)

Notice, however, that silence is listed as a means of active participation!  While outward manifestations are helpful, the primary notion of full, active, conscious participation in the Liturgy is our interior participation:

But in order that the liturgy may be able to produce its full effects, it is necessary that the faithful come to it with proper dispositions, that their minds should be attuned to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain. Pastors of souls must therefore realize that, when the liturgy is celebrated, something more is required than the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration; it is their duty also to ensure that the faithful take part fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the rite, and enriched by its effects. (SC 11)

Hence, the vision of Vatican II and its restoration of the Liturgy was not some sort of frenetic attempt at including everyone in outward action at all times.  Truly full, active, conscious participation means the work of forming ourselves to understand the meaning of the Liturgy and the (sometimes difficult) work of attuning our hearts and minds to the actions unfolding at the Liturgy.  After all, it’s one thing to sing the response, Hosanna in the Highest; it’s another thing to know what Hosanna means.  One is simply activity.  The other is full, active, conscious participation.

IVF - Why Not

[A simpler audio presentation of the topic can be heard HERE.]

When we were preparing for marriage, we discussed the number of children might want.  We both agreed that we wanted a big family, maybe six to eight kids.  More than seven years into marriage, we are still childless, and for six of those years we have knowingly suffered with infertility.  We’ve tried herbal supplements, medications, shots, even surgery.  We’ve prayed and made pilgrimages.  Barring a true miracle, we will never have biological children of our own.  On more than one occasion we have been told that we could have biological children of our own only if we go the route of in vitro fertilization.

Infertility is like getting in a car accident, or getting cancer – you never think it will happen to you.  But we’ve met dozens of couples like us.  We know the heartache, the pain, and the despair of infertility.  We see pregnant mothers and families with newborns everywhere we look.  We pass each Christmas, birthday, and anniversary being reminded that this is yet another year without a child to hold.  Our dreams for our future together, the meaning of our marriage, and the purpose of our lives have been shaken.  And IVF is held out to us as a solution, a healing for all the pain.

We are also Catholic.  Our Church teaches that IVF is morally unacceptable.  In the midst of our pain, and despite the “hope” that IVF holds out to us, we have embraced the Catholic Church’s teaching.  Not only that, but by God’s grace we have come to see it not as an imposition on us from an arbitrary authority from without.  No, we have come to see the reasons behind the Church’s teaching, and the wisdom and beauty in the Church’s vision of the human person and human sexuality.  In that way, the Church’s teaching on IVF is not an imposition, but the condition for us to joyfully exercise true freedom in doing the good in regard to our infertility. 

As we’ve walked this path, and met others who have experienced infertility, we’ve discovered that most people, even Catholics, do not know the reasons for the Church’s teaching regarding IVF.  This is complicated by a number of factors.  It’s important to address some of the issues that complicate an understanding of this teaching, especially by first addressing two common misunderstandings.

The Sacrament of Confession

Here is the audio of a talk I gave to parents whose 2nd grade students are preparing for first confession.  I wanted to place the sacrament of Confession in the broader picture of Catholic life.  I used the idea of "Communion" to tie together the various aspects.

The Audio can be found HERE.

And just for fun, here's Homer Simpson making his first Confession:

Liturgically Speaking: “I Received from the Lord what I also Handed on to You”

We have in our Catholic tradition certain rote prayers we memorize as children: The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Gory Be, and others.  Prayer can also be spontaneous, “made up” in our own words.  In one way, the Liturgy is more like the rote prayers we received from our parents as children.  The Liturgy is handed on to us; it is part of our tradition.  We don’t create the Liturgy; we receive the Liturgy as part of the Tradition of our Catholic Faith.

This “handing on” of the Liturgy is already apparent in the first generation of the Church.  St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on (tradidi) to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

The Corinthians were not at liberty to create their public worship in any form they chose.  Its form was handed on to them from Paul, a form he also received from Christ Himself.  This handing on continued in in the early church and beyond.  Consider this description of Catholic worship from St. Justin Martyr from around 155 AD.  See if any of this sounds familiar:

“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.” 

Hopefully you can see echoes of our Sunday Mass already in this second century description of the Mass.  That which was handed on to Paul from the Lord, which he handed on to the Corinthians, that which was handed on to St. Justin Martyr, has also been handed on through the ages to us.

We celebrate the Liturgy as we do because it is part of our Tradition, handed on to us – a kind of family heirloom.  We can no more arbitrarily change the Liturgy that we can add new books to the Bible, or a fourth Person to the Trinity.  The Liturgy is not our construction.  There is nothing more antithetical to the spirit of the Liturgy than some committee or liturgist “creatively” manufacturing the Liturgy as their own personal product.  The Liturgy is not the property of any group or individual; the Liturgy is a gift faithfully handed on in the Church, uniting us to generations of Christians past, linking us to the saints, martyrs, apostles, and to Christ Himself.

Liturgically Speaking: The Worship of all Creation

The Liturgy is unique.  Liturgy involves not just those gathered for worship, or even the whole Church.  The sacraments of the Church encompass all of creation. 

“Sacrament” is how God does creation.  In an analogous sense, all of creation is “sacramental” – in the broad, generic sense of being an outward sign of a hidden reality.  Consider what the Psalmist says: "The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands" (Psalm 18:2).  St. Paul offers the same thought in the New Testament:  “The invisible things of him [i.e. God], from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity" (Romans 1:20).  In other words, all of the visible, created world is a sign of God’s hidden presence.  Even the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins suggests the same:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.                     

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;                       

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil   

Crushed.         

So why does the Church worship in the sacramental way?  Because we live in a sacramental universe!  The problem is that we’ve largely lost our “sacramental glasses” – we no longer see with a sacramental worldview.  Ever since the Fall, we see creation isolated from the creator.  We need a training ground, a school of sacramentality where the signs and symbols of God’s presence are abundant and “thick.”  We need the liturgy.

The liturgy assumes into our worship all of creation, all of space and time, because all of creation was implicated in the Fall.  St. Paul says:

“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.” (Romans 8:19-23)

Space and places are transformed by the liturgy.  Our Church is not just any building.  Our parish church is a microcosm of the world and of the story of salvation.  Consider: at the beginning of Mass, there is a procession from the doors of the Church, from the outside fallen world, to the altar, the place where heaven meets earth.  By our doors are holy water fonts, reminding us that baptism is the door to the Church.  Our church faces eastward, toward the rising sun, a sign of our awaiting the coming of the risen Christ.

Time is also transfigured by the liturgy.  The Liturgy takes up the very course of time, and transforms it for the worship of God.  We celebrate the saving work of Christ on certain days throughout the course of the year. Each week, on the Lord's Day, we remember the Lord's resurrection. We also celebrate it once every year, together with his Passion, at Easter. In the course of the whole year we unfold the whole mystery of Christ’s life.  Even the various hours of the day are permeated and transfigured by the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours.

Adoption through Jesus Christ

See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2)

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption.  As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”  So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. (Gal 4:5)

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”  The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom 8:14)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will. (Eph 1:5)

Liturgically Speaking: Entering into Heavenly Worship

In our liturgy each week (and every day), we take part in a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy.  I know, I know...  Mass doesn’t always seem like a foretaste of Heaven!  But we have to see behind the signs and the symbols (imperfect as they sometimes are) to the reality they contain.   

Consider: what will you do for all eternity in Heaven?  Play golf?  Drink daiquiris on the beach?  Play a harp on a cloud?  While that may be the first place our imaginations go, the truth is that we would quickly tire of even our favorite activities in eternity.  That’s because we were not created for these things.  We were created with an intellect to know the truth, and a will to choose and love the good.  That’s what separates us from the animals.  And we’re not made to know just any truth, or to choose just any love.  We’re made to know Truth and love Goodness itself; infinite Truth and Goodness.  Our ultimate desire as humans created in the image and likeness of God is to know and love God.  Our little desires for little goods along the way are but signs and foretastes of the real fulfillment to come.  As St. Augustine said, “You have created us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”  So what will we do for all eternity in Heaven?  We will worship, know, and love God, the source of infinite Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.    

The Liturgy is a school for Heaven.  It’s where we learn to know and love God in worship.  We get a hint of this in the opening lines of the Sanctus (Holy, Holy).  The words are derived from Isaiah 6:3 in which the Seraphim angels cry to one another the praises of God in the heavenly throne room of the Lord.  The words are echoed in a slightly different form by the four living creatures in Revelation 4:8.  In both cases, the words take place in the context of the heavenly worship of God.  Those who even now celebrate it without signs are already in the heavenly liturgy.

At each liturgy, as we are about to enter into the Eucharistic prayer, we hear the song of praise sung in the heavenly courts.  The liturgy itself is signaling to us what is about to happen – we are about to enter into and participate in that heavenly liturgy.  The Preface of the Mass, immediately before the Sanctus, often speaks even more explicitly of this participation.  Consider the conclusion of the Preface from the first Sunday of Advent:

And so, with Angels and Archangels,

with Thrones and Dominions,

and with all the hosts and Powers of heaven,

we sing the hymn of your glory,

as without end we acclaim:

What is unique and mysterious is the movement of the community beyond itself into a participation in the heavenly.  It is precisely this heavenly, transcendent understanding of liturgy that the Sanctus offers us on the cusp of the Eucharistic Prayer.  It is a sign that alerts us to the fact that we are now entering the heavenly courts, approaching the throne of God, and of the Lamb.  It awakens us to our participation, not in just our community worship, but in the wedding feast of the Lamb in the presence of all the angels and saints.  It is in this eternal liturgy that the Spirit and the Church enable us to participate whenever we celebrate the mystery of salvation in the sacraments.

Liturgically Speaking: Entering into the Worship of the Church

As the work of Christ, the liturgy is also an action of his whole Church.  The Church is inseparably the body of Christ, and Christ is the head of that body. Thus, it is the whole Christ, the Body united with its Head, that celebrates the liturgy. 

This first means that the Liturgy makes the Church present and manifests the Church.  We visibly see occur the Church’s mission of uniting humanity to God, and to each other in the liturgy.  That mission is made manifest in the celebration of the liturgy.  In the liturgy, we draw into closer communion with God and with one another.  The Church finds its origin in the Eucharist, the self-giving of Christ, and the Church becomes most herself while celebrating the liturgy.

This also means that liturgical services are never simply private functions.  They are celebrations of the Church. Therefore, liturgical services pertain to the whole Body of the Church.  Even if we imagine for a moment the Sacrament of Confession in which only the priest and the penitent are physically present, it is not a merely private service.  The priest represents the whole Church to the penitent, and both are surrounded by the angels and saints in heaven rejoicing over the return of a sinner. 

While the liturgy is an action of the whole Church, the members do not all have the same function. Certain members are called by God to the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the Holy Spirit enables them to act in the person of Christ the head. The ordained priest is an "icon" of Christ the priest, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, offering absolution of sins in Confession, and preaching the truth of the Gospel to their flock.

Finally, since the liturgy is the prayer of the whole Church, the liturgy does not belong to any parishioner, any priest, any liturgical director, any worship committee, any choir, or any parish.  All those individuals and groups receive the liturgy from the tradition of the Church and stand as servants of the liturgy, not the liturgy’s masters or creators. 

At another parish at which I served, at a Mass with children, some parents argued that the kids should do the readings since, “this is their Mass.”  Of course, sometimes the youngsters may well do the readings.  What caught my attention was the idea that this Mass belonged to these children.  This is simply not the case.  The Mass “belongs” to Christ, and he allows his body, the Church, to participate in His work in the liturgy.    

Thus, we can’t simply make up changes and innovations in the liturgy based on local preference or creativity.  The liturgy is not ours to tinker with as we see fit.  This is why the Second Vatican Council said that “no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.”