VATICAN CITY (CNS) ─ "Firmly rooted" in the Church's living tradition, the liturgical reform put forth by the Second Vatican Council grew from the need for the faithful to celebrate the liturgy more "consciously and actively," and not "as strangers and silent spectators," Pope Leo XIV said.
"The faithful 'cannot and must no longer remain silent and passive. Their physical presence cannot be reconciled with their spiritual absence,'" he said, quoting Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan, the future Pope Paul VI and saint, who was attending the council's first session at the time in 1962.
The Council Fathers expressed "a renewed awareness of the value of the liturgy," Pope Leo said during his general audience talk in St. Peter's Basilica Aug. 26, which focused on the constitution on the sacred liturgy, "Sacrosanctum Concilium," and why the council sought to promote the liturgy's reform.
It was the pope's final catechesis dedicated to the council's first constitution after beginning his new series of talks on the documents of the Second Vatican Council Jan. 7, so people would be motivated to reread and reflect on them rather than base their understanding of the texts on "hearsay" and the interpretations of others, he had said.
While the liturgical reform promoted by the council is "firmly rooted in the living tradition of the Church," Pope Leo said, the reform must also be properly understood.
"A correct understanding of it also enables us to reject the abuses that occurred in certain sectors of the Church during the post-conciliar period, and which, unfortunately, still occur from time to time today, where some of the principles underlying the reform itself have been taken to extremes or misunderstood," he said.
During the liturgy, "the memorial of the work of salvation is celebrated," and the Church's ritual actions also provide an opportunity "to experience a true relationship with God, coming into contact with the salvific event," the pope said. "Since the gestures and words of the sacred liturgy are critical to realizing this experience, the participation of the faithful cannot be passive."
The council's reform put "at the center that which constitutes the heart of the ecclesial experience," he said. Therefore, the intention was "to allow the liturgy to shine forth as 'the primary source of that divine exchange in which the life of God is communicated to us.'"
Because of the importance of language, teaching and "intelligibility," there was "the need to make the richness of the biblical texts and prayers more accessible to all the faithful, and to streamline the order of the celebration compared with that set out in the liturgical books then in use," he said.
The liturgy is "a living entity," he said, and it has always been subject to developments and changes over the centuries.
Therefore, it is "not surprising that the Second Vatican Council, too, with the utmost respect for the heritage of tradition, and precisely in order to make it more accessible, considered it necessary to revise the liturgical books," Pope Leo said.
Quoting the conciliar constitution, he said, "the liturgy is made up of immutable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change. These not only may but ought to be changed with the passage of time if they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have become unsuited to it."
Texts and rites should thereby be "drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community," he said, citing the constitution.
"In this way, the Christian people learn to recognize sacred realities, offer themselves with and through the hands of the priest, and become more open to receiving God's grace," he said in his summary to English speakers.
In his main catechesis in Italian, he said it is still the primary responsibility of bishops and priests "to safeguard and promote a liturgy which, while respecting liturgical norms, shines with noble simplicity and thus manifests the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church."
As the council teaches, "Liturgical services are not private functions," but are celebrations that pertain to the whole body of the Church, "which is the 'sacrament of unity,' namely, the holy people united and ordered under their bishops," he said, quoting from the constitution.
"At every celebration of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, let us ask for God's help to be strengthened on our journey and to enter into a deeper relationship with the Lord," he said in his English summary.
