This is a fundamental question that emerges among Catholics
today. The following is a response that is a the heart of the Church’s teaching
on the Liturgy.
Office of Readings
= Sunday Week Three
From the
constitution on the sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council
Christ is
present to his Church
Christ is always present to his Church, especially in the
actions of the liturgy. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, in the
person of the minister (it is the same Christ who formerly offered himself on
the cross that now offers by the ministry of priests) and most of all under the
Eucharistic species. He is present in the sacraments by his power, in such a
way that when someone baptizes, Christ himself baptizes. He is present in his
word, for it is he himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the
Church. Finally, he is present when the Church prays and sings, for he himself
promised: Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their
midst.
Indeed, in this great work which gives perfect glory to
God and brings holiness to men. Christ is always joining in partnership with
himself his beloved Bride, the Church, which calls upon its Lord and through
him gives worship to the eternal Father.
It is therefore right to see the liturgy as an exercise
of the priestly office of Jesus Christ, in which through signs addressed to the
senses man’s sanctification is signified and, in a way proper to each of these
signs, made effective, and in which public worship is celebrated in its
fullness by the mystical body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the head and by his
members.
Accordingly, every liturgical celebration, as an activity
of Christ the priest and of his body, which is the Church, is a sacred action
of a preeminent kind. No other action of the Church equals its title to power
or its degree of effectiveness.
In the liturgy on earth we are given a foretaste and
share in the liturgy of heaven, celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem, the
goal of our pilgrimage, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, as
minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. With the whole company of
heaven we sing a hymn of praise to the Lord; as we reverence the memory of the
saints, we hope to have some part with them, and to share in their fellowship;
we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until he, who is our life,
appears, and we appear with him in glory.
By an apostolic tradition taking its origin from the very
day of Christ’s resurrection, the Church celebrates the paschal mystery every
eighth day, the day that is rightly called the Lord’s day. On Sunday the
Christian faithful ought to gather together, so that by listening to the word
of God and sharing in the Eucharist they may recall the passion, death and
resurrection of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God who has given them a new
birth with a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead. The Lord’s day is therefore the first and greatest festival, one to be
set before the loving devotion of the faithful and impressed upon it, so that
it may be also a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations must
not take precedence over it, unless they are truly of the greatest importance,
since it is the foundation and the kernel of the whole liturgical year.
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