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Hearts of Prayer: Sacred Liturgy |
The Liturgy is
essentially adoration
Rev. Nicola Bux and Rev. Salvatore Vitiello
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides)
The post-synodal Apostolic
Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis recalls that there exists an
intrinsic relationship between eucharistic celebration and
eucharistic adoration, which, immediately after the Council was not
always perceived with sufficient clarity. An objection was
widespread that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be
looked at but to be eaten. This contra-position was without
foundation because, the document says, quoting Saint Augustine- “no
one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we
not to adore it …the eucharistic celebration…is itself the Church's
supreme act of adoration ” (66).
In fact authentic Liturgists are
aware that “In the Mass…we have the summit of both the action with
which God sanctifies the world in Christ and worship which men
render to the Father adoring Him through Christ the Son of God, in
the Holy Spirit” (General Instruction Roman Missal, n 16). This text
draws from the Second Vatican Council's Constitution of the Liturgy
(cfr. SC n. 10), but above all it simply actuates the affirmation of
Jesus: “The real worshipers will adore the Father in spirit and in
truth” (Jn 4,23).
Adoration is the heart of the cosmic
dimension of the Liturgy: it brings together in Jesus Christ, as
Saint Paul says, all things in heaven and on earth. Adoration is
”opus Dei”, according to Saint Benedict, public worship, according
to the encyclical “Mediator Dei” of Pius XII, which the Church with
Christ renders the Father every day. However this Liturgy in actual
fact we receive from heaven, as Revelation narrates it has its
typical form in the altar of the slain Lamb adored by the saints.
Therefore truly Catholic Liturgy leaves no space for creative
subjectivism but only for adoring participation «Theo-latria» not «idolo-latria».
Max Thurian was fond of saying that
the Liturgy is the contemplation of the mystery which signifies
adoration: it is not separate from the Holy Mass and the Sacraments,
it is their intimate structure from which must flow a personal
attitude of adoration. In the Eastern rites this is the
presupposition which leads the ministers always to turn towards the
Lord's altar after they have turned to the people in dialogue. The
Roman Liturgy was the same, then someone invented that the
orientation towards the altar, that is to the Lord, was really
turning one's back on the people. Strange that in all those
centuries no one noticed this until 1967. And Eastern Christian
still fail to notice it as they continue to look towards the East
symbol of the Lord who comes. And to think that in the post-council
period there was so much insistence on the necessity to restore the
eschatological and transcendent dimension of the Liturgy!
With the priest and faithful looking
at each other face to face the Liturgy (if, as they say, it operates
through signs) is left in the immanent dimension of the world. It
would suffice the Liturgy of the Word to underline the school in
which the didascalos speaks to the disciples. The Sacrifice must be
looking towards the Lord, starting with the priest who leads the
prayers of the faithful, who 'lift up their hearts to the Lord’,
symbol of the conversion of hearts, as the Latin expression
“conversi ad Dominum” says in a figurative manner. Isacco Siro
affirms: “Christ, the perfect painter, paints the traits of His face
of heavenly man on the faithful who turn to Him. Unless a person
looks at Him continually, despising anything contrary to Him, he
cannot have in himself the image of the Lord designed by His light.
May our face always be set on Him with faith and love, neglecting
everything to think only of Him so that His image may be imprinted
on our intimate self, and thus carrying Christ within us we may
reach life with out end”. (Agenzia Fides 26/4/2007; righe 40,
parole 580)
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary