Traditional Catholic Teaching

Appendix to Supplement A: Lesson 11

Appendix: The Splendour of the Holy Mass

Extract from an address by the much loved and esteemed Archbishop Romolo Carboni, Apostolic Delegate to Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, given at Melbourne, 1955.

Origin of the Liturgy

The sacred liturgy is as old as the Church herself. It had its origin in the august Sacrifice Jesus Christ our Lord offered of Himself to His heavenly Father on the cross of Calvary. From that Sacrifice, which was the redemption of us all, came the graces of supernatural life which, by the command of the same divine Redeemer, His Church was to distribute through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments to all nations till the end of time. And immediately among the newly baptised Christians after the first Pentecost, we see the liturgy in use with the breaking of the bread and the praising of God (cf Acts 2: 46f), duties and privileges in which from that time forth it became necessary for every person to participate

In essence the public worship of God which then began has always consisted in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the "Mystery" par excellence, and the administration of the Sacraments; but joined to these there has always been the praise and supplication of God in Psalms and hymns, together with readings from Holy Scripture.

The forms under which this worship has been carried out have varied considerably through the centuries. In the beginning they resembled very closely those of ancient Jewish worship, but gradually changes were introduced according to the circumstances of place and time.

Showing the marks of this its long history, the liturgy today is one of the chief glories of Holy Mother Church. Venerable for its antiquity, marvellous in its doctrinal and moral richness, hallowed by the use of myriads of saints and the faithful in every age, the liturgy presents a striking manifestation of the divinely given unity, holiness, universality and apostolicity of the Church.

But these glorious characteristics of the liturgy do not constitute its highest claim to our admiration. The liturgy is not merely a collection of rites and ceremonies, no matter how holy and sublime, or of how glorious a past. It is not even simply the voice of the Spouse of Christ expressing herself in worship of her Founder. But, more truly and fundamentally, the sacred liturgy must be acknowledged to be, as the Holy Father has explicitly stated in his Encyclical, "the public worship of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, Head and members." It is "the worship which our Redeemer, the Head of the Church, offers to the heavenly Father and which the community of Christ's faithful pays to its Founder and through Him to the Eternal Father."2 This is the ultimate, the principal source of the holiness, the sublimity and the importance of the liturgy.

Our Lord the High Priest

Let us emphasise that fact. In the sacred liturgy it is our Lord Jesus Christ who is the High Priest, principal offerer of the Holy Sacrifice, minister of the Sacraments and chief worshipper. By its holy mysteries He continues through time His role as Mediator between God and man, living always "to make intersession" for us (Heb. 7: 25). As He once pleaded to God for us through long nights in Galilee and on the cross of Calvary, so does He now. No longer, it is true, is He visibly among us, but He is present in spirit, by the power with which He operates in the Sacraments, and by His presence under the sacramental species.

But He is not alone. We are with Him. He has deigned to unite us most intimately to Himself and to act through us. We, the members of His Mystical Body, have been elevated by sanctifying grace to share in His divine life, and we are one with Him in spirit and by grace as He worships His Father. We form, in the words of St. Peter, "a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2: 5).

As we ponder on these sublime realities, we come to appreciate the importance of the words of Pope St. Pius X to which we have already referred: "The active participation in the holy mysteries….. is the indispensable source of the true Christian spirit." Only when all, clergy and laity, are actively participating in the liturgy to the fullest possible extent, will the Church's worship be all that God wants it to be, and will Catholics generally be living at the full height of their holy vocation.

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