50th Anniversary of "Sacrosanctum Concilium"

We in the Catholic Church have been going through a series of rolling 50th anniversaries, all related to the Second Vatican Council.  It began in 2009, with the 50th anniversary of the calling of the council, by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959, in the Lateran Basilica.  The first session began on October 11, 1962 (and was marked in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI with the beginning of a Year of Faith).  This fall, on December 4, it is the 50th anniversary of the first of the 16 documents produced by the Fathers of Vatican II.  This is Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.  The final 50th anniversary will be on December 7, 2015, marking the conclusion of the fourth session, and the end of the Second Vatican Council.

For our parish bulletins I did several columns this past month on the 50th anniversary of the Sacred Liturgy Constitution.  I was limited by the 550 words I can write for a column, so these are short.  I'll put these together into one or two posts.  With the greater freedom of the blog, I may expand on one or two points.

"Pastors have the indispensable task of educating in prayer and more especially of promoting liturgical life, entailing a duty of discernment and guidance."  --Pope John Paul II, from the Apostolic Letter Spiritus et Sponsa, On the 40th Anniversary of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, December 4, 2003.

On December 4, 1963, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council produced the first of its 16 documents, Sacrosanctum Concilium (hereafter SC), the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.  This document was overwhelmingly approved (2,147 to 4) and promulgated by Pope Paul VI.  This document has been Vatican II's most visible impact on the People of God in the universal Catholic Church.  Pope John Paul II said in 2003, in the above quoted document, "With the passing of time and in the light of its fruits, the importance of Sacrosanctum Concilium has become increasingly clear.  The Council brilliantly outlined in it the principles on which are based the liturgical practices of the church and which inspire its healthy renewal in the course of time."

In two months the Church will mark the 50th anniversary of this important document.  Over the next five weeks I'll review this very special document.  I encourage readers to read the document itself (available online at  www.vatican.va   under "resource library/Second Vatican Council").  But readers already know much that it teaches.  You see the principles of this document each Sunday, when you pray in church with your brothers and sisters at Mass.  In an attempt to make the basic ideas of SC come alive, I'll tell some stories and invite you to reflect on these themes.

REVIEWING HISTORY.  Sunday, November 22, 1964, 5:00 p.m. Mass in St. Wendelin Church, in the Carrick neighborhood of the city of Pittsburgh.  I am a 6th grader serving the last Mass in Latin.  I've forgotten which parish priest said the Mass (Msgr. Carl Hensler, the elderly pastor, or Father John Michaels, the young assistant).  With the other server I said the opening prayers at the foot of the altar in Latin, which Sister Mary Jude had helped us to memorize the previous year:  "Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui Laetificat iuventutem mean."  [In English, "I shall go up to the altar of God, the God who gives joy to my youth."]  The following week we began a "hybrid" Mass, part Latin, part English.  Within four years we were fully in English.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy may have been the first document approved by Vatican II, but it had a 100 year history of preparation.  In the 19th century German Benedictine monks began reading the ancient liturgical texts in their dusty archives, and found a wealth of information about how the Catholic Church celebrated Mass in the different centuries.  They also found how the Mass prayers changed over time.  This "liturgical movement" expanded to France, Britain and the U.S.  By 1947 it was endorsed by Pope Pius XII, who made some changes to the Easter Vigil in 1955.  The monks and scholars looked backward in time, to learn better the various traditions of prayer, particularly of the sacraments.  They also faced forward, in "aggiornamento," (an Italian word which means bringing things up to date, sometimes also translated as "opening the windows").  Pope John XXIII, who called for the Second Vatican Council in 1959, wanted the Church to be open to the modern world, while always retaining and renewing its venerable traditions.

"FULL, ACTIVE AND CONSCIOUS PARTICIPATION".  The St. Paul Seminary chapel in the 1970s was a large airy room on the second floor of the DPC building.  Each of us seminarians had his own prie-dieu (kneeler) and chair.  But at Mass we were invited by our priests, Msgr. Don Kraus and Father George Saladna, at the Preface to leave our kneeler and place, and to come up into the sanctuary and stand in a semi-circle around the altar as the priest said the Eucharistic Prayer.  As my brother seminarians surrounded the altar, some kneeling and some standing in prayer, I intensely felt we were the body of Christ as we sang and responded to the presiding priest.

One of the key understandings which Vatican II taught was that the Mass, and all the sacraments, are celebrated by the whole church.  In the words of SC, we the baptized are "neither strangers nor silent spectators," but rather called to "full, active and conscious participation" in all rites.  The people of God participate using their voices in singing and in responding to the priest in dialogue, using their bodies by standing, kneeling or moving in processing, using their minds and souls while sitting or standing in attentive silence at the proclaiming of the Sacred Scriptures.  The priest is not the only one "working" during the Mass.  The various ministers carry out their respective ministries, and all people through the church participate and spiritually offer the sacrifice.