Pope Benedict XVI writes:

“The Council rightly reminded us that liturgy also means actio, something done, and it demanded that the faithful be guaranteed an actuosa participatio, an active participation.” “The concept is no doubt correct. But the way it has been applied following the Council has exhibited a fatal narrowing of perspective.  The impression arose that there was only ‘active participation’ when there was discernible external activity --- speaking, singing, preaching, reading, shaking hands.  It was forgotten that the Council also included silence under actuaosa participatio, for silence facilitates a really deep, personal participation, allowing us to listen inwardly to the Lord’s word.  Many liturgies now lack all trace of this silence.”

In regards to church music he says, “Here too they have pushed the great church music aside in the name of ‘active participation’, but cannot this ‘participation’ also include receptivity on the part of the spirit and the senses?  Is there really nothing ‘active’ in perceiving, receiving and being inwardly moved? “ 

“Shared silence becomes shared prayer, indeed shared action, a journey out of our everyday life toward the Lord, toward merging our time with his own.”

“The Consecration is the moment of God’s great actio in the world for us.  It draws our eyes and hearts on high.  For a moment the world is silent, everything is silent, and in that silence we touch the eternal – for one beat of the heart we step out of time into God’s being –with-us.”

“The silent prayers of the priest invite him to make his task truly personal, so that he may give his whole self to the Lord.  They highlight the way in which all of us, each one personally yet together with everyone else, have to approach the Lord.”

“If in a moment of quiet the eyes of the hearts of all are directed toward the Lamb, this can become a time of blessed silence.”

“…so that each individual in his silent prayer can take up the intonation and bring the personal into the communal and the communal into the personal.  Anyone who has experienced a church united in the silent praying of the Canon will know what a really filled silence is.  It is at once a loud and penetrating cry to God and a Spirit-filled act of prayer.  Here everyone does pray the Canon together, albeit in a bond with the special task of the priestly ministry.  Here everyone is united, laid hold of by Christ, and led by the Holy Spirit into that common prayer to the Father which is the true sacrifice – the love that reconciles and unites God and the world.”

  Home |