De Liturgia

It is said that the liturgy has a central part in handing on the faith, and for this reason: if what is proclaimed is, at its heart, a meeting with God’s saving love in Christ, then the liturgy is where that mystery is celebrated and given in sacraments, and where the community is fed with Word and Bread. A view that would make it no more than the ritual setting of the Church’s life is set aside.

The liturgy is called an experience of faith before it is a lesson, since the faithful take part in it with the whole of themselves, by gesture and word, by silence and sign; and with Evangelii Gaudium it is said that the Church is evangelized by the beauty of the liturgy as she evangelizes. In the Eucharist above all the faithful are drawn into the Paschal Mystery, and the sacramental face of the Church is seen. They are said to be shaped from within and not only “informed”: the faith passes on in the doing, as a relation with God and not as talk about him. The liturgy is named a living memory, a common history one enters; so to celebrate is first to receive a faith others have believed, lived and prayed.

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come.

a · 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 · Douay-Rheims

^bHe, therefore, our God and Lord, … in the last supper, on the night in which He was betrayed,—that He might leave, to His own beloved Spouse the Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires, whereby that bloody sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the cross, might be represented, and the memory thereof remain even unto the end of the world, … He instituted the new Passover, (to wit) Himself to be immolated, under visible signs, by the Church through (the ministry of) priests, in memory of His own passage from this world unto the Father, when by the effusion of His own blood He redeemed us, and delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into his kingdom.

b · Trent, sess. XXII (1562), ch. 1 · Waterworth (1848)

Of the Considerations, n. 8

Not a doctrinal note: they settle nothing. So they weigh and cleave nothing, and nothing is owed to them by reference. A gloss, not a text.

self_limited(venite)

ad a

n. 90 says the faithful are drawn into the Paschal Mystery. Paul says it first: as often as you eat and drink, you shew the death of the Lord until he come. The Eucharist proclaims before it teaches.

ad b

Trent names the mystery a new Passover, Christ's passage from this world to the Father, given under visible signs, “such as the nature of man requires”. That clause is the root of n. 90's experience before teaching.

The syllogism

Major: the kerygma is an encounter with God's love in Christ. Minor: the liturgy is where that mystery is given, above all the Eucharist (a, b). Conclusion: the liturgy is central to handing on the faith.

☞ The checker

q(eucharist_paschal): yes settled

info(owed(sc_1963, religious_submission))

Religious submission is owed to the Council. To the prayer, nothing: a witness weighs and cleaves nothing. To the Considerations, nothing (n. 8).