The Papal MC, Msgr. Guido Marini’s talk on a host of liturgical issues (many thanks to NLM for posting the text) has been making the rounds throughout much of St. Blog’s. It is a relatively long presentation so it has taken me some time to get through, and I’m pretty sure I’ll need to go through it again to get it all, but I wanted to post here before it got away from me any further. One thing that struck me:
“My Lord and my God,” we have been taught to say from childhood at the moment of the consecration. In such a way, borrowing the words of the apostle St. Thomas, we are led to adore the Lord, made present and living in the species of the holy Eucharist, uniting ourselves to Him, and recognising Him as our all. From there it becomes possible to resume our daily way, having found the correct order of life, the fundamental criterion whereby to live and to die.
Here is the reason why everything in the liturgical act, through the nobility, the beauty, and the harmony of the exterior sign, must be condusive to adoration, to union with God: this includes the music, the singing, the periods of silence, the manner of proclaiming the Word of the Lord, and the manner of praying, the gestures employed, the liturgical vestments and the sacred vessels and other furnishings, as well as the sacred edifice in its entirety. It is under this perspective that the decision of his Holiness, Benedict XVI, is to be taken into consideration, who, starting from the feast of Corpus Christi last year, has begun to distribute holy Communion to the kneeling faithful directly on the tongue. By the example of this action, the Holy Father invites us to render visible the proper attitude of adoration before the greatness of the mystery of the Eucharistic presence of our Lord. An attitude of adoration which must be fostered all the more when approaching the most holy Eucharist in the other forms permitted today.
Read the whole thing, there is a lot more where that came from. There is so much damage to recover from in so many areas, but the Pope has already begun the great work. Some day, perhaps, we will talk of this indeed as his Great Work.
