Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that liturgy is a participation in Christ’s own prayer, writes Cathal Barry
As the work of Christ, the Church teaches that the liturgy is also an action of his Church.
“It makes the Church present and manifests her as the visible sign of the communion in Christ between God and men,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states.
It engages the faithful in the new life of the community and involves the "conscious, active, and fruitful participation" of everyone, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium says.
Nothing that the sacred liturgy “does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church”, Catholic teaching holds that it must be “preceded by evangelisation, faith and conversion”.
“It can then produce its fruits in the lives of the faithful: new life in the Spirit, involvement in the mission of the Church, and service to her unity.”
The Church teaches that liturgy is also a participation in Christ's own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
“In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal,” the Catechism states.
Through the liturgy the inner person is rooted and grounded in "the great love with which [the Father] loved us" in his beloved Son (Ephesians 2:4). It is the same "marvellous work of God" that is lived and internalised by all prayer, "at all times in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18).
The key Vatican II document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, says that the liturgy is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” while also being “the font from which all her power flows”. It is, therefore, the privileged place for catechising the People of God, according to Church teaching.
As Saint John Paul II said: "Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men."
The Catechism states that liturgical catechesis “aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ”. “Such catechesis is to be presented by local and regional catechisms,” the document says.
Later in the Catehcism, it is stated that the Church “was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit”.
The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the "dispensation of the mystery" the age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his Church "until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).
In the Church at present, the Catechism states that Christ “now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age” acting “through the sacraments” in what is called "the sacramental economy".
This is the communication (or ‘dispensation’) of the fruits of Christ's Paschal mystery in the celebration of the Church's sacramental liturgy.