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Vatican II Liturgy Forty years later, reforms are called a gift of the Holy Spirit By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s document on the liturgy, Pope John Paul II, bishops and speakers at a Vatican conference called the council’s liturgical reforms a gift of the Holy Spirit. While the council’s goal of increasing people’s understanding of the Mass and their participation in it has been achieved, the pope and others said it was time to focus on what is too often missing: silence, reverence and a sense of mystery. “An aspect which must be cultivated with greater commitment in our communities is the experience of silence,” Pope John Paul wrote in a Dec. 4 apostolic letter marking the anniversary of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. When people’s daily lives are frantic and full of noise, “rediscovering the value of silence is vital,” the pope wrote in the document, which was distributed only in Italian. Pope John Paul said the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council was one of God’s greatest gifts to the church in the 20th century. The reform, he said, “demonstrated how it is possible to join norms which guarantee the identity and decorum of the liturgy with space for creativity and adaptation that draw the liturgy closer to the expressive needs of various regions, situations and cultures.” A lack of respect for the norms, and not the reform itself, has led to some “serious abuses” that cast a shadow over the mystery being celebrated and that cause concern and tensions among Catholics, he said. Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, Ill., in a Nov. 30 pastoral letter, told people in his diocese that reverence during Mass, expressed in words, gestures,
music and surroundings, inspires reverence for all of the Catholic faith and ultimately for God himself. “I would ask everyone to show greater reverence for the mysteries we celebrate,” Bishop Jenky said in his letter explaining and commenting on the new General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which took effect in all U.S. dioceses on the first Sunday of Advent. The bishop said reverence at Mass starts with actions such as dressing appropriately and arriving on time; praying and reflecting on the readings before Mass; observing the one-hour fast before Communion; repenting of one’s sins; going to confession frequently; performing acts of self-denial; and showing Christian charity to others. Participation in the Mass includes silence at appropriate times, Bishop Jenky said. Periods of silence allow the mystery of Christ to “soak deeply into our soul” during the liturgy, he added. The anniversary of the Vatican II document also was celebrated with a daylong Vatican conference sponsored by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. Claretian Father Matias Auge, a consultant to the congregation, told the conference that the church faces the challenge of balancing an individual’s need for a sense of devotion with the liturgy’s role as the prayer of a believing community. “Putting in harmony the needs of the individual and those of the community” would solve many of the tensions currently surrounding the liturgy, he said at the Dec. 4 conference. Father Auge said the widespread feeling that the new Mass has lost a “sense of mystery” must be addressed, but not by giving in to an attitude that liturgy should be “a strictly individual and purely private affair.” VATICAN II LITURGY, page 18
Franciscan Br. Bob Brady and volunteer Diana Sonn help prepare individual pumpkin pies for St. Anthony Dining Room’s Thanksgiving Dinner. Nearly 3,000 Thanksgiving meals were served with the help of 150 volunteers. Preparations are underway for an equally large event on Christmas Day at St. Anthony’s Dining Hall in San Francisco.
Concern expressed about impact of budget cuts on poor, needy By Patrick Joyce The most vulnerable members of society will be hit hardest by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to begin his attack on a $25 billion state budget gap by cutting nearly $2 billion in current state spending, Catholic leaders say. “Obviously there is going to be pain to be shared over the course of time but that pain shouldn’t start with the blind, disabled and elderly,” Edward J. Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said. “We need to find some way to share that pain more responsibly. We would ask the Governor to reconsider his cuts in programs for the neediest among us.” “Balancing the budget at the expense of the poor is terribly unjust,” Rick Mockler, executive director of Catholic Charities of California, said. “Food stamps and welfare are subsistence programs. The majority of recipients are working and struggling to support themselves.” The poor did not share in California’s economic boom of the late 1990s, Mockler said. “They saw stagnation and even a decline in their incomes,” he said, and now they are facing cuts in programs that “enable them to put food on the table and pay the rent.”
“These are very tough times. We are facing a crisis in human services and health care in San Francisco and the archdiocese,” George Wesolek, director of public policy and social concerns for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said. “We don’t know the details yet but it looks like the cuts will hit the blind, the poor and the disabled. We will do all we can to educate people about what the impact of these cuts will be. When they know the impact, they will look differently at these cuts.” The California Catholic Conference, the public policy agency of the state’s bishops, is “troubled by elements in the Governor’s proposal that involve what we call food security issues,” Dolejsi said. The proposal targets two food stamp provisions passed by the Legislature this year with the backing of the Catholic Conference. One provision allows people making the transition from welfare to work to continue to receive food stamps for six months after they start a job. “I’m not sure that this is a necessary or prudent cut because we get substantial portions of federal payments back for the food stamps,” Dolejsi said. BUDGET, page 18
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Quinn’s 50th jubilee . . . . . . 3 EWTN comes to Bay Area . . 6 Senior Living. . . . . . . . . . 7-9 Advent giving ideas . . . . . . 8
Third sunday of advent: December 14 December 12, 2003
Bishop Wang on Christ . . 15
Former Vatican Ambassador visits City
Hanna Boys Center
Stalking the Divine. . . . . . 17
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