Pope Leo XIV is calling on the Church to strengthen the relationship between catechesis and liturgical celebration so that Christian initiation may lead people to Christ. Source: Vatican News.
The Pope sent his greetings in a message to participants in the 76th National Liturgical Week, taking place in the Italian city of Catania.
The event takes place on August 24-27 under the theme, “A Church that generates: Liturgy and Christian Initiation.”
Signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, the message described the theme as being of “particular importance” for the Church today.
Pope Leo recalled that Christian initiation cannot be understood merely as “preparation for the Sacraments.”
Rather, he said, it should be the “womb” in which a community gives birth to faith and communion with the Lord.
The Pope pointed to the unity between catechesis and celebration that marked the Church from its beginnings, when the first Christians “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”.
He therefore invited Christian communities to return to this source by strengthening the value of the liturgy in Christian formation.
In the liturgy, Pope Leo said, “the mystery of Christ takes hold of us, transforms us, and causes us to be born as new creatures”.
Drawing on his catecheses concerning the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Pope stressed that Christian liturgical rites are “the ecclesial mediation through which the divine gift reaches us.”
This understanding, he said, requires the Church to recover the deeper meaning of liturgical gestures and symbols as expressions of actuosa participatio – the active participation of the faithful.
Catholics, especially those beginning a journey of faith, should therefore be introduced to forms of celebration that open their heart to God’s action.
The Pope also reflected on the communal dimension of the liturgy.
He said the liturgy forms Christians in communion, as it is celebrated as the action of one ecclesial body, which requires respect and fidelity towards the rites.
Pope Leo encouraged pastors and catechists to teach people to appreciate the “sober solemnity of liturgical gestures”, helping them understand and experience their meaning in all its richness.
FULL STORY
Pope Leo: Liturgy must nourish faith, fraternity and peace (Vatican News)
