Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T23:47:41.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Mass: Source and Centre of the Liturgy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Once the central position of the liturgy in the plan of redemption is recognized and when it is distinguish from the protocol of its administration (the rubrics), then it is seen, not as an end in itself, but the function of communication for divine life so that we, who come from the Trinity, may live by the Trinity and go to the Trinity. All definitions of liturgy imply its divine source, the Mass.

The Liturgy is the official dispensation of the Mysteries of Christ. It is ‘the whole body of official prayers and sacramental actions whereby the communication of men with God is carried on in the Church', ‘the life-dispensing, life-preserving and life-restoring activity of Ecclesia, the mystical Christ'. It is the official distribution of Christ's life by which through the Church he communicates grace to individuals by means of the four inter-related parts: the sacraments, the sacramentals and ritual prayers, the Divine Office, and the Liturgical Year—all centred about an finding their source in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 See first article of this series, November, 1955.

2 Cf. Humbert Cterissac, O.P., The Mystery of the Church

3 Cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Le Sauveur et Son Amour Pour Nous, 1933, p.367ff. Cette oblation intdrieure, qui est toujours vivante au coeur du Christ, est-elle numeriquement la meme que celle par laquelle il s'offrit depuis sa venue en ce monde et surtout sur la Croix?’

4 Sister Jane Marie, O.P. Living in Christ. Ann Arbor, 1943, p . 33.

5 On the complicated history of the offertory procession Fr Jungman's Missamm Solemnia may be Consulted. (French translation II, 271-298.)

6 Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass. St Louis, 1937, pp. 57-58.