Lenten Reading: Christ is present in his Church - Part 2

03-13-2022Weekly Reflection

from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council

Indeed, in this great work which gives effect glory to God and brings holiness to men, Christ is always joining in partnership with himself his beloved Bride, the Church, which calls upon its Lord and through him gives worship to the eternal Father. It is therefore right to see the liturgy as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ, in which through signs addressed to the senses man’s sanctification is signifies and, in a way proper to each of these signs, made effective, and in which public worship is celebrated in its fullness by the mystical body Jesus Christ, that is, by the head and by his members.

Accordingly, every liturgical celebration, as an activity of Christ the priest and of his body, which is the Church, is a sacred action of a preeminent kind. No other action of the Church equals its title to power or its degree of effectiveness.