Bulletins

October 25, 2015

Download the Bulletin as a PDF

From the Second Vatican Council...

2. The liturgy, 'through which the work of our redemption is accomplished,' (Secret*, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost) most of all in the divine sacrifice of the eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek (Cf. Heb. 13:14). While the liturgy daily builds up those who are within into a holy temple of the Lord, into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (Cf. Eph. 2:21-22), to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (Cf. Eph. 4:13), at the same time it marvelously strengthens their power to preach Christ, and thus shows forth the Church to those who are outside as a sign lifted up among the nations (Cf. Is. 11:12) under which the scattered children of God may be gathered together (Cf. John 11:52), until there is one sheepfold and one shepherd (Cf. John 10:16).

4. In faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that holy Mother Church holds all lawfully acknowledged rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way. The Council also desires that, where necessary, the rites be revised carefully in the light of sound tradition, and that they be given new vigor to meet the circumstances and needs of modern times.

Sacrosanctum Concilium
Sacred Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
4 December 1963

The very first footnote of Vatican II is a reference to the Missale Romanum, the book of prayers for the Mass which had been only slightly changed over the previous many centuries. The "Secret" is a quiet prayer offered by the priest immediately before the Preface. It corresponds to what it called the "Prayer over the Gifts" or "super oblata" in the current ordinary form of the Roman Rite.

In order to understand what Vatican II says about the sacred liturgy it is critical to understand and love the traditional Roman Rite which the Council Fathers were offering every day, what Pope Benedict XVI dubbed the "Extraordinary Form".

God bless you.

Rev. Christopher Pollard