Education and Liturgy: Thoughts on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Closing of Vatican Ii

Abstract

A s the Church celebrated on 8 December 2005 the fortieth n anniversary of the ending of the Second Vatican Council ( 8December 1965 being the date when Paul VI formally brought it to a close with the apostolic brief In Spintu Sancto), my thoughts were drawn to many of the themes this council discussed and synthesized in its sixteen documents. The first document to be promulgated was Sacrosanctum Concilium (4 December 1963), and the last, Gaudium et Spes, in company with the declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Hamanae, the decree on the ministry and life ofpriests, Presbyteromm Ordinis, and the decree on the Church's missionary activity,Ad Gentes (allon 7 December 1965). In an address given when he was stillCardinal Ratzinger, the present Holy Father discerned a deeper significance in the factseemingly coincidental at the time -that the first document to be promulgated was the Constitution on the Liturgy. He then showed its organic interconnection with the other three of the Council's four constitutions:The fact that it [5acrosanctum Concilium] was placed at the beginningwas basicallydue to pragmatic motives. But retrospectively, it must be said that it has a deeper meaning within the structure of the Council: adoration comes first. Therefore God comes first. This introduction corresponds to the norm of the Benedictine Rule: Open Dei nihil praeponatur.! As the second text ofthe Council, the Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium] should be considered as inwardly connected with the text on the liturgy. The Church is guided by prayer, by the mission ofglorifying God. Byits nature, ecclesiologyisconnectedwith the liturgy. It is, therefore, logical that the third Constitution [Dei Verbum] should speak of the Word of God that convokes the Church 135