Three Definitions

The incidents I have been describing epitomize the revolution which has taken place in the liturgy of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Before continuing I would like to define three terms: "revolution," "liturgy" and " rite."

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines revolution as a "complete change, turning upside down, great reversal of conditions, fundamental reconstruction."

In his Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei, Pope Pius XII defines liturgy a follows:

The Sacred Liturgy is the public worship which our Redeemer, the Head of the Church, offers to the heavenly Father and which the community of Christ's faithful pays to its Founder, and through Him to the Eternal Father; briefly, it is the whole public worship of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, Head and members.

Please note carefully that Pope Pius teaches us that the liturgy is primarily something which Our Lord Jesus Christ does, and with which we have the privilege of associating ourselves. "Liturgy" is derived from a Greek word meaning a public service. A leitourgos was a man who performed a public service for the people. The Epistle to the Hebrews describes Our Lord as the "Leitourgos of holy things." The liturgy is His public religious work, undertaken to glorify His Father and bring grace to His people; it is, above all, the making present of that supreme sacrifice of Calvary in which He offered atonement for the sins of all mankind and at the same time won grace sufficient to redeem all men.

Our final definition concerns the word "rite." It can mean two things. Firstly, an entire complex of religious services used by a particular group in the worship of God; we can thus speak of Jewish rites, Muslim rites, and Christian rites. Within the Catholic Church there are a number of rites in this sense of the word. The largest, and the one to which we belong, is the Roman Rite. This is the complex of services for the worship of God and administration of the Sacraments which developed over the centuries in the Diocese of Rome, and which, due to the prestige of the first diocese of Christendom, was adopted by Catholics in many other countries, and was spread throughout the world by its missionaries. A number of religious orders such as the Dominicans have their own rite, but these are usually variants of the Roman Rite. There are also the Catholic Oriental rites which appear very different from our own. The best known example in the United States of America is the Byzantine Rite used by Ukrainian Catholics. If anyone hasn't been to one of their Masses I would recommend him to do so at the first opportunity. It may be celebrated in Church Slavonic, modern Ukrainian, or even English; in every case you will find it reverent and inspiring.

But, as I have said, we belong to the Roman Rite. When I speak of that rite undergoing a revolution, I mean that the complex of services we once knew and loved-----Baptism, Confirmation, Ordination, the Mass, and Benediction, to cite just a few-----has been completely changed, turned upside down, undergone a fundamental reconstruction.

The word "rite" can also be used to refer to a particular religious service, within the entire complex; we speak of "the rite of Baptism," "the rite of Confirmation," "the rite of Mass." Where the Sacraments are concerned, we must be particularly careful not to confuse the Sacramental rite with the Sacrament itself. Let us take the Sacrament of the Eucharist as an example. There is only one Sacrament, only one sacrifice, the making present of the Sacrifice of Calvary upon our altars when a validly ordained priest, using the correct matter, says the words of Consecration with the intention of doing what the Church does. But there are many rites recognized by the Church which make this Sacrifice present, and the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is equally that sacrifice, whichever rite is used.