Committee focuses on improving the liturgy in the diocese

Friday, Mar. 08, 2024

SALT LAKE CITY — The desire to create vibrant liturgies brought more than 30 people from 20 parishes across the Diocese of Salt Lake City to a four-hour meeting at the Pastoral Center on March 2. 

The liturgy of the Mass is “the heart and soul of who we are,” said Bishop Oscar A. Solis in his comments at the meeting. However, although “everyone should be excited to go to Mass to encounter the presence of God,” ensuring that the worship is inviting, uplifting, inspiring, reverential and joyful involves many components, he said. 

These components include good music, a welcoming environment and well-trained ministers, the bishop said, noting that “a beautiful concept of Vatican II” is that “liturgy is the work of the people of God,” and every member of the congregation has a role in it. 

One of these roles is hospitality, he said. “Each one of us plays an important part of setting the tone and environment” for the worship. 

Critical questions facing the local Church are what can be done to bring people back to Mass, and how to foster a sense of community and a sense of the presence of God, he said. 

Mass should be a vibrant form of worship that invites and inspires people “to come and celebrate with us as a faith community,” he said.

Creating that type of liturgy was the focus of the March 2 meeting of the diocesan Liturgical Commission. The guest speaker was the Very Reverend Rob Spaulding, president of the Southwest Liturgical Conference. Father Spaulding also serves as the director of the Office of Worship for the Diocese of Cheyenne and is pastor of the Newman Center in Laramie, Wyo. He focused his presentation on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the first document to be promulgated by Vatican II.

“A good foundation in the teachings from this document should help us follow the pope’s guidance and Bishop Solis’ hopes for vibrant liturgies in the diocese,” said Lorena Needham, director of the Salt Lake diocese’s Office of Worship.

Much of Fr. Spaulding’s presentation focused on the first two paragraphs of the second section of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which has the subheading “The Promotion of Liturgical Instruction and Active Participation.” The first sentence of this section reads, “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.”

This emphasis on the participation of the laity in the Eucharist was one of the key changes to the Mass brought about by Vatican II. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy describes the liturgy as “an action of the entire Body of Christ,” and “the liturgy is the gathered assembly of the faithful uniting in prayer,” Fr. Spaulding said. 

“We are not there as spectators,” he added. “We are not objects of the celebration that happens for us, but we are actors in the drama, participants in the liturgical action itself. The presider has the privilege of speaking words on our behalf to the Father, and speaking on behalf of God to the assembly, but we do this together. … It’s the active participation that realizes the presence of Christ.”

Even today, 60 years after Vatican II, many Catholics don’t have this understanding of the Eucharist, so catechesis is needed at every level, Fr. Spaulding said. 

Bishop Solis agreed that training on the liturgy is needed, and he asked those present at the meeting to take what they had learned back to their pastors and parishes, and to offer ongoing formation to all ministers of the parish.

Renewal and formation “are needed in our Church in order to recapture the understanding of reverence, knowledge and love, and to foster a devotion to the Holy Eucharist,” Bishop Solis said.

Hospitality was another issue stressed by both Fr. Spaulding and Bishop Solis, as well as several of those attending the meeting.

Mass-goers should feel like part of the Church community, Fr. Spaulding said, urging those present to creating a welcoming environment. This can be difficult in today’s multi-cultural world, he acknowledged, but one way to do this is to create a repertoire of songs that everyone in the diocese knows, he said.

“See diversity not as a problem to be solved but an incredible gift to be embraced,” he said.

Similarly, Bishop Solis asked those present to “Do something to see to it that even those who do not have the facility of the language will be given the opportunity to become a part of the worship community of the Body of Christ.”

The Mass should be a vibrant form of worship that invites and inspires people “to come and celebrate with us as a faith community,” the bishop said, and he asked those present to share any practices that help develop love of the Eucharist and form a Eucharistic community.

The meeting was recorded and will be made available to parishes, Needham said, adding that in the coming months, the Liturgical Commission will follow up this meeting with ways to implement the goals of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy in the diocese.