Pope Francis encourages efforts to promote a return to in-person attendance at liturgical events following the suspension of many Mass celebrations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
His message was read at the beginning of the 71st Italian Liturgical Week celebrated in Cremona.
BP. CLAUDIO MANIAGO
“This time of privation has resulted in an awareness of the importance of divine liturgy in the life of Christians, who find in the liturgy the objective mediation granted by the fact that Jesus Christ is not an idea nor an emotion, but a living person. And His Mystery is a historical event.”
Earlier this year, the Pope invited the faithful to rediscover the liturgy as a way to enrich personal prayer and build community. He explained that “all Christian spirituality is grounded in the celebration of the sacred mysteries.”
POPE FRANCIS
'A Christianity without liturgy. I dare say it perhaps would be a Christianity without Christ, without a complete Christ.'
The Pope prays that the National Liturgical Week will result in useful resources for parishes to keep the faith alive following last year's “liturgical fast,” which resulted in a decrease in Mass attendance among certain age groups.
BP. CLAUDIO MANIAGO
“That on Sunday, the Eucharistic assembly, ministers, the rite, may emerge from that marginalization toward which they seem to tend inexorably, while rediscovering the centrality of faith and spirituality of the faithful.”
The theme of this year's National Liturgical Week, which was postponed because of the pandemic, is taken from the Gospel of Matthew: “'Where two or three are gathered in my name.' Community, liturgies, and territories.”
CT
Settimana Liturgica Nazionale 2021
