Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, is one of the constitutions of the Second Vatican Council. It was approved by the assembled bishops by a vote of 2,147 to 4 and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 4 December 1963. The main aim was to revise the traditional liturgical texts and rituals to reflect more fully fundamental principles, and be more pastorally effective in the changed conditions of the times, clarifying not only the role of ordained ministers but the modalities of appropriate participation of lay faithful in the Catholic Church's liturgy, especially that of the Roman Rite. The title is taken from the opening lines of the document and means "This Sacred Council".
Mass is the main Eucharistic liturgical service in many forms of Western Christianity. The term Mass is commonly used in the Catholic Church, Western Rite Orthodoxy, Old Catholicism, and Independent Catholicism. The term is also used in some Lutheran churches, as well as in some Anglican churches, and on rare occasion by other Protestant churches.
The Mass of Paul VI, also known as the Ordinary Form or Novus Ordo, is the most commonly used liturgy in the Catholic Church. It was promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969 and its liturgical books were published in 1970; those books were then revised in 1975, they were revised again by Pope John Paul II in 2000, and a third revision was published in 2002.
Eucharistic adoration is a devotional practice primarily in Western Catholicism and Western Rite Orthodoxy, but also to a lesser extent in certain Lutheran and Anglican traditions, in which the Blessed Sacrament is adored by the faithful. This practice may occur either when the Eucharist is exposed, or when it is not publicly viewable because it is reserved in a place such as a tabernacle.
In Christianity, worship is the act of attributing reverent honour and homage to God. In the New Testament, various words are used to refer to the term worship. One is proskuneo which means to bow down to God or kings.
The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is the dicastery of the Roman Curia that handles most affairs relating to liturgical practices of the Latin Church as distinct from the Eastern Catholic Churches and also some technical matters relating to the sacraments.
The Roman Rite is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the sui iuris particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs rites such as the Roman Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours as well as the manner in which sacraments and blessings are performed.
Liturgical music originated as a part of religious ceremony, and includes a number of traditions, both ancient and modern. Liturgical music is well known as a part of Catholic Mass, the Anglican Holy Communion service and Evensong, the Lutheran Divine Service, the Orthodox liturgy, and other Christian services, including the Divine Office.
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, also called Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament or the Rite of Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction, is a devotional ceremony, celebrated especially in the Roman Catholic Church, but also in some other Christian traditions such as Anglo-Catholicism, whereby a bishop, a priest, or a deacon blesses the congregation with the Eucharist at the end of a period of adoration.
Catholic liturgy means the whole complex of official liturgical worship, including all the rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church, as opposed to private devotions. In this sense the arrangement of all these services in certain set forms is meant. Liturgy encompasses the entire service: prayer, reading and proclamation, singing, gestures, movement and vestments, liturgical colours, symbols and symbolic actions, the administration of sacraments and sacramentals.
The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner". The Church describes the Mass as the "source and summit of the Christian life", and teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace to receive Christ in the Eucharist.
Jan Michael Joncas is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, liturgical theologian, and composer of contemporary Catholic music best known for his hymn "On Eagle's Wings".
Contemporary Catholic liturgical music encompasses a comprehensive variety of styles of music for Catholic liturgy that grew both before and after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The dominant style in English-speaking Canada and the United States began as Gregorian chant and folk hymns, superseded after the 1970s by a folk-based musical genre, generally acoustic and often slow in tempo, but that has evolved into a broad contemporary range of styles reflective of certain aspects of age, culture, and language. There is a marked difference between this style and those that were both common and valued in Catholic churches before Vatican II.
In Christianity, the cantor, female chantress, sometimes called the precentor or the protopsaltes, is the chief singer, and usually instructor, employed at a church, with responsibilities for the choir and the preparation of the Mass or worship service. The term is also used for a similar task in Reform Judaism and in Ancient Egypt.
The liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XII took place mostly between 1947 and 1958.
Pope Paul VI's reform of the Roman Curia was accomplished through a series of decrees beginning in 1964, principally through the apostolic constitution Regimini Ecclesiae universae issued on 15 August 1967.
Redemptionis sacramentum is an instruction on the proper way to celebrate Mass in the Roman Rite and others, and considered as well the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It was issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on 25 March 2004 over the signature of the Congregation's prefect, Cardinal Francis Arinze. It was designed to aid bishops in implementing the Roman Missal, issued in 2002. It follows Pope John Paul II's 2003 encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia calling for an Instruction on the liturgical norms.
Divine Worship: The Missal (DW:TM) is the liturgical book containing the instructions and texts for the celebration of Mass by the former Anglicans within the Catholic Church in the three personal ordinariates of Great Britain, United States and Canada, and Australia. The rite contained in this missal is the Anglican Use, a liturgical use of the Roman Rite Mass with elements of Anglican worship. It was approved for use beginning on the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2015.
Musicae Sacrae is a 1955 encyclical by Pope Pius XII dealing with Catholic liturgical music. It updated the 1903 motu proprioInter pastoralis officii sollicitudines, and was furtherly amended by the instruction Musicam sacram in 1967.
Liturgical use of Latin is the practice of performing Christian liturgy in Ecclesiastical Latin, typically in the liturgical rites of the Latin Church.
