Ecclesial Dimension of The Liturgy

The Ecclesial Dimension of
the Liturgy
We shall see today the function that
worship discharges with regard to the
Church. We began by going from the
Church to the liturgy, and now we return
from the liturgy to the Church.
The task of the liturgy in regard to the
Church is twofold:
It constitutes the Church as Church and
it expresses what the Church is essentially

is.
I. The liturgy constitutes the Church
That the liturgy constitutes the

Church is particularly true if we look
at it in its descending line, as God’s
merciful descent to man in Christ,
through Word and Sacrament.
The Proclamation of the Word of
God, through the reading from Holy
Scripture and through the homily (which
is an integral part of the liturgy) bears
highly ecclesial character.
The readings truly are not only
ecclesial in character but also the
Word of Scriptures possesses a
community-forming power.
The reasons are simple to understand:
That the Bible appears as the Book of the

Church, read and interpreted within
the framework of the Church’s tradition,
and in an atmosphere of fellowship of the

assembled community.
It is the Word of God that calls all men
together and keeps them together in the
ecclesia; in it all grow together into the
unity of faith and so become more
intensely a Church
Because the Word of God is a redeeming

Word and possesses a salvific power, it
has a function in the building up of the
Church.
• The liturgy is an Act of the Church. The
specific nature of Christian cult
depends on that of the assembly that
practices it.
• The Church’s liturgy has for its function

not only to offer God the worship due
to him but also to make this mystery of
salvation present and active among
human beings.

• The fact that the Church is a ‘cult
community’ the theology that liturgy is the
act of the whole Church. It is never the act
of an individual person, but vox sponsae,
the voice of the Bride herself.
• It is the holy people of God in its entirety

that offers up in gratitude to the Father “the
holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice
of eternal salvation”.

II. Liturgy expresses what the Church is
essentially is.
• While the first is the work chiefly of

the Word and the Sacrament, the
second, is that of the liturgy of
praise, which follows the rhythms of
time.
• The Eucharistic liturgy par
excellence the sacrament of
the ecclesial mystery: “ a
sign and instrument of
communion with God and
unity among all men”.
S.C. 48 states:
“The Church therefore, earnestly desire
that Christ’s faithful, when present at this
mystery of faith should not be there as
strangers or silent spectators… They
should be instructed by God’s word and be
nourished at the table of the Lord’s body;
they should give thanks to God; by offering
the Immaculate Victim,…they should be
drawn day by day into ever more perfect
union with God and with each other, so
that finally God may be all in all”.
Ecclesia as assembly:
In several places in the Holy

Scripture, especially in the great
epistles of St. Paul, the word Ekklesia
denotes not the collectivity of Christians
spread over the word but the local
community when it assembled for the
Word of God , praise or the breaking of
bread.
The original connotation
of the word Ekklesia in the New
Testament is the local, actually
assembled community. It is often
translated as “assembled
community”
Every liturgy-celebrating local community
is a Church. Here in actuality is the voice of
the Bride, always heard by God and therefore
possessing a value over and above the
prayer of individual believer, that can and
must be said in the seclusion of his own
house. (the reason why St. Paul applies the
image of the Bride, and of the Body of Christ,
naturally also the word ekklesia to the local
assembled community and to the collectivity
of all Christians.
Thus, every liturgical
synaxis (a word for the cultic
assemblies of Christians) is a
sign of the universal Church.
In the liturgy the Church “realizes”
that liturgy is the highest expression of
the Church’s life; it is an epiphany, a
becoming visible of the Church. The
liturgy activates the Church. Hence, we
experience what the reality of the
Church is in the ideal form of the
liturgical celebration.
The liturgical form that liturgy must take:
Because the Church is a terrestrial and

supraterrestrial reality, a divine reality
integrated into a human community, her
liturgy will be the celebration of divine
salvific acts under the veil of humanly
perceptible signs, worship, by reason of
the Church’s nature, will be bound by
symbolism.
Because the Church, in virtue of her very
name, is an ecclesia, that is, the community of
those who, from the dispersion of all races and
classes, religion and peoples, are called
together by God to be a unity, the community
assembled for the liturgy must also contain
men of every class and race, of every point
of view and way of life, in a brotherhood of
unity and equality.
Liturgical celebration imposes on
each the duty of meeting the other as
a member, as a brother; caritas
must be the mark of every
authentic celebration, which will
then have its repercussion in daily
life.
The Church is a body, in which
each member by virtue of the gifts of
grace bestowed on him has his own
place and his own task to perform, the
hierarchical structure of the Church
must be apparent in the liturgical
community through a distribution
of roles (celebrant, deacon,
acolytes, lector, choir, people, etc.)
The Church is a world Church
dispersed over the whole earth. It does not
demand rigid uniformity, but it does
demand a liturgical space that can be
recognized by its essential structure
over the world. This implies liturgical
legislation. For the Roman liturgy, Rome
has reserved such legislation to herself,
though allowing for a certain flexibility.
A clear distinction ought to be
made between the sign and what it
signified. This necessitates a double effort
on the part of the Church in her pilgrim
state: she must take care to make the sign
as authentic as possible, and much
exercise faith, in order to penetrate the
sign and recognize the reality that it
signifies.
•
SC #7 par.3 …
“The liturgy is considered as an exercise
of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the
liturgy the sanctification of the man is
signified by signs perceptible to the senses,
and is effected in a way which corresponds
with each of these signs; in the liturgy the
whole public worship is performed by the
Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is by the
Head and His members.
Actions that constitutes
the Church:
It is by means of its liturgical

celebrations and especially its
sacramental rite in the strict sense that
the Church gives its children birth into
the faith, feeds them, and strengthens
them throughout the course of their
earthly pilgrimage.
The Eucharistic celebration is
certainly the center and summit of
all Christian liturgy, that this function
of the liturgy is exercised most fully.
The Eucharistic liturgy is the
efficacious sign of the reality both
divine and human, that makes up
the Church.
The liturgy as epiphany of the
Church SC # 41; LG 26: in liturgical
celebrations the Church is manifested
as the sacrament of Christ, as the one,
holy catholic, and apostolic Church
gathered here and now; unity with the
universal Church and local bishop; the
parish community.
SC # 26 states the hierarchical and communal
nature of the liturgy:
“ Liturgical services are not private functions, but
are celebrations of the Church, which is the
‘sacrament of unity’, namely, the bishop united
and ordered under their bishops. Therefore,
liturgical services pertain to the whole body of
the Church; they manifest it and have effects
upon it; but they concern the individual members
of the Church in different ways, according to their
different ranks, office, and actual participation.”
It is the celebration of the priestly
people: the priestly people and the
sacrament of initiation: the ordained
ministers and the sacrament of orders;
the lay ministers and institution: active
participation: role of the presider, the
other ministers, and the assembly.
These are all the aspects of
ECCLESIAL LITURGY

Ecclesial Dimension of The Liturgy

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The Ecclesial Dimension of

It constitutes the Church as Church and

it expresses what the Church is essentially

That the liturgy constitutes the

That the Bible appears as the Book of the

and in an atmosphere of fellowship of the

Because the Word of God is a redeeming

• The Church’s liturgy has for its function

• It is the holy people of God in its entirety

• While the first is the work chiefly of

In several places in the Holy

Because the Church is a terrestrial and

It is by means of its liturgical

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