(Vatican Radio) Hundreds of participants from more than 35 countries are in Rome this
week to take part in an international conference to study, promote, and renew the
appreciation of liturgical formation and celebration, and its foundation for the mission
of the Church.
The Sacra Liturgia Conference begins Tuesday evening with Solemn
Pontifical Vespers celebrated by Bishop Dominique Rey (pictured) of Fréjus-Toulon
in France. It is one of a number of initiatives within the Year of Faith, which commemorates
50 years since the start of the Second Vatican Council.
“The Conference is
really about looking at the Liturgy as the foundation for the life and mission of
the Church,” said Dom Alcuin Reid of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulons, who is organising
the event.
He said the aim of the event “is that people would go away understanding
that the true celebration of the Liturgy, the dignified, the proper celebration of
the Liturgy, is a necessary foundation for the Christian life and for the New Evangelization.”
The
Sacra Liturgia Conference has special reference to the teaching and example of Benedict
XVI, who made the liturgy an important focus of his pontificate. Dom Alcuin said the
Conference hopes “to pay tribute to Pope Benedict XVI and all that he did both as
Cardinal and as Pope, in raising the liturgical question in the life of the Church
and promoting liturgical renewal in promoting what some are coming to call the new
liturgical movement.” The Conference, he said, “is a step further along the path of
that new liturgical movement. It’s a movement, really, which looks forward, and forward
in a broad sense, so that there is best practice across the board, so that there is
the liturgy celebrated with that ars celebrandi, with fullness, with beauty,
with dignity.”
The liturgy, Dom Alcuin said, quoting the Second Vatican Council,
is “the ‘source and summit,’ it’s where our life comes from, and it’s also where it’s
going to, the heavenly liturgy – but also the liturgy here on earth, where we come,
yes, rejoicing, ‘carrying our sheaves,’ as the psalm says. But also bringing our sorrows,
bringing our tears, which, through Christ’s action in the liturgy can be turned into
joy.”
The Sacra Liturgia Conference goes from Tuesday, 25 June to Friday, 28
June.
Listen to the complete interview of Dom Alcuin Reid with Christopher
Wells: