Question 4.61

4.61 And does the same go for the documents that follow?

Yes, because the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the second document of the Council, begins with these words: “Lumen gentium cum sit Christus” (Christ is the Light of nations). The first sentence of the constitution clearly presents a theological vision of the Church. Benedict XVI always tried to demonstrate that the heart of the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council is a fundamentally theological ecclesiology.

During a talk on the ecclesiology of the constitution Lumen gentium, at the International Congress on the implementation of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council organized by the Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, quoting a conference given in 1933 by Father Johann Baptist Metz, he said: “The crisis reached by European Christianity is no longer primarily or at least exclusively an ecclesial crisis. … The crisis is more profound: it is not only rooted in the situation of the Church: the crisis has become a crisis of God.” Joseph Ratzinger recalled that the Second Vatican Council was not only an ecclesiological council but, much more than that, a discourse about God, and not just within the Christian world, but directed to the whole world. The Council spoke to mankind about this God who is the God of all, who saves all and is accessible to all. Vatican II intended to subordinate its discourse about the Church to its discourse about God and to propose an ecclesiology along theological lines. The Council does not consider the Church as a self-enclosed reality but sees her in terms of Christ.

The Church is like the moon. She does not shine with her own light but reflects the light of Christ. Indeed, just as the moon without the sun is dark, opaque, and invisible, so too is the Church if she separates herself from Christ, true God and true man. Ecclesiology shows that it depends on Christology and is connected to it.

It is likewise easy to see the close connection between the two constitutions that follow and support one another. The Church allows herself to be led by an intense life of prayer, praise, and adoration and by her mission of glorifying God in the midst of nations. Ecclesiology is thus inseparable from the liturgy. The Church is made to praise and adore God; she is nothing without God.

It is understandable that right after that comes the third dogmatic constitution, Dei Verbum, on the Word of God, who calls the Church together to nourish and renew her and to enlighten her path. For the Word of God is the heart of the message that the Church must reveal and transmit to the world.

The fourth document, the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, on the Church in the Modern World, shows how the glorification of God appears in the active life of the Church. The Word of God is like a light that the Church receives and brings to the world so that it might emerge from the darkness and become a glorification of God.

Unfortunately, right after the Council, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was understood, not in terms of the fundamental primacy of adoration, of the Church humbly kneeling before the greatness of God, but rather as a book of formulas. … We have seen all sorts of “creative” liturgical planners who sought to find tricks to make the liturgy attractive, more communicative, by involving more and more people, but all the while forgetting that the liturgy is made for God. If you make God the Great Absent One, then all sorts of downward spirals are possible, from the most trivial to the most contemptible.

Benedict XVI often recalled that the liturgy is not supposed to be a work of personal creativity. If we make the liturgy for ourselves, it moves away from the divine; it becomes a ridiculous, vulgar, boring theatrical game. We end up with liturgies that resemble variety shows, an amusing Sunday party at which to relax together after a week of work and cares of all sorts. Once that happens, the faithful go back home, after the celebration of the Eucharist, without having encountered God personally or having heard him in the inmost depths of their heart. What is missing is this silent, contemplative, face-to-face meeting with God that transforms us and restores our energies, which allows us to reveal him to a world that is increasingly indifferent to spiritual questions. The heart of the eucharistic mystery is the celebration of the Passion and tragic death of Christ and of his Resurrection; if this mystery is submerged in long, noisy, elaborate ceremonies, we have to fear the worst. Some Masses are so hectic that they are no different from a county fair. We have to rediscover the fact that the essence of the liturgy will eternally be characterized by care in seeking God as his sons and daughters.