Active Participation - what is it?

This podcast is a reading from the collected works "Theology of the Liturgy" by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger.
It is a follow up to the podcast "Love and Worship" because it gives a wider and deeper understanding of what it means to participate in the sacred liturgy, the Holy Mass. Although he writes theologically, I have always found our Pope Emeritus to be singularly clear in his thought and in his expression.
Some Latin words that he uses might be helpful to see:
actio is the origin of our English action
oratio is the origin of our English oration but sometimes it is translated as prayer,  though there is another Latin word prex which means prayer or intercession.

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Music by Samuel F. Johannson and by Tomomi Kato from Pixabay

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

This podcast is a reading from the book of Joseph Ratzinger when he was Cardinal before becoming Pope Benedict the 16th, and it's a volume of his collected works on theology of the liturgy, and it comes from page 106. In this section, he's talking about the concept of active participation, so let me read it to you to express one of its main ideas for the shaping of the liturgy. The Second Vatican Council gave us the phrase, parti the active participation of everyone in the Oprah Day or the work of God in what happens in the worship of God. It was quite right to do so, but what does this act of participation come down to? What does it mean that we have to do? Unfortunately, the word was quickly misunderstood to mean something external, entailing a need for general activity as if as many people as possible, as often as possible should be visibly engaged in action. However, the word participation refers to a principle action in which everyone has a part, and so if we want to discover the kind of doing that active participation involves, we need first of all to determine what this central axio or action is, in which all the members of the community are supposed to participate By the axio of the liturgy, the sources mean the Eucharistic prayer or the canon of the mass, the real liturgical action. The true liturgical Act is the[inaudible], the great prayer that forms the core of the Eucharistic celebration, the whole of which was therefore called [inaudible] by the fathers of the church at first simply in terms of the form of the liturgy, this was quite correct because the essence of the Christian liturgy is to be found in the orio that is its center and fundamental form. Calling the Eucharist Orio was then a quite standard response to the pagans and to the questioning intellectuals in general. What the fathers were saying was this, the sacrificial animals and all those things that you had and have and which ultimately satisfy no one are now abolished in their place, has come the sacrifice of the word with a capital W. We are the spiritual religion in which in truth, a word-based worship takes place. Goats and cattle are no longer slaughtered. Instead, the word summing up our existence is addressed to God and identified with the word the word of God who draws us into true worship. Perhaps it would be useful to note here that the word[inaudible] originally means not prayer for which the Latin word is PreK, but solemn public speech. Such speech now attains its supreme dignity through its being addressed to God in full awareness that it comes from him and is made possible by him, but this is only just a hint of the central issue. This[inaudible] the Eucharistic prayer, the canon is really more than speech. It is the axio in the higher sense of the word for what happens in it is that the human axio has performed either two by the priests in the various religions of the world, steps back and makes way for the axial divina, the action of God. In this orio, the priest speaks with the eye of the Lord, this is my body, this is my blood. He knows that he is now speaking not from his own resources, but in virtue of the sacrament that he has received. He has become the voice of someone else who is now speaking and acting this action of God, which takes place through human speech is the real action for which all of creation is in expectation. The elements of the earth are trans, substantiated, pulled, so to speak, from their creaturely, Anchorage grasped at the deepest ground of their being and changed into the body and blood of the Lord. The new heaven and the new Earth are anticipated. The real action in the liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is the action of God himself. This is what is new and distinctive about the Christian liturgy. God himself acts and does what is essential. He inaugurates the new creation, makes himself accessible to us so that through the things of the earth, through our gifts, we can communicate with him in a personal way, but how can we participate, have a part in this action are not God and man completely In commen, incommensurable Can man the infinite and sinful one, cooperate with God, the infinite and holy one. Yes, he can precisely because God himself has become man, become body, and here again and again he comes through his body to us who live in the body. The whole event of the incarnation, cross resurrection and the second coming is present as the way by which God draws man into cooperation with himself. As we have seen, this is expressed in the liturgy, in the fact that the petition for acceptance is part of the[inaudible] true, the sacrifice of the logos. The word is accepted already and forever, but we must still pray for it to become our sacrifice that we ourselves, as we said, may be transformed into the logos, conformed to the logos, and so be made the true body of Christ. That is the issue and that is what we have to pray for. The petition itself is a way into the incarnation and the resurrection, the path that we take in the wayfaring state of our existence in this real action, in this prayerful approach to participation, there is no difference between priests and laity. True addressing the aio to the Lord in the name of the church and at its core, speaking with the very eye of Jesus Christ. That is something that can be done only through Sacramento empowerment. Part participation in that which no man does, that which the Lord himself and only he can do that is equally for everyone. In the words of St. Paul, it is a question of being united to the Lord and thus becoming one spirit with him. The point is that ultimately the difference between the ay Christie, the action of Christ and our own action is done away with. There is only one action, which is at the same time His and ours. Ours because we have become one body and one spirit with him. The uniqueness of the Eucharistic liturgy lies precisely in the fact that God himself is acting and that we are drawn into that action of God. Everything else is therefore secondary. Of course, external actions, reading, singing, the bringing up of the gifts can be distributed in a sensible way. By the same token, participation in the liturgy of the word reading and singing is to be distinguished from the sacramental celebration proper. We should be clearly aware that external actions are quite secondary here. Doing really must stop when we come to the heart of the matter, the[inaudible]. It must be plainly evident that the orio is the heart of the matter, but that it is important precisely because it provides a space for the Axio of God. Anyone who grasps this will easily see that it is now a matter not of looking at or towards the priest, but of looking together toward the Lord and going out to meet him. The almost theatrical entrance of different players into the liturgy, which is so common today, especially during the preparation of the gifts, quite simply misses the point if the various external actions, as a matter of fact, there are not very many of them, though they are being artificially multiplied, become the essential in the liturgy. If the liturgy degenerates intergen activity, then we have radically misunderstood the God-centered drama of the liturgy and lapsed almost into parody. True liturgical education cannot consist in learning and experimenting with external activities. Instead, one must be led towards the essential axial which makes the liturgy what it is towards the transforming power of God who wants through what happens in the liturgy to transform us and the world. That's the end of the reading, and I hope you may have benefited from it and perhaps be led to read more of these marvelous words of Joseph Ratzinger.