Pope Francis promotes from the hospital a liturgy that avoids ostentations

Pope Francis sent a message to promote a liturgy that avoids “ostentations” and “unnecessary prominence” from the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital in Rome, where he has been admitted for two weeks by bilateral pneumonia.

“I urge you, therefore, to propose and promote a liturgical style that expresses the monitoring of Jesus, avoiding unnecessary ostentations and prominence,” wrote the pontiff in a message sent to the course for responsible for the episcopal liturgical celebrations that takes place these days in the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of San Anselmo in Rome.

In a new document that carries its official signature, he urged the liturgists gathered at this pontifical university linked to the Benedictines to perform their ministry “with discretion, without boasting the results of your service.”

Despite the infection that affects the two lungs and for which he needs oxygen therapy to breathe, the Holy Father continues to work from the hospital as demonstrates this message, dated Wednesday, February 26, but published today.

The Holy Father says that the person responsible for liturgical celebrations “is not just a theology professor.”

“It is not a rubricist, which applies the norms; It is not a sacristan, who prepares what is necessary for the celebration. He is a teacher at the service of the prayer of the community, ”he said.

In this way, he said that he must prepare the celebrations “with wisdom, for the good of the Assembly”, translate into “celebrative practice the theological principles expressed in liturgical books”, in addition to accompanying and supporting “the Bishop in his role as promoter and custodian of liturgical life.”

Thus he insisted that the care of the liturgy is “above all care of prayer, that is, of the encounter with the Lord.”

The Pontiff also recalled that by proclaiming Santa Teresa de Ávila doctor of the Church, St. Paul VI defined his mystical experience as “a love that becomes light and wisdom: wisdom of divine things and human things.”

In this way, he claimed the example of the Spanish Holy as a “great teacher of spiritual life.”

On the other hand, he called on those responsible for the liturgy to prepare and guide the celebrations by combining “divine wisdom and human wisdom.”

“The first is acquired praying, meditating, contemplating; The second comes from the study, from the effort to be deepened, from the ability to listen, ”he added.

In any case, he made it clear that to succeed in these tasks, they need to keep their eyes on the town.

“This will help them understand the needs of the faithful, as well as the forms and modalities to favor their participation in liturgical action,” he said.

Similarly, he stressed that in the cult “the encounter between doctrine and pastoral is not an optional technique, but a constitutive aspect of the liturgy, which must always be embodied, inculturated, expressing the creed of the Church.”

“Consequently, the joys and the sufferings, dreams and concerns of God’s people have a hermeneutical value that we cannot ignore,” he said.

Pope Francis cited the first rector of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, the Benedictine Abad Salvatore Marsili, who in 1964 invited to become aware of the message of the Second Vatican Council, “in the light of which a true pastoral without liturgy is not possible, because the liturgy is the culmination to which the entire action of the Church tends.”