We must do our homework to bring liturgy to life

WE HAVE all become familial with the Prayer of the Faithful in our parishes, but do we really understand its liturgical significance or use it properly? It is one thing to introduce the rite ol the Bidding Prayer into our parishes but quite another to grasp the liturgical reasoning behind it. So it gets "done" the same way every Sunday with the same responses much as the offertory procession gets done. They are regarded by many as just the trimmings of the English Mass which were a "spin off' from the Second Vatican Council. The response "Lord, graciously hear us" has often become as inspiring as the lightning responses to the Litany of Loreto, We have not done our homework either at local or national level, and it is small wonder that liturgical abuses have crept into the "do-ityourself' parishes. At least they show some initiative and have grasped the underlying principle that the local community must present its unique petitions in its own individual way as part of the universal Church. This is not possible in the vast majority of parishes because the requisite pedagogy required by the council's document on liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, Art. 14 has not been achieved.
It is with the hope of building a bridge from where we are in our liturgical expertise to where we should be that I have just completed a book entitled "The Prayer of the Faithful". In this book I have given a short history of the liturgical practice, as well as composing petitions for the three-year cycle, together with petitions for the sacraments, as well as those of a more specific parochial nature.
The Bidding Prayer must be set within the context and pastoral tone of the whole Vatican Council: to understand one is to grasp the significance of the other. The renewal of the liturgy was seen by the Council Fathers as the visible expression and practical machinery by which the Church would come alive at all levels, especially locally, in a deeper and more committed way. To achieve this it saw the involvement of the laity through full and active participation in the liturgy (Art. 14) as absolutely vital to renewal both spiritually and pastorally.
It understood the quality of the restored Prayer of the Faithful as the liturgical barometer by which we could gauge the spiritual atmosphere of the parish. If the Bidding Prayer was done badly then this was a sure sign that the renewal of the parish in Council terms and ideology was still a long way off.
A living parish and a living liturgy are two sides, of the same coin and are complementary. Where the laity have little or no part in the life of the parish then it is only to be expected that the petitions will be artificial and unreal bearing no relationship to their daily lives. On the other hand where the parish is a living unit of priests and people, whose spiritual horizons are not limited by parish boundaries or specifically local needs, then their petitions will reflect and fulfil their unity and mission.
The priest opens and closes the Prayer of the Faithful; he does not make the petitions. This would defeat the end whereby the faithful are encouraged to make their petitions for the needs of the Church and world as they see them. Underlying all the petitions is the fact that they form part of the prayer of Christ himself present in the community.
Just as the Eucharistic Prayer belongs to the priest alone so also the petitions are of right the privilege and duty of the laity. The priest's direction of the whole prayer is not confined to the actual operation during a Sunday Mass, but in the way he understands and trains his people in a true appreciation of this great opportunity to pray in the name of the Church. He facilitates the petitions, for example, by the message of his homily in which he opens (breaks) the Word of God for his people.
The Second Vatican Council was conscious that for centuries the laity had been assigned a second-class role of spectator in the liturgy. To rectify this the Council restored the Bidding Prayer which is as old as the Church itself. St Paul's advice to Timothy that "there should be prayers offered for everyone" (1. Tim. 2, 1-3) is enshrined in the Council's document. (Att. 53) as the basis on which the ancient practice of lay intercessory prayer within the Mass was to be restored.
The intercessions are always of petition, never of thanksgiving, because the latter belongs essentially to the Eucharistic Prayer. The call to prayer is addressed by the celebrant to the asembled community inviting them to pray. It is not addressed to God or to any of. the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. The individual petitions are always expressions of general intentions in so far as they help the local congregation to think outside of itself and its own needs. Inward-looking petitions are a sign that the parish is not mission-orientated. Because parishes are by and large taught to be insular, the general nature of the petitions will soon be lost unless the parish as a unit faces outward towards the Church as a whole and the world.
The intentions follow a definite sequence as laid down by the
Council, but there is a great flexibility allowed and encouraged. The priest and people will soon become more sensitive and aware of this flexibility as they understand more fully the nature of the Prayer of the Faithful. In this way a step forward will have been taken in our liturgical renewal. We will soon have more frequent use of sung responses as well as a meaningful use of creative silent responses.
1 have stressed throughout the book the need for silence in the heart of our petitions because we need to listen to God even as we make petitions to him. Liturgical reform or restoration does not of itself bring renewal. There is a world of difference between rubrics and liturgy. When we live out the Prayer of the Faithful in our own lives then the Church will be renewed in us. There is nothing greater we could hope to achieve and the Prayer of the Faithful is a means to this end.