A rich day of learning more about the Sunday Eucharistic Liturgy began with “Morning Prayer” in the chapel as more than 80 people gathered for this adult faith development session on Saturday, March 25^th, 2006 at the Diocesan Centre. Professor Susan Roll, an expert in Liturgy and Sacramental Theology, led participants through the mass, some of its history, ritual meaning, and its roots in the Documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Susan emphasized a new liturgical spirituality that emerged as a result of the teachings on the Sacred Liturgy promulgated at the Second Vatican Council. She mentioned that these changes have not yet, even more than forty years later, been fully understood and implemented. Thus, there is still much work to be done.

Susan explained that liturgy planned and celebrated well empowers and enlivens, shapes and strengthens our Christian life. It is the place to which the community returns to be nourished and to find its way. Susan expressed her hope that participants would find insights from the session to take back to their parishes to help create better celebrations.

Participants had many questions, including why it is that there seems to be such disagreement and tension about when we should stand, sit, and kneel during the Sunday Eucharist. After explaining some of the reasons behind appropriate stances at different times, with special attention to explaining how standing is a very open, grounded, reverent position that speaks of our readiness to enter into a covenant relationship with God, Susan summed up these differences and tensions as a reflection of the fact that we are in a time of transition, still moving, and growing toward fully understanding and embracing the Liturgical changes expressed in the documents of Vatican II.

Participants spent considerable time in small groups in the afternoon discussing interesting questions related to the Constitution on the Divine Liturgy. People grappled with such issues as whether or not people were well prepared for the changes of the Second Vatican Council, how to encourage more active participation in the liturgy, and what reforms people would still like to see take place.

Participants expressed great appreciation for Susan’s leadership and the session as a whole. Many new insights about the Sunday Eucharist were acquired and people expressed a wish that more people would take advantage of learning opportunities such as this.