The liturgical reforms of Vatican II, as I tell often puzzled students, were not devised by a group of bishops hanging out on the Piazza Navona eating gelato during the Council.  They developed over a very long period of time, and more importantly, they developed from the grassroots of the church – from the work of monks, clergy, sisters, in youth groups and in the pews of ordinary parishes.  What this tells us today is that if it happened once, it can happen again.  Reform of the liturgy can begin from the people.

Opinions diverge concerning when the Liturgical Movement began.  Many date it to 1909 when Lambert Beauduin, a Benedictine monk with extensive experience among the disaffected poor of urban Belgium, called for the “democratization of the liturgy” and the active participation of the people.  Others date the Liturgical Movement much earlier.

In the 1880’s small portable missals were published that the laity could carry in their pocket to church in order to follow along from a translation into their own language.  What was radical about that?  The missals were technically illegal – and monasteries were publishing them!  Church legislation stipulated that the texts of the Mass were not to be translated out of Latin, and that the Mass was never to be allowed to fall into the hands of the mere laity.  In 1897 the law was quietly abrogated.

After World War I courses on liturgy were organized in seminaries, journals founded, and research into ancient sources carried out.  Theologians explored such then-radical notions as the idea that the baptized people of God are themselves the mystical body of Christ.  Practical experimentation took place, such as a priest-presider turning around from the altar to face the people. By the 1930’s some scattered parishes used the “dialogue mass” in which the people were invited to give the responses in Latin normally given only by the altar servers:  “Et cum spiritu tuo!”  Youth movements, first in Europe then in North America, were enlivened by the spirit of a meaningful, engaging liturgy.  Women religious pursued research or taught children how to sing Gregorian chant.  The Liturgical Conference, a large-scale convention, began in 1940 in North America and met yearly thereafter until 1970.

In the 1950’s the first real reforms of Church worship took place – the restoration of the Easter Vigil to Saturday evening (and not Saturday morning, when a vigil designed for darkness made no sense!), and the restoration of the full ancient sequence of the Easter Triduum liturgies.

Yet seminary professors and theologians could still lose their positions for advocating such still-radical ideas as celebrating Mass in the language of the people instead of Latin.  But by 1963 it was all over.  Sacrosanctum Concilium conceded a more liberal use of the language of the people.  The result was like a cracked pipe bursting and gushing.  The time had come.

Active participation of the laity was written all over SC, and took on a more dynamic form than that envisioned in the early 20th century.  The living presence of Christ in the liturgy, not limited to the consecrated bread and wine but in the Word of God, the ministers, the sacraments, and even – even! – when the people pray and sing, now became a foundation stone.  The rites were simplified to their original “Roman genius” and much superfluous and no longer relevant practice was laid aside.

The Scripture readings, proclaimed in the language people could understand, not only provided a new rich source of spirituality and common vision, but would serve as the basis for the homily.  Scripture-based preaching could replace homilies that dwelled on sinfulness and the terror of hell, severe moral injunctions, or alternately, what one liturgist called “devotional ferverinos.”

Even more striking was the openness to inculturation of the liturgy into the wide variety of human cultures across the globe.  If conventional 1960’s Roman Catholics, accustomed to a rich culture of devotions and decorations were floored by hearing, “The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity,” one can only imagine what they would have thought of the statement, “Even in the liturgy, the Church does not wish to impose a rigid uniformity.”  

Different rites were revised, simplified, or even radically reversed: the sacrament known and dreaded as a herald of death, Extreme Unction, became the Anointing of the Sick, a sacrament of healing to be given to elderly persons and to those facing serious illness as a source of comfort, repeatedly if necessary and appropriate. 

Even now, similar grassroots movements are discerning, praying with and shaping future waves of liturgical reform.  Inclusive language, engaging new music, colorful décor, a wider distribution of roles among worshippers, a heightened awareness of the human body and its organic nature in prayer, a creative use of natural symbols and the creation of new symbols – all these and more are developing in base communities, house-churches, progressive parishes and religious houses.  Yes.  This is part of the legacy of Vatican II.  And this gives hope and energy for the future.