What the liturgy is

Choose an option and you are told at once whether it was right. The answer and the reason wait behind “Show the answer”.

A watercolor of a lamb priest in a green chasuble raising the host behind an altar set with a chalice and a book, with lambs in colorful robes seated around it

What did the word “liturgy” mean to begin with?
1. A private prayer a priest offers to God on his own
2. A book of rules setting down the order of the rites
3. A public work for the people, taken on and carried out by the people together
4. Regulations to be kept only inside the church building
Show the answer
Answer ③ A public work for the people, taken on and carried out by the people together
The word comes from Greek, where it meant “a public work the people take on and carry out together,” and the Church filled it with the sense that God's people share in the work of God. The first and the fourth shrink the liturgy down to private prayer or to rules that hold good only inside a building, and the second mistakes the liturgical books for the liturgy itself.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1069-1070
Who is it that truly celebrates the Mass and the rest of the liturgy?
1. Christ the high priest, together with the whole Church, which is his body
2. The ordained priest alone, with the congregation looking on from the side
3. It is something the gathered community makes up as it goes
4. The liturgy committee and the choir
Show the answer
Answer ① Christ the high priest, together with the whole Church, which is his body
The liturgy is where the priesthood of Christ is exercised: it is the whole public worship offered by Christ the head together with the faithful who are his members. The second turns the assembly into spectators, and the third lowers the liturgy into an event that people put together themselves.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1069-1071, 1140
The liturgy takes in everything the Church does, with nothing left over.
1. Yes
2. No
Show the answer
Answer ② No
The liturgy is the summit and the source of the Church's activity, but it is not the whole of it. Before the liturgy there must be the proclamation of the Gospel, faith, and conversion; and the strength drawn from the liturgy has to carry on into works of love.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1072, 1074
What does it mean to say “the liturgy is the summit of the Church's activity and at the same time its source”?
1. That once the liturgy is kept properly, nothing else needs doing
2. That the liturgy is the oldest activity in the Church
3. That the liturgy is only one activity among the Church's many
4. That all the Church's activity moves toward the liturgy, and also draws its strength there and flows out from it
Show the answer
Answer ④ That all the Church's activity moves toward the liturgy, and also draws its strength there and flows out from it
A summit is what everything climbs toward; a source is what everything flows out from. The first uses the liturgy as an excuse for erasing works of love, while the third blurs it in the opposite direction, into one event among many.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1074
Which of these says most correctly how Christ is present in a liturgical celebration?
1. He is present in the Eucharist and nowhere else
2. He is present in several ways at once — in the priest who celebrates, in the Eucharist, in the word proclaimed, and in the assembly at prayer
3. He is not really present; the faithful only call him to mind
4. He is present just so far as the hearts of the assembly are warmed
Show the answer
Answer ② He is present in several ways at once — in the priest who celebrates, in the Eucharist, in the word proclaimed, and in the assembly at prayer
Christ is present in the Eucharist in a singular way, and he is present too in his word, in the person of the minister who celebrates, and in the assembly that prays and sings. The first narrows that presence to a single place, and the third and the fourth swap the liturgy for human recollection or human feeling.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1088
In the liturgy, keeping the “memorial” of the Paschal Mystery of Christ means calling a past event to mind and dwelling on it.
1. Yes
2. No
Show the answer
Answer ② No
The memorial of the liturgy does not stop at recalling something long ago: in the power of the Holy Spirit the Paschal Mystery of Christ is made present here today. The sacrifice of the cross is not repeated, and yet its grace reaches us now.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1085, 1104
Which is the most accurate description of a sacrament?
1. A sign instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, which really brings about the grace it signifies
2. Only a beautiful symbol that helps us not to forget the faith
3. A reward the Church gives to her devout members
4. A rite the Church makes up afresh whenever a new age calls for one
Show the answer
Answer ① A sign instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, which really brings about the grace it signifies
A sacrament is a sign, and at the same time it really brings about the grace that the sign points to. The second leaves the sacrament as no more than a symbol, and the fourth erases the fact that it was Christ who instituted it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1113, 1131
Why does the effect of a sacrament not depend on the personal holiness of the priest who celebrates it?
1. Because how a priest lives makes no difference at all to the faithful
2. Because the Church has handed the priest the power to make sacraments valid
3. Because everything is settled by the disposition of the one who receives
4. Because the one at work in the sacrament is Christ himself
Show the answer
Answer ④ Because the one at work in the sacrament is Christ himself
A sacrament is brought about by the power of Christ and not by human merit — the Church calls this ex opere operato — so the sacrament is true even when the minister himself falls short. The fruit of a sacrament does vary with the disposition of the one receiving it, which is why the third goes too far in making that disposition decide everything.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1127-1128
Sunday is the foremost of all the feast days the Church keeps.
1. Yes
2. No
Show the answer
Answer ① Yes
Sunday is the day the Lord rose, so it is the original feast day and the ground of every other one. It is not that the sabbath was simply shifted by a day to give us a day off; it is because of the resurrection that the first day of the week became the Lord's Day.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1166-1167
Besides the Latin rite there are other liturgical rites in the Church, the Byzantine among them. How should we see that?
1. Only one of them is right, and the rest are mistaken rites that broke away
2. A matter of taste, where anyone may pick whichever they like and alter it
3. The one mystery of Christ showing itself within many cultures, a legitimate richness
4. A passing stage that will one day have to be unified and done away with
Show the answer
Answer ③ The one mystery of Christ showing itself within many cultures, a legitimate richness
The Church recognizes the rites in use today as holding equal dignity and equal rights, and sees that variety as bringing out the richness of one and the same mystery. It is not the second, though: each rite is a living tradition handed down and received, and the authority of the Church safeguards it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1200-1203