Another principle that the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy lists and emphasises is undoubtedly that the Christian is not a spectator of what is taking place during the Liturgy, but he is also a protagonist who “should be led to that fully conscious, active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy (par.14). Therefore, through Baptism, every Christian is a member of Christ the Priest, Prophet and King, as the priest says as he anoints the infant with the oil of Chrism during the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism. For active participation in the liturgy to be possible the Christian must be educated on the meaning and implications of the actions and words that form the liturgy. In this context, it is not without reason that the Fathers of the Council stressed that even the clergy—and in a broad sense we can also include catechists and those who in one way or another are involved in Christian formation—need to allow the liturgy to fill them with its strength and spirit. As the saying goes, “Nobody can give what he does not have”.

The awareness of what the gestures and symbols that are used during the liturgy mean not only touch us on a human level – after all, even outside of the liturgy we all use gestures and symbols to communicate and express ourselves – but they can also help us open ourselves to the mystery of God who draws close to us and chose gestures and symbols through which he wants to unite with us and offer us his salvation. In this regard, the liturgy follows the principle of the incarnation which does not save from afar but enters into our human limitations and through these limitations it leads us to him who is limitless because he is infinite love.

Regarding an active and lively participation in the liturgy, Sancrosanctum Concilium specifies ways in which this can take place, such as “acclamations, responses, psalmodies, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and physical postures. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence” (par. 30). Therefore, “the revision of the liturgical books must carefully attend to the provision of the rubrics (notes that describe the actions) also for the people’s participation” (par. 31). However active involvement does not only mean external actions, but it also requires an interior disposition that is open to the mystery that does not remain hidden but comes to meet us in a very subtle and silent way. This is not detached from our fleshy nature because the interior experience also takes place through our senses such as by hearing attentively and by visually focusing on the location where the liturgical action is taking place.

Even our hearing and sight, which are generally passive, still have the ability to raise our spirit through sacred music and poetic words, through the use of incense or candles and light, works of art in places where the liturgy is celebrated, harmony and order especially at the altar. What we have mentioned make it easier for God’s People to truly encounter God together with their brothers and sisters, the children of the same Father in Jesus Christ.