Jesus Christ continues being present in our midst at every liturgical function: at the sacrifice of the altar both in the person of his minister and above all under the eucharistic species. He is present also in the sacraments and in the prayers of praise and petitions we direct to God.
After explaining the origin and sacrificial-priestly nature of the Eucharist, Pope Pius XII mentions in his Encyclical Mediator Dei, the characteristics of worship, which should be exterior and interior. Exterior because man is a composite body formed of soul and flesh; but mainly because we recognize God visibly in Christ.
Exterior worship reveals and emphasizes the unity of the mystical body, feeds new fuel to its zeal, and intensifies its action. However, Pope Pacelli points out that the main element of divine worship must be interior, for “God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart turn to him in quest of the perfect life.” (Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, 1947)
With this assertion, Pius XII refuted the erroneous conceptions of liturgy as something exclusively external, composed only of ornamental ceremonials, external pomp, decorum and grandeur; “no less erroneous is the notion that it consists solely on a list of laws and prescriptions according to which the ecclesiastical hierarchy orders the sacred rites to be performed.” (Ibidem 25) Mediator Dei states that Christ acts each day to save us in the sacraments. Sacraments and sacrifice then, have an objective power to make us participate in the divine life.
The priest
Mediator Dei affirms that only the apostles and to those on whom their successors have imposed hands, are granted the power of ministerial priesthood, which is different from the common priesthood. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) explains this in the following way: “Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church ‘a kingdom, priests for his God and Father.’ The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king.
The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, ‘each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ.’ While being ‘ordered one to another,’ they differ essentially.” (CCC, 1546, 1547) Ministerial priesthood is at the service of common priesthood.
The priest, says Pope Pius XII, is the instrument God uses to communicate supernatural life to the mystical body of Jesus Christ; he was marked with a permanent sign conforming them to the Christ, the Mediator; through the priests, people will be supplied with the comforts and food of the spiritual life. From them they will procure the medicine of salvation and lead them at their last breath across the threshold of eternal happiness.
Pope Pius XII states that liturgy contains divine as well as human elements; the first ones, as instituted by God, cannot be changed in any way by men, but the human components admit modifications; and this explains the variety of authorized Western and Eastern Catholic rites, “all these developments attest the abiding life of the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ through these many centuries. They are the sacred language she uses, as the ages run their course, to profess to her divine spouse her own faith along with that of the nations committed to her charge, and her own unfailing love.” (Ibidem, 50)
The Mass, true sacrifice
Mediator Dei retakes some conceptions of the Council on Trent in regards to the Mass as a sacrifice, and the real presence of Jesus Christ in the consecrated bread and wine. The Mass, says Pope Pius XII, is a true and proper sacrifice, whereby the High Priest offers himself to the Father as he did on the cross. However the manner in which he is offered is different.
On the altar, “the sacrifice of our redeemer is shown forth in an admirable manner by external signs, which are the symbols of his death. For by the ‘transubstantiation’ of bread into the body of Christ and of wine into his blood, his body and blood are both really present.” (Ibidem, 70) The purposes of the Mass according to Mediator Dei, are: to give glory to the heavenly father; to give thanks to God; to expiate our sins; to reconcile us with God; and to plea to the father.
Active participation in the liturgy
Pope Pius XII presents a definition of what some theologians have earnestly desired and worked for: the active participation of the faithful in the liturgy, in the Mass and all the sacraments. Pope Pacelli talks about the Mass to provide an example of what he meant with active participation. Through the eucharistic sacrifice the saving virtue of the cross is imparted to us.
However men should have a personal encounter with the sacrifice of the cross so that the merits that flow from it should be imparted to them. The cooperation of the faithful is required. Christ reconciled the whole human race but he wished that all should approach and be drawn to his cross by means of the sacraments and the eucharistic sacrifice. It is therefore desirable that all the faithful “should be aware that to participate in the eucharistic sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity … with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the high priest … and together with him and through him let them make their oblation, and in union with him let them offer up themselves.” (Ibidem, 80)
To offer up
The unbloody immolation, when Christ is made present on the altar in the state of victim, is performed only by the priest as the representative of Christ. At the end of the preparation of the gifts the priest says: “Pray brethren that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.” To this invitation the people respond: “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his church.”
At this moment, says Pope Pius XII, people unite their hearts in praise, plea, expiation and thanksgiving with the prayers of the priest so that in the one and main offering, they may be presented to God the Father. The faithful should “consider to what a high dignity they are raised by the sacrament of baptism. They should not think it enough to participate in the eucharistic sacrifice with that general intention which befits members of Christ and children of the church, but let them further, in keeping with the spirit of the sacred liturgy, be most closely united with the high priest … nor should Christians forget to offer themselves, their cares, their sorrows, their distress and their necessities in union with their divine savior upon the cross.” (Ibidem, 104)
The liturgical year
Mediator Dei, also exhorted to adore the Blessed Sacrament, to join the recitation of the divine office and to meditate attentively in the readings, the prayers and the symbols of the seasons of the liturgical year (which was arranged in a different way than the current one). For example, says Pope Pacelli, in the period of Advent, the church arises in us the consciousness of the sins committed, and urges us to restrain the desires by practicing voluntary mortification. Or at the paschal season, the church commemorates the triumph of Christ, and so, we should also consider that we must rise in union with the redeemer from our cold life to one of greater fervor and holiness.
When we participate attentively in the liturgy, we realize how the whole Christ is proposed to us, through the readings, the prayers, the signs and symbols. “Hence, the liturgical year, devotedly fostered and accompanied by the church, is not a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, or a simple and bare record of a former age. It is rather Christ himself who is ever living in his church.” (Ibidem, 165)
Christian piety, devotions
Christian piety, says Pope Pacelli, must be centered in the mysteries of Christ, “if the private and interior devotion of individuals were to neglect the august sacrifice of the altar and the sacraments, and to withdraw them from the stream of vital energy that flows from the head to the members, it would indeed be sterile.” (Ibidem, 32)
This assertion can be obvious, however at the time when the Mass was celebrated in Latin, people could not fully comprehend its significance; the celebration of the Eucharist before the Second Vatican Council, provided a lot of silent moments, which were an opportunity for people to do their particular devotions, instead of focusing their attention in the mystery celebrated.
At the end of his encyclical Pope Pius XII remarked that there should not be an opposition between the sacred liturgy and other religious practices, or devotions, provided that they are kept within legitimate bounds, done in a timely manner and for a legitimate purpose.
Pope Pacelli provided some examples: spiritual meditations, visits to the Blessed Sacrament and especially the devotions in honor of the Blessed Virgin, among which the rosary as the most important of these; “since they develop a deeper spiritual life of the faithful, they prepare them to take part in sacred public functions with greater fruit and they lessen the danger of liturgical prayers becoming an empty ritualism … they also make us partakers in a salutary manner of the liturgical cult, because they urge the faithful to go frequently to the sacrament of penance, to attend Mass and receive Communion with devotion, and also, encourage them to meditate on the mysteries of our redemption and imitate the example of the saints.” (Ibidem, 175)
Conclusion
In a time where liturgy was considered something reserved for the clergy, Pope Pacelli remarked the sacrificial and priestly nature of the Mass and presented it as an act of Christ and of the church, hierarchically organized.
Mediator Dei combines also the greatest achievements of scholarly research in liturgy at that time; in that sense Pius XII retakes many elements of Odo Cassel’s theory about the Christian mystery (Kultmysterium), but also uses previous definitions of liturgy as the public worship of the church, as exposed by Lambert Beauduin and Romano Guardini. Mediator Dei also recalls the living tradition of the church and put it into a new perspective; this is especially evident on Pope Pius XII concept of the Mass as a true sacrifice, a definition given by the Council of Trent that remained part of the teachings of the Magisterium.
Another important contribution of Mediator Dei is its emphasis on the active participation of the faithful in the Mass; for Pius XII, participation shall not be only external but also internal, mind and body that coincide during liturgy; that participation is the fruit of a process of preparation beforehand; to do so Pope Pacelli encouraged some devotions approved by the church, such as adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, meditation of the readings, prayers and symbols of the seasons of the liturgical year, the recitation of the holy rosary, etc.
These devotions, says Pope Pius XII, help the faithful to participate mind and body in the Eucharist and the sacraments, for they have their origin and their end in the august sacrifice of the altar.
Pope John Paul II referred to Pacelli’s Mediator Dei as a true milestone in the history of the Catholic liturgical reform: “The Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution on the Liturgy and its other documents, amply cites Mediator Dei and completes its doctrinal and pastoral plan.” (Pope John Paul II, Angelus, November 23, 1997)
Pope Benedict XVI said about Pius XII: “The heritage of the Magisterium of Pope Pius XII has been gathered by the Second Vatican Council and reproposed to the later Christian generations. It is well known that of the oral interventions and writings presented by the Second Vatican Council fathers, over 1,000 references cite the Magisterium of Pope Pius XII. Not all the documents of the council have an array of notes, but in those documents that do have them, the name of Pope Pius XII recurs more than 200 times.
This means that, with the exception of sacred Scripture, this pope is the most authoritative and frequently cited source. (Pope Benedict XVI, address during a congress on the heritage of the Magisterium of Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council, Nov. 8, 2008)