In the Roman Liturgy, the Eucharistic Assembly is invited to pray to our heavenly Father with filial boldness; the Eastern liturgies develop and use similar expressions: "dare in all confidence," "make us worthy of...." From the burning bush Moses heard a voice saying to him, "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 26 Only Jesus could cross that threshold of the divine holiness, for "when he had made purification for sins," he brought us into the Father's presence: "Here am I, and the children God has given me." 27

The altar, around which the Church is gathered in the Celebration of the Eucharist, represents the two aspects of the same Mystery: the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. This is all the more so since the Christian altar is the symbol of Christ himself, present in the midst of the Assembly of his Faithful, both as the victim offered for our reconciliation and as food from heaven who is giving himself to us. "For what is the altar of Christ if not the image of the Body of Christ?" 212 asks St. Ambrose. He says elsewhere, "The altar represents the body [of Christ] and the Body of Christ is on the altar." 213 The Liturgy expresses this unity of sacrifice and Communion in many Prayers. Thus the Roman Church prays in its anaphora:

All gather together. Christians come together in one place for the Eucharistic Assembly. At its head is Christ himself, the principal agent of the Eucharist. He is high priest of the New Covenant; it is he himself who presides invisibly over every Eucharistic Celebration. It is in representing him that the bishop or priest acting in the person of Christ the head (in persona Christi capitis) presides over the assembly, speaks after the readings, receives the offerings, and says the Eucharistic Prayer. All have their own active parts to play in the celebration, each in his own way: readers, those who bring up the offerings, those who give Communion, and the whole people whose "Amen" manifests their participation.

The Lord's Supper, because of its connection with the supper which the Lord took with his disciples on the eve of his Passion and because it anticipates the wedding feast of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem. 141 The Breaking of Bread, because Jesus used this rite, part of a Jewish meat when as master of the table he blessed and distributed the bread, 142 above all at the Last Supper. 143 It is by this action that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection, 144 and it is this expression that the first Christians will use to designate their Eucharistic assemblies; 145 by doing so they signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into Communion with him and form but one body in him. 146 The Eucharistic Assembly (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the Faithful, the visible expression of the Church. 147

The proclamation of the Word of God enlightens the candidates and the Assembly with the revealed truth and elicits the response of Faith, which is inseparable from Baptism. Indeed Baptism is "the sacrament of faith" in a particular way, since it is the sacramental entry into the life of faith.

The ministerial priesthood has the task not only of representing Christ - Head of the Church - before the Assembly of the Faithful, but also of acting in the name of the whole Church when presenting to God the Prayer of the Church, and above all when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice. 31

"It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic Assembly of the Faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his Mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the Faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father." 49 From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength. 50

"The priests, prudent cooperators of the episcopal college and its support and instrument, called to the service of the People of God, constitute, together with their bishop, a unique sacerdotal college (presbyterium) dedicated, it is, true to a variety of distinct duties. In each local Assembly of the Faithful they represent, in a certain sense, the bishop, with whom they are associated in all trust and generosity; in part they take upon themselves his duties and solicitude and in their daily toils discharge them." 51 priests can exercise their ministry only in dependence on the bishop and in Communion with him. the promise of obedience they make to the bishop at the moment of ordination and the kiss of peace from him at the end of the ordination Liturgy mean that the bishop considers them his co-workers, his sons, his brothers and his friends, and that they in return owe him love and obedience.

Very early on, Liturgical usage concluded the Lord's Prayer with a doxology. In the Didache, we find, "For yours are the power and the glory for ever." 4 The Apostolic Constitutions add to the beginning: "the kingdom," and this is the formula retained to our day in ecumenical prayer. 5 The Byzantine tradition adds after "the glory" the words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." the Roman Missal develops the last petition in the explicit perspective of "awaiting our blessed hope" and of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 6 Then comes the Assembly's acclamation or the repetition of the doxology from the Apostolic Constitutions.

Certain constant characteristics appear throughout the Psalms: simplicity and spontaneity of Prayer; the desire for God himself through and with all that is good in his creation; the distraught situation of the believer who, in his preferential love for the Lord, is exposed to a host of enemies and temptations, but who waits upon what the Faithful God will do, in the certitude of his love and in submission to his will. the prayer of the psalms is always sustained by praise; that is why the title of this collection as handed down to us is so fitting: "The Praises." Collected for the Assembly's worship, the Psalter both sounds the call to prayer and sings the response to that call: Hallelu-Yah! (“Alleluia"), "Praise the Lord!"

In respecting religious liberty and the common good of all, Christians should seek recognition of Sundays and the Church's holy days as legal holidays. They have to give everyone a public example of Prayer, respect, and joy and defend their traditions as a precious contribution to the spiritual life of society. If a country's legislation or other reasons require work on Sunday, the day should nevertheless be lived as the day of our deliverance which lets us share in this "festal gathering," this "Assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven." 125

This practice of the Christian Assembly dates from the beginnings of the apostolic age. 112 The Letter to the Hebrews reminds the Faithful "not to neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but to encourage one another." 113

The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law: "These words the Lord spoke to all your Assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. and he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me." 19 For this reason these two tables are called "the Testimony." In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These "tables of the Testimony" were to be deposited in "the ark." 20

A society is a group of persons bound together organically by a principle of unity that goes beyond each one of them. As an Assembly that is at once visible and spiritual, a society endures through time: it gathers up the past and prepares for the future. By means of society, each man is established as an "heir" and receives certain "talents" that enrich his identity and whose fruits he must develop. 3 He rightly owes loyalty to the communities of which he is part and respect to those in authority who have charge of the common good.

The Liturgy of the Word during funerals demands very careful preparation because the Assembly present for the funeral may include some Faithful who rarely attend the liturgy, and friends of the deceased who are not Christians. the homily in particular must "avoid the literary genre of funeral eulogy" 188 and illumine the Mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.

The chair (cathedra) of the bishop or the priest "should express his office of presiding over the Assembly and of directing Prayer." 63 The lectern (ambo): "The dignity of the Word of God requires the Church to have a suitable place for announcing his message so that the attention of the people may be easily directed to that place during the Liturgy of the Word." 64

The Mystery of Christ, his Incarnation and Passover, which we celebrate in the Eucharist especially at the Sunday Assembly, permeates and transfigures the time of each day, through the Celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, "the divine office." 46 This celebration, Faithful to the apostolic exhortations to "pray constantly," is "so devised that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praise of God." 47 In this "public Prayer of the Church," 48 The Faithful (clergy, religious, and lay people) exercise the royal priesthood of the baptized. Celebrated in "the form approved" by the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours "is truly the voice of the Bride herself addressed to her Bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ himself together with his Body addresses to the Father. 49

In the Liturgy of the New Covenant every Liturgical action, especially the Celebration of the Eucharist and the sacraments, is an encounter between Christ and the Church. the liturgical Assembly derives its unity from the "Communion of the Holy Spirit" who gathers the children of God into the one Body of Christ. This assembly transcends racial, cultural, social - indeed, all human affinities.

In this sacramental dispensation of Christ's Mystery the Holy Spirit acts in the same way as at other times in the economy of salvation: he prepares the Church to encounter her Lord; he recalls and makes Christ manifest to the Faith of the Assembly. By his transforming power, he makes the mystery of Christ present here and now. Finally the Spirit of Communion unites the Church to the life and mission of Christ. The Holy Spirit prepares for the reception of Christ

After confessing "the holy catholic Church," the Apostles' Creed adds "the Communion of saints." In a certain sense this article is a further explanation of the preceding: "What is the Church if not the Assembly of all the saints?" 477 The communion of saints is the Church.

When Christ instituted the Twelve, "he constituted [them] in the form of a college or permanent Assembly, at the head of which he placed Peter, chosen from among them." 398 Just as "by the Lord's institution, St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a single apostolic college, so in like fashion the Roman Pontiff, Peter's successor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another." 399

In Christian usage, the word "Church" designates the Liturgical Assembly, 141 but also the local community 142 or the whole universal community of believers. 143 These three meanings are inseparable. "The Church" is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ's Body.

The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an Assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. 139 Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people. 140 By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. the equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."

The Assembly should prepare itself to encounter its Lord and to become "a people well disposed." the preparation of hearts is the joint work of the Holy Spirit and the assembly, especially of its ministers. the grace of the Holy Spirit seeks to awaken Faith, conversion of heart, and adherence to the Father's will. These dispositions are the precondition both for the reception of other graces conferred in the Celebration itself and the fruits of new life which the celebration is intended to produce afterward.

The Word of God. the Holy Spirit first recalls the meaning of the salvation event to the Liturgical Assembly by giving life to the Word of God, which is proclaimed so that it may be received and lived:

"By the saving word of God, Faith . . . is nourished in the hearts of believers. By this faith then the congregation of the Faithful begins and grows." 21 The proclamation does not stop with a teaching; it elicits the response of faith as consent and commitment, directed at the covenant between God and his people. Once again it is the Holy Spirit who gives the grace of faith, strengthens it and makes it grow in the community. the Liturgical Assembly is first of all a Communion in faith.

Sunday is the pre-eminent day for the Liturgical Assembly, when the Faithful gather "to listen to the word of God and take part in the Eucharist, thus calling to mind the Passion, Resurrection, and glory of the Lord Jesus, and giving thanks to God who 'has begotten them again, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead' unto a living hope": 40

Song and music fulfill their function as signs in a manner all the more significant when they are "more closely connected . . . with the Liturgical action," 22 according to three principal criteria: beauty expressive of Prayer, the unanimous participation of the Assembly at the designated moments, and the solemn character of the Celebration. In this way they participate in the purpose of the liturgical words and actions: the glory of God and the sanctification of the Faithful: 23

The Liturgy of the Word is an integral part of sacramental Celebrations. To nourish the Faith of believers, the signs which accompany the Word of God should be emphasized: the book of the Word (a lectionary or a book of the Gospels), its veneration (procession, incense, candles), the place of its proclamation (lectern or ambo), its audible and intelligible reading, the minister's homily which extends its proclamation, and the responses of the Assembly (acclamations, meditation psalms, litanies, and profession of faith).

In the Celebration of the sacraments it is thus the whole Assembly that is leitourgos, each according to his function, but in the "unity of the Spirit" who acts in all. "In Liturgical celebrations each person, minister or layman, who has an office to perform, should carry out all and only those parts which pertain to his office by the nature of the rite and the norms of the Liturgy." 15

The celebrating Assembly is the community of the baptized who, "by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, that . . . they may offer spiritual sacrifices." 9 This "common priesthood" is that of Christ the sole priest, in which all his members participate: 10

The epiclesis is also a Prayer for the full effect of the Assembly's Communion with the Mystery of Christ. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" 28 have to remain with us always and bear fruit beyond the Eucharistic Celebration. the Church therefore asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit to make the lives of the Faithful a living sacrifice to God by their spiritual transformation into the image of Christ, by concern for the Church's unity, and by taking part in her mission through the witness and service of charity.

Anamnesis. the Liturgical Celebration always refers to God's saving interventions in history. "The economy of Revelation is realized by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other.... (The) words for their part proclaim the works and bring to light the Mystery they contain." 22 In the Liturgy of the Word the Holy Spirit "recalls" to the Assembly all that Christ has done for us. In keeping with the nature of liturgical actions and the ritual traditions of the Churches, the celebration "makes a remembrance" of the marvelous works of God in an anamnesis which may be more or less developed. the Holy Spirit who thus awakens the memory of the Church then inspires thanksgiving and praise (doxology).

"I believe" (Apostles' Creed) is the Faith of the Church professed personally by each believer, principally during Baptism. "We believe" (Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) is the faith of the Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more generally by the Liturgical Assembly of believers. "I believe" is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both "I believe" and "We believe".