Pope John Paul II Addresses Liturgical Assembly
September 21, 2001

2. The Sacred Liturgy, which the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium considers the summit of the life of the Church, can never be reduced to a merely esthetic reality, neither can it be considered an instrument whose aims are mainly pedagogical [to teach] or ecumenical. The celebration of the Sacred Mysteries is, first of all, an act of praise of the Sovereign Majesty of God, Three in One, an expression willed by God Himself. Through this [act], man, in both a personal and communal way, appears before God to give Him thanks, aware that his being cannot find its full meaning if he does not praise God and do His will in his constant search for the Kingdom, which is already present, but which will arrive definitively in the day of the Parousia of the Lord Jesus. Liturgy and life are two inseparable realities. Liturgy which is not reflected in life would become empty and certainly not pleasing to God.

3. The celebration of the Liturgy is an act of the virtue of religion that, consistent with its nature, must be characterized by a profound sense of the sacred. In this, man and the entire community must be aware of being, in a special way, in the presence of Him who is three times holy and transcendent. Consequently, the attitude of imploring cannot but be permeated by reverence and by the sense of awe that comes from knowing that one is in the presence of the majesty of God. Did God not want to express this when He ordered Moses to take off his sandals before the burning bush? Did not the attitude of Moses and Eli who dared not look at God facie ad faciem [face to face] arise from this awareness?

The People of God need to see priests and deacons behave in a way that is full of reverence and dignity, in order to help them to penetrate invisible things without unnecessary words or explanations. In the Roman Missal of Saint Pius V, as in several Eastern liturgies, there are very beautiful prayers through which the priest expresses the most profound sense of humility and reverence before the Sacred Mysteries: they reveal the very substance of the Liturgy.

The liturgical celebration presided over by the priest is a praying assembly, gathered in faith and attentive to the Word of God. It has, as its primary aim, to present to the Divine Majesty the living, pure and holy sacrifice offered on Calvary once and for all by the Lord Jesus, who is present each time the Church celebrates Holy Mass, and to express the worship due to God in spirit and truth.

6. I wish, finally to express my satisfaction at the work which has been completed by the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments since its last plenary assembly of 1996. During this time, the third editio typical of the Roman Missal, the first Book of Exorcisms and that of the Roman Martyrology have been published. Also, the Instructions on liturgical translations and requests for declarations of nullity of Holy Orders have been issued.

In this regard, I urge the bishops and the Congregation to make every effort to insure that liturgical translations are faithful to the original [texts] of the respective typical editions in the Latin language. A translation, in fact, is not an exercise in creativity, but a meticulous task of preserving the meaning of the original without changes, omissions or additions.

The failure to observe this criterion on occasion makes the work of revising some texts necessary and urgent....

From Castelgandolfo, September 21, 2001
Ioannes Paulus II

Let us follow the wisdom of Pope John Paul II by petitioning our bishops for translations that are complete and faithful to the original texts in Church Slavonic. The Revised Divine Liturgy is riddled with errors and omissions when compared to the normative Slavonic texts.