I am a seminarian and I really like your editorial line, which is precise and moderate. I want to ask you the following question: Didn’t the Council simplify the liturgy and many other things? Why again do we want to complicate things with a return to a ‘rubricism’ that is now past?
I am a priest from the diocese of … I always follow you and read with great interest, trying to implement your precious indications in the parish entrusted to me. I would like to open my mind to tell you what the liturgical formation we have had since the seminary and then the refresher courses … We were told that the liturgical books should not be mandatory, but should be used as a general indication to guide our creativity. In short, the book was not to be read, but recreated with our own words according to the assembly for which it was celebrated. We were all afraid of being considered ‘rubricists’ and we felt (in good faith) authorized to freely remake rites and texts. It seems that this was not the Church’s thinking … Please clarify …
In the performance of the liturgy, of liturgical ceremonies, in the past much importance was given to the role of ritual repetition, so that certain reiterated gestures or texts became familiar to the participants in the sacred rite. All this was fixed in the rubrics that constituted a guarantee for those who, in different capacities, participated in the sacred action.