December marks an anniversary that is special in my life and in the lives of many others who share my religious tradition. This month, 40 years ago, the Second Vatican Council made major changes in the liturgy of the Mass, intended to have a major impact on the spiritual life of Catholics worldwide.

The document on the liturgy carried the date December 4, 1963 and was the first of 16 major statements published by the council. Its emergence qualified as big news at the time and it was featured in many major newspapers of the world.

Most Catholics of a certain age will remember growing up in the days before the council, when Latin was the language of the liturgy. The Eucharist or Mass, as we called it, and the other sacraments were all performed in that ancient tongue no longer spoken, even by the Italians who had originated it. Latin had long since become a dead language except for its use by the Church.

But language was only one of the liturgical changes made by the Catholic bishops of the world when assembled in Rome for the council. They also restored parts of the liturgy, such as communion under the form of wine as well as bread, and removed other parts that did not belong to the classical structure of the Mass.

In doing so, the bishops wanted to bring this public prayer of the church closer to the people. Translating the ancient texts into the languages used in daily life by the residents of each country made the words of the Mass immediately intelligible. No longer would worshippers have to use prayer books, as was the widespread custom previously. Nor would they be so likely to say the rosary during Mass.

The priest who presided at Mass was now expected to face the people rather than to have his back toward them. This served as another sign of a more active role for the laity in the official worship of the church. Their character as the people of God received new emphasis and they were encouraged to make the responses and to sing hymns with enthusiasm.

The council also highlighted the importance of the Bible in the liturgy and in the lives of Catholics. Up until that time, biblical texts had received less importance than they deserved but Vatican II said “Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy.” In his homily during the Mass, the priest was urged to emphasize the teachings of the Bible, and laypeople were exhorted to read the sacred books more often.

It took years for the liturgical changes to be fully implemented in Catholic parishes. Not all the clergy and members of the laity welcomed the abandonment of the old ways. Some felt that the church was caving in to the fashions of the age, and the loss of the Latin language especially was mourned in some quarters.

Other critics regretted the loss of what they regarded as the aura of sacred mystery created by the rites they had grown up with.  The language of the liturgy may not have been so intelligible but there was an atmosphere of reverent silence that, they feared, was disappearing from Catholic churches.

However, with the passage of decades, the liturgical changes have come to seem normal in the lives of most Catholics who come to Mass. They find spiritual nourishment in the rites that have become familiar to them. The experience of Sunday Mass strikes me, for one, as altogether more accessible than it used to be.

Father Joseph Champlin, rector of the Immaculate Conception cathedral, in Syracuse, New York, is a priest who took a lead role in implementing the liturgical changes in his diocese. When I asked him his view of this history, he called it “a wonderful development for the church in the United States.”

He feels enthusiastic about the current Catholic way of worship and thinks that problems with the church cannot be blamed on the liturgy. He points to the tension between the horizontal (people oriented) and vertical (God oriented) aspects of the liturgy and recognizes that people can differ about whether one or the other is receiving too much emphasis.

For the vast majority of church members, the liturgy is proving effective, he believes, thus vindicating the wisdom behind the actions of the Second Vatican Council 40 years ago.

Richard Griffin