Marini: Church can’t simply bend rules to attract youth

CEBU, Philippines - To revive one’s self and one’s faith, the youth today need to adapt lessons from the Gospel into their lifestyle, says the president of the Pontifical Committee for the International Eucharistic Congress.

“Being a Christian is identified with the Eucharist; identified with the invitation of Christ, to listen the word of God, to encounter Him, in communion of the Eucharist, in the experience with others,” said Archbishop Piero Marini.

While acknowledging that young people nowadays find the Holy Mass “boring and repetitive,” Marini explained that the Church cannot simply deviate from its practices and structures just to make the Holy Mass interested in the Eucharist and Liturgy.

These practices and structures are enshrined in the Church’s Code of Rubrics.

The Code of Rubrics is a three-part liturgical document promulgated in 1960 under Pope John XXIII in the form of a legal code, which indicates the rules governing the celebration of the Roman Rite Mass and Divine Office.

 He said the church is just following the liturgical rites or celebration of the Eucharist since the liturgy originated in the 5th century from an “inculturated context.”

Marini said living a Christian life means adapting to the liturgy. Adaptation then would lead to “Liturgical Inculturation” or the interior transformation of cultural values through the integration of Gospel values.

He said those who will not inculturate will get lost, but those who participate in the Eucharist eventually will be transformed into disciples of Christ.

 “It calls for adaptation because to participate in the liturgy is to adapt the liturgy according to particular circumstances,” he said, explaining that the Eucharist celebrates the “life of Christ.”  (FREEMAN)