New Zealand bishops respond to liturgical document

3. The concern to avoid abuses
Our desire to avoid abuses in the celebration of Eucharist can follow either of two different approaches. One approach puts the entire burden on regulations. The other approach puts the burden on catechesis – inviting and challenging us to better understand what is happening during the Mass and at each part of the Mass.

When people expect the liturgy to bring about in their own lives what the disciples on the road to Emmaus experienced, they are much less likely to trivialise the celebration in any way:

… While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognised him…. and they said to each other: ‘were not our hearts burning within us while he… opened the scriptures to us’… (and they) recounted… how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread (cf Luke, 24:30-32, 35).

Here, the focus is on the great mystery in which we participate.

On the other hand, when people who look mainly to the regulations themselves – fearing abuses, watching out for them, expecting to see them…,they are focusing mainly on correctness. This sort of preoccupation can diminish the community’s experience of the liturgy, and harm especially those who live with this kind of preoccupation.

The purpose of this Instruction, namely, the elimination of abuses, will be achieved less through preoccupation with regulations and concern for correctness (often accompanied by campaigns and accusations), than by good catechesis on the meaning of the liturgy and each of its parts.