As the work of Christ liturgy is also an action of his Church. It makes the Church present and manifests her as the visible sign of communion in Christ between God and men.
It engages the faithful in the new life of the community and involves the ‘conscious, active and fruitful participation’ of everyone.
‘The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church’: it must be preceeded by evangelization, faith and conversion. It can then produce its fruits in the lives of the faithful: new life in the Spirit, involvement in the mission of the Church and her service to unity.
The liturgy is also a participation in Christ’s own prayer addressed to the Father in The Holy Spirit. In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal. Through the liturgy the inner man is rooted and grounded in ‘the great love with which the Father loved us’ in his beloved Son. It is the ‘marvellous work of God’ that is lived and internalized by all prayer, ‘at all times in the Spirit.’
‘The liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all her power flows.’ It is therefore the privileged place for catechizing the People of God. ‘Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men.’
Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ (it is ‘mystagogy’)
By proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the ‘sacraments’ to the ‘mysteries’. Such catechesis is to be presented by local and regional catechisms.