Catholic liturgy

Catholic liturgy
In the Catholic Church, liturgy is divine worship, the proclamation of the Gospel, and active charity. Catholic liturgies are broadly categorized as the Latin liturgical rites of the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
Liturgical principles
The Catholic Church understands liturgy not only to mean the celebration of the Holy Mass, but also the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours and the administration of the sacraments.
At the Second Vatican Council, the Council Fathers proclaimed the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. There it says:
As a result, the Catholic understanding of liturgy is not primarily about the precise regulation of individual sequences of rites, but rather about the essence of the church. The Codex Iuris Canonici says this in the following way:
The forms used in the Latin Church for the individual celebrations can be found in the liturgical books of the Roman rite (Roman Missal, Rituale Romanum, Book of Hours, etc.) that were revised as part of the liturgical reform (and translated into the national languages). The Catholic liturgy also includes the liturgies of the various Eastern churches associated with Rome, which follow their own oriental rites.
Furthermore, there are special forms of the Roman rite in various religious orders, for example the Carthusian rite, the Cistercian rite, the rite of the Dominicans and the Premonstratensians.
As explained in greater detail in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Sacraments
Sacraments in the Catholic Church are efficacious signs, perceptible to the senses, of grace. The effect of the sacraments comes ex opere operato (by the very fact of being administered).
There are seven sacraments:
Baptism
Eucharist
Confirmation
Penance, also called Confession and Reconciliation
Anointing of the Sick, formerly called Extreme Unction and Last Sacraments
Holy Orders
Matrimony
Liturgical music
The 1967 document Musicam sacram, that implemented the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy after the Second Vatican Council, repeatedly mentions facilitating the full, active participation of the congregation as called for by the Council. so that "unity of hearts is more profoundly achieved by the union of voices". Musicam Sacram states: "One cannot find anything more religious and more joyful in sacred celebrations than a whole congregation expressing its faith and devotion in song. Therefore the active participation of the whole people, which is shown in singing, is to be carefully promoted." It calls for fostering this congregational participation through attention to choice of song directors, to choice of songs, and to the nature of the congregation. It mentions the duty to achieve this participation on the part of choirs, choirs directors, pastors, organists, and instrumentalists.
To achieve full, active participation of the congregation, great restraint in introducing new hymns has proven most helpful. To this end also, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal recommends use of seasonal responsorial psalms and also keeping to a song that all can sing while processing to Communion, to "express the communicants' union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, to show joy of heart, and to highlight more clearly the 'communitarian' nature of the procession to receive Communion."
Devotional life of the Church
In its devotion the Church makes a distinction between respectful veneration on one hand and adoration or worship on the other. Adoration is due to God alone - this includes the Eucharist, since Christ is truly present. Veneration of an image or relic of a saint is defined as respect paid to what is represented in the image, not the image itself.
Sacred space
"In the liturgy, above all that of the sacraments, there is an immutable part, a part that is divinely instituted and of which the Church is the guardian, and parts that can be changed, which the Church has the power, and on occasion the duty, to adapt to the cultures of recently evangelized peoples."
See also
Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites
Pre-Tridentine Mass
Tridentine Mass
Mass of Paul VI
References