06/03/2026
This morning, during the Wednesday audience, continued his catechesis on the conciliar document dealing with the .
Today, the Pope presents three key terms: rite, sign and symbol.
‘The rites of the Christian liturgy are not a mere external covering of the sacramental mystery, a collection of arbitrary ceremonies, but are the ecclesial mediation through which the divine gift reaches us,’ explains the Pontiff. ‘Rite gives shape to liturgical action and, through it, to our lives, generating in us a spiritual sensibility that makes us capable of savouring the presence of God through Jesus Christ.’ The only condition, the Successor of Peter reminds us, is that “we do not remain strangers or silent spectators […] but participate in it with our full selves – body, mind and heart’.
The rite also forms us ‘in listening to the Word of God, in giving thanks and in adoration, in fraternal sharing and in ecclesial communion. We discover that we are an assembly with many faces, united by the same faith’.
Whilst the liturgy may appear to be ‘a well-defined sequence of gestures and prayers’, in reality ‘its logic, however, is not to constrain freedom within rigid frameworks. On the contrary, with the solemn simplicity of its rhythms, the rite interrupts our frenetic activities, leading us back to what is essential’ – as if to offer ‘another experience of time and space’ and to teach us ‘to live in a rhythm inhabited by the Holy Spirit’ .
‘The grammar of rite’, Leone recalls, ‘is interwoven with the signs and symbols […] explores the value of these signs, recalling that “their meaning is rooted in the work of creation and in human culture, specified by the events of the Old Covenant and fully revealed in the person and work of Christ”’. And while “sign” and “symbol” are terms often used as synonyms. ‘In reality, a sign is symbolic when it is able to refer not only to an idea, but to an entire system of meanings and values. In this way, for example, when we are sprinkled with holy water, our awareness of the gift received at Baptism and our commitment to new life in Christ is rekindled’.
For their part, symbols ‘are essentially practical in nature, being first and foremost actions: some simple and common, such as kneeling and exchanging the sign of peace, or more demanding, such as the constitutive acts of each Sacrament. Above all, symbols have a unique performative and transformative dimension, both in relation to the material elements of which they are composed and to those who come into contact with them, engendering a sense of belonging, touching the heart and mind, and giving rise to authentic ecclesial relationships’.
The Holy Father then concludes his catechesis with an exhortation: ‘We need to allow ourselves to be educated by the rites of the liturgy, caring for the beauty of our celebrations with a delicate touch and without arbitrariness, and committing ourselves to an authentic mystagogy the best resource for reawakening in everyone that openness to the encounter with God’.
➡️The Full Audience: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/events/event.dir.html/content/vaticanevents/en/2026/6/3/udienza-generale.html
