Quotes from Robert Cardinal Sarah
Dear young Christians, if it is permissible for an old man, like Saint John was, to speak to you directly, then I too exhort you, and I tell you: you have overcome the Evil One! Fight any law against nature that they try to impose on you, oppose any law against life, against the family. Be one of those who take the opposite direction! For us Christians, the opposite direction is not a place; it is a Person, it is Jesus Christ, our Friend and our Redeemer.
We must burn in love for our faith. We must not tarnish it or dilute it in worldly compromises … It is up to us to defend and to proclaim this faith!
And Jesus will say to each Christian, as once to Francis of Assisi: “Go and repair my Church!” Go, repair by your faith, by your hope, and your charity. Go and repair by your prayer and your fidelity. Thanks to you, my Church will again become my house.
For the Church’s mission is a mission of love, and love does not dominate. Love is there to serve and to die, so that man might have life, and have it abundantly. St. John Paul II was right when he used to say that we are only just starting to evangelize.
[To parish priests] So too kneeling at the consecration (unless you are sick) is essential. In the West this is an act of bodily adoration that humbles us before our Lord and God. It is itself an act of prayer. Where kneeling and genuflecting have disappeared from the liturgy, it would be desirable to restore them, in particular for our reception of our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion. Dear Fathers, where possible, and with the pastoral prudence of which I spoke earlier, form your people in this beautiful act of worship and love. Let us kneel in adoration and love before the Eucharistic Lord once again!
We must ensure that adoration is at the heart of our liturgical celebrations. Too often we do not advance from mere celebration to adoration, but if we do not do that, I worry that we may not have always participated in the liturgy fully, internally…If I am never silent, if the liturgy gives me no space for silent prayer and contemplation, how can I adore Christ, how can I connect with him in my heart and soul? Silence is very important, and not only before and after the liturgy.
Before I conclude, please permit me to mention some other small ways which can also contribute to a more faithful implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium. One is that we must sing the liturgy, we must sing the liturgical texts, respecting the liturgical traditions of the Church, and rejoicing in the treasury of sacred music that is ours, most especially that music proper to the Roman rite, Gregorian chant. We must sing sacred liturgical music not merely religious music, or worse, profane songs.
Video: