The liturgical rite leads us back to what is essential, Pope says in audience on Vatican II

June 03, 2026

Continuing his series of Wednesday general audiences on the Second Vatican Council and its documents, Pope Leo XIV spoke this morning on “Rite, sign, and symbol“ (video).

It was the eighteenth audience in the series and the third devoted to Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963).

“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,” Pope Leo said to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. “The rite gives shape to liturgical action and, through it, to our lives, generating a spiritual sensibility in us that makes us capable of savoring the presence of God through Jesus Christ.”

“Naturally, this happens if we do not remain strangers or silent spectators with regard to the liturgy, but rather participate in it fully—body, mind and heart—in obedience to the Lord’s command,” the Pope continued. “Through the sacred rite we are thus formed in listening to the Word of God, in giving thanks and in adoration, in fraternal sharing and in ecclesial communion.”

Pope Leo explained:

The rite involves us in a well-defined sequence of gestures and prayers, which can sometimes be at odds with with our individual tendency towards spontaneity. 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.

We thus discover another dimension of action that is not guided by calculations of productivity, and another experience of time and space. In the rite, we experience a logic of gratuitousness, we find a pause that regenerates the heart, we recognize that we are preceded by divine grace and we learn to live in a rhythm inhabited by the Holy Spirit.

“The grammar of the rite,” the Pope said, “is interwoven with the signs and symbols proper to the liturgy,” which he distinguished in this way:

• 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.”
• 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.”

“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 Pontiff concluded. “The experience of a living and devout liturgy, accompanied by appropriate mystagogical catechesis, is the best resource for reawakening in everyone that openness to the encounter with God which, in the logic of the Incarnation, can only take place by involving the whole person: spirit, soul and body (cf. 1 Thess 5:23).”

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Audiences in series “Vatican Council II through its Documents”

• Introductory catechesis (1/7/26)

On Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965):

• God speaks to men as to friends (1/14/26)
• Jesus Christ reveals the Father (1/21/26)
• A single sacred deposit: The relationship between Scripture and Tradition (1/28/26)
• The Sacred Scripture: the Word of God in human words (2/4/26)
• The Word of God in the life of the Church (2/11/26)

On Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964):

• The mystery of the Church, sacrament of the union with God, and the unity of all humanity (2/18/26)
• No audience on 2/25 (Pope, Roman Curia on retreat)
• The Church, a Visible and Spiritual Reality (3/4/26)
• The Church, people of God (3/11/26)
• The Church, a Priestly and Prophetic People (3/18/26)
• On the foundation of the Apostles: The Church in her hierarchical dimension (3/25/26)
• Living stones in the Church and witnesses in the world: The laity in the People of God (4/1/26)
• Holiness and evangelical counsels in the Church (4/8/26)
• No audience on 4/15 and 4/22 (in Africa), followed by a special general audience on his apostolic journey to Africa (4/29/26)
• The Church, pilgrim in history towards the heavenly homeland (5/6/26)
• The Virgin Mary, model of the Church (5/13/26)

On Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963):

• The liturgy in the mystery of the Church (5/20/26)
• The reform of the liturgy: tradition and development (5/27/26)
• Rite, sign, and symbol (6/3/26)

 

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Further information:

• General Audience (Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Media, 6/3/26)
• General Audience, 27.05.2026 (Holy See Press Office, 6/3/26)
• Pope at Audience: The liturgy leads us back to what is essential (Vatican News, 6/3/26)