The missalette produced by the Salesians has this as the introduction for this Sunday's Mass.
Today we celebrate the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The message coming to us from today’s Gospel is most encouraging. We are reminded that Jesus came to call sinners to conversion and to invite them to sit with him at the banquet of God’s Kingdom. But Jesus also warns us that the essence of our membership in the Kingdom does not consist in external religious observances. Instead, we are challenged to have a merciful and compassionate heart, as well as to show this through concrete actions. Let us remember this as we are about to start the celebration of the Eucharist. What makes our worship acceptable to God are not external things, but the disposition of our hearts.
Basically they are downgrading the role of the external elements of the ritual worship of the Church. This runs contrary to several liturgical theologians, to the Constitution of Sacred Liturgy and to the Tradition of the Church. We do not worship through only our internal dispositions. Liturgy has always involved signs. Your sacraments are sacred signs. I am saying that these external observances are essential in the prayer of the Church.
I am not saying internal disposition is not important. It is this internal disposition that makes our worship experience fruitful in our lives. It is our cooperation to what has happened in the rite, to what we experience through the perceivable signs and symbols of the liturgy.
What makes worship acceptable to God is both the worthy external execution of the liturgy and internal disposition of those who celebrate it - everyone who is in it, because it is only through a good and meaningful experience of worship can we all live what we celebrate.
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