1. "The Spirit and the Bride say "Come'. And let him who hears say, "Come'. And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price" (Apoc 22: 17). These words from the Apocalypse echo in my heart as I remember that 40 years ago today, exactly on 4 December 1963, my venerable Predecessor, Pope Paul VI, promulgated the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the Sacred Liturgy. What, indeed, is the Liturgy other than the voice of the Holy Spirit and of the Bride, holy Church, crying in unison to the Lord Jesus:  "Come"? What is the Liturgy other than that pure, inexhaustible source of "living water" from which all who thirst can freely draw the gift of God (cf. Jn 4: 10)?

Indeed, in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the first fruit of the Second Vatican Council, that "great grace bestowed on the Church in the 20th century"¹, the Holy Spirit spoke to the Church, ceaselessly guiding the disciples of the Lord "into all the truth" (Jn 16: 13). The commemoration of the 40th anniversary of this event is a good opportunity to rediscover the basic themes of the liturgical renewal that the Council Fathers desired, to seek to evaluate their reception, as it were, and to cast a glance at the future.