Liturgy is central to the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI – and music was central to his vision of liturgical renewal. In an address to the eighth International Church Music Congress, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said: “The liturgy is supposed to be opus Dei, God’s work, in which he Himself acts first, and we become the redeemed precisely because He is at work.”
Because he viewed liturgy as the work of God, Benedict held that liturgical music must foster the right relationship between the spirit and the senses, and that it must draw upon the whole tradition. Like liturgy itself, liturgical music is not something we make but something we receive, originating in Christ as Logos and ushering us into the liturgy of Heaven.
