The changes that are coming in the liturgy are trying to create a sense of oneness, Father Henry Gracz told persons attending a program on “Our Changing Worships: Anguish or Joy?” at St. Anthony’s Tuesday night.

“The liturgy must be the people’s own worship. It must be an action which the people enact with the priest—an action which involves all they are,” Father Gracz, secretary of the Archdiocesan Liturgy Commission, said.

“The people’s action is just as much a part of true liturgical celebration as is the priest’s and it must ring true,” the priest said.

The programs on changes in the liturgy will be held again next Monday night at Our Lady of the Assumption, at St. Anthony’s on Tuesday night and at the Cathedral of Christ the King Wednesday night. The programs begin at 8 p.m.

Father Gracz said the new forms and the new spirit of worship “will draw us to our fellowman and to the needs of humanity in the world, embracing our culture and the people who compose it, regardless of class or race, so that men loving one another in the stream of Christ Jesus will be lead to our heavenly father.”

He said external changes in the liturgy alone will not be enough to make it the people’s own action. An attitude of mind, an interior spirit must be cultivated.

The priest said that over the centuries Catholic worship drifted away from its primitive spirit which was simple, objective and corporate to an undisciplined state of flamboyancy, subjectivism and personalism.

He said the Mass was said in Greek—the language of the people—until the middle of the fourth Century when Latin—which had become the language of the people was adopted.

“By the Ninth Century, especially in Northern Europe, Latin had ceased to be a living language, but it was preserved long after it died as something venerable and treasured. The faithful were lost because no translations were made.”

Father Gracz said in early, primitive Christianity the altar had a prominent place in the Church as the center of sacrifice close to the people. “The altar was simple and was a reminder of the meal feeding the people united in Christ their redeemer.

“But in the 12th and 13th centuries, the gothic cathedral withdrew the altar to the greatest possible distance form the people,” he said.

Father Gracz said Eucharistic piety drifted due to the semi-Arian heresy which laid heavy stress on Christ the divine logos. “Christ’s human nature faded and his presence in the Eucharist became more awesome and terrible. The Christ who was there (in the Eucharist) was stressed rather than the Christ who is to be eaten.”

Louis Erbs, chairman of the commission, will give the talks at next week’s meetings.