Do you think that planning and preparing for Lent and Holy Week on the scale of a papal liturgy might require more than moving the ribbon from the front of the Missal to the middle?
Maybe if some of our local dioceses and parishes actually PLANNED and PREPARED some of the liturgies with the care to detail that they give to the annual charity drive, the experience might be a little more prayerful.
If you look at the two liturgical books Archbishop Marini prepared with Pope John Paul II, the Ordo Exsequiarum (the Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff) and the Ordo Rituum Conclavis (the Conclave Rites) and the first liturgical book he prepared for Pope Benedict XVI, the Ordo Rituum Pro Ministerii Petrini Initio (the Rites for the Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome) and its preliminary study, Sede Apostolica Vacante (Vacancy of the Apostolic See: History, Legislation, Rites, Places and Things) - and then you remember how beautifully those liturgies were celebrated on international TV, you'd realize that these things don't just happen.
Thank God that Pope Benedict and those he has working for him actually care enough about the teaching potential of the papal liturgies to PLAN and PREPARE them well in advance. As the blogger put it "Leading By Example."
We don't have TV. Of course the Vatican has to prepare in advance for major liturgical events. The mind boggles simply considering the sanitary facilities required!
I was being sarcastic, after all the turmoil over people's feeling persecuted because they weren't wished "Merry Christmas" on Veterans' Day. Will we have a similar fluff if the chorus of "Happy Easter!" doesn't start on February 15?
(/cranky old pregnant broad rant)