Liturgical Movement - The Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council

The Latin Tridentine Mass remained the standard eucharistic liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church in the West until the Second Vatican Council. In 1963, the Council adopted, by an overwhelming majority, the Constitution On Sacred Liturgy "Sacrosantum Concilium". For the first time the vernacular liturgy was permitted, even if to a possibly minor extent to the one actually reached afterwards by national churches. The influence of Hippolytus was evident in the form of Eucharistic Prayers. Accompanying this was the encouragement for liturgies to express local culture (subject to approval by the Holy See).

The recovery of the Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Divine Office), the daily prayer of the Church was just as startling. As liturgical prayer is the prayer of the Church, the Constitution states that "in choir" (common) office prayer is always preferable with respect to individual one.