This course will provide an understanding of the key principles of sacred liturgy, especially insofar as they stand behind and alongside the liturgical texts of the Catholic Church. Students will learn how liturgy is fundamental to the very nature of the Church. The various liturgical Rites within the Church will be situated within liturgical tradition, with a brief survey of the historical development of the Roman Rite. We will examine the aims and goals of the twentieth-century Liturgical Movement, leading to Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator dei, which in turn led to the vision for reform of the liturgy as found expressed at the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum concilium. Throughout our study of principles of the sacred liturgy, we will consider important concepts to liturgical studies such as inculturation, the fundamental unity of the Roman Rite, sacred language, unity in diversity, the organic development of the liturgy, the meaning of “participation” in the liturgy, and the pastoral and formative dimensions of the liturgy. In so doing, students will be able to appreciate and understand the liturgy not merely as prescribed texts to be observed, but at a deeper level in terms of liturgical and theological principles.