This is one of the shortest sections, but it has a key element often lost on clergy and lay people alike:
38. For ministers as well as for all the baptized, liturgical formation in this first sense is not something that can be acquired once and for all. Since the gift of the mystery celebrated surpasses our capacity to know it, this effort certainly must accompany the permanent formation of everyone, with the humility of little ones, the attitude that opens up into wonder.
Permanent formation in this context reads to me as ongoing and lifelong. From parents of First Communicants to bishops, I think the Church is infected with a graduation mindset–the notion that once one has achieved a certain rank, job, sacrament, or age, no further exploration is necessary. The truth is that the curiosity, the drive to improve, the longing to see and experience more is a much more fully Christian endeavor than resting on laurels.
The full document, copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione – Libreria Editrice Vaticana is here on the Vatican site.
Catholic Sensibility 