Observers point to many serious problems: the decline in marriage and the impending demographic crisis; the parallel decline in young people accepting the call to priesthood and the religious life; ever growing family fragmentation; lingering fallout from revelations of clergy sexual abuse of decades ago; the scandal caused by prominent Catholics who stridently oppose foundational moral truths; lack of clarity in presenting the Church’s teachings on the sensitive issues of our time and the ensuing divisions that result from it; the rise of social media as an alternative magisterium, replacing parents and parish alike as the primary educators of children. And the list goes on.

These are all important. But if you ask me, the problem underlying them all is the loss of the sense of the sacred — and most especially in how Catholics worship.

What does this loss mean? We are seeing it played out before our very eyes: the failure to evangelize the next generation of young Catholics in our pews leading to a cascading decline in Catholic faith and practice, as witnessed by the decline in Mass attendance, marriages, baptisms and religious vocations. At least 40% of adults who say they were raised Catholic have left the Church, Pew Research reported in 2015, and 10 years later, the numbers are not getting better.

Clearly, too many of our next generation of Catholics are not meeting Jesus in the Eucharist. If they were, they would not abandon him to join other religions, or simply to be absorbed by the secular culture. In the oft-quoted line from Sacrosanctum Concilium, the fathers of Vatican II put the importance of the liturgy in our lives as Christians in a wonderfully succinct way:

“[T]he liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.”

I sometimes wonder if we truly appreciate the overriding importance of this principle: it means that there is simply no more important issue in the Church, or in the world, than renewing this source and summit of faith in Jesus Christ. Do we really believe this?

Some of us do, and this is the reason why I invited prominent Catholic prelates, priests, theologians, scholars and lay Catholic leaders to join me July 1-4 at the Fons et Culmen Liturgy Summit held at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park (sponsored by the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music and the Benedict XVI Institute).

Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, will participate and share his deep wisdom on the crises facing the Church formally from the podium and informally in conversations with participants between presentations and liturgies. (The last time Cardinal Sarah came to a liturgy summit at St. Patrick’s, young Peter Carter of the Catholic Sacred Music Project struck up a friendship; now Carter’s interview book with Cardinal Sarah will be published by Ignatius Press in November.)

Also in attendance will be Cardinal Seán O’Malley, archbishop emeritus of Boston, who will pick up where Dorothy Day famously left off in pointing to the importance of beauty and order in the liturgy to the souls and psyches of the poor, who find it hardest to satisfy this basic human hunger. His talk, “The Lord Hears the Cry of the Poor: Prayer, Liturgy and Poverty,” promises to add greatly to a fuller understanding of the importance and relevance of worthy worship in the life of the Church and of each individual.

I am looking forward to hearing firsthand what Dom Benedict Nivakoff, Benedictine abbot of Norcia, has to say about “Recovering the Ascetical Heritage Behind the Mass: The Traditional Eucharistic Fast.” Jesus told us often to fast as well as pray. But why is fasting so important in this age of abundance? Monastic wisdom will answer this question for us.

I also look forward to hearing from Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio, an exemplary “JP II Generation” bishop (and the first Indian-American prelate) and a strong leader with good vision and a will to take decisive action.

Along with hearing from these and other great leaders, we will worship together, celebrating Masses according to the vision articulated and advanced by the Second Vatican Council, with pride of place given to Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony. There will be three Solemn Pontifical Masses and also three Solemn Pontifical Vespers over the four days together. These liturgies that lift souls to God show us what is possible in Church life today.

While the prelates and other Catholic leaders gathered will bring their distinct perspectives on how to address contemporary issues facing the Church, we are all of one mind with Vatican II that the future of the liturgy is key to the future prospects of the Church’s efforts to evangelize both Catholics in the pews and those who are far away from Christ.

Here’s the good news: implementing practices that foster greater reverence in the Mass does not have to stir up the controversy and dissension that those of us who are well-seasoned as Catholics experienced in the years following the Council — that is, when done with proper catechesis and pastoral sensitivity. It was precisely that lack of such pastoral common sense that made the years of “the changes” so traumatic for so many.

This has been my own personal experience and that of other priests I know. Taking such steps with this approach in the two very different parishes where I served as pastor — including simple practices such as a strict dress code for lay ministers at the liturgy and stationing ushers at the Communion stations to ensure no one walked off with a consecrated host — eventually created a much greater awareness among the parishioners of the special respect that is due to the worship of the one, true God.

But this is also possible with even more significant practices — something I have experienced at our cathedral in San Francisco, St. Mary of the Assumption.

We noticed that more and more people were kneeling for Communion, which created logistical difficulties. The Cathedral rector, Father Kevin Kennedy, spoke with me about this, and pursuant to our conversation he decided to place long kneelers in front of the sanctuary (each one of which can accommodate about eight people) so that the faithful (including the old and the infirm and not just the reverent young with healthy knees) may kneel to receive Holy Communion if they so choose.

The result? When the option to kneel to receive is offered, many people naturally do so. It is a helpful example of organic development: provide the opportunity for people to experience a liturgical practice deep within our tradition, without mandating that all comply with it but leaving a legitimate room for diversity where the Church allows it. From there, we can discern the movements of the Spirit through the most devout.

The second, and even more significant, move toward reverence was turning ad orientem, that is, the priest at the altar facing in the same direction (toward the east, at least symbolically) as the people in the pews during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Father Kennedy took time and care to catechize the faithful. He first explained the practice to the daily Massgoers. Next, he brought it to the Sunday Spanish Mass, where our faith-filled Hispanics were more likely to be more understanding of such a move. Finally, he implemented the change at the two other principal Sunday Masses, while keeping the two remaining Sunday Masses (at least for the time being) versus populum — facing the congregation.

The furor some people would think that this would cause never materialized, and for good reason: again, because it was done with proper catechesis and pastoral sensitivity. For example — and it is surprising how many priests don’t even know this — Vatican II did not say anything about changing the orientation of the altar, and, moreover, the Missal of the reordered Mass issued after the Council includes instructions to the celebrate to turn and face the people at three different points during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

The common phrase we hear, “the priest with his back to the people,” is emblematic of the loss of the sacred because it completely misses where the focus belongs: not on the priest, but on the Church’s march toward the encounter with the risen Christ represented by the eastward direction, the east being the source of light. A priest celebrating the Mass ad orientem is no more turning his back on the people than a teacher leading her students in the Pledge of Allegiance is slighting them by turning her back on them and facing the flag with them. By facing symbolic “east” toward the altar and the cross, the priest is leading his flock in worship of the Lord, together.

Each Lent we Catholics fast, give alms, and do penance to remind ourselves how Jesus sacrificed himself in a painful death on the Cross because of our sins, so that we could be with God in paradise forever. With our Protestant brethren, we believe Jesus rose again from the tomb after three days, a witness to God’s triumph over death.

But as Catholics we believe something more: that each Sunday the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is made present to us on the altar, that he comes again to us under the appearances of bread and wine, and he offers himself to us in fulfillment of his commanding words: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (John 6:53).

To me, it is heartening how many young people are drawn to classic Catholic practices that so effectively express transcendent realities. What is classically Catholic works. It’s time to rebuild with confidence on a solid foundation, including on our knees in reverence before Our Lord Jesus Christ.