Liturgy

I attended a funeral today for a monk priest who I knew in college.  It was a beautiful service, as is the usually the case at this monastery.  The Benedictines are well known for the beauty of their liturgical services.  There is nothing rushed, nothing hurried, things are well planned, and it seemingly runs like clockwork.  I feel their liturgies give you a sneak preview of what heaven is like, especially if you think of heaven like I do.

In heaven, we will worship and adore God.
In heaven, there is no "time limit"; we will not be in a hurry.
In heaven,  there will be order, not chaos.
In heaven, everyone will be supportive of one another; while we love God, we will love our brothers and sisters more fully than ever.

To a degree, I experienced all that today at the funeral liturgy.

Now every liturgy is supposed to be a "foretaste" of heaven, be it at a monastery or any Catholic church.  It may not always seem that way, but in its essence, it is, and we can experience it as such, no matter how poorly it is celebrated, or how "messy" things get during Mass,  if we prepare ourselves well, and have the proper dispositions.  Yes, it absolutely helps if it is celebrated well, as I witnessed today, but nonetheless, the liturgy is the liturgy, as long as a few certain basics are in place, and we can benefit from it no matter how well or not it is presided over, or the characteristics of the atmosphere it takes place in.  

The word "liturgy" originally meant a "public work".  The Church's tradition has taken it to mean the participation of the People of God in the "work of God".   In the liturgy, the Church proclaims, celebrates, and invites us to participate in God's work.    The liturgy has a dual aspect; praising God, and then offering His gifts back to Him, asking Him to bless that offering so that His blessings will produce abundant life on the Earth.   In liturgy, we bless God, but in doing so, we become blessed, or "divinized" ourselves.

Dietrich von Hildebrand, a great philosopher and spiritual writer of the middle 20th century,  wrote a beautiful book that I encourage you to read called "Liturgy and Personality".   In this book, he makes it clear that while personal development is not the goal of liturgy, nonetheless, praying through the liturgy helps us to grow personally.   He lists several ways it helps us grow as people, which I will list here. ( I am grossly simplifying his arguments, you really need to read the book to truly appreciate his insights.)

1) Liturgy takes us out of ourselves, and helps us grow in communion with God and others.
2) Liturgy, by promoting reverence, instills reverence in us, increases our reverence for other persons, and promotes reverence for all creation.
3) Liturgy helps us respond appropriately to value, and to respect the hierarchy of values. Through the liturgy, we experience truth, love, beauty, power, and communion, and in doing so, we are better able to experience those values in our lives outside the liturgy.
4) Liturgy promotes wakefulness.  Through proper participation in the Liturgy, we are taken out of our own narrow existence, and become more "alert" to the metaphysical realities around us which are much larger than our own individual circumstances.
5) Liturgy promotes discretion.   In the liturgy, we practice discretion by not moving rapidly from one thing to another, but taking time to prepare ourselves before reaching the climax of any celebration.  For example, we do not walk in and receive Communion or Absolution or Baptism; no, for each of those, we have to prepare ourselves, and do certain things first.  This is why liturgy should never feel rushed.  It is good to practice discretion in other life circumstances, as well, and the well-formed man practices discretion everyday.
6) Liturgy promotes continuity.  This allows us never to get trapped in the present moment, and in doing so, forget the lessons of the past, and/or forget to anticipate or prepare for the future.  The liturgy recalls God's saving work, makes it present now, and anticipates the fulfillment of the Kingdom in the future.  We should live our lives with equal awareness of the past, present, and future, as best as possible.  We will never be all we can be if we neglect to try to do this.
7) The liturgy is organic. Organic implies "fullness of meaning coming from within".  In other words, it is not mechanical (having no meaning) or artificial ( has meaning, but coming from the outside, not from within).  Liturgy praises God and brings Him down to us (the dual movement we spoke of earlier).  It does not force God on us, and we do not force ourselves on Him.  The best personalities are developed from within, with meaning, and not forced from the outside.  Participating in the organic liturgy helps us be more organic ourselves in our own personality.
8) The liturgy is classic.   It is rooted in objective truth.   The more we are rooted in truth, the fuller our individual personalities are. 

Again, please read his book for much more detail on all those points above.

The upcoming Easter Triduum is a great opportunity to experience beautiful liturgy.  The Holy Thursday Mass, Good Friday service, and the Easter Vigil, are all wonderful liturgical experiences that can lift your soul to God to a degree that is not matched at any other time of the year, because the Easter Triduum is the "source of light" for the entire liturgical year.   I encourage you to try to attend at least one of these three services; you will not be disappointed, and you will be a better person as a result of going.

Before closing, I wish to honor Saint Joseph, whose feast day was today.  Reading through Mr. von Hildebrand's qualities of a noble personality above, I cannot help but think Saint Joseph emulated all of them.  He was by all accounts a quiet man who worked  hard and lived virtuously.  Because of that, I am sure was rich in all the traits mentioned above.  In adoring the Christ child, Joseph was able to become the best man he could be.  In adoring Christ through the liturgy, we can do likewise.

Joseph most strong, pray for us.