Treasure of the Church
Christian Liturgy is the worship offered by the baptized to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. By taking part in it, the Christian must enter with all his humanity into the Son’s gift to the Father. He then truly lives up to his name as Christian, since he himself becomes Christ (ipse Christus) by offering himself on the paten and in the chalice.
In this immense gift made present through the liturgy, two excesses—unfortunately too often found in Christian hearts—must be avoided.
The first excess would be an exclusively horizontal (let’s say too human) view of the liturgy. It would then be merely an earthly cult reduced to the performance of gestures more or less charged with meaning.
The second excess would be an exclusively vertical view. Make no mistake: this view of the liturgy is just as dangerous as the first. The liturgy is then reduced to worship “in spirit,” where only what happens in the human heart is essential — and one can do as one pleases, since God is only addressed personally.
Faced with these two excesses, we must link the horizontal to the vertical. It is then the cross that stands before our eyes, for indeed, the key to the liturgy is Christ, true God and true man. By taking on both these realities, Christ, the Word made flesh, wanted to bring the divine into the human so that, through this mystery of grace, the human might reach the divine. Let us therefore move away from a Platonic vision of faith that would cast the divine off into heaven and the carnal down onto earth! When we enter a church, and especially during the celebration of Mass, these two mysteries are united; this is why the Word chose to become flesh.
Thus, the liturgy is the timeless link that brings us into the presence of the one, eternal mystery of God. By offering true worship to God in this world, we are already in the presence of the throne of the Lamb. This is why our earthly liturgies must reflect heaven, not earth!
But having said this, we must be careful not to forget to unite our liturgy with real life. The beauty of our worship must reflect the beauty of our actions. The beggar at the door of our parish church, outside our supermarket, in my workplace — he must be part of our liturgies. We must carry these people, offer them up, and help them in the most concrete way in our daily lives. It is in this sense that the Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah:
The Lord declares that he takes no pleasure in the multitude of sacrifices and offerings brought to him while the hands that bring them are stained with wrongdoing. He calls his people instead to wash themselves clean, to put away their evil deeds, to learn to do good, to seek justice, to restrain the oppressor, to defend the orphan, and to plead the cause of the widow (cf. Is 1:11-17).
To offer liturgical worship is not to step away from reality — it is to offer reality itself!
The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ unites his Church and all her members to his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, offered once for all on the Cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body, which is the Church.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1407
The High Priest of the New and Eternal Covenant, Christ Jesus, taking on human nature, introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout eternity in the halls of heaven.
Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 83
Holy Mother Church believes that it is her duty to celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse by a sacred commemoration on fixed days throughout the year. Each week, on the day she has called “the Lord’s Day,” she commemorates the Lord’s resurrection, which she also celebrates once a year, together with his blessed Passion, in the great solemnity of Easter.
And she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ throughout the cycle of the year, from the Incarnation and Nativity to the Ascension, to the day of Pentecost, and to the expectation of the blessed hope and the coming of the Lord.
Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 102
