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The Liturgy: Essence and Issues J. Jacob TawneyThe following is the full-length version of a talk given at Ohio WesleyanUniversity on March 25, 2009. The talk itself was an abbreviated version of what follows.
 While it doesn’t always make headlines in the secular newspapers, if one were tolisten carefully to what is actually being said by the Church in recent years, one would certainly conclude topic receiving and increasing amount of attention isthe Liturgy. This of course should come as no surprise, for as Vatican II said, theLiturgy is both the source and the summit of the Christian life. Then again, while Vatican II stated this principle in concise and eloquent terms, the principle itself is not new. The Liturgy has always been at the center of our faith. So the questionremains, why now? At this point in the history of our Church, why is there such agrowing interest in the Liturgy? Is it because we have been blessed with a Pope who is arguably one of the leading academics in liturgical theology? Perhaps.Though I think the issue goes deeper than just the leadership in the Church. Ithink it is essentially a question of timing. We are seeing the first generation now coming into adulthood of those who have only ever experienced what the Churchcalls the
 Novus Ordo
, or the new form of the Mass, the form promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969. Those who are forty years and younger have knownnothing else except this form of the Sacred Liturgy. On top of that, the manner in which this Liturgy is often celebrated is done so in a way that emphasizes thepeople as participants at the expense of the transcendent
actio Dei 
, the action of God. This generation is hungering for the transcendent, much as they arehungering for authentic Catholic orthodoxy. Because of the growing popularity of this topic, I have titled my talk “The Liturgy: Essence and Issues.” While it isalways tempting to jump right into specific issues (which way the priest shouldface during the Eucharistic Canon, how much Latin should be in the Mass, or what type of music is appropriate) addressing such questions without a proper background would be putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Before taking
 
up specific Liturgical issues, we must first try to understand the essence of theLiturgy itself. The bulk of this talk will attempt, in the short amount of time wehave, to do just that, to try to hammer out the essence, and hence the purpose, of the Liturgy. To do so, I have three important points.Important point number one: the Liturgy is a cosmic event. In the OldTestament, we see the idea of worship, in the Ten Commandments, as tied to theSabbath Day. On this seventh day, man is to rest from work and give worship tohis Creator. However, the Sabbath being the seventh day of rest immediately harkens back to the creation story itself. The Sabbath Day is precisely thatseventh day on which God Himself rested after the creation of the world. Thus, we can see from the first book of Scripture that the act of worship, or at least theday set aside for worship, is part of the fabric of the cosmic act of creation. Tomake this clearer, let us take up the very term “worship.” What do we mean by  worship? Worship itself, according to the Fathers of the Church, is nothing otherthan giving to God what is due to God. St. Thomas Aquinas designed his entire
 Summa Theologica
around this principle. It is the principle of 
exitus-reditus
(exitand return). Simply put, from God all of creation comes, and to God it mustreturn. God holds all of creation in existence out of an act of pure generosity. Thegreat Christian distinction is that God is not part of the world, but is outside of the world. Moreover, God does not need the world. He freely chose to create it,and he freely chooses to hold it in creation. The world does nothing to add to thegreatness of God.Because God has given existence to all of creation, the only gift that any aspect of creation can possibly hope to give back to God is itself. Every being in the created world has its fulfillment in God. From God it has come, and to God it must return(
exitus-reditus
). Its perfection as being is found nowhere if not in its very sourceof being. It is precisely to this act of giving back to God what is rightfully His that we give the name “worship.” All of creation worships insofar as it tends towardsits fulfillment in God. This is why worship is a cosmic event. However, mankindis unique in the world. Every being except for man cannot help but tend towards
 
its perfection in God. Only people can actively ignore their destiny; only peoplecan deliberately head away from God. In doing so, mankind fails to worship, orperhaps said differently, mankind worships incorrectly. The very act of sin is anact of incorrect worship. The most obvious example of this is using the Lord’sname in vain, an “incorrect prayer” if you will.The Liturgy, which is the making concrete of the act of worship, is therefore acosmic event. It is not one aspect of our lives, something we do on Sundays. Theinclusion is the other way around. Instead of fitting the Liturgy into what wethink is something bigger, namely our lives, it is in the Liturgy that we are takenup into something much bigger, the cosmic worship of God. The Liturgy is a greatdrama that is being played out on a cosmic scale, and simply by being there, weare taken up into this drama. This is exactly why having specific rituals in theliturgy is so important. When there are “lines” that need recited, “actions” or“stage directions” that need followed, the structure of the Liturgy itself teachesthat the Liturgy is bigger than us; we are taught that it is not something that wecan create, but something that must be received. In contrast, when the Liturgy  becomes the result of the creative efforts of a Liturgy committee, thecongregation is given the impression that the main focus of the action is not onGod but on the people, that we are the creators, not God. How the Liturgy ispresented and the way in which it includes us affects how we come to think of theessence of the Liturgy and of ourselves as human agents. This is the basicprinciple of sacramentality in its most general form. The principle states, “we arehow we act.” In other words, the way in which we act forms the views we hold andeven the type of person we become. If the Mass is presented as a ritual, people aregiven the correct impression that it is something bigger than themselves, a sacredaction in which they are taken up. They then come to realize that they are not thecenter of reality. If it is presented as self-created, then people come to seethemselves as, well, self-creators.Contrary to common thought on what happens during the Mass, the Liturgy is
not 
where God is brought down to us ... we hardly have that amount of power.
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Omar Reyes

this quote says it all "The Liturgy, which is the making concrete of the act of worship, is therefore a cosmic event."

reply06 / 07 / 2011
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