Question 2.22

2.22 Where do you get the lively and precocious liturgical sensitivity that you seem to have?

Thank you for that fine compliment. I am sure the example of the Holy Ghost Fathers was decisive. When I was an altar boy, I observed very attentively the sensitivity and fervor with which the priests in my village celebrated their daily Masses. In this sense, it is not wrong to say that from a young age I was able to understand the need to offer spiritual worship that was holy and pleasing to God. At Mass we are present first and foremost to God. If we do not turn our attention radically toward God, our faith becomes lukewarm, distracted, and uncertain. At Ourous, as an altar boy, I gradually learned to enter into the eucharistic mystery and to understand that the Mass was a unique moment in the life of the priests and of the faithful. Divine worship lifted us out of the ordinary. Seeing things with the eyes of a child, I had the feeling that the priest was literally absorbed by Christ at the moment when, facing East, he lifted the consecrated Host toward heaven.

I was also able to understand the importance of moments of silence during the liturgy. A priest ought to make a great deal of room for silence in his life, because that is fundamental if he is to remain attentive to God and to the souls that are entrusted to him. For a priest it is terribly important to learn, from the example of the monks, never to speak without reason. Because preaching involves silence. In noise, the priest wastes his time; chatter is an acid rain that can ruin our meditation. The silence of God should teach us when to speak and when to remain silent. This silence that ushers us into the real liturgy is a moment in which to praise God, to confess him before others, and to proclaim his glory. I remember that on Sundays all the villagers were very fond of spending a long time in personal prayer. We were in the presence of the Presence.

Finally, my sense of liturgy acquired a maturity and a depth as I matured, particularly during my years at seminary. As an African, I certainly inherited our joyful fear of everything sacred. In pagan religious celebrations, after the dances and the sounds of rejoicing came the sacred moments of sacrificial libations, which required absolute silence.

During my years as a seminarian, and then after my ordination, my certainty was strengthened. I understood that the greatest way to be with the Son of God made man was still the liturgy. At Mass the priest is face to face with God. The Mass is the most important thing in our lives. And the Divine Office, the breviary, prepares us for it.

During my youth I did not have the chance to become acquainted with the rich liturgy that can be found in monasteries. It may be that many Christians in Europe do not appreciate the fact that abbeys are a unique treasure. However, the Holy Ghost Fathers’ slow liturgical pace and their sense of the sacred did enable me during my childhood to anticipate the incomparable beauty of the Benedictine celebrations.

In the Old Testament the Hebrews always approached God with fear and veneration. Ultimately, I sought to imitate them. The best way to do this is through the liturgy.