274. Twelfth Thursday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 260 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The liturgy is the worship offered by the whole of Christ’s Mystical Body.

The Book of Kings recalls the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Out of all the calamities heaped upon the city, the sacred writer singles out the destruction of the Temple and relates it alone in detail, to underline its significance. Nebuchadnezzar, we are told, carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord … and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made.

We fully understand the sadness expressed by the inspired writer, because our faith teaches us to set the highest value on whatever refers directly to God. This is the reason why the oratory is the most important place in our own Centres. God dwells in his holy habitation, the Psalmist says. The oratory is God’s house, a special dwelling-place for the Lord so we can worship him there.

Moreover, in liturgical acts Christ is the high priest who offers God the glory that is his due, and associates the Church with himself in his action. The liturgy is the essential and perfect act of worship offered by Christ’s Mystical Body, that is to say, by the Head and his members. The Second Vatican Council teaches that the liturgy is rightly considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of the human person is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members.

The liturgy gives us a foretaste of and a share in the song which the Angels and Saints sing in the glory of heaven, and which we are called to sing one day. Praise the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever! Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord, or show forth all his praise?

In the Work we have a great love for the liturgy, because our whole life is centred on the Holy Mass, the summit of all the Church’s liturgical actions. And it is in the Mass that we can establish a living relationship with the Blessed Trinity, with our Mother the Blessed Virgin, and with the Angels and Saints.

The liturgical spirit of the Work is shown in a host of theological, ascetical, doctrinal and practical ways. Our Father taught us from the very start to practise these things. How great is the value of piety in the Holy Liturgy! I was not at all surprised when someone said to me a few days ago, talking about a model priest who died recently: “What a saint he was!” “Did you know him very well?” I asked. “No,” he said, “but I once saw him saying the Mass.

We wish to put loving attention into everything that refers to the worship of God and the care of the oratory and the tabernacle, because Jesus Christ is there, and it is he who is the object of all our love and devotion.

Union with Christ in the liturgy through personal piety.

Liturgical life is the base and support for our life of piety. The sacraments, the most exalted actions we can ever take part in, nourish our personal piety and are the best way to express it. Pope Pius the Twelfth wrote that if the private and interior devotion of individuals were to neglect the noble Sacrifice of the Altar and the sacraments, and to withdraw them from the stream of vital energy that flows from Head to members, it would indeed be sterile. If our actions are to be directed to the glory of God the Father, they must all be founded on Christ and linked to the Sacrifice of the Cross.

In the Work all this comes true if the Mass is the centre and root of our interior life … so that for us our whole day is a continual act of worship, a prolongation of one Mass and a preparation for the next one. This overflows into aspirations, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and the offering of our work, and into all the Norms of piety and Customs with which our life is interwoven.

In its turn, the liturgy demands a solid inner life for its true practice. Without personal piety and an ascetical battle to purify our soul and to draw nearer to Christ, we would stray from the path to holiness, and end up by deserting the acts of the liturgy as well. Without the necessary inner act of the will, the liturgy would be left soulless and lose much of its effect. We would be earning God’s reproach: These people draw near with their mouths and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.

There can never be any opposition between the liturgy and other practices of piety, because they are all directed to the same end: giving glory to God and sanctifying souls. Based on faith and love, we discover that the fundamental meaning of the liturgy is to show forth the inner life of the Christian soul, which needs to overflow in externalized, public worship of God. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to thy name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.

The human heart asks for these external acts; it needs to express itself in words and gestures. And in their turn, the beauty of the ceremonies, the harmony of the singing, and the solemnity of the liturgical rites, all move our heart to greater love for God.

We have to have a heartfelt affection for the liturgy and make an effort to put loving attention into fulfilling it. Our Father tells us: Though I know full well how good your dispositions are, my children, I want to stress that you must make a special effort to follow the magisterium of the Holy Church in total docility. As a consequence, you must obey all the indications given by the Holy See concerning the liturgy, and be generous in adapting to whatever modifications the Roman Pontiff introduces into the lex orandi, the Church’s prayer, realizing that any such modifications will refer to accidentals only.

Our prayer should be liturgical.

Don’t forget, our Father reminded us, that I have always taught you to base your piety on Holy Scripture and on the liturgy, the official prayer of the Church; and I have always frowned upon carrying out private devotions in common. The liturgy nourishes our personal piety. Although it does not constitute the whole of the spiritual life, we do need to make sure that, as the Church teaches, our own practices of piety harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, and are in some way derived from it.

In the course of the year the Church presents to us the principal events of Jesus’ life. We experience that life as something real and present, because the liturgical year, as Pope Pius the Twelfth taught, is not a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, or a simple and bare record of a former age. It is rather Christ himself who is ever living in his Church. As we follow the different aspects of his life that are brought before us, we will find new virtues to imitate, and new reasons for gratitude and love.

In the readings and prayers, the liturgy also brings us the echo of Christ’s own preaching, and supplies us with a precious reservoir of material on which to draw for our own personal meditation.

The liturgical life and the interior life are inseparable because they depend on one another. It would be a mistake, and a pitfall on the path to holiness, to neglect either of the two. If, on the other hand, we are really trying to participate in the liturgy and cultivate our own inner life, we are going directly towards God. Good inner dispositions, strengthened by meditation and personal practices of piety, increase the good effects of liturgical worship; and in its turn, liturgical worship trains us in the habit of relating to God, keeping him constantly before our minds, talking and listening to him, and being guided by him. Don’t forget, our Father reminds us, that the liturgical life is a life of love - love for God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit; together with the whole Church, which you are part of.

Obviously, then, our life is going to be influenced by the liturgy, and filled with liturgical spirit. The prayers and petitions of the liturgical acts are going to become a theme for our aspirations throughout the day. And our contact with God in the Mass is going to be prolonged in visits to the Blessed Sacrament and other acts of piety; it will lead us to pay honour to our Lady, to whom the Church dedicates so many feasts in filial love.

Our liturgical spirit leads us to make our whole day into a continual act of worship, centred around the Mass. Then, united with Jesus Christ, through our Lady’s intercession, we can say: Lord, receive our offering, and may this sacrifice of praise purify us in mind and heart and make us always eager to serve you.