What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

The Liturgy: In the Church

The Liturgy: In the Church

            When I wrote the blogs on the Nicene Creed, I focused mainly on things that all Christians have in common, because the profession of faith in the Nicene Creed is common to all Christians.  The Creed presented the most basic things that you must believe in order to be able to call yourself a Christian.  From this point forward, I will be focusing on specifically the Roman Catholic Church because, well, that’s kind of the purpose of these blogs.  So, with that said, or actually written, let’s begin looking at the Liturgy within the Catholic Church.

            Within the Catholic Church the liturgy is much more than just the order of the service.  Though the liturgy we continue to be equipped for the work of the ministry, (see Ephesians 4:12) which we are all called to do, each in his or her own unique way.  The liturgy also brings us together as one body.  To the world, the church is just a building and nothing more.  Through the liturgy everyone participates and we all become one.

 Before one can truly participate in the liturgy, one must first know about Christ.  One must believe and have faith in one God, the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.  In short, conversion must have happened.  After all, how can we be a community of believers, how can we be one body, if we don’t all believe?  That’s not to say that everyone needs to be a theologian or a life-long Christian.  We’re all on a journey, and everyone is at a different place in that journey.  But for the liturgy to truly be a sign to the world of Christian unity, of Christian community, we must all believe.  And all believe the same things.

            We’re called to much more than just liturgical celebration, however.  Like I said earlier, the point of liturgy is to equip us to go out into our world.  Through the worship of God in the liturgy we are strengthened and fed so we can take that light out into our families, schools and jobs.  That is why, within the Mass, there are two liturgies: the first is the Liturgy of the Word, where the scriptures are read (usually one Old Testament and one from the New Testament), the Gospel reading is proclaimed and the homily is given.  The second is the Liturgy of the Eucharist which is all about the Eucharist.  More on that when we get to the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  In the Mass, through the two liturgies, we are fed with the Word, and fed with the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are equipped for the work God has called us to do.

            “The liturgy then is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ.  It involves the presentation of man’s sanctification under the guise of signs perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of these signs.  In it full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members.  From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others.  No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.” (CCC 1070)