Liturgical Spirituality Worship • How we worship constitutes our response to God’s revealing himself to us. • You can worship God on your own. • The Church as a communion of people is to worship God together. • Liturgy is used principally to describe how we worship God as a Body of people. • Our Spiritual Worship of God is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, and the Holy Spirit moves us from within to worship God. The Life of Christ as the Original Liturgy • Liturgy –a public act done by someone for the benefit of others. • Catholic liturgy comes from the great liturgy of Christ’s life. • As we learn how to worship God, we have a pattern for us to follow: the life, death, and resurrection, of Jesus, what He did, and how He did it. • The more that our own personal response is liturgical, the more it participates in the power of the principal liturgist, Jesus Christ. The Three Major Elements of Liturgical Worship • The Lord’s Day. • The consecration of the hours of the day, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours, particularly morning and evening prayer. • The Church sanctifies the year itself through seasons of the Church: Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time, Advent, Christmas, etc. History of Liturgical Spirituality • Early on, the Church had a strong liturgical sensibility; St Justin Martyr describes the sequence of the mass (CCC 1345). • At the end of the Roman Empire, liturgy became a specialty of the celebrants and priests making it more protected and clerical. Various devotions come from this time period. th • Early 20 century St Pius X wanted the liturgy to be made available in simple ways so that more people could sing it and answer it. The Church Begins to recapture a liturgy for the general population. nd • 1962-1965 The 2 Vatican Council sought a renewal of a full and active participation of the people in the liturgies of the Church. 2nd Vatican Council on Liturgical Life • Lumen Gentium #51 (can also be found on CCC959) • The deepest vocation of the Church is community, that the relationships between us mirror the relationship between the Father and the Son through the empowering Holy Spirit. • Lumen Gentium #1 • The foundation of liturgical spirituality is to enter into the life death and resurrection of the liturgist Himself, but then is reflected in the gift of the Holy Spirit which enables us to live what we learn and see about Christ. • Liturgical Spirituality is the formative way in which Catholics approach their Lord, the Mass and the Sacraments, Liturgy of the Hours, and the Church’s year of grace. .