Liturgy

I was listening to an interview with the poet Malcolm Guite, in which he discussed how people are drawn not to novelty or making things contemporary. Quite the opposite, we long for permanence. We live in a world where computers are constantly being updated, and your phone becomes obsolete after one or two newer versions are released. But, for the most part, we are quick to pick up any changes and return as masters, or at least consumers, of the product. The liturgy of the Church, however, remains permanent and, at its core, unchanging. Its permanence and impassibility are not due to its simplicity, though even a child can participate; nor because we are the curators of ancient artifacts, though certainly it is something we have inherited.

Occasionally, I will have someone new to Anglicanism make the comment that they are still trying to get the hang of the liturgy, or are still learning, to which I often joke, “Me too.” I say this as a joke, but it is not really. It takes time to know the liturgy because it is greater than we are. If we can master something as quickly as we pick it up, then we are greater than the things we have picked up. The truly profound should take us a lifetime and generations to “get”, in part, because it takes a lifetime for the liturgy to master you. Even talking about the liturgy in this way is being “cheeky”, for it is not an artifact in stasis. The liturgy is our participation in the historic and heavenly worship of God. And for this reason, there is always more than we can say and learn about the liturgy because it is the stream by which we are carried heavenward.

There is one part of the liturgy, however, that some priests, including myself, go “off script,” though even that might be stating it too strongly; we will say “script adjacent.” This is, of course, right before the prayers for the whole state of Christ’s Church. I begin with “This Mass is offered in union with Jesus Christ our High Priest, who ever liveth to make intercessions for us. For all Bishops…”  At this point, I list off clergy, the president and the governor, the sick, mothers and children, missions, and the faithfully departed in Christ. I say “script adjacent” because we pray for all of these groups in the prayers for the whole state of Christ’s Church. The purpose of listing them out is to remind the laity that these are the people for whom we are praying. If Holy Communion is only about our due worship of God in saying worthy praises, we might ask, “What is the purpose of these prayers, and why should we offer specific petitions?”

The purpose of this prayer is a request for God to receive our offerings and a petition that these offerings may express and serve His will that the Church may live and grow in His truth, unity, and love. It is here that we come to see our prayers and offerings participate in the work God is doing in the world. Not to say that we add to the work of God, as if it were lacking; rather, we participate in the work that God is doing and pray for God’s work to go forward in our own lives and in the world around us. This prayer, joined to the work of Christ present in Holy Communion, is significant.

I came across a writer a while back who claimed the Mass is a battleground. Christ’s presence on the altar in Holy Communion, the prayers of the Church for the work of God to go forward, and the nourishment for Christian life given in the Sacrament, are blows to the enemy and the furthering of the work of God. Worship is more than remembering or paying lip service. Worship is a re-membering of Christ’s Body, the chief act of the Church,  as he gives us his Body and Blood. And it is an actualizing of the work of God in our lives and in the world. The words before the prayer for the whole state of Christ’s Church are prayers of embattlement.

For this reason and for so many more, the Liturgy comes to us as something we enter into and participate in, not something we do. It is not a chore or a play that we complete, nor is it something we master. No matter how long you have been an Anglican, we are all still learning, for the work of God continues in you and me. Rather than looking for perfection or mastery, let us enter into the Liturgy, knowing that God is still conquering and mastering our hearts and baptizing our minds, and he calls us to participate in his work.  

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi,

Fr. Aaron