The Rites and Wrongs of Liturgy by Thomas O'Loughlin

Author:Thomas O'Loughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2018-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Openness and Identity

Is there another approach? We tend to think of a gathering celebrating liturgy as an already existing community who then chose to do something: celebrate a particular liturgy. Perhaps our ideal should be to start at the other end and draw the actual gathering together such that they recognize themselves as a community in Christ because they are there engaging in worship. This is a challenge both as a piece of communication and as catechesis, but it accords with our deepest instincts as Christians that liturgy should not only express community but build the new community of disciples. This endeavor starts from the reality of what we are doing when we gather. Each person is a member of the people of God, as much as a member of the priestly people as anyone else, and the worship should be the common offering of all those present. This is a very different vision of the gathering from that of the liturgy being really that which the priest does, while the congregation are “in attendance” (the pre-Vatican II model), or that of liturgy being that of a special few, the people with specific tasks (the presider, the readers, the choir) or “the worship team,” who “put on” a liturgy for the others’ benefit (a model that fits our consumerist society). If we are the people of God, and each one of us made a daughter or son by adoption, then every liturgy must be our liturgy and so that of each and every one present.

This is the great goal of “full and active participation” called for by Vatican II. So the task is to let us discover, perhaps through a question-and-answer session, in this actual situation:

how are we a community—why have such a variety of individuals come to one place;

what is it that characterizes us as “us” here;

what have each of us present to offer to the others today;

how should we express on this occasion whatever identity we have found;

how should that which is standard and inherited be adapted to the spontaneity by this moment;

what should be the tone and flavor of our worship on this occasion?

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