The liturgical year

Those who see the spiritual life as a life of restrictions and demands, of only yes or no, of life bounded by limits and denial, fail entirely to understand that the spirituality of the liturgical year is a spirituality made out of the shards and triumphs of life. It is a spirituality for the living and the joyful, the insightful and the wise, as well as for the suffering and the sinful. It makes of us the spiritual poets who see the beauty of life. In all its minuscule pieces magnified for us to see as we have never seen them before, perhaps -- one rose, one windstorm, one baby, one tomb -- life over time becomes, without doubt, one great, happy feast day.

Joan ChittisterThe Liturgical Year

Liturgy as Life

We worship God as the ekklēsia; the body of Christ literally comes together on Sunday morning. It is in these moments that we are released from “clock time” and enter into “festival time.” That release is perhaps the most countercultural thing we as a body can do. For it is in this moment that we are affirming not the kingdoms of the world but Jesus’s kingdom. We recognize that Jesus is truly Lord of lords and King of kings. We also recognize that the entire “ordering” of the world that we experience outside of the ekklēsia is a counter-ordering. Yet then we go out into the world to live out the liturgy. We work to become the liturgy in all we do. Like Jesus, we become ministers to all those around us. We represent Christ to the world in the sense that we take the values of the ekklēsia and try to live them out in the world. Our goal is to become a living liturgy each day.

Bruce Ellis Benson
Liturgy as a Way of Life

Desiring the Kingdom

... liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love.  They do this because we are the sorts of animals whose orientation to the world is shaped from the body up more than from the head down.  Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies.  They prime us to approach the world in a certain way, to value certain things, to aim for certain goals, to pursue certain dreams, to work together on certain projects.

James K.A. Smith
Desiring the Kingdom