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CALLED FROM WORSHIP INTO SERVICE
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This line is taken from the fourth verse of hymn #840 in our Journeysongs hymnal. Its message is an important one for today, especially given the recently published Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis, Desiderio Desideravi (with great desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you—Lk 22:15). In this document he is teaching us the connection between liturgy and mission—evangelization by witness and word.
In the autumn I’ll be doing a series of Adult Education/RCIA presentations on themes from the Pope’s letter, hopefully to engage us in a more powerful encounter with the Lord in the liturgy, and so be empowered to be evangelizers, people of mission, bringers of the Good News by our lives.
The Holy Father’s big concern is to awaken in us “wonder” at the mystery of Liturgy (not just ‘liturgical services,’ but Liturgy as the Church’s response to the awareness of our being overwhelmingly loved. We engage in Liturgy (not just sermons or Bible reading) because we are sensual people with bodies and not just minds or spirits—if we realize what those liturgical symbols mean (incense, colors, oil, music, posture, bread, wine…) they can help us enter into the action of worship and in that way become more ready, willing, and able to be people of witness.
Pope Francis questions whether or not it is difficult or even impossible to engage in symbols, post-modern people that we are. I agree that it is difficult, but I also think it is possible and necessary—only by a full encounter with the Lord in worship can we possibly be able to be “apostles.” And as Christians, by virtue of our baptism, we are called to be nothing less.
This is part of the meaning of being “crucified to the world” from this past Sunday’s 2nd reading (Galatians 6:14-18), as I tried to emphasize in the homily. We cannot be “conventionally religious”—we have to be “all in” Christians. This is what being baptized into Christ means (Romans 6:3-4). You re-claim this identity and responsibility every time you dip your hand into the baptismal font’s water and make the sign of the cross—by that gesture (using the “sacramental” of the water) you are re-claiming this identity. Perhaps this might give you pause, the next time you come into the church! But it’s also an opportunity to volunteer, to say “Sign me up!”
We simply cannot be “one hour a week” Catholics. We simply cannot be just “devotional” Catholics. We must be full, active, and conscious members of His Body (I took this phrase deliberately from the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 14). Liturgy has as its purpose to direct us first of all to God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit; it must then help us to take seriously the last words of our Eucharistic celebrations: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” Again, for most of us our primary task will be lived witness far more than spoken words. Frankly, that’s the most effective way of evangelizing. We need to be a community of Catholics whose lives (faithful and joyful) are distinctive enough to cause others to ask, “Why are you the way you are? What do you have that enables you? How can I get this, too?”
I hope that my sessions will help us to enter into the Church’s Liturgy that much more powerfully, and I pray it will make us “called from worship into service.”