Liturgy

Thank you for joining us.

The Liturgy of the Hours, or the Divine Office, is often associated exclusively with the spiritual practices of priests, monks, and nuns.

To be sure, praying the hours is an essential part of the lives of those who have formally taken religious vows.

However, the prayer of the Church, as the Liturgy of the Hours is also called, is precisely that, a way of sanctifying the day for the whole Church, both laity and clergy alike.

With so many forms of prayer already available, however, why should lay Catholics also consider praying the hours? What substantively is distinctive about it? What are its origins? Moreover, given the size and complexity of the hours, the, the full liturgy occupies four thick volumes of text with multiple ribbons to mark different sections, how practically can we get started? Here to explain the enduring theological and spiritual richness of the Liturgy of the Hours and how it deepens and enriches all Catholics' lives is Bishop Robert Barron.

[gentle music] Bishop, welcome back to the studio.

Hey, Matt, good to be with you.

So today, we're looking at the Liturgy of the Hours-

But but you want to get up the morning, just get going, get to work.

Well, the first work of the for men in the morning is the is is the work of prayer, right? Liturgy means the liturgy.

The hour, for example, means the work of the people.

So this helps you get like Gritty and Real with God, first thing in the morning.

Um, there are, there are actual flesh and blood humans who are, uh, living and praying, uh, in the world who are affected by this.

It has implications for, uh, Liturgy is an important test of Pope Leo's leadership early on as pontificate.

And especially, you know, as we are talking about issues around the liturgy and the language of the liturgy and those who are attached to the Latin mass, this group is kind of swirling at the center of all of this.

Yeah.

I mean, there was a kind of sense of, okay, the sort of entry level stuff is what everyone else is doing, but we are kind of ascending to a higher plane of devotion and also of doctrinal understanding, which I think is really when Pope Francis decided to crack down.

Augustine de Noia, an American theologian, an archbishop who was a consulter for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, he wrote after Traditiones Custodes was released that it was targeted against a TLM movement.

The problem was when Love for the Old Liturgy, which is Not a bad thing.

I think it's a good thing.

Hey, friends.

Today, Father Michael and I are continuing our discussion about the preparatory prayers for the Divine Liturgy, um, the, the preparatory prayers for the faithful.

On an old episode, I know we talked about the priest preparatory prayers, but, um, we had great ambitious goals of finishing the preparatory prayers and then going through all of the thanksgiving prayers, and we didn't even get to the thanksgiving prayers, so that's gonna have to be the next episode.

Uh, this may turn into the 63-part series on preparing for and thanking the Lord for, uh, the Divine Eucharist, which is fine.

Um, yeah.

But no, actually, it, it, uh... honestly, it was really inspiring for me to, to do a, a more adequate job of, of preparing to enter into the Divine Liturgy, so hopefully it does that for you as well.

If you are a #banterhater, and you are particularly a #AIBanterHater, you will probably want to skip to approximately timestamp nine minutes and 15 seconds.

[upbeat music]

Let's start with a definition of liturgy, a simple definition, but liturgy quite literally means the work of the people.

And that's kind of what I'll be building off of.

So just that's what the etymology would be straight up, right? The classical Greek word liturgia.

broken down into two sections, litos, meaning the public or the people or the common, and then ergon, meaning work or act or service.

And the linguistic origins of this word are intensely civic, political, material, in the real physical world.

And it starts in ancient Athens, right? In ancient Athens, liturgia was sort of like a mandatory public service for those of means.

The rich, wealthy citizens would do liturgy for the benefit of the city-state.

So...

The formula remains intact while conscience becomes absent.

Liturgy is not propaganda with incense.

That comparison ignores theology, devotion, voluntary participation, sacred claims, moral content, and the relationship believers understand themselves to possess with the divine.

Liturgy can nevertheless become coercive.

A religious institution may use confession as surveillance, convert loyalty to a human leader into loyalty to God, present questioning as contamination, or place sacred formulas into the mouths of people who cannot safely refuse.

Repeated submission can become more important than the ethical substance of what is being demanded.

trying to understand what they actually believed.

Reformed, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Evangelical, Liturgical, Sacramental.

What separates them? Which tradition most faithfully represents Scripture and historic Christianity? And tonight we are exploring Anglicanism.

Fr.

Um, and every commission has both a priest and a lay person chair and co-chair, um, in order for us to, yeah, have the, have the lady be a part of this because that's important.

So what is the basis for, where are we coming from for each of these five areas? Why these five areas? So we know that from Spirit of the Liturgy that there was a lot of architectural stuff that he talked about.

And so the commission on architecture, they're going to be following...

The three principles of St. Thomas Aquinas as regards what makes a thing proper, I guess, is kind of a simple way to say it.

But rather, like, how can we assist these parishes to make... easy updates or updates that may be a little bit painful, but that will elevate the worship of the people.

So that's really what architecture is meant to do.

There's a really great Spirit of the Liturgy, but it's about architecture by Dennis McNamara, where he talks about these principles and others.

Because there's not...

Question 246, does structured liturgy inhibit sincere and vibrant worship? No.

A structured liturgy provides sincere worshipers, biblical language, and forms that train our hearts for worship.

Liturgy enables us to worship God joyfully and with one voice.

2 Samuel 6, verses 1-4 The Ark Brought to Jerusalem David again gathered all the chosen people of Israel, 30,000.

And David arose and went out with all the people who were with him from Baal Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned on the cherubim.

Does structured liturgy inhibit sincere and vibrant worship? No.

A structured liturgy provides sincere worshipers biblical language and forms that train our hearts for worship.

Liturgy enables us to worship God joyfully and with one voice.