The Study of Liturgy

The study of liturgy is like an enormous umbrella that integrates every aspect of prayer and worship: a thorough grounding in the Scriptures along with familiarity of the Fathers, a sense of rite and ritual and esthetics and all that goes into the beauty of holiness. We are so fortunate as Benedictines that we have liturgical prayer throughout the day shaping and forming our lives. And to be actively engaged in liturgical prayer does require an intimate presence of the Holy One and the revealer of the Mysterium, Jesus the Lord, the Paschal Mystery. Knowing the Real Presence, it is a knowledge, a gnosis, that is almost ineffable. Still, we have to pursue the many ways that Christ is present in the liturgy, all liturgy, not just the Mass, and that is why ecumenical liturgies are so important. This is where we can communicate with one another, bonded by the Word, Incarnate, proclaimed, and lived, without being entrapped by a myopic understanding of Eucharist that divides and separates. Returning to the early Church Fathers, liturgy was the primary locus of theology. It was in liturgical, sacramental celebrations that the real theological UNDERSTANDING of God, Christ, Mary, the angels and saints took pace, as it still does in the Eastern rite liturgical traditions. In the West, it is the letter, the law, that has been allowed to dominate: the mystery has been pushed aside. The liturgy is also the primary locus for mystical prayer, the hot plate and spring board for personal mystical prayer and experience. In this regard, the word mysterical prayer should be substituted for liturgical prayer. Mystical emphasizes what is latent, hidden in light inaccessible; mysterical emphasizes what has been revealed and then, experienced in a truly salvific way.

Paraphrased from Fr. Gabriel Coless, OSB, PhD, St. Mary's Abbey