The use of liturgy in divine service was one of the most bitterly contested points of controversy between our Holy Church and the misnamed reformers of the Sixteenth Century. These revolutionists denied the dogmas of the Real Presence and of the sacrifice of the Mass, of devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the saints, and of the existence of Purgatory. Accordingly, they swept from their churches the altars and their adornments, the statuary and storied windows, the ceremonies of the sanctuary and the appealing and inspiring tones of the organ.
Their professed purpose in dealing this fatal stroke to the highest inspiration and noblest expressions of art, as it consecrated itself to God, was to bring back Christian worship to the simplicity of the Apostolic days. Their profession might be received to-day with greater sympathy for their fanaticism, if research had not revealed that the confiscated precious plate and rich embroideries of the altar, glowing canvasses and breathing marbles, that adorned the sanctuaries and walls of the churches. and the stolen lands, convents and monasteries. went to increase the wealth and to ornament the palaces of kings and nobles. They humiliated Christ to exalt themselves and robbed the House of God to embellish their own palaces. Greed for power and pelf was the force that abetted. maintained and gave success to the movement of the so-called reformersā¦
ā¦The liturgy of Holy Church is not only monumental and inspirational, it is not only the outflowing and outpouring of her living soul, but it is also the fitting expression of her belief. Every ceremony or rite is the vesture proper to the truth it expresses. It is not a part of a drama seeking to impress by its beauty, its suggestiveness or its austerity. It expresses an underlying truth in an impressive manner. It is the language of the Church. By it she speaks to all the saving truths which have been entrusted to her keeping. By it, the-lettered and the unlettered, the child as well as the parent, the sinner as well as the just, the rude barbarian and the untutored savage are instructed, impressed and lifted up to God,- and by it they all, in unison of voice and action, profess the same faith with which they have been blessed.
The altar expresses the perpetual and all-saving sacrifice which is offered daily according to the command of Christ: āDo ye this in memory of me.ā The lighted candles, the flowers and the incense speak of His presence in the tabernacle Whom we adore. The storied windows and the statuary tell us of the life beyond the grave and bring close to us the saintly company about the throne in Heaven who are our friends, our companions and our intercessors during our journey on earth. The church itself fills us with the beauty, the grandeur, the majesty, the power, the immensity of Him to Whom it is dedicated. The surmounting cross raises our thoughts to the one and only Mediator through whom all blessings flow from our Heavenly Father.
When we raise our eyes or clasp our hands, bow the head or bend the knee, sign ourselves with the sign of the cross or bless ourselves with Holy Water, the action brings to our minds and hearts dogmas of faith that profess our faith and love. For this reason the revealed truth, which cannot change, causes our liturgy to move with uniformity and harmony, everywhere essentially the same in all countries and all ages. Wherever he may be, a child of Holy Church is at home at the Catholic services of the land. He may be in distant Asia or Africa, among people whose habits of thought, language and customs of life are strange and un-intelligible to him, but in their churches, if they be of the household of faith, he is in a familiar House of God and can worship in the same manner as he does at home.
It is because they lack revealed and unchanging truth, that this privilege cannot be enjoyed by those outside the fold. āLex orandi est lex credendiā is an old and true axiom. The law of worship is the law of belief. Where there is no true creed of belief there can be no true and fixed form of worship.
