How to live a more Liturgical life

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RKS89

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I was raised Catholic, left the Church for a good while, and came home a couple years ago. Something that’s sort of been nagging at me is my lack of understanding of liturgy and how it fits in our daily lives. There’s a Byzantine church near me and I’ve gathered their liturgical seasons are more involved than those of the Latin Rite. I also love studying Early Church History and it’s clear liturgy wasn’t just important, but actually seen as an a kind of authority in vein of Apostolic Tradition. Then I read books like “Liturgy and Personality” by von Hildebrand that made me look at liturgy in a whole new way.

As a kid we had an Advent wreath, we mostly made it to all the Holy Day masses, but beyond that liturgy and liturgical seasons weren’t anything we emphasised. So my questions are…

What do you do to live a more Liturgical life? When did your understanding or appreciation of liturgy shift, and what promoted the shift?
What resources would you recommend for someone wanting to make liturgy/liturgical seasons a larger part of their daily life? Would the LOTH be a good devotional practice to achieve this?
Also, anyone know of a “history of liturgy” type book I could read? Something that maybe tracks the development of liturgical practices through history, explains it’s development and importance in the life of the Church and the laity?

Anything else interesting or insightful you can share, whether it’s personal anecdote or historical tidbit.

Thanks!
 
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I try to at least read the Scripture/Gospel readings of the day online.
 
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You can also check out the “Being Catholic” on the Fisheaters Web site. It is really, really good with the liturgical seasons, the fact that each month is dedicated to something particular, customs for various seasons, things like rogation days and ember days, ideas for a ‘domestic church’ like home altars, holy cards, uses of sacramentals, etc.
 
The LOTH is a great way to get yourself in sync with the liturgical calendar. I love the way the prayers change from season to season so that you know the difference between Lent and the Easter season, for example. You also celebrate individual holy days and saints’ feast days. You can get started easily with an app like iBreviary.

I also like to celebrate the feast days of different saints with a festive meal or some other observance.
 
The times that I’ve stuck with the LOTH, on top of regular daily prayer time, I’ve really noticed a difference. Which surprised me because I wasn’t expecting it, but there really are a lot of graces that come from the practice.
 
I have the Christian Prayer book. I prefer that to reading it off my phone or Kindle. Has a better feel to it, for me at least.
 
That’s how I felt after doing it consistently. I think I’m going to pick up Fr. Gallagher’s book on LOTH. I have a lot of respect for his work with Ignatian Spirituality.
 
I work in a VERY Polish community and a lot of my co-workers talk about how the Church used to celebrate feast days. It’s not as prevalent now, for various reasons, but I feel like a feast meal or some other observance is a great idea.
 
Thanks for asking this question, because I’ve been wondering the same thing.
This Triduum, God has really helped me gain a deeper appreciation and love for how liturgical our Church is. Celebrating the Resurrection is so much more meaningful because it takes place after remembering His passion. The fasting during Lent makes the feasting during Easter so much more special.
I used to be able to go to daily Mass. I can no longer do so due to work, but I really do miss it and it made a profound difference in my spiritual life. Now I have the daily Mass readings sent to my inbox with reflections, so that at least I can keep up with the liturgical calendar that way.
I also used to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and would like to get back to doing so, especially after reading the responses in this thread. 🙂
I’ve also helped our in coordinating liturgies for retreats and learned a lot about liturgy that way from people who knew way more than I did. I’m going to dig through and find my notes to see if I still have the names of books/ authors… www.ccwatershed.org has some interesting posts about liturgy.
 
I suggest the LOTH as well. It has been a part of my daily life for some 15 years now. You can’t beat it, and it is liturgy. So not only are you getting more in sync with the liturgical year, you are fully participating in the liturgical prayer of the entire Church.
 
It occured to me that EVERYTHING the Church does is for the benefit of the laity in one way or another, so the Liturgical seasons aren’t just convenient or there to break up monotony. They’re a vehicle to move us into deeper union with Christ, just like the Sacraments. Its like if a farmer suddenly ditched all the acceptable seasons for planting and harvesting in favor of his own calendar or system. He might get some crops, but not nearly what he would have been able to get had he just done what farmers have always done.
 
RKS89 said:
15 years! That’s dedication!
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Thanks but it is also an obligation for me as a Benedictine oblate, to pray at least part of it. I got so hooked on it, that I pray all of it now. I alternate between the LOTH and a monastic version, as my time and energy allows, but always pray, at a minimum, the full LOTH (Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, mid-day prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline). Only with rare exceptions do I miss an office (schedule conflicts, travel, or sometimes, plain forgot!)
 
I suggest the LOTH as well. It is the supreme prayer of the Church - only the Mass itself ranks above the LOTH.

Couple the LOTH with daily Mass and a daily Rosary, add in frequent Confession, plus lectio divina. Do this and your spiritual life will flourish tremendously. Add in fasting and almsdeeds to top off this prayer life.
 
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RKS89 said:
What do you do to live a more Liturgical life? When did your understanding or appreciation of liturgy shift, and what promoted the shift?
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I can only relate to a personal experience. I was raised up to live a very intense Catholic life from a very young age (7 years old) in a Catholic boarding school. I was an altar boy and even served as one of the sacristans then, taking care of the small chapel and the priest house. Daily mass, novenas, Confession, prayers and catechism lesson were never missed.

The Catholic way of life became a part of me, of which I did not know the difference. I just went along with it but it was more in a legalistic way.

Later after graduating, I was sucked into the secular world when I started working, suddenly experiencing independence, power and financial freedom. I became a Sunday Christian only.

Then got married and the kids started coming. It was then I underwent inner conversion (by the action of the Holy Spirit) and re-discovered my love for God and the Church.

The mass became very touching, often spell-binding, and real, unlike my experience as a kid.

It was then I started attending all the daily mass as I wanted more and more of it. And not only that, I read the readings of the day in my daily prayer and they proved to be very up-building. My walk with God through His word and the liturgy (mass) was imbued in me.
RKS89 said:
What resources would you recommend for someone wanting to make liturgy/liturgical seasons a larger part of their daily life? Would the LOTH be a good devotional practice to achieve this?
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As for the LOTH, I would say, very much. It is even made simple today as we can use online apps and thus can do it anywhere. Problem maybe if one is occupied most of the time during the day.

But for me, it is still the devotion to the mass.

God bless.
 
I noticed that, even when I was at the more rigorous side of my private prayer/devotional life, adding in the LOTH made a big difference. That, for purely subjective reasons, is why I’ll always be Catholic. This stuff WOKRS!
 
I also noticed a deeper appreciation for the Mass when I stuck with LOTH. And reading von Hildebrand’s book really opened up a world of possibility I was unaware of. Its interesting because we all know we would do well to pray the Rosary often, not just because an overwhelming number of our saints say to do it or because Marian devotion is touted as spiritually beneficial, but because we hear stories from others who have seen the power of the Rosary first-hand. Its worked in my life in tremendous ways. But where the LOTH is concerned it just seems like the tradition and reason, even the necessity, aren’t so well articulated. You hear “its the prayer of the Church”, but what does that really mean? And what does it look like in the day-to-day life of a layperson? Maybe those anecdotes and explanations are out there, I just haven’t found as many that really get into the guts of why the Liturgy is so central to the life of the Church. Even the CCC tying it to the Paschal Mystery- that’s something that has to be lived out, it has to be experienced. And maybe that’s why it isn’t as thoroughly articulated as devotions like the Rosary. (just my 2 cents)
 
Just in case anyone is interested, tonight I’ve been working through Fr. Gallagher’s book “Praying the Liturgy of the Hours” and its really helping me get a firmer grasp on the depth and importance of this ancient devotion. I recommend the book (with the caveat I’m not quite finished), as well as the rest of his work (he’s also got some Youtube videos out there; Discerning Hearts has featured him two or three times).
 
RKS89 said:
But where the LOTH is concerned it just seems like the tradition and reason, even the necessity, aren’t so well articulated. You hear “its the prayer of the Church”, but what does that really mean? And what does it look like in the day-to-day life of a layperson? Maybe those anecdotes and explanations are out there, I just haven’t found as many that really get into the guts of why the Liturgy is so central to the life of the Church. Even the CCC tying it to the Paschal Mystery- that’s something that has to be lived out, it has to be experienced. And maybe that’s why it isn’t as thoroughly articulated as devotions like the Rosary. (just my 2 cents)
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@RKS89

The Church herself has infallibly stated what you want to hear already.

From the Constitution of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on the Sacred Liturgy, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM (this Sacred Council) paragraph #7b "Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of the man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.

From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree."

Ibid. #13 "Popular devotions of the Christian people are to be highly commended, provided they accord with the laws and norms of the Church, above all when they are ordered by the Apostolic See.

Devotions proper to individual Churches also have a special dignity if they are undertaken by mandate of the bishops according to customs or books lawfully approved.

But these devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them."

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
 
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I’ve read this before, it’s only that the practice of it in daily life never “connected for me” as much as it clearly should have. I finished Fr. Gallagher’s book and he articulates a similar situation- he faithfully prayed the LOTH, but didn’t have the appropriate knowledge to reveal the truth of what the Church says. His book has helped me “connect the dots” from what the Church teaches and the practical application of the prayer, if that makes any sense.

It’s like when I first learned about Mass. My whole life I never understood it, but when I got ahold of some solid material about it I was like whoa, this is much deeper than I ever thought.
 
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