Liturgy in context of the Eastern Tradition and the Western Tradition

[Little_Boy_Lost]

I found this quote from an article written by Father Maximos Davies in America magazine some years back. I think he did a concise job in pointed out the differences in how liturgy is valued. What are your thoughts, and how would you explain the difference? Also, is there a “right or wrong way” to view liturgy, or do we need to be content and understand one another’s differences.

Here is the quote from this article
americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10453

“Two major cultural differences can be detected in the way Orthodox and Catholics live out their visions of Christianity. The first includes attitudes toward liturgy, an area where differences are surprisingly difficult to define, because they go far beyond ritual variance. A common misunderstanding is that Orthodox value “reverence” more highly than Catholics in the contemporary West, but this is not necessarily true; a clown Mass is also reverent in its own way. It matters, though, precisely what is revered. We move closer to the truth if we say that the Orthodox see liturgy as the primary work of Christians, from which every other activity flows. Catholics, on the other hand, tend to see liturgy as one of many Christian labors; it is important and obligatory, but exists among many important works. While it is impossible to make such statements without employing massive generalizations, this difference between the two traditions is nevertheless a source of alienation.”

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I don’t know about that.

I was just at our Carmelite Student Gathering in Washington, DC, earlier this month and Fr John Keating, O.Carm., was the speaker. He spoke on Liturgy within the Carmelite Charism.

He gave us four models of Liturgy to think about and the one that spoke to me the most was three circles, one large, a second smaller one inside the large one, and a third smaller one inside of the second one.

The largest circle is the your Spiritual Life, the second circle is your Prayer Life, and the smallest circle is your Liturgical Life. So what I came away with this is that my whole Spiritual Life is based off my Liturgical Life. This also explains why I feel off center when I miss to many liturgies due to the side effects of my chemotherapy treatments.

Now this could be because I am Byzantine but my whole small discussion group seemed to feel that this model fit us the best.

Please note that I am the only Byzantine student, everyone else is Roman as is the Order.

 

[Aramis]

I’ve heard similar statements about Liturgy being the central focus of Christian Life from several Ruthenian Priests, and some Dominican Friarss as well.