Day 164: Liturgical Diversity and Unity (1200-1203)

• It’s Day 164!!

• ARTICLE 2: LITURGICAL DIVERSITY AND THE UNITY OF THE MYSTERY

• There are a number of liturgical traditions of the Church

• What does that mean?

• Most of us belong to the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church

• There are a number of other rites in the Roman Catholic Church

• There is a liturgical DIVERSITY

• At the same time…

• There is this incredible and beautiful UNITY or CATHOLICITY

• LITURGICAL TRADITIONS AND THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH

• Let’s say a prayer!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “God in Heaven, we love you and we thank you. We thank you for the way in which you have brought about a unity and a diversity. Variety and a catholicity, universality. Lord God, you have given us this cosmic world, this world that is so diverse and yet is one world. You have given us this Church that is so diverse and yet, it is one church. And you have made us, Lord God, individuals who are so unique and yet, we are one united into one Body in Christ. Lord God, you are the God of variety and unity. You are the God of uniqueness and oneness. And so we come before you as we are, as individuals. But we also come before you as a Body. We come before you as individual persons. But we also come before you as your Church. We just lift up our minds and our hearts to you right now and ask for you to send your Holy Spirit to fill our individual hearts and minds, but also to unite us even more closely as one Body. In the name of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Most people listening to this probably belong to the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church

• AND YET…

• There are a ton of people who belong to the Maronite Rite or Chaldean Rite

• A lot of them have reached out to Fr. Mike

• Not so sure about the Coptic Rite, Syriac Rite, Byzantine Rite, Armenian Rite, or Alexandrian Rite

• There are a lot of places in the United States that have these little pockets of Maronite Catholics, Chaldean Catholics, or Byzantine Catholics

• Whenever you get into any of these places, it is recognized as THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

• The Rite, the way in which they celebrate the Sacraments and the mass is unique

• It is not unique in a foreign way

• It is unique and has the sense of familiarity

• There is something POWERFUL and BEAUTIFUL about this

• A lot of these liturgical rites, like the Byzantine Rite, have kept some of the more ancient forms

• In Vatican II the Latin Rite underwent some change/update in the way the Mass is celebrated

• People are critical of that

• Other people are grateful for that

• There is something really POWERFUL about the Traditional Latin Mass

• In Church circles that could be a political statement but it is not

• There is something beautiful about the Church’s history and that is the truth

• The other rites (I’m not going to list them all) there is something POWERFUL and BEAUTIFUL here as well

• This variety does not take anything away from the UNITY

• IN FACT…

• This is a great example where variety truly is the spice of life

• This variety is UNITED IN A UNIQUE WAY

• You could go into a Maronite or Chaldean Rite Catholic Church and realize that it is FULLY CATHOLIC even if you are Latin Catholic like Fr. Mike

• Fr. Mike highly recommends…

• (SQUIRREL!! 😉)

• How in the world is there such a difference?

• Paragraph 1202 says, “The diverse liturgical traditions have arisen by very reason of the Church’s mission.”

• The Church was COMMANDED by Jesus Christ to go out into ALL NATIONS and MAKE DISCIPLES and BAPTIZE THEM

• The Apostles went out

• Their successors went out

• This mission impulse of the Church going out to ALL PLACES and then bringing what Jesus had given to the Apostles and the Church

• THE SACRAMENTS!!

• As Apostles, missionaries, bishops, priests, and other people are encountering these various CULTURES, there are a variety of ways in which the seed that the Lord God had given to the Church grew differently in different soil

• IT IS THE SAME TREE

• IT IS THE SAME KIND OF FRUIT

• IT WAS GROWN IN DIFFERENT SOIL

• Because it was grown in different soil, it looks slightly different

• BUT…

• It is the same species

• Does that make sense?

• Paragraph 1202 continues, “Churches of the same geographical and cultural area came to celebrate the mystery of Christ through particular expressions characterized by the culture: in the tradition of the ‘deposit of faith,’ in liturgical symbolism…”

• What is one example?

• The Tabernacles where we keep our Lord in the Eucharist look a certain way

• They don't’ have a lot of art in their structure

• In some Churches in other Rites the Tabernacle is in the shape of a dove or some other kind of image

• That makes sense because liturgical symbolism grows differently in different soil

• The theological understanding of mysteries or various forms of holiness 

• There are certain traditions or rites in the Church that have emphasized certain ways of becoming holy by saying yes to the Lord that are not as emphasized in other rites

• BUT…

• IT IS ALL ABOUT THE SAME THING!!

• THERE IS UNITY!!

• IT IS THE SAME TREE JUST GROWN IN DIFFERENT SOIL!!

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!