A NEW LITURGICAL YEAR

 

A NEW LITURGICAL YEAR

            The Church follows a liturgical and seasonal pattern of worship because God revealed to the Hebrews that this is the way he wants to be worshipped.  When they escaped from Egypt and Pharaoh’s army God led them to Mount Sinai to make a covenant with them and form them into his people.  Moses ascended the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments and instructions on the form of worship that would seal and preserve the Covenant.  Fidelity to the liturgical laws was synonymous with fidelity to the Covenant.  Besides special days and seasons set in the Jewish calendar there was the weekly observance of the sabbath.  This pattern and cycle give both form and sense to the life of observant Jews, as the pattern and cycle of the Christian year gives form and sense to the lives of faithful Christians.    

            Jesus and his disciples followed the cycle of religious Jewish festivals.  We know that they also kept the sabbath because in the Gospels we often find them in a synagogue on the sabbath, even if their observance of the sabbath did not conform to the strict rules of the Pharisees.  There is no reason to assume that after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ that his followers worshipped God only spontaneously and ceased all liturgical practices.  For example, in the Book of Acts we find Peter and the others worshipping in the Temple.  The sources of Christian antiquity provide clear evidence of organized, liturgical worship in the early Church, including the famous Didache, or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” which was written in the first century.  It includes instructions for the celebration of Baptism and the Eucharist.

            For both Jews and Christians, the purpose of feasts and seasons is to commemorate God’s saving acts in significant moments of salvation history, to thank him for them, and to perpetuate their remembrance throughout the generations.  Their celebration is meant to bring into the present all their mystery and grace.  In this way the worshippers are better able to conform their lives to the truths they impart.  It is a divine pedagogy.  The acts of God become more than recorded history and dramatic stories.  They become alive in the lives of the faithful, as they celebrate the Passover as if it were the first Passover, or Christmas as if Jesus is born that very day.  This anamnesis, or calling to mind of a past event to make it present, is evident in the change to the prayer of consecration in the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday: “On the day before he was to suffer for our salvation and the salvation of all, that is today, he took bread in his holy and venerable hands…”  

            The Second Vatican Council sums up the reason for the liturgical year in its “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium #102):

Holy Mother Church is conscious that she must celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse by devoutly recalling it on certain days throughout the course of the year. Every week, on the day which she has called the Lord's Day, she keeps the memory of the Lord's resurrection, which she also celebrates once in the year, together with His blessed Passion, in the most solemn festival of Easter.  Within the cycle of a year, moreover, she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from the Incarnation and Birth until the Ascension, the day of Pentecost, and the expectation of blessed hope and of the coming of the Lord.  Recalling thus the mysteries of redemption, the Church opens to the faithful the riches of her Lord's powers and merits, so that these are in some way made present for all time, and the faithful are enabled to lay hold upon them and become filled with saving grace.

As we begin a new year of grace with the First Sunday of Advent, let us ask the Lord to open our spirits to the graces he would give us in this holy season, in which we enter into spiritual communion with the holy men and women of the generations before Christ, who looked with anticipation to the coming of the Messiah.  Let us also liven our hope and expectation for that yet-to-be glorious day when Christ will come to judge the living and the dead.