Studying Liturgy

Peace and all good things from St. Lawrence Friary, perched on a hilltop overlooking Mt. Calvary, Wis.

We arrived in the afternoon Monday after an hour's journey from Milwaukee, with a pilgrimage on the way to Kopp's, a local favorite for fans of frozen custard. We met some of the friars last evening and shared a meal with them after evening prayer.

We are staying at a guest house on the campus of St. Lawrence Seminary High School, which the friars have been operating for over 150 years. This morning we celebrated Eucharist with the 250 students of this boys' academy in their wonderful chapel, built in 1969, built in the round, and which resembles in spirit the Italian caves where Francis of Assisi retreated to contemplate the glorious presence of God. It is one of the most beautiful sanctuaries built in a modern architectural style that I have ever seen. (Last night I spent an hour reposing in God's soft, invisible caress in the chapel darkness. What sweetness.)

In between our lessons today we toured the academic buildings and dormitories. The students who attend this school are blessed indeed with the best that a Catholic education can offer, in both spiritual and intellectual development.

Today, the second day of our study of ritual and liturgy under Capuchin Fr. Bill Cieslak, we turned to Eucharist, the summit of Christian worship and source of Christian life. Yesterday we had preliminary lessons on symbol, ritual, and sacrament so as to enter into a deeper understanding of what we experience when we celebrate the Eucharist at Mass. I have taken many notes, more than I expected. Brother Bill is a gifted teacher, and his love of liturgy is completely clear. He has done much to awaken in the postulants a more profound appreciation of what goes on in the sacraments of the Church. In me he has awakened a sense of wonder at the invitation God makes to all of us, both in the official sacraments of the Church and (just as graciously) in the sacramental presence of the divine in all of creation and human life.

I have come away from these two days of lessons determined to worship with a fuller consciousness of what God is giving and how I am responding.

There are many things I could share with you from our class sessions. Before I go to meditation and evening prayer, here let me point out only a few of the ideas that shine most brightly for me at this moment:

1. The language of theology, especially the theology of Christian liturgy, is symbolic, not literal. This is its strength, not its weakness. If something is real, it is deeply symbolic. Therefore, God's self-communication to us in the gift of the Eucharist is a deep symbol and utterly real.

2. Ritual is not always logical. In fact, its patterns and actions can be contradictory. But ritual is beautiful. And it is powerful, even if illogical.

3. A sacrament both points to a reality and contains a share of that reality. A Christian sacrament both points to Christ and contains Christ, who points to and contains God. If we receive Christ in the sacraments of the Church, then even we, too, point to and contain God.

4. We human beings are what we are, and we are more than what we are, because we are creation and therefore point to the Creator. Thus, we are sacraments of God, even as Christ is the ultimate sacrament of God.

5. A sacrament is a sacrament for someone of some reality. There is no such thing as a purely objective sacrament. A sacrament does not work like magic. A sacrament offers the presence of God, and the presence of God is always there in the sacrament, but a person needs the senses of faith to perceive that presence. Without the senses of faith, there is no sacrament, even though the presence of God remains in it and remains immediately before us.

6. Brother Bill defines Holy Eucharist as "the table fellowship (table of the Lord's Word and table of the Lord's body and blood) of believing disciples of Christ, gathered by God through baptism, and fed by God, so that we, in turn, might be transformed into that which we hear, eat, drink and share."

7. The Eucharist, the gift of God's very life in the body and blood Jesus Christ, is primarily to be received, not adored. Communion, not consecration, is the central ritual element of the eucharistic celebration.

Okay, enough for now. Surely more of the good things I am learning will emerge on the public diary by and by.