Parable and Conscience Meditation October 30

Liturgy  October 30 

Thus we assure the worship of God and of the Lord in the name of and along with our contemporaries (Congolese Regional Statutes, 1.2).

In the Church there are religious communities consecrated by charism to the care of the liturgy.  That is the case with the Canons Regular who pray the liturgy in the name of the Church, but more properly with the Church.  By vocation, they are the bearers of the liturgical tradition and the launchers of authentic liturgy in the future, liturgy that is, at the same time, close to the people of the times.  Since its “ institution” in the sixth century, the Roman rite has had its highs and lows.  From the time of the Cenacle, the Eucharist in the West has been characterized by simplicity and spontaneity.  After the fourth century, the Church, liberated by Constantine, was able to develop public rites to be celebrated in church buildings.  The Roman Mass of 600 was well developed and was to be the precursor of the rite we celebrate today.  Its diffusion to other European regions and the struggle with Arianism contributed, by the end of the first millennium, to the estrangement of the liturgy from ordinary people.  From then until the Protestant Reformation, the Eucharist became a rite where the people observed with reverence.  In reaction to the Protestants, the Roman Church froze the liturgy, leading the people to attach devotions and other ornamental additions to it.  With the Second Vatican Council, the liturgy found again a practice more faithful to its earlier evangelical meaning.  It is there that the Canons Regular find their mission again.  Where will they now go in the name of and with the praying Church?

The orphan, unable to defend his own cause, cannot defend someone else’s.  (African proverb)