INTRO

TO
LITURGY
WHAT IS LITURGY
LESSON 1RELIGION 12
by Sr. Iris Aireen Huerta, LIHM
The Beginnings o
Christian Worship
 BEFORE ASCENDING TO HEAVEN, JESUS GAVE
THIS COMMISSION TO HIS APOSTLES:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…” (cf. Mt. 28:19)
The Apostles travelled to different parts of the
world beginning from Jerusalem
BOTH STS. PETER & PAUL REACHED
ROME and got MARTYRED
Worship contributed to the evolution of doctrine from the earliest days of
Christianity. In the first decade of the 2nd century, the Roman investigator 
Pliny reports that the Christians meet “on a fixed day” and “recite a hymn
to Christ as to a god.” 
St. Justin the Martyr, Apologist
St. Justin Martyr, laid out one of the earliest descriptions of the Mass in his 
First Apology, written between 153 and 155 A.D. He mentioned how they held the
worship services during his time:

From chapter 65, Administration of the Sacraments:

But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring
him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty
prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every
place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be
found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting
salvation.

Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of
the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to
the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at
considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands.
• And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the
people present express their assent by saying Amen. This word Amen
answers in the Hebrew language to ge’noito [so be it].

• And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have
expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each
of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water
over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are
absent they carry away a portion.
Armenian Catholic Liturgy
Ambrosian Rite

MaroniteRite
 “Liturgy” is…
• Liturgy (leitourgia) is a Greek composite word meaning
originally a public duty, a service to the state undertaken by
a citizen.
• Its elements are leitos = people/public
and ergo = to do/work

• From this we have leitourgos, “a man who performs a public

duty”, “a public servant”
 In the Septuagint “liturgy” (and the verb
leitourgio) was used for the public service of
the temple. Thence it comes to have a
religious sense as the function of the priests,
the ritual service of the temple.

In the New Testament this religious meaning has

become definitely established. In Luke, i, 23,
Zachary goes home when “the days of his liturgy”
(ai emerai tes leitourgias autou) are over.

In Heb., viii, 6, the high priest of the New Law

“has obtained a better liturgy”, that is a better kind of
public religious service than that of the Temple.
 Liturgy - rite; public official service of the Church in certain set forms.
2
FIRST
SENSES OF THE WORD:
SECOND
 On the one hand, liturgy often means the  This is common one in all
whole complex of official services, all the Eastern Churches, and it restricts it to
rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments the chief official service only—the
of the Church, as opposed to private Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, which
devotions. in our rite we call the Mass.
 When a Greek speaks of the “Holy
 we speak of the arrangement of all these Liturgy” he means only the
services in certain set forms (including the Eucharistic Service.
canonical hours, administration of  We may speak of our Mass quite
sacraments, etc.), used officially by any correctly as the Liturgy, we should
local church, as the liturgy of such a never use the word Mass for the
church—the Liturgy of Antioch, the Eucharistic Sacrifice in any Eastern
Roman Liturgy, and so on. So liturgy rite. Mass (missa) is the name for that
 FIRST SECOND

 In the same sense we distinguish the  The Byzantine Liturgy is the service
official services from others by calling that corresponds to our Roman Mass;
them liturgical; those services are to call it the Byzantine (or, worse still,
liturgical which are contained in any of the Greek) Mass is as wrong as
the official books (see Liturgical Books) of naming any other of their services
a rite. In the Roman Church, for instance, after ours, as calling their Hesperinos
Compline is a liturgical service, the Vespers, or their Orthros Lauds.
Rosary is not.
Liturgy is Rooted in the Incarnation
With the Incarnation, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace
and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father”
(John 1:14).

The coming of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in the flesh not only
signifies God’s love for man, but also inaugurates the events that lead to the
Paschal Mystery, wherein man is saved from death by one who, though God, is
like man in all things save sin (Hebrews 4:14-15; cf. 2:17-18).

Concomitant with the profundity and mystery of the Incarnation is the Mass,
wherein the Word becomes flesh again and again under the appearances of
bread and wine in the holy Eucharist, aptly described by the Second Vatican
Council as “the source and summit of the Christian life” (“Lumen Gentium,” No.
11; cf.
The Liturgy is the work of God, and the work
of the Church.
 Work of the People
There was a popular understanding common for
quite a number of years that the word “liturgy” came
from two Greek words. One meant “work” and the
other, “people.” As the popular etymology went, the
liturgy is the “work of the people.” That is, we gather
as a community, we express ourselves as
community, we pray together. The focus of this
understanding of liturgy is on our activity. The first
question one asks with respect to celebrations under
this understanding of the liturgy is, “What should we
do?”
by Fr. Nick Schneider, SLL, SLD (2013)
 Opus dei “work of god”

The most common term for liturgy in the Rule of St. Benedict, on the
other hand, is the “Work of God.” This is exactly the opposite of claiming
that the liturgy is the “work of the people.” In the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, there is a discussion of the meaning of the word
“liturgy:”
 
The word ‘liturgy’ originally meant a “public work” or a “service in the
name of/on behalf of the people.” In Christian tradition it means the
participation of the People of God in “the work of God.” Through
the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the
work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church.
 What difference does it make?
 

Holding that the liturgy is “the work of the people,” has

had an enormous, and not particularly positive impact on
our understanding of the liturgy.
With this understanding, the goodness of the liturgy is
based on how well we express the individual
characteristics of a community and whether the
external forms we use are interesting to the people
attending. Conversion, renewal and formation do not play
an integral part in preparation for the liturgy in this
understanding. Rather, immediacy and directness are the
greatest values.
The Liturgy’s purposes are the adoration of
God and the sanctification of people.
The more accurate sense, though, is that the liturgy is first
something that God does as a public work for the betterment
of his people.

The first question regarding both the liturgy’s inner meaning

and its celebration is not “What should we do?” Rather, the
first thing that should be asked is
“What is God doing for us?”

This understanding of the liturgy holds that the liturgy is

already, by its nature, the most interesting and engaging thing
that takes place in the world, because God does it.
It is not that we determine the forms of
the liturgy, nor that we create things to
do during the liturgy.
With great attentiveness to the
movements of God’s own love
for us, we enter deeply into the
mystery of the incarnation, of
Christ’s passion, death and
resurrection, of the Last Supper,
and of the trinitarian life.

The primary and fundamental posture we

should have in the liturgy is therefore one of
active receptivity.
The Liturgy and the Blessed Trinity
Sacrosanctu God who "wills that all men be
saved and come to the knowledge
m of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4)

Concilium:
When the fullness of time had come sent his Son, the Word made
flesh, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to preach the Gospel to the
poor, to heal the contrite of heart, to be a bodily and spiritual
medicine: the Mediator between God and man

Just as Christ was sent by the Father so also He sent the apostles, filled
with the Holy Spirit. This he did so that they might preach the Gospel to
every creature and proclaim that the Son of God by his death and
resurrection had freed us from the power of Satan and from death, and
brought us into the Kingdom of his Father.
He also willed that the work of salvation which they preached should be
set in train through the sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire
liturgical life revolves.
Although Jesus is present as Head of his Body the
Church, the Liturgy is also to be understood as the
work of the Most Holy Trinity. God the Father is
both the source and goal of the Liturgy (CCC §
1077).
Christ, as He promised, is always present in His Church –
principally in Her liturgical celebrations. Specifically, He is
present not only in the person of the priest... but also in the
Church when She prays and sings ... in His word when the
Scriptures are proclaimed . . . and in a most extraordinary
way at Mass, in His holy Body and Blood.
 In the Liturgy, it is the Holy Spirit
who prepares the Church to
encounter Christ in its midst by
awakening and strengthening the
community’s faith.

It is also the Holy Spirit who makes the

saving work of Christ in the Liturgy
present and active by his transforming
power (CCC § 1107).

“Teacher of faith”
 In the Eucharist, the priest,
imposing his hands over the bread
and wine, asks the Father to send
the Spirit upon the gifts, that they
might become the Body and Blood of
the Lord. The efficacy of that
invocation – with Jesus’ words of
consecration – truly brings about
the divine event of the dying and
rising with the Lord, communion
with Christ and within the Church.
Where Jesus is, there is Clearly, all liturgical prayer (to the
the Father; where the Father, through the Son, and in the
Father and Son are, power of the Spirit) is Trinitarian in
there is the Holy Spirit. its essence.
 Glory be to
The Father
& to the Son
& to the Holy Spirit…