Liturgically Speaking: The Worship of all Creation

The Liturgy is unique.  Liturgy involves not just those gathered for worship, or even the whole Church.  The sacraments of the Church encompass all of creation. 

“Sacrament” is how God does creation.  In an analogous sense, all of creation is “sacramental” – in the broad, generic sense of being an outward sign of a hidden reality.  Consider what the Psalmist says: "The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands" (Psalm 18:2).  St. Paul offers the same thought in the New Testament:  “The invisible things of him [i.e. God], from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity" (Romans 1:20).  In other words, all of the visible, created world is a sign of God’s hidden presence.  Even the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins suggests the same:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.                     

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;                       

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil   

Crushed.         

So why does the Church worship in the sacramental way?  Because we live in a sacramental universe!  The problem is that we’ve largely lost our “sacramental glasses” – we no longer see with a sacramental worldview.  Ever since the Fall, we see creation isolated from the creator.  We need a training ground, a school of sacramentality where the signs and symbols of God’s presence are abundant and “thick.”  We need the liturgy.

The liturgy assumes into our worship all of creation, all of space and time, because all of creation was implicated in the Fall.  St. Paul says:

“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.” (Romans 8:19-23)

Space and places are transformed by the liturgy.  Our Church is not just any building.  Our parish church is a microcosm of the world and of the story of salvation.  Consider: at the beginning of Mass, there is a procession from the doors of the Church, from the outside fallen world, to the altar, the place where heaven meets earth.  By our doors are holy water fonts, reminding us that baptism is the door to the Church.  Our church faces eastward, toward the rising sun, a sign of our awaiting the coming of the risen Christ.

Time is also transfigured by the liturgy.  The Liturgy takes up the very course of time, and transforms it for the worship of God.  We celebrate the saving work of Christ on certain days throughout the course of the year. Each week, on the Lord's Day, we remember the Lord's resurrection. We also celebrate it once every year, together with his Passion, at Easter. In the course of the whole year we unfold the whole mystery of Christ’s life.  Even the various hours of the day are permeated and transfigured by the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours.