Leaning on Liturgy

Wait….Wha?!!

What’s LITURGY?!

The word liturgy comes from the Greek word meaning “public duty” or “work.” My high school theology course Our Quest for Happiness, Book One, Our Goals and Our Guides, Unit 1, Section 2 on Liturgy and the Liturgical Year says, it’s “the public worship which our Redeemer, the Head to the Catholic Church, renders to the Heavenly Father, and which the society of Christ’s faithful render to it’s founder, through Him, to the Eternal Father.”

Feeling even more confused than before you read the title of this post? Still wondering what Liturgy is? Don’t give up on me just yet. Yes, it’s for Catholics (did you know the word Catholic means universal;) and yes, it’s religion but it’s so much more than that and SO. WORTH. YOUR. TIME. It’s quite literally the lifebuoy ring that keeps one afloat when you fall overboard or hit rocky waters or…..OR…..OR. And I feel like that every February, that’s why I wrote a whole blog post February Funk, but this year it’s melancholy seems to have trickled into or rolled-over into March:( If it were not for Liturgy I would be knee-deep in a dark whole and since so many of us find ourselves here, and at different times of the year, not just February, I thought I’d tune you into Liturgy as your salt lamp (have you heard of these yet?), your winter-blues remedy, and your pick-me up.

What my vintage high school Theology series is trying to tell us is, that Liturgy is a prescription to spiritual wellness and through tiny little festive physical acts. It’s the recipe we can follow to stay connected to God, in honoring Him, in our routine when we fall of our path, to stay connected when we are feeling disconnect; it can be the meaning in life when life feels meaningless. These little roller coaster dips St. Ignatius Loyal called desolation are completely normal heartbeats of the spirit and Christ through His church gives us the Liturgy throughout the year that makes such a perfect pillar to lean on. Many of you who know exactly what liturgy is, maybe, can I just give you another reason to use it, or merely, another area to let it permeate, or a reason to resurrect its happy tidings. Kinda like the seasons and holidays of the calendar year give us new spunk in its music, colors, themes, food and fest, liturgy let’s us see, hear, taste and feel again in both home and heart when we’re feeling dry as a bone. Lean on liturgy. Let it be your guide.

How do you DO Liturgy?

It’s so easy! Just like autumn tells us to gather pumpkins and carve them, rake crunchy leaves into a pile and jump in it, and winter to deck the halls and share eggnog with a friend beside the fire or sing carols, and spring tells us to plant bulbs, Liturgy tells us when to wear purple for Advent or Lent and to discipline our cravings, or to wear green for St. Patrick’s Day and binge on Irish soda bread and a pint of Guinness, only the liturgy has no dead-ends or wide intervals where we’re left hanging. Liturgy is so jam packed and free-days so few and far between that they could be named- ferial days. Grab yourself a catholic calendar or get ahold of the book Catholic All Year or anything of the like and get to DOing liturgy because there are just so many resources out there. I’m not aiming to teach how to DO Liturgy just that its just so well-suited to help snap out of winter-blues or any time of year spiritually dry melancholy with a lot more perky and festive, educationally and spiritually uplifting DO’ing than the alternative self-help shelf options.

Light a candle in the dark and close your eyes and just listen if you can’t sing along with the beauty of compline before bed instead of watching something on You Tube. I cannot tell you a more healing way to go to sleep. See how the liturgy changes its tune and selections according to its “seasons.”

Working women who have no time for homemaking and feel a lack inspiration in how to inject that art of your womanly spark into every day can use liturgy to cue them like Pinterest does into adding things like St. Joseph Day Seppole on March 19th that can be easily picked-up at your local bakery, and maybe to host a big bonfire 🔥 June 23rd to celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. If you have children, or are a homeschool mum, Litugy can be the way you give your kiddos history, faith, 🎶 music, culture and geography all in one. Ah, don’t you just love when you can kill TEN birds with one stone (what an awful phrase; note-to-self; find another alternative). So many homeschool moms have their survival go-to’s like “just do math” (as it definitely is the hardest to catch up on) and when it comes to tackling the house I always say just take THREE (run the dishwasher, the washer and make your bed-kick all else to curb) when things get chaotic or one is sick or a whatever the reason calls, but for homeschooling I always say “just do liturgy.”

All this to sayin short that if your tired of self-help books and the winter-blues, why not lean on Liturgy to pull you back onto the ship instead, if you find yourself drifting overboard. After all, it was God’s gift, why not unwrap it and put it to use.