Living Liturgically

Hi Soul 🌻

Be still. Be attentive. Be present.

“We have seen the true light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith.”

Take a moment to become present before reading.

Notice where you are.

Notice what you are carrying.

And allow yourself to enter this moment with your whole being.

Christianity is not meant to remain an idea we believe, a feeling we experience, or even a service we attend.

It is meant to become a way of life.

The Byzantine tradition invites us to pray with our voices and bodies, through words and silence, bows and prostrations, candles and incense, repetition and ritual. Through these practices, the mysteries of our faith gradually move from something we know about to something we inhabit.

And at the heart of this liturgical life is the Paschal Mystery: the continual movement through death into life, sorrow toward resurrection.

Here is a question to carry with you as you read:

Is the Paschal Mystery merely something I celebrate in church, or is it becoming the pattern of my inner life?

I continue my journey through the Byzantine Catholic Catechism with Fr. Ed from St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church in New York.

This time, I’m sharing from Chapter 6 — Living Liturgically, which explores Christian piety, ritual and repetition, communal worship, love of neighbor, and what it means to allow the liturgy to gradually form the way we see and live in the world.

This chapter became particularly tangible for me this week as I moved, within twenty-four hours, from communal mourning into the celebration of a wedding — from flowers laid in grief to flowers carried in joy.

Below, I’ll share my reading notes, reflections, and the questions and conversations that emerged during this catechism meeting.