IPF 504: The Mystery of the Liturgy: Receiving in Celebration and in Life
Name one or two learnings from this course that contributed to your ability to experience God's love in Christ. Where were you invited and/or challenged to grow in Christ in experiencing the relationship between personal and liturgical prayer?
I have now begun to experience how the liturgy, a synthesis of human energy (including myself) and that of the Spirit, encompasses my life as celebrated and lived. I knew intellectually that the celebration of liturgy and life outside the celebration were meant to be integrated, but often there was no felt experience of them flowing together. I have begun to see how it is the one saving mystery of Christ that makes the moments of celebration one with the time of lived liturgy. The epiclesis of private prayer is the mystery of Holy Saturday, while the celebration of the liturgy is living the heavenly liturgy after the Ascension. Never before had I really understood what it meant that I am no longer to live but Christ is to live in me. Because I am the beloved son, the I am to live in my life the life of the Beloved Son.
Upon entering seminary I learned to give myself, including all that I undergo in everyday life, as an offering at Mass, asking the Father to send the Holy Spirit to make the offering holy with Christ's perfect self-offering. Now I see that I am being challenged to extend this epiclesis to the liturgy of life, offering myself from the altar of my heart in all my everyday circumstances.
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