A Living Liturgy
“Why wait to offer yourself to the cleansing power of divine love? ”
Community Procession, 1960.
Saint Therese of Lisieux, one of the most popular saints of the Church and patroness of the missions, once referred to her own monastic way of life as “heaven’s real portal.” The connection she saw between a monastery and heaven is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the nuns’ liturgy. Liturgy is embodied worship ordered toward sanctification and union with God. By introducing us into the ongoing praise of the Holy Trinity, liturgy lets us enter into the life of heaven, here and now.
How does this heavenly life of liturgy work out day to day in the monastery? Our Constitutions explain that “the solemn celebration of the liturgy is the heart of our whole life and the chief source of its unity” (75). The emphasis this text places on the liturgy’s unifying character is key.
All the nuns are obliged to participate at the Mass and recite the divine office together. The profound and intimate union with Christ that we experience every morning at Mass is extended throughout the day by the recitation of the psalter. Bells call us back to the chapel multiple times a day to intercede on behalf of the whole Church in prayers of praise and petition. The transformation this liturgy works in us personally—both in body and soul—flows into other aspects of our life including work, study, and recreation.
Liturgy not only draws the whole community together in prayer, it also unites us to the Church as a whole. One document from Vatican II teaches that “members of any institute dedicated to acquiring perfection who, according to their constitutions, are to recite any parts of the Divine Office are thereby performing the public prayer of the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4). In other words, by praying the divine office, Dominican nuns have the privilege of fulfilling the duty of the Church as she stands before the eternal Father.
That’s why a liturgical life is not unlike standing on the front step of God’s own house, as St. Therese put it. And just like that other threshold of heaven, Purgatory, this kind of life is purifying. Which raises the question: why wait to offer yourself to the cleansing power of divine love? By entering into a liturgical life for the glory of God, we anticipate entering his house.
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