Liturgy & Worship

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Why Such Interests in the Liturgy?

The true celebration of the Sacred Liturgy is to make present the eternal act of our salvation, to re–present the victory of Jesus Christ in his passion, death, and resurrection.

A Work of Faith

The Liturgy is the work of the Church’s faith. In it she anticipates and bears forth the full realization of Christ’s saving works. In the liturgy, spiritual realities take a hold of our lives and, ultimately, of all historic and cosmic realities.

All-Important to the Church

Regarding the importance of the Liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, says: “What we previously knew only in theory has become for us a practical experience: the Church stands and falls with the Liturgy. When the adoration of the divine Trinity declines, when the faith no longer appears in its fullness in the Liturgy of the Church, when man’s words, his thoughts, his intentions are suffocating him, then faith will have lost the place where it is expressed and where it dwells. For that reason, the true celebration of the Sacred Liturgy is the center of any renewal of the Church whatever.” (Lecture given at the Abbey of Fontgombault, France, 2001)

The Pope has often expressed his hopes to encourage a “re–invigoration” of the liturgical movement.

Blossoming from the Benedictine of Solesmes in the mid-1800’s, the Liturgical movement reinvigorated the whole Church with a greater vision of the Liturgy as a living reality to be experienced. Sadly, the gains of this movement soon became distorted when so many lost their focus on the essence of the Liturgy.

At the Heart of Our Work

The core inspiration and work of the Society of Saint John is, in union with the Pope, to discover anew the essence of the Liturgy. We are convinced that the Liturgy is a living reality that can transform the world. We, therefore, strive to penetrate ever more deeply the spiritual mysteries of the sublime sacrifices of Holy Mass and the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours). Particular attention is given to the symbolic realities and to sacred music, which are living gateways of the liturgy.

To these ends the Society of Saint John works for the solemn and full celebration of the Classical Roman Rite, with special concern for making it not a relic of the past but rather a living liturgy, a living treasure of the Church’s tradition. Our hope is that this treasure might become alive again in the Church and the world.

The above photograph of the Mass is from Easter, 2004 at the Society of Saint John.

Society of Saint John Eagle