What to give up for Lent?.....

     hmm..What to give up for Lent? What to give up for Lent?...

Yep. Today came as a shock to me. I think today came as a shock to everyone.  Many of my friends have either a love/hate relationship with Pope Benedict. Maybe because he had huge "Shoes of the Fisherman" to fill succeeding Blessed John Paul II? Maybe because his Pontificate was too short to really know the man named the "Rottweiler of God" during his time as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith? Maybe because he kinda did look like the Emperor from Star Wars? But, as promised, this blog isn't about politics or Ecclesiastical Pissing Contests.  

Putting all of that aside, I think several years from now we will come to see what I believe is Papa Ben's biggest strength, he was a Master Liturgist. In fact, he is one of my favorite Liturgists; a true Liturgist in the fullest sense of the word because he viewed the Liturgy through the lens of a Patristic. He wasn't swayed to a mere "smells and bells" approach to things, although he did look pretty fabulous in the ancient vestments he brought back with a modern twist. He also wasn't focused on the tide of the age and the whim of those who think Liturgy isn't built on the Shoulders of Giants: You know, that little Holy Spirit thing that has been guiding the Church for a couple millennia now. His work The Spirit of the Liturgy is by far one of the greatest influences in my understanding of the Sacred Liturgy.  I usually study the Liturgy with a Bible in one hand and this book in the other. But it really is one book of many different writings and teachings on the Sacred Liturgy. All of them show a deep understanding of the title of this blog, "Mystery." The Liturgy is just not about what we "do" in the Liturgy, but what God does in us.  We truly find out who we are when we look at Christ. This looking, this authentic life, this "Undoing of the Fall in us" happens when we meet Christ on the Holy Mountain of the Sacred Liturgy and become transformed by His Love and His Gaze. That my friends is Liturgy and the encounter with The Great Mystery. This is what is needed. Not a turning to either side of the ecclesiastical scale, but a true encounter with the Lord. May we live up to that Mystery.

“The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God', says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.” 
― Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy (pg. 18)