Home Pope Encourages Priests

Yesterday from Zenit

The Holy Father gave some particular words of encouragement to priests. He urged them: “live the liturgy and worship with joy and love: It is action that the Risen One carries out through the power of the Holy Spirit in us, with us and for us. […]

“And I would also like to invite each priest to celebrate and live the Eucharist with intensity, which is at the heart of the task of sanctifying; it is Jesus who wants to be with us, to live in us, to give himself to us, to show us the infinite mercy and tenderness of God.”

I can imagine the media being rather befuddled wondering, “in the wake of so much crisis” (as they love to remind us), why would the Pope would choose to remind priests about the importance of the Sacred Liturgy? When things seem to go badly for the Church and the priesthood, how many people would look to the liturgy as the answer? Yet this is exactly the solution (and the problem). We are blessed to have a very smart Pope who knows the liturgy well.

There is an ancient axiom with regard to the liturgy that is paraphrased as lex orandi, lex credendi, “The law of praying is the law of believing.” I like to say that if we pray correctly, we will believe correctly, and we will act correctly. If, therefore, we find problems in the way we are acting, the first place we should look ought not be to a “study” or “poll” or “experts.” Rather, we should look to the liturgy. If things are messed up in the Church, there’s almost a sure bet that things are messed up in the liturgy.

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