One of the things I think makes St James’ a special place is the priority of the liturgy. It isn’t just something we do once a week; it shapes who we are and how we see God and each other. In the Parish Profile that the Search Committee recently completed, and which you all contributed to, that aspect of community identity was made powerfully clear.
This can be a challenge when we have conversations with other Christians for whom the liturgy is not a primary focus. Speaking for myself personally, it is hard to imagine how acts of mercy or charity or even personal piety could flow out of anything but the direct connection with the Divine alongside a community we are bound to, which we experience in the Mass. Of course, everyone experiences God differently, and there isn’t necessarily a wrong way to do so, but for me at least (and I expect many of you too), the liturgy is the thing that feeds me for the other work I must do in the service of God and Church.
How else do we explain something that is so extravagant; so seemingly ‘useless’? Why don’t we spend our time and resources in food programs or other charity work? The modern consumerist mind struggles to understand things which are not measurable or tangible; they could easily be dismissed as frivolous or wasteful, or – at best – a superficial nicety.
But the liturgy is – for us – the home that safely holds us; the food that nourishes us; the living water that refreshes us. It is the medicine that soothes our wounds, and the song that revives our spirits. Being reminded of who we are in the presence of God and neighbour, fed by Word and sacrament, we are invigorated for the work we must do as disciples of Christ in the world.
Mother Amanda