Living the Liturgy

There is an ancient Christian saying from the Patristic Era

which is known in its most concise form as lex orandi, lex credendi. As

the Catechism of the Catholic Church translates it: “The law

of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays.”

While the elegant simplicity of the phrase contains an

abundance of wisdom, the liturgy has always been subject to forces that

threaten to reduce this understanding to partial interpretations. As several

observers have noted, these reductions include the “archeological”

approach—explicating the liturgy’s historical origins but in the process

treating it as a dead letter—and the sociological approach—focusing on liturgy

as little more than an expression of contemporary concerns.

In Living the Liturgy: A Witness, Father Luigi

Giussani (1922-2005) restores a more balanced view, reminding us that

(according to Roberto Braschi’s introduction) in the liturgy “God is its pres­ent

subject and that the essence of every celebratory action is the possibility

of a gaze toward Him—because it is always from Him that the dialogue with

humanity moves.” The memorable, bracing insights in Living the Liturgy

were taken from conversations that Father Giussani had with members of the

international lay movement he founded, Communion and Liberation.