5.3.V.a. Remote Preparation

Dear Savior, turn my desire for a liturgical life into a powerful SPIRIT OF FAITH with respects to everything that has to do with divine worship.

Your angels and saints see You face to face. Nothing can distract their minds from the august functions which go to make up one of the elements of their incomparable bliss. But I, on the other hand, still a prey to all the weaknesses of human nature, simply cannot keep myself in Your presence, when I unite with the Church in addressing You, unless You develop in me the gift of Faith which I received at Baptism.

May I never come to regard my liturgical functions as a burdensome duty, to get over and done with as soon as possible or something to be put up with for the sake of the fee! Never, I hope, will I dare to speak of the Thrice Holy God or carry out His rites with careless familiarity and insulting negligence which I would be ashamed to manifest to His most humble servant. May I never give scandal in those things which were expressly designed to edify! And yet, can I forsee how far I will fall if I once cease to watch myself in this matter of the spirit of Faith?

O my God, if I am already sliding down this perilous incline, have mercy, pull me back! Or rather, give me so lively a Faith that I will be gripped by the importance that all liturgical acts really possess in Your sight, and will rejoice to feel their sublime wonders flood my will with an ever-growing enthusiasm.

Can it be said that I have the slightest spirit of Faith if I take no trouble to know the RUBRICS and to observe them? This is a neglect for which not even the most lofty and appreciative intuitions about the Liturgy can compensate in Your sight, O my God! What difference does it make if I feel no natural attraction for this task? It is enough for me to know that my obedience is pleasing to You, and that it will gain me great merit.

On my retreats, I must never fail to examine myself on this point, with regard to the Missal, Ritual, and Breviary.

Your Church, O Jesus, has chiefly drawn upon the treasures of the PSALMS for her cult. If I have any liturgical spirit, my soul will be able to see You, in passages from the Psalter, especially in Your life of suffering. And I will be able to realize that the words, the deep thoughts which came forth from the secret depths of Your Heart and rose to up God during Your mortal life, are to be found written down in very many of the prophetic verses with which You inspired Your Psalmist.

And there I will be able to discern gathered together in a most marvelous synthesis, a forecast of the chief teachings of Your Gospel.

Under these same veils, I will detect the voice of the Church as she carries on Your life of trials and expresses to God, in the midst of all her sufferings and triumphs, sentiments that echo those of her Divine Spouse; sentiments which may also be appropriated in all temptations, reverses, combats, sorrows, discouragement, deceptions, as well as in victory and consolation, by every soul in whom Your life can be manifested.

If I set aside part of my reading time for Holy Scripture exclusively, I shall develop my taste for the Liturgy and make it easier to keep my mind on its words.

Plus lucratur qui orat et intelligit quam qui tantum lingua orat. Nam qui intelligit reficitur quantum ad intellectum et quantum ad affectum (St. Thomas, in. 1 Cor. 14:14).
One who prays with understanding profits more than one who prays with the tongue alone. For he who understands receives nourishment as to the intellect and the will.

Reflective observation will show that every liturgical composition has a central idea about which the various teachings are grouped.

Oh what weapons, my soul, will you thus forge, against thy ever roving imagination, especially if you know how to learn from SYMBOLS.

The Church makes use of symbols to speak to the senses a language which captivates them, making the truths that are represented sensible. Agnoscite quod agitis (realize what you are doing) , she told me at my ordination. Ceremonies, sacred linen, holy objects, vestments, all speak with a meaningful voice, given them by the Church, my Mother. How am I ever going to enlighten the understandings and reach the hearts of the faithful that the Church wants to capture by her naive and grandiose speech if I myself do not possess the key to such instruction?