Good liturgy can make the world a better place

Some days…

Some days I just want to go home and pull a blanket over my head. I care about liturgy — a lot. I believe liturgy changes us. And when we are changed, we can change the world. But some days…

Some days the lector totally mangles the reading. Or the musician picks songs that only a mezzo-soprano could sing. Or the presider uses the homily to tell us about his golf game during his vacation.

But worse than any of that is liturgy that is just plain boring. It doesn’t inspire. It doesn’t lift us up. People leave without a true missionary spirit.

So some days, I just want to go home and cover up. But on my better days, I want to do something about it. I want to make liturgy better. I want to use the gifts God gave me to help others use the gifts God gave them.

You probably want to do the same thing. I bet that’s a lot of the reason you are involved in liturgical ministry. You’ve seen what happens when liturgy works. You’ve felt it when the spark of grace ignites something in the assembly. You’ve seen the children smiling and their parents singing and even the teenagers seem a little more tuned in. Liturgy like that is just plain beautiful. And on some days, all that beauty really happens.

Is it too much to hope that all of our liturgies will be beautiful like that? Maybe. But we can do a little better, can’t we? What if every liturgy was just a little more beautiful than the last one? What’s stopping us from making that happen? What is getting in the way of liturgy that sparks grace in our parishioners?

I’d really like to know what you think about that. Maybe you’ve been thinking about this for a while and you have some ideas ready to share. If so, please write them down and e-mail me!

But if you are more like me and you’ve been spending some days at home under the covers, maybe now is a good time to poke your head out a little. Maybe today is the day to take one little step toward more beautiful liturgy.

If you would like to help us all take that step, I have a favor to ask. Would you please take five minutes to answer a few questions? Diana and I are going to pray over your answers and ask God’s spirit to guide us in providing resources for parish liturgical ministers like yourself that will help all of us plan for and lead beautiful liturgy.

I hope you can join us in this effort. But if you cannot right now, I want to thank you for all the times you got out of bed, put on your minister hat, and went back to making liturgy beautiful in your community. It is a great thing you are doing, and all of us are grateful.