These sacraments of Christ's love for his bride, the Church, are not only the source of the spiritual love of holy virginity, they also transform the human love which binds husband and wife together. Through the sacrament of matrimony, the love of the flesh is consecrated to become a means for husband and wife in their mutual sanctification, so that together with their offspring they may in greater fullness praise God. The other pole of the emotional life of man was the irascibius, culminating in what we call before the ecstasy of rage.

[01:04]

And this pole is transformed by the sacrament of confirmation, which is the sacrament of spiritual maturity and courage through which the Christian is anointed as king, as martyr, and as prophet. It would be entirely wrong to think of a follower of Christ only in terms of a meekness which would exclude strength. The Christian is, on the contrary, a soldier pledge to the service in his Lord's army, not only in the hiddenness of his heart, but also in public, before kings and magistrates and crowds.

[02:07]

Act like men and be strong, St. Paul exhorts his converts. It is the heroism of Christ which is reflected in the joy in which the martyr dies for his faith. The source of this heroism is not the passion of the blood, but the spirit that raised Christ from the dead. In the fullness of this spirit, the Christian finds a strength which transcends his bodily weakness. When his bodily life ebbs away, the church anoints the Christian in the sacrament of extreme unction to give him this spiritual strength and to prepare him

[03:12]

for the glory which is awaiting. Christian heroism, therefore, is not the blind courage of despair in which the noble pagan tries to ignore the terrors of death, but it is the calm assurance which the risen Christ who loved us unto the end and has conquered death, pours into the hearts of those who receive him in faith. At the beginning of this talk, we contrasted the speed, efficiency, and restlessness of this mechanized world of ours with the sameness or against the sameness and slowness of the liturgy.

[04:14]

Now that we have a clearer idea about the spiritual vitality of the liturgy as sacramental representation of Christ's death and resurrection, We realize that this sameness is the result of the fact that the liturgy is concerned not with the periphery but with the center of life. The sameness of the liturgy is the sameness of the essence. Every liturgical action is a dying and a rising in Christ. The old man dies, a new man rises, not physically but spiritually, but for that matter no less real. Sin is the only true death. Sanctity, union with God, is the only true life.

[05:21]

Repentance, conversion, is therefore the only change in man that really matters. Divine life is the only life that truly satisfies man's thirst. The passing from sin to sanctity in the power of Christ's death and resurrection, is the unchanging essence of the liturgy. Now, the very fact that the liturgy draws us into the saving death and resurrection of our Lord, the very fact that the liturgy is eternal as far as this its spiritual substance is concerned, allows, on the other hand, for great freedom and variety of liturgical form.

[06:31]

The liturgy indeed is not monotonous, but is woven into the rhythm of the cosmic changes in which man lives here on earth. First of all, into the changes of the seasons. The new life of spring is consecrated by Lent and Easter. The fullness of the summer, the fruitfulness of the fall, the depth of winter, they all find their spiritual meaning in the liturgy of the Church. the liturgy contains further a great variety of external forms according to different cultural and national characteristics.

[07:39]

A marked difference exists between the liturgical traditions of the East and of the West with Rome and Byzantium as the respective centers. And in the East, further, a great variety of national rights exists. The Armenians, the Syrians, the Copts, the Ethiopians, the Chaldeans, and the churches of South India all follow rites of their own. Dead uniformity has never been the principle of the liturgy. We see this again in our days, when the growing liturgical movement has led to so many adjustments of liturgical rules to the changing circumstances of the time.

[08:45]

It is not the liturgy, the informal prayer of an individual soul, but of the mystical body of Christ, of all its members. And for this reason, certainly the liturgy cannot be changed according to the passing, accidental, casual whims of individual people. the liturgy has to be subject to the authority of the church. This situation might then, in many instances, lead to certain tensions between personal and corporate needs. However, the church cannot act rashly, especially not in the field of corporate worship. Still, the liturgy of the Church is not a magic operation which would achieve its effect without personal participation from the part of those involved in its celebration.

[10:06]

Not the people are not for the sacraments, but the sacraments are for the people. Christian worship is adoration of the Father in spirit and in truth, which in the context of St. John's Gospel does not mean a purely inward mental act. but an act in the power of the risen Christ, who is altogether spirit and life. In him, the external element, the body, and the inward element, the spirit, have been brought into complete harmony. Liturgy in the spirit and in truth is therefore not worship without external form, but external form filled with understanding and love.

[11:12]

We call it today intelligent participation. But we should be careful to note that this intelligent participation is not merely an intellectual affair, but participation of the whole man, of intellect and will, of soul and body, restored and united in Christ, who through faith dwells in our hearts and draws the whole man into the service of the heavenly Father. You see, my dear friends, to appreciate the life of the liturgy, one has to have an idea of the kind of life to expect. The noise and speed of a mechanized world have to be left behind. The proud display of sensual passions has to be transcended.

[12:19]

Even from the affairs one has to turn away, but only in order to give time and room to the heart to breathe and to reveal its deepest aspirations. From this centre of our human existence, you may then turn to the liturgy, and you will not be disappointed. You will find there the tears of repentance, the light of a new way, the power of true love, the splendor of divine life. You will find the latitude of corporate life without losing the intimacy of the heart. You will find the intensity of organic life without and cleansed of the turbulences of the passions.

[13:31]

you find steadiness and continuity of organic growth without the tearing and wearing of haste or rush. The sameness of the essential is kept without monotony, but in the rich variety of this visible world and all its good, The liturgy is a consecrating power. Why is this possible? Because the liturgy is nothing else but Christ triumphant, abiding with his church here on this earth. The Word made flesh, whose glory we see, whose life we live in the unity of the Spirit, for the glorification of the Father. The liturgy is Christ's most precious gift that he has handed over to his church, his bride.

[14:40]

It is given to all Christians, therefore. You don't have to become a Benedictine monk to live by it. You don't have to go to Maria Lach or to Mount Saviour to celebrate it. but one thing I hope you will do when you now go home. Sing in the depth of your heart, Holy God, we praise you.

[15:10]

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