Sacred Liturgy, Breath of God

When the Sacred Liturgy is celebrated reverently and beautifully, it "respirates" in much the same way a living body breathes. There is a rhythmic exchange between heaven and earth, God and His people, gift and response.

One might say that the Sacred Liturgy has two lungs: 1) the inhalation of divine grace and 2) the exhalation of human worship.

In the Liturgy, God first breathes upon His people. Through the proclamation of Scripture, the sacramental signs, the prayers of the Church, and supremely through the Holy Eucharist, divine life is communicated to the faithful. The assembly receives. It listens, adores, wonders, repents, and is nourished.

Then the Church exhales. She offers praise, thanksgiving, sacrifice, song, intercession, and self-oblation to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Having received God's gifts, she returns them transformed into worship. When liturgy is celebrated carelessly, this rhythm becomes constricted, like shallow breathing. The actions may remain valid, but the manifest signs of transcendence can become obscured. The lungs still function, but with diminished vigor. When celebrated reverently and beautifully, however, the Liturgy breathes deeply:

1. Silence becomes the inhalation in which the soul receives God.
2. Chant and sacred music become the exhalation of praise.
3. The Word proclaimed is inhaled as truth.
4. The Creed is exhaled as faith.
5. The Eucharistic Prayer ascends as the Church's great breath of thanksgiving.
6. Holy Communion descends as God's breath of life into His people.

There is also another sense. Beauty serves as the unobstructed airway of the Liturgy. Noble vestments, worthy music, careful ceremonial, sacred architecture, and recollected ministers do not add something extrinsic. They allow the mysteries to be perceived with greater clarity. Beauty helps the Liturgy breathe naturally because it permits truth and goodness to shine forth without distortion.

As Pope Benedict XVI often emphasized, authentic liturgical beauty is not decorative but revelatory. It discloses the splendor of divine reality and draws the human person into contemplative participation.

Thus one might say:

The Sacred Liturgy respirates most fully when, through reverence and beauty, the Church inhales the life of God and exhales the praise of heaven. Its breath is silence and song, sacrament and sacrifice, grace descending and worship ascending, until heaven and earth meet in the rhythmic heartbeat of Christ's eternal priesthood.

That image is particularly fitting because Scripture itself associates God's life-giving presence with breath: God breathes life into Adam, Christ breathes the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and the Spirit is symbolized by wind and breath. A beautiful liturgy allows that divine breath to circulate freely through the Mystical Body, filling the Church with supernatural life.

O Lord Almighty God, whose sacred Liturgy is the very lifeblood of our souls, and the blessed communion wherein Thou dost breathe Thy divine life into Thy Church: Grant us ever to keep before our minds the true nature of the Sacred Liturgy and of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; that, abiding steadfast in Thy holy will, we may faithfully cooperate in Thy work for the salvation of souls. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with Thee, Father, and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.