Priesthood, Liturgy and Beauty

One of my suggested readings by my spiritual director at our last meeting was to read through Pope Benedict XVI's book Priests of Jesus Christ. It is a book that I am not reading for academic formation but one of personal formation as I pray about God's vocational call upon my life. I am reading the book and praying and that is all that I am really doing with it at this time. It is reading with reflective intentions and examines me deeply within so as to transform me more and more into the image of Christ no matter what God intends for my future service. The core of his messages to priests are applicable to the laity in many ways as well. One such point is the thinking about how liturgy connects us to the infinite beauty when it is executed beautifully. In his homily given at the celebration of vespers with priests, religious, seminarians and deacons at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2008, Pope Benedict reminded his audience that

God's Word, the Eternal Word, who was with him from the beginning, was born of a woman, born a subject of the law, in order to redeem the subjects of the law, 'to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons'. The Son of God took flesh in the womb of a woman, a virgin. Your cathedral is a living hymn of stone and light in praise of that act, unique in the annals of human history: the eternal Word of God entering our history in the fullness of time to redeem us by his self-offering in the sacrifice of the Cross. Our earthly liturgies, entirely ordered to the celebration of this unique act within history, will never fully express its infinite meaning. Certainly, the beauty of our celebrations can never be sufficiently cultivated, fostered and refined, for nothing can be too beautiful for God, who is himself infinite Beauty. Yet our earthly liturgies will never be more than a pale reflection of the liturgy celebrated in the Jerusalem on high, the goal of our pilgrimage on earth. May our own celebrations nonetheless resemble that liturgy as closely as possible and grant us a foretaste of it!

This is exactly right I think. One of the ways that liturgy loses its beauty is when the priest allows his own personality and ego to get into the way of the celebration. Another is when he lacks in liturgical celebration via a lack of preparation and simply 'wings' it. Another is a lack of gesturing and standing at the altar as if he were leaning against the bar ordering a pint. Liturgy is to be the drama of all that happens above and what happens above and below when it is executed in the beauty of holiness changes history and the world. This is true every time it is enacted whether we see it and experience it or not in our lifetimes. So, may we all give ourselves more faithfully to making the liturgy of the Mass the most beautiful experience on earth that we might taste and see the goodness of the Lord!