The Liturgy: Prayer and Teaching
To someone from a Protestant Tradition visiting a Catholic Mass for the first time one of the most surprising things they discover in the liturgy is the amount of prayer within the Mass. Just off of the top of my head, I believe it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of eight different prayers that are prayed by the priest within the Sunday Mass which the people hear. I don’t know for sure because I’m praying, not counting. But that’s the number that I come up with. In most Protestant services there are three or four prayers said during the Sunday service, depending on whether or not it’s a Communion Sunday or an ordinary Sunday. Though I will grant you that Protestant prayers are usually longer, at least in the churches I grew up in.
Prayer is important to the liturgy because that is one way we lift our hearts to God. It is a time of communion with Him, of talking to Him directly, whether asking his forgiveness, presenting our petitions, praising his greatness, or asking the Holy Spirit to come and change ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It reminds us that it is only through Him that we can do anything.
The other important part of liturgy is catechesis. To all of you Protestants out there reading this – if there are any, catechesis means teaching. The reason this is so important is because a lot of people don’t have the time to take classes. Or they don’t like to read on their own. It’s also because within the context of the Mass, there is an extra power to the teaching. Have you ever told someone something, something spiritual, and they just don’t seem to get it. Then a few days, weeks, months, whatever, later, the priest says exactly the same thing. Then the next time you see that person, they are all excited about what they learned. And it is exactly the same thing you’ve been telling them all along. I have. For some reason, some God reason, our souls are illuminated at Mass in a way that they are not just in ordinary life.
“Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men.
Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the ‘sacraments’ to the ‘mysteries.’” (CCC 1074-1075)
Without prayer and catechesis (teaching) the liturgy wouldn’t be the liturgy. It is by proper catechesis we learn what the church teaches according to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. This enables us to know how to live the Christian life in the right way. Through prayer, we are united to God who gives us the strength and courage to do it.