Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

There is nothing magic about any particular church tradition. Liturgy is never a silver bullet for sinfulness. These “formative practices” have no value outside of the gospel and God’s own initiative and power.6 But God has loved us and sought us—not only as individuals, but corporately as a people over millennia. As we learn the words, practices,

“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen . . . I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”

We naturally greet these moments with gratitude. But more than that, we respond with adoration.

While these approaches may form us as alternative consumers, they do not necessarily form us as worshipers.

By reaching for my smartphone every morning, I had developed a ritual that trained me toward a certain end:

Patience [is] the basic constituent of Christianity . . . the power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, not to transcend one’s own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the titan, but to practice the virtue that lies beyond heroism, the meekness of the lamb which is led.2

I need a human voice telling me, week in and week out, that they’re lies. I need to hear from someone who knows me that there is grace enough for me, that Christ’s work is on my behalf, even as I’m on my knees confessing that I’ve blown it again this week.

he says that this heavenly bread is his very flesh and calls them to feed on it as their “true food”

Our powerful need for sleep is a reminder that we are finite. God is the only one who never slumbers nor sleeps.

Ironically, greed and consumerism dull our delight. The more we indulge, the less pleasure we find. We are hedonistic cynics and gluttonous stoics. In our consumerist society we spend endless energy and money seeking pleasure, but we are never sated.