Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

In the Christian faith it’s almost a philosophical principle that the universal is known through the particular and the abstract through the concrete.

The words of the liturgy felt like a mother rocking me, singing over me, speaking words of blessing again and again. I was relaxing into the church like an overtired child collapsing on her mom.

We need this kind of embodied beauty—smells and bells—in our gathered worship, and we need it in our ordinary day to remind us to take notice of Christ right where we are.

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.

Czesław

The only thing that makes the church endurable is that somehow it is the body of Christ, and on this we are fed.”7

Greed—the repeated cry of “Encore!” to, say, rich black coffee or extra-creamy queso—may transform a Pleasure of Appreciation into a Pleasure of Need, draining out of it all the lasting enjoyment.

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

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