January 6, 2016

Almost everything we do is an unspoken liturgy – the order to which one dresses; the “usual” for breakfast; the same pew at church.
A Table in the Desert: Making Space Holy, The Rev. W. Paul Jones, p. 98

I've talked about the need to find God in the everyday, or the holy in the mundane, several times.  This is not a new idea – Ignatius of Loyola developed a type of spiritual discipline or practice which has as its key insight the understanding that we can find God in all things.  The God of patient waiting is found in the short checkout line you choose which turns into a long wait because the person in front has expired coupons.  The God of grace is found in the crush of traffic entering Caveman bridge and letting in those right lane late-mergers.  The God of joy is found when the sun breaks through the fog.  The God of new life is found when tree buds burst forth in color.  Ignatius taught us that we can find God in all things if we take the time to see.

Liturgy is a term that means “work of the people,” and was originally used to define the role of a public servant.  Road construction, for instance, was a liturgy, and instead of a “Men Working” sign, that sign might be read, “Liturgists Ahead.”  But it soon began to be used in relation to worship services.  Today it is almost always associated with the worship of Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Episcopalians, Lutherans, and a few other churches we would define as “liturgical churches.”

Liturgy is, in essence, how we worship.  From the opening sentences and hymn to the dismissal, everything we do has a particular place, form, and procedure.  For those who grew up with it, it is familiar and comforting.  For those who came into it later, it might be holy mysterious and beautiful.  For those who have never really participated in it, it can be rigid, rote, and confusing.  And even non-denominational Protestants follow their own liturgy, although they would never admit to it.

This quote from Fr. Jones' book caught my attention because he touches on Ignatian spirituality in a different way than either he or we might have thought.  If Ignatian spirituality finds God in all things, and liturgy is the form and function of how we traditionally worship God, then we can take this line from Fr. Jones and find the worship of God in all things – Ignatian liturgics, if you will.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, the day we celebrate the arrival of the wise men, their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.  Today it is no longer the star that leads people to Christ, it is us, and we do that in part through our words and actions.  How would it be if we tied together our worship and our spirituality in our everyday lives?  How would it be if we no longer saw our daily routines as routines, but as a daily liturgy that reflected God in all things?

Beginning today, I invite you into a form of Ignatian liturgics.  I invite you to see not routines, but a divine liturgy of form and procedure that is intentionally designed to allow for holy mysteries to be experienced and expressed in the everyday.  From the first time we open our eyes in the morning to our final evening prayers, life is a liturgy.  May you begin to move through your daily life with the same intentionality, the same awareness, and the same openness to seeing God as when you participate in the liturgy of the Holy Eucharist.

Amen.