If the Church places anything else prior to the sacred liturgy worthily celebrated, she is abandoning her first love and starting down a path of harlotry, like ancient Israel playing the whore with the false gods of the surrounding nations.
There is a direct lineage from Babel to Canaan, Canaan to Babylon, Babylon to Gehenna. First, there is Babel: when we abandon sacred tradition, which unifies us to one another, to the host of saints, and to the transcendent God, our penalty is a babble of vernacular tongues, a smorgasbord of options, an incoherent pluralism. Second, there is Canaan: our bad liturgical mentality and habits are a breeding ground for open and hidden forms of adultery, idolatry, atheism, and apostasy. Third, there is Babylon: we enter into captivity to our enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil; we enter into exile, far from the fatherland, far from our own identity. Fourth and lastly, there is Gehenna. A downward spiral of increasing self-indulgence and decreasing discipline leaves us dispersed, wasted, spread out, thinned out. This, certainly, is what we have seen not only with the liturgy, but also with the priesthood, religious life, the missions, catechesis, the fine arts. When one gives up the supersubstantial bread of tradition with the Most Holy Eucharist at its heart, one descends first into gourmet food, then declines into fast food, and finally lapses into starvation.
What is the solution? A radical obedience to fixed, inherited liturgical forms that gradually strips us of self-will and immerses us in the self-giving of Christ.
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