What Role Should the Liturgy Play in Evangelization?

A question that we as Christians must ask today is this: given the changes that have happened in the modern world and that are still happening today, how should we as Christians act to best evangelize people in the world today? There are two different questions embedded here: 1) what are the changes that have happened in the world and 2) how do we best respond to those changes?

There are so many ways to tackle this question, however, I think it is prudent to start with how the Church herself has responded to this question. We can study the opinions of philosophers and theologians and sociologists and historians as much as want, and that is a good thing to do, but Jesus gave us a Church, whom He guides by the Holy Spirit, and that is always a good place to look first.

With that in mind, the most obvious place to start is by looking at the Second Vatican Council, which one could argue, had an objective of answering this very question. It sought to understand the place of the Church in the modern world and to formulate the best approach for the Church to take to fulfill her mission of spreading the Gospel and bringing souls to Jesus Christ.

It is illuminating that the Second Vatican Council started with a debate and discussion on the liturgy, which would be formalized in a document titled Sacrosanctum Concilium. The Council Fathers chose to start the problem of how the church should interact with the modern world through a discussion on the liturgy. Not only was this the starting point of the council, Sacrosanctum Concilium was the most undisputed and common ground among the Council Fathers. They found the most unity in discussing the liturgy and this first debate would then set the tone for the rest of the council and influence all subsequent discussions.

I think this point cannot be underestimated. The Holy Spirit guided the bishops, and all those present at the council, to begin by discussing the liturgy and that discussion was an overwhelming common point for the bishops from across the world. In other words, the liturgy is key when it comes to discussing the Church’s place and role in fulfilling her mission in the world today. The liturgy is not a side discussion to be had in this bigger conversation, but a fundamental part of it.

The unfortunate part is that today, when making a statement like that, so much debate gets stirred, and people start to have strong and differing opinions about what that means. Many people will immediately go into whether this means the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) or the Novus Ordo, but that seems to me to be missing the point here.

The important point is that the liturgy, and its key place in the life of the Church, is essential when we talk about how to address the problems we find in the world today. Why is that? What is it about the liturgy that makes this the case? What is the liturgy and what does it do to us that makes it so essential, yes for people at all times and places, but especially for people today?

Theologically, it makes sense to give the liturgy this primary place, as the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). But there is another aspect that seems to have been lost in all of the discussion around the liturgy today, and it deals more with what might be called the “spirit of the liturgy”, to use a quote from the title of a book first written by Fr. Romano Guardini and then later Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI). The liturgy does something to us, it forms us and develops in us a certain worldview and this formation is essential when it comes to evangelizing modern man.

This formation that the liturgy gives us is a topic I plan to dive deeper into in the following months.