{"id":4101,"date":"2010-09-07T16:56:51","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T21:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=4101"},"modified":"2010-12-27T16:55:32","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T22:55:32","slug":"becoming-present-in-the-liturgy-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/07\/becoming-present-in-the-liturgy-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming present in the liturgy, again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Becoming present to God in the liturgical action (as Paul Ford put it)<\/a>, participating fully and willingly in God’s trinitarian act of salvation for us, is the ideal of liturgy. This willing participation, though, is a skill as well as a choice.<\/p>\n

After all, at any age, it’s possible to be distracted at our liturgical celebrations. One of the Syro-Malabar rite Catholic youth I interviewed in 2008 had developed, in conversation with one of his pastors and others, a strategy for overcoming distractions during the liturgy. When he found that he was distracted, thinking about his outside responsibilities, for example, he would silently say a short prayer, like the following: “Mother Mary, please help me to have peace in my heart.” This prayer helped him “get back into the mass.”<\/p>\n

The great thing about this strategy was it simultaneously released him from the distraction and from his awareness of the distraction, so he didn’t continue to be distracted by the guilty thought that he should be paying better attention.<\/p>\n

It’s never too early to learn the liturgical skills we need to pray better, so this week I told Thomas I would teach him a prayer he could say when he’s having trouble listening in mass. He’s been asking about St Benedict and his Book (you can hear the capital when he talks about it) so I was inspired by the Rule of Benedict:<\/p>\n

Jesus, help me listen
\nwith the ear
\nof my heart.<\/em><\/p>\n

He likes it. How do you cope with liturgical distraction?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Becoming present to God in the liturgical action, participating fully and willingly in God’s trinitarian act of salvation for us, is the ideal of liturgy. This willing participation, though, is a skill as well as a choice. Coping with distraction is one of the components of this skill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[255,12,17,31,33],"tags":[967,330,61,691],"class_list":["post-4101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children","category-devotions-and-sacramentals","category-liturgical-spirituality","category-sacramental-theology","category-youth","tag-liturgical-distraction","tag-participation","tag-prayer","tag-rule-of-benedict"],"yoast_head":"\nBecoming present in the liturgy, again - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/07\/becoming-present-in-the-liturgy-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Becoming present in the liturgy, again - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Becoming present to God in the liturgical action, participating fully and willingly in God's trinitarian act of salvation for us, is the ideal of liturgy. 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