Liturgy and the Moral Teaching of the Church

I don't participate in internet fora very much anymore, and it's not because I am lazy. I am _lazy_, but I have other reasons: I don't think arguments convince very many people, and certainly not the sort of arguments that happen in the anonymous agora of the internet.

Finally, I don't think arguments about right and wrong have much chance of success in a world that doesn't understand the liturgical life. By "liturgical life," I mean a life that is centered on the holy, on the manifestation of God in the world. This needn't be mysticism, but can be a very practical sacramental life, marking the hours, days, and weeks by their relation to the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I mean by the liturgical life thinking more about whether it's the third week of Lent than whether March Madness is approaching.

The typical way of life of Christians consists in a normal secular life punctuated by a weekly hour spent discharging a religious duty. After the church service, life goes back to normal. This is particularly true of Catholics, who vote, buy, and live nearly exactly like eneryone else.

Any argument about the moral life is therefore attempting to convince someone to make a commitment to a more Godly life, when God only occupies an hour out of every week. How could it make any impact? I remember yearly arguments in one forum about Lenten fasting regulations, and How dare the Church tell me I can't eat meat? One despairs of making any headway.

So I don't, and generally put my energies into the liturgical life at my parish, doing my best to make it as full and beautiful as it can be. We will live better when we pray better.