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I used to love the events my youth group put on in middle and high school. I started attending events regularly around the time I was twelve. Overnight summer camp, the fall lock-in, winter ski retreat, and more. I had this little chalkboard in my room and I would often create a countdown for each event, sometimes starting over 100 days out. These youth events were times in my year that were always encouraging, always edifying, and were a beautiful part of the rhythm of my life.

I recently told JP about this, and he said: “Oh, you were looking for liturgy!”

I had never thought about it that way before, but it struck me as definitely true.

In my Catholic faith, we use the word liturgy when we are referring to the whole complex of official services, all the rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church (New Advent). Another way of looking at the word liturgy is to think of rhythm. Liturgy is the pattern of our worship. It is the rhythm to our faith.

The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that humans are wired for liturgy. Pattern and rhythm bring us comfort. We do best when our life has a rhythm and an order to it. We struggle when we are thrown off our daily routine, or maybe even moreso when we are forced to navigate something like a major life change and we must create all our rhythms anew.

But when we are in the rhythm of life, our mind doesn’t have to work hard to navigate all the details of every single moment. During a routine drive to work we may be able to listen to a podcast or notice the beauty of the sky or the trees because our brain doesn’t have to focus on not getting lost.

We know the way, and that frees us.

This has also held true for me as I practice a formally liturgical faith.

I used to believe the stereotype that Catholics were just going through the motions by following the same procedures over and over again. The same Mass. The same prayers.

But my experience living the liturgy has been so much richer, so much deeper than that. The rhythm of the Mass has embedded itself in me, and because I live that rhythm my mind and heart and soul are free to enter deeply into the presence of God. Repeated prayers like the Hail Mary create an opportunity to enter into meditation and deep reflection on the life of Jesus in the Gospels.

Catholic liturgy has been so very good for my soul.

And maybe that’s a better way to look at liturgy overall than how I used to view it. Just because someone follows a rhythm, doesn’t mean their heart isn’t in it. In fact, it may be a very beautiful part of that person’s life. We’re wired for liturgy, for routine, for rhythm. I think we all find liturgy of some kind, in at least some parts of our lives because we are drawn to it.

Turns out that little teenage me was drawn to the rhythms of my faith, and grown-up me is still drawn to them too.

Feel free to reflect or share:What do you think about liturgy, or people who practice a more liturgical faith? Where do you see liturgy in your own life?

-Lorelei