The Church’s Liturgy heads us towards heaven, which for believers must be the ‘summit’ of everything. Heaven means the presence of the all-Holy Trinity unveiled and its eternal praise.
All Liturgy is taken up to the altar which stands before God in heaven (Eucharistic Prayer 1). So at the summit of all the Church’s doings, whatever they are, is this ritual activity, the sacred Liturgy, the Mass, the sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours. It gives goal and direction, impetus and inspiration, to everything else.
At the source, the Liturgy, as the ‘presenting’ of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, ‘presents’ the Passion, Resurrection and Glorification of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit. These are the events which found the Church, Christ’s mystical Body. So the Sacred Liturgy constantly begins the Church, and constantly propels her to her end in the threefold mystery of God.
