Is it just a man who celebrates the Mass?
In the liturgical actions, Christ is the high priest who offers God the glory that is his due, and associates the Church with himself in his action.
We must have a great love for the liturgy, because our whole life should be centered on the Holy Mass, the summit of all the Church's liturgical actions. And it is in the Mass that we can establish a living relationship with the Blessed Trinity, with our Mother the Blessed Virgin, and with the Angels and Saints.
We must put loving attention into everything that refers to the worship of God and the care of the chapel or the oratory and the tabernacle, because Jesus Christ is there, and He is the object of all our love and devotion.
We must achieve union with Christ in the liturgy through personal piety. Without personal piety, and an effort to purify our soul and to draw nearer to Christ, we would stray from the path to holiness, and end up getting bored in the acts of the liturgy as well. Without the necessary inner act of the will, the liturgy would be left soulless and lose much of its effect.
There can never be any opposition between the liturgy and other practices of piety, because they are all directed to the same end: giving glory to God and sanctifying souls.
The human heart asks for these external acts; it needs to express itself in words and gestures. And in their turn, the beauty of the ceremonies, the harmony of the singing, and the solemnity of the liturgical rites, all move our heart to greater love for God.
Even our prayer should be liturgical. In the course of the year the Church presents to us the principal events of Jesus' life. We experience that life as something real and present, because the liturgical year, as Pope Pius the Twelfth taught, ‘is not a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, or a simple and bare record of a former age. It is rather Christ himself who is ever living in his Church.’ As we follow the different aspects of his life that are brought before us, we will find new virtues to imitate, and new reasons for gratitude and love.
In the readings and prayers, the liturgy also brings us the echo of Christ's own preaching, and supplies us with a precious reservoir of material on which to draw for our own personal meditation.
The liturgical life and the interior life are inseparable because they depend on one another. It would be a mistake, and a pitfall on the path to holiness, to neglect either of the two.
The prayers and petitions of the liturgy may become a theme for our aspirations throughout the day. And our contact with God in the Mass should be prolonged in visits to the Blessed Sacrament and other acts of piety.
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