The Liturgy of the Home

Sister Margaret Kerry, FSP, explains how the daily chores of family life help to invite the Kingdom of God into our needy world.

The family is the domestic church. (Lumen Gentium 11)

As you go about your daily tasks, do you wonder if you might not be doing enough to invite the Kingdom of God into our needy world? The daily chores of family life, taking out the trash, paying the bills, changing a child’s diaper, setting the table, doing the dishes and laundry: these can be liturgical offerings of love in which divinity and humanity are joined together. Timothy O’Malley dedicated a chapter in his book Liturgy and the New Evangelization to this reality. In the chapter "A Eucharistic Vocation," he reminds us that in our concrete day to day living the eucharistic logic of the church unfolds. The liturgy of our day is a giving of ourselves to others as an offering of praise.

Saint Paul appeals to us “by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest. Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you…. keep burning continually the sweet-smelling incense of prayer. ... let your heart be an altar. With full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice (Saint Peter Chrysologus).

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Your domestic church is made of living stones being built into a spiritual house. We, the baptized, are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” We are God’s own people called to announce the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light (cf. 1 Peter 2:9).

Pope Leo the Great said that all of us, regenerated in Christ, are royalty by the Sign of the Cross.

[We] are consecrated priests by the oil of the Holy Spirit, so that beyond the special service of our ministry as priests, all spiritual and mature Christians know that they are a royal race and are sharers in the office of the priesthood. For what is more royal than to find yourself ruler over your body after having surrendered your soul to God? And what is more priestly than to promise the Lord a pure conscience and to offer him in love unblemished victims on the altar of one’s heart?

Families have a special participation in this common priesthood. Just as priests are given grace through the sacrament of Holy Orders, so too spouses are given grace through the sacrament of matrimony. Through the Liturgy of the Eucharist, God never tires of expressing His love for us. The daily “liturgy of the home” will strengthen our love and make Christ visible to every member of our family. Subsequently “as those everywhere who adore in holy activity, the laity consecrate the world itself to God” (Lumen Gentium 34). The Kingdom of God is among us! We are the royal distributors of God’s goodness wherever we are.

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The daily chores of family life can be liturgical offerings of love in which divinity and humanity are joined together. #CatholicMom

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Pope Benedict XVI said,

We ourselves, with our whole being, must be adoration and sacrifice, and by transforming our world, give it back to God. The role of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, a liturgy: so that the liturgy may not be something alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself shall become a living host, a liturgy. This is also the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin: in the end we shall achieve a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host. And let us pray the Lord to help us become priests in this sense, to aid in the transformation of the world, in adoration of God, beginning with ourselves. That our lives may speak of God, that our lives may be a true liturgy, an announcement of God, a door through which the distant God may become the present God, and a true giving of ourselves to God. (Homily, July 24, 2009)

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