Home > Author > J.D. Crichton
1 " At the practical level all liturgical rites are arranged for the participation of the community. Rite, as we have seen, enables people to relate to each other (the kiss, the handshake—both symbolic gestures) and also to the community. Once can become part of it or enter more deeply into its life. "
― J.D. Crichton
2 " [The Eucharist] is neither simply intellectual, addressing itself to disincarnated reason, nor moralistic, exhorting men to do better, though it contains both these elements, but deriving as it does from Christ, who is both divine and human and who is the invisible priest of the visible Church, the liturgy addresses itself to the whole man and seeks to draw him into union with God by means that are consonant with human nature. "
3 " Through [the Eucharist's] celebration Christ makes himself present and that presence, it is interesting to note, is largely made through words which may be those of holy scripture or those of the poets who, together with the music that their words have evoked, have enriched our worship throughout the centuries. These patterns of words, music, gesture, and movement, sometimes of great beauty, have formed the setting of the eucharistic action on whose content in one way and another they have thrown light. Together they have manifested the Christ who makes himself present. Likewise, the prayer of the Church, whether it is called the Divine Office or Mattins and Evensong, which are so largely scriptural, recalls the past, speaks through Christ who is present, and constantly looks on to the end. "
4 " It is this people, then, the priestly people, the body of Christ and the community of Christ, who are the ‘subject’ of liturgical celebrations. In other words, it is they who celebrate the liturgy, and the form of the liturgy must be of such sort as to make this possible. The Christian liturgy by its nature cannot be the monologue of a single participant. It is the action of a whole community. On the other hand, it is not an unstructured community. Each member, and indeed each group of members (e.g. the choir), has its role to fulfil and all by these funcitons are exercising the priesthood that they share with Christ and Chruches, an indispensable part of this structure is the priesthood, which is a ministry...of the priesthood of Christ and is in no way opposed to the priesthood of the people but is complementary to it. There is but one priesthood, that of Christ, which the whole Church exists to seve and make actual in the here and now. In the liturgical assembly the ministers of Christ have a special role of leading, of presiding, of preaching of uniting all in self-offering with Christ. For their part, the people not only act and offer through the priest-celebrant, they act and offer with him. By virtue of their baptism, they share in the priesthood of Christ and...they have their various roles to perform. "
