Prayer and liturgy

I mentioned in my last posting some words of Dom Paul Grammont, one of the three Christian men I owe most to (the other two being my bible class leader as an adolescent, and my current spiritual director).

 

For me Dom Paul, who was the abbot during my two-year stint as a novice monk in France 30 years ago, provides a valuable corrective to the concept, found in both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, of the primacy of the liturgy. ‘In relation to prayer, I would say’, he remarks to his biographer, 'that the liturgy comes in second place … We cannot do without the rite, which is necessary, but it is second to private prayer, in its place.’ 

I sense deep down that he is right.