How are we to live?

I would like to share a text from #43 of Gaudium et Spes:


"Nor, on the contrary, are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether divorced from the religious life. This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age"


Besides the universal call to holiness, the full activity of the lay people, and the reinvigoration of the liturgy (all still in the works...) I think that the call to authenticity was another great act of the Second Vatican Council. Who we are in the chapel should be the same as who we are in the world. As numerous spiritual writers have noted, how we pray governs how we live, and how we live governs how we pray.  There shouldn't be a disconnect between our faith and how we see and act in the world. Of course the liturgy is in itself a cosmic event, the source and summit of faith, in the liturgy we should truly present ourselves as we are, not hiding between masks of insecurity or doubt.  When we truly present ourselves in the liturgy, when we offer the sacrifice with the priest who confects the sacrament, we are spiritually nourished in such a way that, upon leaving the liturgy, we should be filled with the desire and grace to bring Christ into the world, which, after all, is the duty of all lay people (cf Christifideles Laici, JP2)


Of course, also, in the liturgy we move and betake ourselves differently (we are before the Real Presence after all!) but who we are, our inmost identity, must not be masked.  Who I am during the Mass should be who I am during my ordinary life as a citizen. To further explain this authenticity before God, and authenticity before man, I would highly encourage you to listen to this wonderful lecture by Fr. Ronald Tacelli, SJ, of Boston College.


http://www.anselmphilosophy.com/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=72