It's only Holy if it has holes in it.

At a recent WAC (Wednesdays at COOS), the program was simple: "Ask a Priest." Mo. Kathleen and I sat on stools after dinner and let people ask us . . . well, anything. And the questions ranged from sartorial to deeply theological. But one question that stood out for me was this: "What does the liturgy mean to you?" I could have rambled on for hours about that, but the essence of my answer was simple: the liturgy is profoundly sacramental. And by that I don't just mean that during the Holy Eucharist we believe that the bread and wine mystically become the Body and Blood of Christ (though it includes that). I meant that our worship is sacramental in the broadest sense of that word. As the Book of Common Prayer describes it, a sacrament is an "outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace." And everything in our worship is sacramental because everything conveys the presence and love of God: the colors we adorn the altar with, the music we sing, the peace we exchange, the meal we share. In all these physical manifestations we can discern the living God. But — and here's what's most significant to me — in doing so, our liturgy reminds us that all of creation and all of life is sacramental. All that we do when we celebrate the Eucharist forms us to see the whole world in a renewed way, as the setting and the means for God's love to be fully realized and embodied.

Put another way, the liturgy matters because it has holes in it: the light from Sunday morning shines on us throughout the week and helps us see God "at work in the world about us" (Eucharistic Prayer C). And that is true for any "holy" activity. For example, along with a number of people in this parish, I regularly practice contemplative prayer, sitting with God in silence. But what makes such prayer transformative is not having a blissful prayer experience (mine generally feels remarkably mundane), but letting that prayer slowly shape the way I am in the world: learning to be more present in the moment, accepting myself as I am, accepting others as they are, finding my deepest identity Christ and not my ego, allowing the love of God to flow into me and through me. If contemplative prayer was hermetically sealed off from the rest of my life, it would be pointless. What makes it holy is that it has holes in it that let the light shine through into my daily life.

Ultimately, we are all called to embrace the counter-cultural truth that there is no such thing as "sacred" and "profane." Everything is sacred. All of creation is holy. Every object can convey the beauty of God; every act can manifest the love of God: sitting in prayer, going to the grocery store, holding hands, mopping the floor, eating the Body and Blood of Christ, having lunch with a friend. All of it embodies God's Presence. This is the heart of the Incarnation: God is born into this world as a baby to show that all of this world and all of humanity contain God and convey God. The entire universe is the wondrous arena in which God makes known the reality of Love.

The Celtic tradition speaks of "thin places," places where the the line between heaven and earth disappears and we can see that heavenly reality and earthy reality are the same. There was never supposed to be a dividing wall: it's only Holy if it has holes in it.