Christians shape the liturgy, but the liturgy shapes Christians.
The classical model of formation, paideia, understood formation to be the drawing out of the person. Placed alongside the Christian experience of vocation, it can be seen in terms of our becoming, in community with others and in communion with God, the person that God is calling us to be. In baptism we are made a child of God; in giving ourselves to praise we discover something of the liberty of the children of God, and through Christ’s self-gift at communion, we again ‘become what we receive’ (Augustine of Hippo). This is why worship is the most intense, though not the exclusive locus of Christian formation, and for this reason liturgical formation and education should be given the highest priority within a ‘learning church’. The desired outcome of a programme of liturgical formation is a closer engagement of worshippers in the liturgy of the Church, and its corollary is the realization of the expectation that liturgy will transform us.
Transforming Worship: Report of the Liturgical Commission
