Want personality?  Live the Liturgy.

Katie van Schaijik | Nov 30, 2011 | 4 cmts

This Friday evening we will host the first of our First Friday Reading Circle for Personalist Project members.  We'll be discussing the first four chapters of Dietrich von Hildebrand's classic, Liturgy and Peronality.  Those who live in the area are welcome to join us at our home.  Those who can't make it in person can listen to the podcast of Jules' introductory remarks, which we'll post at the member center over the weekend.  There, too, you can comment or raise questions on what you read and hear.

If you'd like to take part, please do become a member!  It's free while we're in our start-up phase.  All we ask is members have a love of truth, a sincere interest in Christian personalism and a friendly disposition toward our work and toward fellow members.  Once you become a member you can click on the reading circle link, which will allow you to register and download an electronic version of the text.  (We have von Hildebrand's widow's permission to share the out-of-print text for this event.)  

What makes Liturgy and Personality of particular interest to an outfit dedicated to bringing personalist philosophy into fruitful contact with life—both individual and communal—is what it teaches about the nature of the person and the dialogical relation between the person's inner life and the objective world of values.  Our relation to the world shapes our personalities.  The Eurcharistic Liturgy, in Catholic understanding, is the God-designed point of most intimate contact between divine life and human life, between the supernatural and the natural.  There is no more sure and efficient way to shape and scale our personalities rightly than to enter into fully and often.

Here is Alice von Hildebrand in the introduction to the text.

"[Von Hildebrand] shows that the Liturgy embodies in its language and gestures those attitudes toward God, man, and the world whihc constitute the very core of a great personality."