Before you begin

Environment

How can we transform a space which might also be used for school dinners and PE into a sacred space for worship?

Use colours, symbols and decorations appropriate to the liturgical season.

Consider how all the senses can be involved – as members of the assembly approach (the space), as they gather, and during the liturgy, what will they:

see   (actions, gestures, symbols, decorations),

hear  (readings, prayers, music, other sounds, silence),

smell (incense, perfumed oil),

touch (symbols, actions, gestures)?

It may not be possible, or desirable, to exploit all of these in every liturgy.

Beware of overkill! The environment should enhance the liturgical action, not distract from it.

The liturgy itself

Gathering

Setting the scene and mood for the celebration.

Gathering people from their different situations and helping to prepare them to celebrate as one worshipping community.

Word of God

This is the most important part of the liturgy.

Everything else should flow from it and be guided by it.

Where will the book of the Word be as people gather?

How do we welcome the Word and give it honour?

Do we process the book from which the Word will be proclaimed? Do we process with it?

(If we have a typed copy of the reading, it should be given dignity and enclosed within a suitably substantial cover.)

What happens to the book of the Word after it has been proclaimed?

Responding to God’s Word

Consider the most appropriate response for the Word and season, for example:

Music (a Psalm or other song),

Symbolic action (ritual gesture, movement [e.g. procession], veneration, etc.)

Silence, contemplation

Prayer (silent, spoken by individual/group(s)/all, sung, chanted, litany form, etc.)

A closing prayer will normally come at the very end of the “Responding” section.

Going forth

How do we “get out” of the celebration? (Music, movement, dispersal…)

How will the spirit of the celebration continue in the time that follows?