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Catholic liturgy means the whole complex of official liturgical worship, including all the rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church, as opposed to private devotions. In this sense the arrangement of all these services in certain set forms (including the canonical hours, administration of sacraments, etc.) is meant. Liturgy encompasses the entire service: prayer, reading and proclamation, singing, gestures, movement and vestments, liturgical colours, symbols and symbolic actions, the administration of sacraments and sacramentals.
Liturgy (from Greek: leitourgia) is a composite word meaning originally a public duty, a service to the state undertaken by a citizen. A leitourgos was "a man who performs a public duty", "a public servant", leitourgeo was "to do such a duty", leitourgema its performance, and leitourgia, the public duty itself.[1] So in the use of liturgy meant the public official service of the Church, that corresponded to the official service of the Temple in the Old Law.
- ^ Fortescue, Adrian. "Liturgy" The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.