Abstrakt: | The main theme of the article is the relationship that
should exist between the liturgy and the private devotion of Christians. The Second Vatican Council defined the liturgy as the summit to which everything that the Church
lives every day should lead and as the source that constantly nourishes her life and activity.
Through a skilful return to the sources, the Council deduced this teaching from
the rich Tradition of the Church – set on the rock that is Jesus and then, starting from
Christian antiquity, laboriously consolidated and grounded by generations of believers in
Christ. Although this process of consolidation and grounding of the Church’s Tradition
has persisted without interruption until our present day, the article focuses our attention
solely on the earliest stage, that is on Christian antiquity or, in other words, the history
of the Apostolic Church (i.e. the period roughly coinciding with the first century), when
the content of this Tradition was still being constituted, and on the earliest stage of the
history of the post-Apostolic Church (i.e. the period from the second century to the
beginning of the fifth century), when the content of the Apostolic Tradition began to
be preserved by the Church (as it still is today). |