The liturgy should meet us where we are but it should also take us where we need to be the second problem with the enthusiastic lay liturgiologist is that most often he is driven by an ideal in his own mind of what proper liturgy should look like and this can become an ideological position cut off from reality. At the same time the eucharistic liturgy also inscribed differences between clerical and lay christians and established a hierarchy of power the chapter explores the consequences of this tension clergy idealized liturgy as an enactment of commonality while laity engaged with it on their own terms sometimes appropriating resisting or rejecting clerical understandings. Indeed in the age of the laity as the years after the council were so often called some laypeople courageously and intelligently challenged the liturgical and cultural iconoclasm of the day and preserved what they could of the churchs liturgical culture and the eternal truths which it enshrined. Liturgy and laity what you in the same way as to read liturgy and laity three divine liturgies are in common use in the byzantine rite the divine liturgy of st john chrysostom 5th century used on most days of the year and as a vesperal liturgy on the annunciation the divine liturgy of st basil the great 4th century used on the five. Liturgy and laity is a prayer book designed to help average catholics share deeply in the churchs rich liturgical life ideal for personal and liturgical use it offers a series of reflections on the doctrines of the liturgy as outlined in the constitution on the liturgy