Liturgy
Liturgy is a prescribed form of public religious worship and its associated rites. It orders communal acts such as prayer, readings, song, and ritual.
Prayer: Prayer is communication or communion with the divine, expressed through speech, thought, gesture, or silence. Prayers supply words and forms that congregations repeat within worship.
Mass: The Mass is the central Eucharistic worship service in the Roman Catholic Church and some other Western Christian traditions. It is a major Christian liturgy centered on scripture and Eucharist.
Free worship: Free worship is religious gathering or devotion conducted without a fixed, prescribed service order. It contrasts with liturgy’s established forms and sequence.
Lex orandi, lex credendi: Lex orandi, lex credendi is the Christian principle that the rule of prayer expresses or shapes the rule of belief. It captures how repeated worship can embody and transmit doctrine.
Hymn: A hymn is a religious song of praise, devotion, or teaching, usually intended for communal singing. Hymns turn worship into shared song and often carry its central themes.
Divine Liturgy: The Divine Liturgy is the principal Eucharistic service of Eastern Orthodox and many Eastern Catholic churches. Its name identifies the central public worship rite in Byzantine Christian traditions.
Private devotion: Private devotion is individual religious practice outside a public communal service. It differs from liturgy’s defining setting of public worship.
Collective memory: Collective memory is the shared representation of a past maintained by a group through stories, practices, and symbols. Repeated rites preserve a community’s accounts of sacred history.
Scripture reading: Scripture reading is the public or private recitation of passages from a religious community’s sacred texts. Readings place sacred texts within the ordered sequence of a service.
Siddur: A siddur is a Jewish prayer book containing the order and texts of regular synagogue and private prayers. It provides an ordered set of prayers for Jewish communal worship.