Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Liturgy - Class 3

We began tonight’s class with another exercise: On the provided sticky notes, we wrote down one question and one insight from the assigned readings. After a few minutes we were asked to post the sticky notes on the white board, and we discussed them together.
 
One person asked, “Why is the first reading always from the Old Testament”? We all agreed that because Jesus would only have had the Old Testament, it is the connection between Jesus’ life and Jesus’ teaching.  We also talked about the New Testament as a fulfillment of the Old Testament.
 
It’s interesting to note that when the New Testament writers were studying the Old Testament they were not attempting to find or create these links. They weren’t trying to create a one for one typology in which the New Testament fulfilled the Old Testament. They were trying to understand where Jesus’ theology came from.
 
The next question was about the liturgy and whether solemn means dull or sullen? The answer of course was "No", Liturgy is supposed to be pure joy; it's being one with Christ.
 
Another question was. “Why are the readings introduced”? Some people liked this practice and other didn’t, but I think it enables and enhances understanding. This led to a discussion about whether the purpose of the liturgy is comprehension or celebration, and we agreed that its purpose is celebration. I mentioned how I think this is one of the reasons I like multilingual services. As someone that is limited to one language, for me it's more about celebration than comprehension.
 
My Insight was that I think my parish is doing a good job. Our instructor wanted to know how this related to the assigned readings, to which I replied that as I was reading about the proper way to celebrate the Introductory Rites and Liturgy of the Word I kept thinking that “we seem to be doing it right”. He agreed and responded with the idea that we shouldn’t just focus on what we're doing wrong, we should also notice what we're doing right.
 
My question was “When is simple too simple”? I was a bit confused by the idea that simple is better, thinking we might be asked to reduce the liturgy down to the basics. I worship in a building designed as a gym, that has always been a church, so I’m familiar with simple. Our instructor helped me understand that it isn’t about simple, as in removing all of the ornamentation, candles, music, and art, but it’s not about those things either.
 
There is a principle called progressive solemnity. Some liturgies are a bigger deal than other liturgies; for instance a daily Mass vs a Sunday Mass. Liturgy should be celebration in the midst of a noble simplicity to avoid excessive distractions. The goal is to engage our community to hear God's calling and to live the Word after Mass.
 
All of the assembly must pay attention to all of the Mass: Beginning, middle, and end. If it doesn't feel right the people will “check out”. Although good liturgy must tell a story, it doesn’t mean that the people as a whole are off the hook: The people must prepare themselves for the Celebration of the Mass by reading the Bible and by preparing for the Liturgy of the Word by reading their Missals prior to Mass.
 
We talked a bit about what to do when a lector is not affective (bad). Our instructor acknowledged that it's difficult to move volunteers from one ministry (lector) to another (Eucharist). The best practice is to be positive, as in “Your reading has improved but I think you would be able to reach many more people as a Eucharistic minister”.
 
The Ambo is the table of God. It should be used to declare the Word of God, but it should not be used for announcements. Casual greetings (by the Priest) should be avoided, because all language (in the Liturgy) is ritual language. A secular greeting is not appropriate.
 
The reason ritual language important is to encourage participation. We need the ritual to distinguish from the ordinary, and there needs to be an intention for it to be important. This is how we hand down tradition and we must hold on to it to unify our celebration and worship.
 
Ritual language can be recognized in the text, changes of posture, or it’s been heard before, or pronounced with authority. The intention of ritual language is praise and worship, it is not evangelization.
 
It’s important to remember that the homily is also ritual language. Its theme should be taken from the readings and integrated into the story of the community. The Liturgy of the Word should cause a response in us: Thanksgiving. The homily should lead this particular group to authentically move forward to receive the Eucharist, and it should only work this time, because the next time we'll be different people.
 
A homily is not a statement, or a collection of do’s and don’ts. It is a "you, who, do, through" prayer in the form of a message that is meant to change us in a fundamental way. A good homilist tries to link the readings to the lives of the community. Ritual language might use readings like the workers in the vineyard, and it shouldn’t be just social justice talk. It should be about connections and it should lead us to the Table of the Lord.
 
The homily should emphasize that the reading is just as important to this community as it was to the original community. Simply re-iterating or repeating the readings is not right, because it that won’t involve the necessary ritual language.
 
My post to the class website:
 
I am especially grateful for our discussion of “One question and one insight” that we had acquired from our reading assignment for this week’s class. One person asked, “Why is the first reading always from the Old Testament”? We all agreed that because Jesus would only have had the Old Testament, it is the connection between Jesus’ life and Jesus’ teaching.  We also talked about the New Testament as a fulfillment of the Old Testament.
 
I’ve always understood that, but for some reason I had never considered the idea that the writers of the Christian Scriptures, must have studied the Hebrew Scriptures prior to writing what we now call the New Testament. My admittedly undeveloped and unrefined notion was that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit and, after careful consideration and an appropriate amount of time, produced and edited the documents that we eventually added to the collection of books we now refer to as the Bible.
 
There is no reason, of course, to believe that these documents were created without research or consideration of what was written before Jesus’ life. After all if Jesus had read those then why not the writers of the New Testament? It also makes sense that the writers were not attempting to manufacture the fulfillment of the foreshadowing they imagined in the Old Testament. They were simply trying to understand where Jesus’ theology came from.

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