There was a time when stories didn’t belong to people. A lone balladeer wandered the land, telling his wisdom in verse, blind but fully aware. Communities gathered together to tell the tale of their hero, died but now alive–mirabile dictu–in the face of their own persecution. And the stories changed, took on new meanings, new words–even came into new languages.
Story is transformative. That is indeed the point–and only Story can do that.
And it is still only a Story, and it can change.
These revelations in the past weeks reveal mainly two types of people who read Harry Potter:
The Hermiones: Over-analytical, or confused when their created, transcendent framework changes and overwhelms the set understanding, thus casting dispersions on their loyalty to the Story (Which horcrux did Hermione eventually destroy?) or to the Author
The Rons: Those who don’t “get a lot” out of things, refusing to have any framework of analysis at all, those who lack the eyes to see the full message
(Which Horcrux did Ron eventually destroy?) of the Author, claiming there is nothing to be learned
Both miss the point. Neither have the courage to encounter Story.
And then there are a minority of Harrys. These are the people that read the story and try to become something different because of them. The stories change them and they do not complain about “their” set expectations versus the author’s, they argue not about literary criticism nor about “reading into” things too much. They simply read and enjoy, because they know the story IS NOT ABOUT THEM. That is because they know the story can and will change them. At that it is simply a story, a story with an inevitable ending.
There are those who read in order to take for themselves (the Deathly Hallows), clinging to their ideas and understandings;
and there are those who read in order to be changed (becoming the Philosopher’s Stone) for the sake of others. It has been my experience that the further along one is on their alchemical process, or their journey, the more stories they read, create, and tell. They need not hold on to details, argue cultural mores and label other people. The less one is on the journey, the more obsessive one becomes about story qua story, and one’s place in the telling of it, to whom it belongs.
Now our stories belong to ME, to my ego-self, to my experience of them, to the corporate canon, to belittling the experience with details, and belittling the details with experience, to the arguments of heady Ivory Towers, to those who refuse to see more there….to control.
Another great storyteller said, “Let they who have ears–let them hear.”
We’re still arguing about his stories, too, even the one about the sower and his seeds. He understood the power of story in our own lives, but not let the rules of the story become our only pre-occupation. So did Homer. So did Beedle the Bard.
Instead, I am reminded of the ending of “Lady in the Water”, when a Narf (Muse) named Story is given freedom, and the hapless protagonist’s fears are taken by the gods of peace. And in the rain, he simply cries, standing outside of himself in ekstasis, and says:
“Thank you for changing my life.”
He had become one with the Story.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Dumbledore's Vanishing Cabinet
First of all, in the excitement of Rowling's revelation, I cannot believe that I have not seen a single reference to the fact that, as a classicist, Rowling would have been more than familiar with the Greek ideal of mentor-tutor (the lover and the beloved) relationship. This relationship was not always sexual, though it still carries the term “pederasty,” a word which only holds negative connotations for us today–though it was not always so clear cut.
Harry and Dumbledore’s relationship have all the traits of a Platonic relationship: chaste, educational, protective, transformative. We forget that Socrates himself was a pederast (in the chaste sense of the word– remember his spurning of Alcibiades’ advances spoken of in “The Symposium”?). There is no one so like Socrates, to me, than Dumbledore. And Socrates, lest we forget, was “gay” (though we can’t really use that word, because, according to Foucault, the concept of homo- and hetero- sexualities were not birthed until much later–there was simply “sexuality”).
To not have spotted this model, or to deny it in retrospect, is pretty unliterary.
For a quick, though not necessarily authoritative portrait into the complexities of this issue, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece I would most particularly point out the section on “Religious aspects,” especially this quote: “Mythographic material suggests that the initiate experienced ecstatic states of spirit journey leading to mystic death and transfiguration, analogous to practices still reported today in shamanic work.” [e.g., alchemical work] But it is apparent that it is causing other controversies. I would also like to say that the revelation that Dumbledore is “gay” is totally revealing, not of the character in a book, but of the character of our Christianity.
I was a bit hesitant, at first, when my school sponsored a free t-shirt giveaway for the “Gay? Fine by Me” campaign. I was afraid, not only being a Southern Baptist preacher’s son of some note in my small city, but as a now-regularly-practicing Catholic. I was also afraid of taking sides which may cause any of my students in the university to stumble in their faith beliefs. However, I went to the photo shoot and was amazed to see how many of the Christian leaders of our university, young and old, were there with their shirts on. I was ministered to by their courage to stick up for what they believed. Since then I have, on occasion, worn the shirt with the very large Benedictine crucifix that I received after some time in a monastery. So, here, the post-modern young Christian: “Gay? Fine by Me.” and the broken body of Our Lord. On these occasions I have received multiple comments on “how cool” it is to have such a witness–to be supportive of homosexuality and Christian, witnessing by not being bigoted. Imagine that. I think this is because the young people, in their struggle with sexual mores, but in great social concern, sense something profoundly different in the Christian message.
Please see this article: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-161075807.html Specifically: “Bolduc said the young Catholic students he studied are steeped in a national culture that often regards the Catholic sexual prohibitions against premarital sex, artificial birth control, abortion, divorce, women priests and homosexual behavior as anachronistic. ‘They live their lives squarely in the midst of the tension between individualism and the common good, and sometimes feel the tensions between the two extremes. It’s difficult to get them to be critical of the individualism that seems as natural as the air they breathe,’ Bolduc said.”
But here is a great summary of the positives and negatives: “Reported in the March 9, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, two longitudinal studies of U.S. Catholics ’show differences among Catholics that are not merely reflective of age and stage in the life cycle but mirror changes in both the societal culture and the Church itself.’ The study, “The Bookend Generations,” was co-authored by William D’Antonio and Vincent Bolduc. They express concern that the younger generations do not give the church and sacraments a central place and fear that this is a trend that is likely to continue through their lives. They are, also, more likely than previous generations to find the moral good in living the church’s social teachings. According to Bolduc, ‘Without a major transformation in the relationship between laity and church leaders, there is little in these studies to lead grandparents to expect their grandchildren to be joining them at Mass every Sunday.’” from http://www.emergingmodels.org/newsarticle.cfm?id=22
As to Harry Potter, having many gay friends and mentors, it seemed quite clear to me that Dumbledore’s infatuation with Grindelwald was not only apparent, but written very well, and that everyone is finding themselves caught in a huge blind spot, a blind spot that some people are examining, others are denying, and others are confused about. I myself suspected something very strongly in Book 7, but, again, one has to be aware of such things. The question really seems to be: How can I, as Christian, still look up to a beloved character who is not what we took him to be? And, subsequently, how do I, as Christian, treat other real life situations this way. I think the inability to deal with the former reveals a terrible inability to deal with the latter (and vice-versa).
It seems to me that so many of the Christian apologists are trying to digest some sort of argument while the rest of us post-modern young folk are simply saying, “What’s the big deal?” As you always say, John, we should be asking why these stories effect us? Now should we not truly be examining the prejudices of the metanarrative that Christianity presents: that to be gay is not to be Christian, and that to be Christian is not to allow homosexuality? For a post-modern understanding, this problem presupposes 1,500 years of dualism–and as post-moderns are returning to a holistic understanding of the body as a piece of
God’s immanence, the metanarrative of anti-homosexuality is one of the main targets, because many simply feel, in our intuitive bodily knowledge, that this is simply wrong. For many, the Bible’s language has been translated incorrectly, or is no longer valid (like the majority of Levitical law). For many others, raised in a more modern framework, the struggle simply is whether being homosexual is inherently right or wrong, a presupposition which then paints the rest of the “can Dumbledore be gay?” confusion.
And it is a confusion–I sense it in many posts here and elsewhere. To me, as many, the phrase “Neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew” also means “gay or straight”. If you read the plethora posts on Mugglenet, one gets the sense that the hoo-hah is being propagated by those over the age of 30.
Homosexuality is both a target for the poor state of our theology of the body (hetero- or homo-), and the gay community a Samaritan pariah created as a projection for our inability to deal with our own Puritanical upbringing. American Christianity as a whole has a terrible outlook on the body in general. No one ever asks the question, “Why is homosexuality wrong?” The Taoists, who I think have undertaken one of the most comprehensive studies of sexuality and sexual energies, have a great, alchemical answer, but without the moralization which leads to judgment, something which Our Lord warned about on countless occasions. But no one seems to look into that–they rely on Biblical literalism when convenient.
Though I am not yet married, I do sympathize with those having to explain to their children what this is all about. There is an appropriate time for everything. But I think we should be reticent to confuse our own cultural embarrassment and shame about sexuality, and explaining it to our children, with homosexuality in the world. If my niece ever asks me, I will have to consult my sister. But I would ask simply to say: “God loves everyone, and if you understand that, you will not live your life presumptuously doing what you want, nor will you live in constant fear.” Thank goodness for Brennan Manning and others for pointing this out to us. Sexual issues are all part of a piece, but for some, one of those pieces is something terrible. I personally think it should be more awkward explaining why mommy and daddy have such a nice house, while little boys and girls around the world don’t have clothes to wear, or food to eat, or houses to live in. But I am inculcated into the post-modern world….and feel successful in navigating in it, which is obviously very difficult for very many people, otherwise there would not be major news stories about a fictional character. It is the collision of the Classical, Modern, and Post-Modern realities.
So, to many, it’s pretty simple: they can still be Christian allegories with a gay character. Anyone that cannot be “sold” this is already stuck in a frame of mind and so we need to focus our energy away from an “apologetic” and stop wasting our time. In giving people like Fred Phelps a counter-argument, we are only giving him more power. I thought that Harry taught us to die from our agendas, especially ones that were so superficial, like Rita Skeeter; strangely, Jesus said the same thing, but I guess they killed him for it.
For ourselves, simultaneously whining about the “gay character” agenda in the media is a far cry from being tortured and beaten like the early Christians–it presupposes, as all of this does, a freedom to take ourselves way to seriously and too much leisure time as a society: you know, there are people who still die from starvation everyday, and we are worrying about a FAKE person’s outing and how that effects our argument for a “Christian allegory”. To be caught in the political (in the full sense of the word) game is to give power to it. The rest of us should simply read the stories and be transformed by them, and allow them to transform others. And ministers like Jay Bakker are doing just that, and claiming that everyone is a participant in the transformation–not from queerdom, but in humandom and humandom alone. God loves our bodies, our sexualities. It is a love which transforms them. I thought Harry taught us to embrace trials and taunts and become the Philosopher’s Stone; oh, right, Jesus did too.
As to the article about “Dumbledore is NOT gay”–this is preposterous. The author who creates the world reveals it. She can even change them in reprints of the books, as far as I am concerned. Tolkien did it with “The Hobbit” and no one complained about it–because we weren’t quite so selfish then, so needy for story that we cling to “our” version of it. Our “the story is MY story” revealed itself in Lucas’ decision to change “Star Wars” and now in Ms. Rowling’s revelations about her world. This “my right to read” which is far and beyond the Christian way of selfless behavior. And, since the story came from the infinite well-spring of eternal myth and infinite grace (or we wouldn’t be connecting to it so strongly; evil is never a connector) it belongs to that space in which we are a part. This “my story” attitude speaks more about how little spiritual reality we as a race currently have that we need to cling to our fictions so strongly–this sort of secular infiltration is much more egregious than loving gay people for who they, even in their sexual practices. It also speaks as to how thoroughly our religions are failing us — because, as Nietzsche pointed out, we hold to the veracity of myth without the ability to let them continue to change and develop to fit the times. This for him, and for me, is the symptom of the death of a religion. Arguing that there is a “canon” for Harry Potter is the same mindset as a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. We have failed to make the stories alive again–or have let our institutions squash them down to rubrics–and so we are all missing the connecting point; Rowling’s success around the world proves this: we need connection.
And, so, as a post-modern, I use one of the world’s greatest atheists to defend what I consider to be the world’s greatest message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the myths that are written after His example, of which Harry Potter is the post-modern exemplar. I echo the aforementioned study: yes, Christianity is dying, but not because we don’t go to Mass every Sunday–the young are seeing a new and different way: how to love literally, and literarily, again, and to seek connection (there is a reason that Facebook and MySpace are thriving). The fact is is that Rowling speaks “our” language, and the adults need to learn to be receptive to it–or we wouldn’t be so blind-sided by this. And we really need to hear the message, and really, deep down, want to, or we wouldn’t be arguing about a story so veraciously, or love Harry Potter so much.
For us, it is simply “sexuality”–which is powerful and transformative if undertaken with wisdom–but never shameful or dirty, and that is difficult for many, raised under a different meta-narrative, to understand. To not allow Dumbledore’s pederastic life is to be caught in the same literalism as Phelps, the same literalism that we would criticize and even fight against in claiming Harry to be our literary ALLEGORY (NOT CANON). To claim that is “now our story” is to be trapped in the same literalism which heralds the death toll of our faith instead of letting it have its own room to change and grow without secular selfishness–especially as the Author would deem it.
People will cling to the shallow much more easily than to the transformative deep. May we always seek transformation–even for our friends, our enemies, and for our literary projections. To not do so is to resist being “born again”.
We are all stuck in a vanishing closet, between being-in-the-world and being-of-the-world. Dumbledore came out of the closet for us and taught us to chose.
Harry and Dumbledore’s relationship have all the traits of a Platonic relationship: chaste, educational, protective, transformative. We forget that Socrates himself was a pederast (in the chaste sense of the word– remember his spurning of Alcibiades’ advances spoken of in “The Symposium”?). There is no one so like Socrates, to me, than Dumbledore. And Socrates, lest we forget, was “gay” (though we can’t really use that word, because, according to Foucault, the concept of homo- and hetero- sexualities were not birthed until much later–there was simply “sexuality”).
To not have spotted this model, or to deny it in retrospect, is pretty unliterary.
For a quick, though not necessarily authoritative portrait into the complexities of this issue, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece I would most particularly point out the section on “Religious aspects,” especially this quote: “Mythographic material suggests that the initiate experienced ecstatic states of spirit journey leading to mystic death and transfiguration, analogous to practices still reported today in shamanic work.” [e.g., alchemical work] But it is apparent that it is causing other controversies. I would also like to say that the revelation that Dumbledore is “gay” is totally revealing, not of the character in a book, but of the character of our Christianity.
I was a bit hesitant, at first, when my school sponsored a free t-shirt giveaway for the “Gay? Fine by Me” campaign. I was afraid, not only being a Southern Baptist preacher’s son of some note in my small city, but as a now-regularly-practicing Catholic. I was also afraid of taking sides which may cause any of my students in the university to stumble in their faith beliefs. However, I went to the photo shoot and was amazed to see how many of the Christian leaders of our university, young and old, were there with their shirts on. I was ministered to by their courage to stick up for what they believed. Since then I have, on occasion, worn the shirt with the very large Benedictine crucifix that I received after some time in a monastery. So, here, the post-modern young Christian: “Gay? Fine by Me.” and the broken body of Our Lord. On these occasions I have received multiple comments on “how cool” it is to have such a witness–to be supportive of homosexuality and Christian, witnessing by not being bigoted. Imagine that. I think this is because the young people, in their struggle with sexual mores, but in great social concern, sense something profoundly different in the Christian message.
Please see this article: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-161075807.html Specifically: “Bolduc said the young Catholic students he studied are steeped in a national culture that often regards the Catholic sexual prohibitions against premarital sex, artificial birth control, abortion, divorce, women priests and homosexual behavior as anachronistic. ‘They live their lives squarely in the midst of the tension between individualism and the common good, and sometimes feel the tensions between the two extremes. It’s difficult to get them to be critical of the individualism that seems as natural as the air they breathe,’ Bolduc said.”
But here is a great summary of the positives and negatives: “Reported in the March 9, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, two longitudinal studies of U.S. Catholics ’show differences among Catholics that are not merely reflective of age and stage in the life cycle but mirror changes in both the societal culture and the Church itself.’ The study, “The Bookend Generations,” was co-authored by William D’Antonio and Vincent Bolduc. They express concern that the younger generations do not give the church and sacraments a central place and fear that this is a trend that is likely to continue through their lives. They are, also, more likely than previous generations to find the moral good in living the church’s social teachings. According to Bolduc, ‘Without a major transformation in the relationship between laity and church leaders, there is little in these studies to lead grandparents to expect their grandchildren to be joining them at Mass every Sunday.’” from http://www.emergingmodels.org/newsarticle.cfm?id=22
As to Harry Potter, having many gay friends and mentors, it seemed quite clear to me that Dumbledore’s infatuation with Grindelwald was not only apparent, but written very well, and that everyone is finding themselves caught in a huge blind spot, a blind spot that some people are examining, others are denying, and others are confused about. I myself suspected something very strongly in Book 7, but, again, one has to be aware of such things. The question really seems to be: How can I, as Christian, still look up to a beloved character who is not what we took him to be? And, subsequently, how do I, as Christian, treat other real life situations this way. I think the inability to deal with the former reveals a terrible inability to deal with the latter (and vice-versa).
It seems to me that so many of the Christian apologists are trying to digest some sort of argument while the rest of us post-modern young folk are simply saying, “What’s the big deal?” As you always say, John, we should be asking why these stories effect us? Now should we not truly be examining the prejudices of the metanarrative that Christianity presents: that to be gay is not to be Christian, and that to be Christian is not to allow homosexuality? For a post-modern understanding, this problem presupposes 1,500 years of dualism–and as post-moderns are returning to a holistic understanding of the body as a piece of
God’s immanence, the metanarrative of anti-homosexuality is one of the main targets, because many simply feel, in our intuitive bodily knowledge, that this is simply wrong. For many, the Bible’s language has been translated incorrectly, or is no longer valid (like the majority of Levitical law). For many others, raised in a more modern framework, the struggle simply is whether being homosexual is inherently right or wrong, a presupposition which then paints the rest of the “can Dumbledore be gay?” confusion.
And it is a confusion–I sense it in many posts here and elsewhere. To me, as many, the phrase “Neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew” also means “gay or straight”. If you read the plethora posts on Mugglenet, one gets the sense that the hoo-hah is being propagated by those over the age of 30.
Homosexuality is both a target for the poor state of our theology of the body (hetero- or homo-), and the gay community a Samaritan pariah created as a projection for our inability to deal with our own Puritanical upbringing. American Christianity as a whole has a terrible outlook on the body in general. No one ever asks the question, “Why is homosexuality wrong?” The Taoists, who I think have undertaken one of the most comprehensive studies of sexuality and sexual energies, have a great, alchemical answer, but without the moralization which leads to judgment, something which Our Lord warned about on countless occasions. But no one seems to look into that–they rely on Biblical literalism when convenient.
Though I am not yet married, I do sympathize with those having to explain to their children what this is all about. There is an appropriate time for everything. But I think we should be reticent to confuse our own cultural embarrassment and shame about sexuality, and explaining it to our children, with homosexuality in the world. If my niece ever asks me, I will have to consult my sister. But I would ask simply to say: “God loves everyone, and if you understand that, you will not live your life presumptuously doing what you want, nor will you live in constant fear.” Thank goodness for Brennan Manning and others for pointing this out to us. Sexual issues are all part of a piece, but for some, one of those pieces is something terrible. I personally think it should be more awkward explaining why mommy and daddy have such a nice house, while little boys and girls around the world don’t have clothes to wear, or food to eat, or houses to live in. But I am inculcated into the post-modern world….and feel successful in navigating in it, which is obviously very difficult for very many people, otherwise there would not be major news stories about a fictional character. It is the collision of the Classical, Modern, and Post-Modern realities.
So, to many, it’s pretty simple: they can still be Christian allegories with a gay character. Anyone that cannot be “sold” this is already stuck in a frame of mind and so we need to focus our energy away from an “apologetic” and stop wasting our time. In giving people like Fred Phelps a counter-argument, we are only giving him more power. I thought that Harry taught us to die from our agendas, especially ones that were so superficial, like Rita Skeeter; strangely, Jesus said the same thing, but I guess they killed him for it.
For ourselves, simultaneously whining about the “gay character” agenda in the media is a far cry from being tortured and beaten like the early Christians–it presupposes, as all of this does, a freedom to take ourselves way to seriously and too much leisure time as a society: you know, there are people who still die from starvation everyday, and we are worrying about a FAKE person’s outing and how that effects our argument for a “Christian allegory”. To be caught in the political (in the full sense of the word) game is to give power to it. The rest of us should simply read the stories and be transformed by them, and allow them to transform others. And ministers like Jay Bakker are doing just that, and claiming that everyone is a participant in the transformation–not from queerdom, but in humandom and humandom alone. God loves our bodies, our sexualities. It is a love which transforms them. I thought Harry taught us to embrace trials and taunts and become the Philosopher’s Stone; oh, right, Jesus did too.
As to the article about “Dumbledore is NOT gay”–this is preposterous. The author who creates the world reveals it. She can even change them in reprints of the books, as far as I am concerned. Tolkien did it with “The Hobbit” and no one complained about it–because we weren’t quite so selfish then, so needy for story that we cling to “our” version of it. Our “the story is MY story” revealed itself in Lucas’ decision to change “Star Wars” and now in Ms. Rowling’s revelations about her world. This “my right to read” which is far and beyond the Christian way of selfless behavior. And, since the story came from the infinite well-spring of eternal myth and infinite grace (or we wouldn’t be connecting to it so strongly; evil is never a connector) it belongs to that space in which we are a part. This “my story” attitude speaks more about how little spiritual reality we as a race currently have that we need to cling to our fictions so strongly–this sort of secular infiltration is much more egregious than loving gay people for who they, even in their sexual practices. It also speaks as to how thoroughly our religions are failing us — because, as Nietzsche pointed out, we hold to the veracity of myth without the ability to let them continue to change and develop to fit the times. This for him, and for me, is the symptom of the death of a religion. Arguing that there is a “canon” for Harry Potter is the same mindset as a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. We have failed to make the stories alive again–or have let our institutions squash them down to rubrics–and so we are all missing the connecting point; Rowling’s success around the world proves this: we need connection.
And, so, as a post-modern, I use one of the world’s greatest atheists to defend what I consider to be the world’s greatest message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the myths that are written after His example, of which Harry Potter is the post-modern exemplar. I echo the aforementioned study: yes, Christianity is dying, but not because we don’t go to Mass every Sunday–the young are seeing a new and different way: how to love literally, and literarily, again, and to seek connection (there is a reason that Facebook and MySpace are thriving). The fact is is that Rowling speaks “our” language, and the adults need to learn to be receptive to it–or we wouldn’t be so blind-sided by this. And we really need to hear the message, and really, deep down, want to, or we wouldn’t be arguing about a story so veraciously, or love Harry Potter so much.
For us, it is simply “sexuality”–which is powerful and transformative if undertaken with wisdom–but never shameful or dirty, and that is difficult for many, raised under a different meta-narrative, to understand. To not allow Dumbledore’s pederastic life is to be caught in the same literalism as Phelps, the same literalism that we would criticize and even fight against in claiming Harry to be our literary ALLEGORY (NOT CANON). To claim that is “now our story” is to be trapped in the same literalism which heralds the death toll of our faith instead of letting it have its own room to change and grow without secular selfishness–especially as the Author would deem it.
People will cling to the shallow much more easily than to the transformative deep. May we always seek transformation–even for our friends, our enemies, and for our literary projections. To not do so is to resist being “born again”.
We are all stuck in a vanishing closet, between being-in-the-world and being-of-the-world. Dumbledore came out of the closet for us and taught us to chose.
Liturgy of the Word
It is not hard for us to imagine a place where we can find everything that our human need requires: information, instruction, emotional satiation, humor, tragedy, at the touch of a moment; a place where worded, yet voiceless thoughts connect all people to one another with ease, where distance is quickly overcome between two people; a place where descriptions of our day and our activities, our wants and concerns, our life context, can be shared in an entangled web of human interaction; a place of messages given and received. What is this place?
Mystery
Let us encounter a mystery: that two people, encountering the same message, will derive two entirely different warrants from it. This response many be “conclusive proof” of some faith (OED “warrant,” n.1, def. 5b); it may be an affirmation of the foundation, the “under clay” of belief (“warrant,” n.2); it may be a license to action; it may be a point of conflict, to hold over oneself or another (“warrant,” a.); or the response may be no response at all, a lost moment, a mis-connection. What is the difference entre the former reactions and the latter one? Why is that all may hear, but not all hearken?
Meaning: Catechesis of the Post-Modern Liturgy
A recent study showed that young Catholics differed significantly from the older generations in their attitude towards the Church and the liturgy: “younger Catholics are more individualistic, more tolerant of religious diversity and far less committed to the practices of their faith than older Catholics” (Hefferin). Catholic University Professor and study coordinator William D’Antonio states: "The general sense of what is sinful appears to have changed over these generations….For the pre-Vatican II group, personal sins--missing Mass on Sunday, premarital sex, masturbation, lying--were serious failings, while the Millennial Catholics see social sins--bigotry, failing to give women equal rights, lack of respect for diversity, neglect of the poor--as major ills they need to confront" (quoted in Hefferin).
For the current generation of young Catholics, the Church and liturgy no longer have meaning. This meaning is not a dictionary definition, a one-to-one sign—a reason—it is a multivalent context connecting the multitude of signs and symbols together. Heidegger states: “meaning is the ‘upon-which’ [the context] of a projection [the future aims] in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something; it gets its structure from a fore-having [something we have in advance], a fore-sight [something we see in advance], and a fore-conception [something we grasp in advance]” (193, 191). Without this context, people live in a state of dis-connection, something that can be perceived as an ignorance, a mistaking, a misunderstanding, a disregarding (OED “ignore”). Speaking specifically of the religious catechesis of the young, John Cavadini writes: “This vast ignorance is not just a question of missing bits of information, retinal holes marring an otherwise excellent field of vision. It is something more like a retinal detachment, a whole field of vision pulling inexorably away towards blindness. Not only are the words gone, the bits of information, but the system in which the words made sense is fading” (12). Where has this “pulling away,” this disconnection, taking place?
In Liturgy Made Simple, Mark Searle writes: “Instead of thinking of itself as the only gateway to God, [the Church] has come increasingly to see itself as a sign established by God among the nations of the earth: a sign set up in history to show what God has done and is doing for the whole human race, whether he does it visibly or hiddenly” (18). However, there is a difference in this self-understanding from how the world popularly sees the Church. The shrinking world now has many such pictures, for many in the younger generation can rank it next to Mecca, or the Bodhi Tree, as symbols toward holiness–it is simply another religion among many; sadly, it has, according to the aforementioned study, become a symbol for all that is perceived as wrong with religion (prohibition of the body, restriction of women’s rights, etc.)—without any positive re-emphasis on the inherent notions of its constructive, healing purposes. It fails, as all things, in the meeting of God and man, body and word; with popular over-emphasis on the juridical understanding of salvation, it has become a tool wielded instead of a context-given. It speaks, but the world no longer. But it is in this same place, the meeting of God and man, body and word, where it also triumphs. How can “this place” give context for the re-meeting of individual and society, acts of conscience and acts of consciousness, word and warrant?
Dabar: Sema and Soma
Scientist and author Chet Raymo writes: "There was a time when words were thought to possess a literal power over things. Ali Baba opened doors with incantatory syllables. ‘Hoc est’ evoked a transubstantiation, turned bread and wine into flesh and blood. We have lost magic in the tongue. With a sophistication befitting the inventors of the telegraph, we have reduced hoc est to hocus-pocus and abracadabra to dots and dashes" (Raymo 58). The problem, then, is a problem of language—and not merely the words, but the entire system in which we proclaim them. We must first re-raise the wonder of words. Let us look at the theological words for word itself. "In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, the term used for ‘word’ (dabar) could also mean an event, especially and important or significant or meaningful event: an event that said something" (Searle 39). What is the quality of this speaking? What is the connection between the word well-spoken, and the word-made-event? The necessity of hearing. Where do we first hear? In the body, in the ear, in the mind and spirit. And to hear requires an openness-towards, a hearkening. To hearken is “to have regard to, heed…to learn by hearing;” it is a “going-to” in order “to seek to hear…to inquire after,” constitutive of a “lie in wait” (OED “hearken”). It requires a waiting-to-hear, a listening. Listening is an engagement, which is not only intellectual, but is first and foremost bodily. Our hearkening and hearing requires an in-carnated response. "This reflects that way in which the term ‘Word of God’ or ‘Word of the Lord’ is best understood. God communicates through his people, not by putting thoughts into their heads or whispering into their ears, but by doing significant things in human lives" (Searle 39-40). It is heeding-to an event which first requires a waiting awareness of giving-heed; it is a circle, paradox, and mystery—a revelation and an opening. It is primary grace, the flip side to the circle of ensnaring sin. It is a change of our being. "Similarly, in Christian tradition we speak of Jesus as a dabar: he not only speaks God’s name, but he is the Word of God made flesh...His very person...a significant or meaningful event" (Searle 40). And so too for us as little Christs, humbly comprehending this, truly heeding-to this warrant, requires furthering the eventus in others. The Scripture warrants that we “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says:” fulfill the eventuality, eventuate the word (James 1:22). The word-heard in truth is an eventus: a coming out–of the church, out of the self (Webster "event"), of the sending-forth of the Mass (misse), positioning us to hear more in the whole, holy way of grace—in the daily events to which we give-heed. Therefore we strive to embody and incarnate Christ, individually and together towards the Kingdom proclaimed by Him in word and deed. In this way we reflect the manifestation of Logos, Christ’s wisdom, reason, and Word: in wor(l)d-flesh. Our wonder, then, is in the mystery of the meeting ‘twixt dabar, the word-event, and logos-, word-wisdom-made-flesh, in-the-body (in-carnate), the meeting of sema, word-signs, and soma, body, a soma-sema which is not the Gnostic tomb, but whole personhood, mind-body-spirit, under Christ; the mystery of hearkening searched for in the difference of an o from an e. The liturgy includes “a non-verbal language system [which complements] a verbal [system] with gestures that interpret the verbal (e.g., sign language) or with gestures and actions that emphasize the verbal (e.g., striking the breast in the Confiteor,” or which move beyond the signs of language to the emotional and spiritual dispositions amidst persons and between a human and God (Vereecke 503). The liturgy, then, is the primary word-event that draws the sema (words of our faith) into contact with our soma, our body; it is the word-event that reveals the Logos made Body, Jesus Christ, to us more clearly; to us, the corporate Body gathered in the Temple, and the sole-soul gathered in the Temple of our individual bodies. The liturgy gives us the open space, the liminal and luminal threshold in which to find ourselves and be shaped. How it all inter-relates, the mystery of the perichoretic and hypostatic universe, the place where the cascading light finds an open space in which to shine, and in which the bright white reveals the recess and womb of potential growth. This is the same space where a word can fall onto waiting soil, penetrate, gestate, grow, change, then transform, making it fertile for another season. How does the fallow first become fertile? Another mystery, a strand of the tapestry. What we concern ourselves with is the mystery of how some people are spoken to in the framework of the word event, and some are not. And we still have no answer—merely wonder of grace. But liturgy, as a “rehearsal of attitudes,” can help sow a seed, a seed as simple as showing up (Clay 10).
Current Cultural Need: Connection
What is missing is the teaching of symbolic interpretation and learning–the study of dabar: myth and parable in such a way that connects to bodily, psychological, and spiritual reality, instead of the pure objective learning from the Modern age in which “the direction of life was linear...[so that] individualism, fragmentation, specialization, differentiation, and a loss of the sense of the [comprehensive] whole of reality” yielded the “dislodging” of religion from personal growth, “because [religion’s] focus is on the meaning of the whole of life at its deepest level” (Seasoltz 23). In this, the “[the context] of [the future aims] in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something” is fragmented. Lost is the fore-having [something we have in advance], of theological understanding amidst the deprivations of the laity by Church history, the deprivation of catechesis or “pedestrian” over-verbiage to the first generations post-Vatican II, and the current push and pull of working out the reforms of that Council (Pecklers 113). “The fore-sight [something we see in advance],” then, has also been lost—what are the goals, now, for the Church, now that their age as sign has come and passed? And the “fore-conception [something we grasp in advance]” of how the Church is applicable to “my” individual life, confused. Amidst un-intelligibility, either apathy or a striving can be chosen, lost-ness or seeking, or, worst, clinging of the “old certainties”.
Strangely, then, this current generation is living a future vision, a fore--sight of social awareness, but without the undergirding of context to support it; without the Church, in many ways it carries on the Church’s goals, but in a state of survival. But there are still mis-connections, missed and mistaken, amiss (OED “mis-“).
We need to reclaim the sense that the liturgy is a connecting point to the very ancient: our humanity, with our individuals hurts, needs, hopes, and fears; and to the Divine, who guides us and helps us navigate our way through our humanity–self and community formed and forming together. If we can plug ourselves into the liturgy, we will be able to clear away much of the detritus of the past, to speak the old words anew, finding new ways to allow the Mass to speak of us and to us. Similarly, the Church will have to offer a primary language of healing and engagement, away from rubric and juridicial understanding; it will have to speak the people: "They talk about God instead of letting God speak to us" (Searle 39).
Spiritual hunger and social consciousness are present in the aforementioned article–and so the need for connection found in the virtual reality of storytelling through blogs, e-mails, and Facebook. Nick Wagner points out that “telling our story is a process of reconciling. Once I know your story–in the biblical sense–I am your story” (11). But he also points out that this connecting is something beyond the search for self in the bigger picture–the connecting “calls us to a ‘reality’ in which there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female” (11). It is a story telling amidst a bigger cultural story. In his book, A Sense of the Sacred, Kevin Seasoltz states: “This culture, developing above all among young people, is in some ways a return to primal culture, to nature, to the images of good and evil, and to symbols, myths, and rituals that are thought to enable people not only to deal responsibly with the mystery of iniquity in human life but to triumph over that evil” (30). And if the people are beginning to live universally, why cannot the Church and its voice?
The challenge, then, is moving this positive aspect of our generation into society and into our Church. This requires a spiritual coming-together: it requires a speaking out in the world, a word-event, not as individuals, but in communion. What is required is a renewed interest in liturgy, not as an empty, ritualistic practice, but something which does indeed have the same force of spiritual knowledge as the latest Harry Potter book (the new, post-modern myth and parable that teaches us the difficult spiritual lessons of life, even tragedy, in a constructed, fairy-tale world).
Liturgy is the aforementioned place written about, where the constructed global community symbolized in the Internet is drawn together in true intimacy–it is where we communicate our deepest needs, hopes, and desires–and our worst failures and sins, the Facebook wall made flesh. It is the healing reconciliation of religion, now replaced by the fabricated, electronic world. It is also the gathering place where we derive energy from the Body of Christ–one another and in the Eucharist–the viaticum, the “food for the journey” that we need lest we burnout our-selves as individuals with the incomplete understandings that we are alone in this world, that we can be self-made, and that, being self-made, we are failures if we do not succeed. It fosters our true and full self-identity in community, knowing and known, “In the paschal mystery story, the good guys seem to get defeated” (Wagner 10). Going to Mass, then, is bringing oneself into a context in which the absurdity of the world is seen with an angle to reality: suffering and pain; death of man and of justice; but also the hope of resurrection; of love’s power and joy’s fulfillment; of a strengthened community of believers once downtrodden, then empowered; of serving the downtrodden in the world in order to bring about the Kingdom of God. It is the story of the light that shines in and through darkness. It is the place where our story, our witness finds its meaning. It reveals the Church’s authority, its auctoritas: the author who promotes us, helps us to grow (OED “authority”, “author”). The Church, then, as authority, will have to speak the new generation even if requires new words, for the context is symbiotic and symbolic, not definition or sign.
The liturgy never demands, but always warrants, a response: “a reply, in words” or an “answer by some responsive act…in response to some influence” (OED “response”). It is a forum for connection. It is the shaping force of the seed sown, the cultivation of the wheat and chaff, the healing renewal of the field so that more seed may bear fruit, fertilize itself, then become pregnable again. "The liturgy keeps bringing us back to old words until we begin to understand them, and to old signs [symbols] until we begin to see what they mean. Our care should be to let the words be heard, to let the images shimmer, to let the gestures be done so clearly that they speak for themselves" (Searle 30). This bringing back is the circle of context. It is our, the integrated bodies/Body of the Church of Christ, warrant: “authoritative witness” (“warrant, n.1” def. 5a). What kind of response will it have for us? What kind of response will we have for it?
How can we bring ourselves back to it? How will it return to us?
Works Cited
“Author.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
“Authority.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
Cavadini, John. 'Ignorant Catholics: The alarming void in religious education.'
Commonweal 9 April 2004: 12-14.
Clay, Michael. “Liturgy Terms and Meanings.” Winona: Institute in Pastoral
Ministries: 23 June 2007.
“Hearken.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
Hefferin, Rich. “The 'bookend' generations: two studies show important differences
between youngest and oldest Catholics.” National Catholic Reporter 9 March 2007
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New
York: Harper Collins, 1962.
“Ignore.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
“Mis-.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
New International Version of the Bible, UK Edition. The Bible Gateway. Washington and
Lee University, Lexington, VA.
Pecklers, Keith. Worship. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003.
Raymo, Chet. Honey from Stone. Dingle, Ire.: Brandon, 1987.
“Response.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
Searle, Mark. Liturgy Made Simple. Collegeville: Liturgical, 1981.
Seasoltz, R. Kevin. “Culture: The Context for Theology, Liturgy, and Sacred
Architecture and Art.” A Sense of the Sacred: Theological Foundations of Christian Architecture and Art. New York: Continuum, 2005
Vereecke, Robert. “Liturgical Gestures.” The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship,
ed. Peter Fink. Collegeville: Liturgical, 1990.
Wagner, Nick. “Post-Modern Liturgy.” Ministry and Liturgy May 1999: 9-11
“Warrant.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
It is not hard for us to imagine a place where we can find everything that our human need requires: information, instruction, emotional satiation, humor, tragedy, at the touch of a moment; a place where worded, yet voiceless thoughts connect all people to one another with ease, where distance is quickly overcome between two people; a place where descriptions of our day and our activities, our wants and concerns, our life context, can be shared in an entangled web of human interaction; a place of messages given and received. What is this place?
Mystery
Let us encounter a mystery: that two people, encountering the same message, will derive two entirely different warrants from it. This response many be “conclusive proof” of some faith (OED “warrant,” n.1, def. 5b); it may be an affirmation of the foundation, the “under clay” of belief (“warrant,” n.2); it may be a license to action; it may be a point of conflict, to hold over oneself or another (“warrant,” a.); or the response may be no response at all, a lost moment, a mis-connection. What is the difference entre the former reactions and the latter one? Why is that all may hear, but not all hearken?
Meaning: Catechesis of the Post-Modern Liturgy
A recent study showed that young Catholics differed significantly from the older generations in their attitude towards the Church and the liturgy: “younger Catholics are more individualistic, more tolerant of religious diversity and far less committed to the practices of their faith than older Catholics” (Hefferin). Catholic University Professor and study coordinator William D’Antonio states: "The general sense of what is sinful appears to have changed over these generations….For the pre-Vatican II group, personal sins--missing Mass on Sunday, premarital sex, masturbation, lying--were serious failings, while the Millennial Catholics see social sins--bigotry, failing to give women equal rights, lack of respect for diversity, neglect of the poor--as major ills they need to confront" (quoted in Hefferin).
For the current generation of young Catholics, the Church and liturgy no longer have meaning. This meaning is not a dictionary definition, a one-to-one sign—a reason—it is a multivalent context connecting the multitude of signs and symbols together. Heidegger states: “meaning is the ‘upon-which’ [the context] of a projection [the future aims] in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something; it gets its structure from a fore-having [something we have in advance], a fore-sight [something we see in advance], and a fore-conception [something we grasp in advance]” (193, 191). Without this context, people live in a state of dis-connection, something that can be perceived as an ignorance, a mistaking, a misunderstanding, a disregarding (OED “ignore”). Speaking specifically of the religious catechesis of the young, John Cavadini writes: “This vast ignorance is not just a question of missing bits of information, retinal holes marring an otherwise excellent field of vision. It is something more like a retinal detachment, a whole field of vision pulling inexorably away towards blindness. Not only are the words gone, the bits of information, but the system in which the words made sense is fading” (12). Where has this “pulling away,” this disconnection, taking place?
In Liturgy Made Simple, Mark Searle writes: “Instead of thinking of itself as the only gateway to God, [the Church] has come increasingly to see itself as a sign established by God among the nations of the earth: a sign set up in history to show what God has done and is doing for the whole human race, whether he does it visibly or hiddenly” (18). However, there is a difference in this self-understanding from how the world popularly sees the Church. The shrinking world now has many such pictures, for many in the younger generation can rank it next to Mecca, or the Bodhi Tree, as symbols toward holiness–it is simply another religion among many; sadly, it has, according to the aforementioned study, become a symbol for all that is perceived as wrong with religion (prohibition of the body, restriction of women’s rights, etc.)—without any positive re-emphasis on the inherent notions of its constructive, healing purposes. It fails, as all things, in the meeting of God and man, body and word; with popular over-emphasis on the juridical understanding of salvation, it has become a tool wielded instead of a context-given. It speaks, but the world no longer. But it is in this same place, the meeting of God and man, body and word, where it also triumphs. How can “this place” give context for the re-meeting of individual and society, acts of conscience and acts of consciousness, word and warrant?
Dabar: Sema and Soma
Scientist and author Chet Raymo writes: "There was a time when words were thought to possess a literal power over things. Ali Baba opened doors with incantatory syllables. ‘Hoc est’ evoked a transubstantiation, turned bread and wine into flesh and blood. We have lost magic in the tongue. With a sophistication befitting the inventors of the telegraph, we have reduced hoc est to hocus-pocus and abracadabra to dots and dashes" (Raymo 58). The problem, then, is a problem of language—and not merely the words, but the entire system in which we proclaim them. We must first re-raise the wonder of words. Let us look at the theological words for word itself. "In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, the term used for ‘word’ (dabar) could also mean an event, especially and important or significant or meaningful event: an event that said something" (Searle 39). What is the quality of this speaking? What is the connection between the word well-spoken, and the word-made-event? The necessity of hearing. Where do we first hear? In the body, in the ear, in the mind and spirit. And to hear requires an openness-towards, a hearkening. To hearken is “to have regard to, heed…to learn by hearing;” it is a “going-to” in order “to seek to hear…to inquire after,” constitutive of a “lie in wait” (OED “hearken”). It requires a waiting-to-hear, a listening. Listening is an engagement, which is not only intellectual, but is first and foremost bodily. Our hearkening and hearing requires an in-carnated response. "This reflects that way in which the term ‘Word of God’ or ‘Word of the Lord’ is best understood. God communicates through his people, not by putting thoughts into their heads or whispering into their ears, but by doing significant things in human lives" (Searle 39-40). It is heeding-to an event which first requires a waiting awareness of giving-heed; it is a circle, paradox, and mystery—a revelation and an opening. It is primary grace, the flip side to the circle of ensnaring sin. It is a change of our being. "Similarly, in Christian tradition we speak of Jesus as a dabar: he not only speaks God’s name, but he is the Word of God made flesh...His very person...a significant or meaningful event" (Searle 40). And so too for us as little Christs, humbly comprehending this, truly heeding-to this warrant, requires furthering the eventus in others. The Scripture warrants that we “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says:” fulfill the eventuality, eventuate the word (James 1:22). The word-heard in truth is an eventus: a coming out–of the church, out of the self (Webster "event"), of the sending-forth of the Mass (misse), positioning us to hear more in the whole, holy way of grace—in the daily events to which we give-heed. Therefore we strive to embody and incarnate Christ, individually and together towards the Kingdom proclaimed by Him in word and deed. In this way we reflect the manifestation of Logos, Christ’s wisdom, reason, and Word: in wor(l)d-flesh. Our wonder, then, is in the mystery of the meeting ‘twixt dabar, the word-event, and logos-, word-wisdom-made-flesh, in-the-body (in-carnate), the meeting of sema, word-signs, and soma, body, a soma-sema which is not the Gnostic tomb, but whole personhood, mind-body-spirit, under Christ; the mystery of hearkening searched for in the difference of an o from an e. The liturgy includes “a non-verbal language system [which complements] a verbal [system] with gestures that interpret the verbal (e.g., sign language) or with gestures and actions that emphasize the verbal (e.g., striking the breast in the Confiteor,” or which move beyond the signs of language to the emotional and spiritual dispositions amidst persons and between a human and God (Vereecke 503). The liturgy, then, is the primary word-event that draws the sema (words of our faith) into contact with our soma, our body; it is the word-event that reveals the Logos made Body, Jesus Christ, to us more clearly; to us, the corporate Body gathered in the Temple, and the sole-soul gathered in the Temple of our individual bodies. The liturgy gives us the open space, the liminal and luminal threshold in which to find ourselves and be shaped. How it all inter-relates, the mystery of the perichoretic and hypostatic universe, the place where the cascading light finds an open space in which to shine, and in which the bright white reveals the recess and womb of potential growth. This is the same space where a word can fall onto waiting soil, penetrate, gestate, grow, change, then transform, making it fertile for another season. How does the fallow first become fertile? Another mystery, a strand of the tapestry. What we concern ourselves with is the mystery of how some people are spoken to in the framework of the word event, and some are not. And we still have no answer—merely wonder of grace. But liturgy, as a “rehearsal of attitudes,” can help sow a seed, a seed as simple as showing up (Clay 10).
Current Cultural Need: Connection
What is missing is the teaching of symbolic interpretation and learning–the study of dabar: myth and parable in such a way that connects to bodily, psychological, and spiritual reality, instead of the pure objective learning from the Modern age in which “the direction of life was linear...[so that] individualism, fragmentation, specialization, differentiation, and a loss of the sense of the [comprehensive] whole of reality” yielded the “dislodging” of religion from personal growth, “because [religion’s] focus is on the meaning of the whole of life at its deepest level” (Seasoltz 23). In this, the “[the context] of [the future aims] in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something” is fragmented. Lost is the fore-having [something we have in advance], of theological understanding amidst the deprivations of the laity by Church history, the deprivation of catechesis or “pedestrian” over-verbiage to the first generations post-Vatican II, and the current push and pull of working out the reforms of that Council (Pecklers 113). “The fore-sight [something we see in advance],” then, has also been lost—what are the goals, now, for the Church, now that their age as sign has come and passed? And the “fore-conception [something we grasp in advance]” of how the Church is applicable to “my” individual life, confused. Amidst un-intelligibility, either apathy or a striving can be chosen, lost-ness or seeking, or, worst, clinging of the “old certainties”.
Strangely, then, this current generation is living a future vision, a fore--sight of social awareness, but without the undergirding of context to support it; without the Church, in many ways it carries on the Church’s goals, but in a state of survival. But there are still mis-connections, missed and mistaken, amiss (OED “mis-“).
We need to reclaim the sense that the liturgy is a connecting point to the very ancient: our humanity, with our individuals hurts, needs, hopes, and fears; and to the Divine, who guides us and helps us navigate our way through our humanity–self and community formed and forming together. If we can plug ourselves into the liturgy, we will be able to clear away much of the detritus of the past, to speak the old words anew, finding new ways to allow the Mass to speak of us and to us. Similarly, the Church will have to offer a primary language of healing and engagement, away from rubric and juridicial understanding; it will have to speak the people: "They talk about God instead of letting God speak to us" (Searle 39).
Spiritual hunger and social consciousness are present in the aforementioned article–and so the need for connection found in the virtual reality of storytelling through blogs, e-mails, and Facebook. Nick Wagner points out that “telling our story is a process of reconciling. Once I know your story–in the biblical sense–I am your story” (11). But he also points out that this connecting is something beyond the search for self in the bigger picture–the connecting “calls us to a ‘reality’ in which there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female” (11). It is a story telling amidst a bigger cultural story. In his book, A Sense of the Sacred, Kevin Seasoltz states: “This culture, developing above all among young people, is in some ways a return to primal culture, to nature, to the images of good and evil, and to symbols, myths, and rituals that are thought to enable people not only to deal responsibly with the mystery of iniquity in human life but to triumph over that evil” (30). And if the people are beginning to live universally, why cannot the Church and its voice?
The challenge, then, is moving this positive aspect of our generation into society and into our Church. This requires a spiritual coming-together: it requires a speaking out in the world, a word-event, not as individuals, but in communion. What is required is a renewed interest in liturgy, not as an empty, ritualistic practice, but something which does indeed have the same force of spiritual knowledge as the latest Harry Potter book (the new, post-modern myth and parable that teaches us the difficult spiritual lessons of life, even tragedy, in a constructed, fairy-tale world).
Liturgy is the aforementioned place written about, where the constructed global community symbolized in the Internet is drawn together in true intimacy–it is where we communicate our deepest needs, hopes, and desires–and our worst failures and sins, the Facebook wall made flesh. It is the healing reconciliation of religion, now replaced by the fabricated, electronic world. It is also the gathering place where we derive energy from the Body of Christ–one another and in the Eucharist–the viaticum, the “food for the journey” that we need lest we burnout our-selves as individuals with the incomplete understandings that we are alone in this world, that we can be self-made, and that, being self-made, we are failures if we do not succeed. It fosters our true and full self-identity in community, knowing and known, “In the paschal mystery story, the good guys seem to get defeated” (Wagner 10). Going to Mass, then, is bringing oneself into a context in which the absurdity of the world is seen with an angle to reality: suffering and pain; death of man and of justice; but also the hope of resurrection; of love’s power and joy’s fulfillment; of a strengthened community of believers once downtrodden, then empowered; of serving the downtrodden in the world in order to bring about the Kingdom of God. It is the story of the light that shines in and through darkness. It is the place where our story, our witness finds its meaning. It reveals the Church’s authority, its auctoritas: the author who promotes us, helps us to grow (OED “authority”, “author”). The Church, then, as authority, will have to speak the new generation even if requires new words, for the context is symbiotic and symbolic, not definition or sign.
The liturgy never demands, but always warrants, a response: “a reply, in words” or an “answer by some responsive act…in response to some influence” (OED “response”). It is a forum for connection. It is the shaping force of the seed sown, the cultivation of the wheat and chaff, the healing renewal of the field so that more seed may bear fruit, fertilize itself, then become pregnable again. "The liturgy keeps bringing us back to old words until we begin to understand them, and to old signs [symbols] until we begin to see what they mean. Our care should be to let the words be heard, to let the images shimmer, to let the gestures be done so clearly that they speak for themselves" (Searle 30). This bringing back is the circle of context. It is our, the integrated bodies/Body of the Church of Christ, warrant: “authoritative witness” (“warrant, n.1” def. 5a). What kind of response will it have for us? What kind of response will we have for it?
How can we bring ourselves back to it? How will it return to us?
Works Cited
“Author.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
“Authority.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
Cavadini, John. 'Ignorant Catholics: The alarming void in religious education.'
Commonweal 9 April 2004: 12-14.
Clay, Michael. “Liturgy Terms and Meanings.” Winona: Institute in Pastoral
Ministries: 23 June 2007.
“Hearken.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
Hefferin, Rich. “The 'bookend' generations: two studies show important differences
between youngest and oldest Catholics.” National Catholic Reporter 9 March 2007
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New
York: Harper Collins, 1962.
“Ignore.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
“Mis-.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
New International Version of the Bible, UK Edition. The Bible Gateway. Washington and
Lee University, Lexington, VA.
Pecklers, Keith. Worship. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003.
Raymo, Chet. Honey from Stone. Dingle, Ire.: Brandon, 1987.
“Response.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
Searle, Mark. Liturgy Made Simple. Collegeville: Liturgical, 1981.
Seasoltz, R. Kevin. “Culture: The Context for Theology, Liturgy, and Sacred
Architecture and Art.” A Sense of the Sacred: Theological Foundations of Christian Architecture and Art. New York: Continuum, 2005
Vereecke, Robert. “Liturgical Gestures.” The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship,
ed. Peter Fink. Collegeville: Liturgical, 1990.
Wagner, Nick. “Post-Modern Liturgy.” Ministry and Liturgy May 1999: 9-11
“Warrant.” The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, VA.
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