So, I've been thinking a fair amount over the past couple of days about the intersection between liturgy and context. One big trigger for this avenue of thought came in the form of a video put up at badvestments.blogspot.com (a favorite of mine for a laugh...coughchurchnerdcough), highlighting a long list of supposed liturgical vagaries. Some of them (e.g. the clown mass) bother me. A lot of them (things that reflected their environmental or cultural context) don't. So...it's time for YOU to add your voice to the discussion.
There are two extremist views - one is that the Church's liturgy trumps any and all human cultural considerations...God chose a specific cultural milieu for self-revelation, and the purpose of the liturgy is to transform culture. The other - it's all entirely relative, and culture/context ought to directly determine the entire shape and form of the liturgy...even if tradition says to do this, throw it out if it doesn't seem like it fits with the local realities. What do YOU think? How do YOU find a healthy synthesis between these two diametric poles...or do you? Add your comments and let's talk!
I think my supervising pastor said it pretty well: "There's a difference between reverent and fastidious." Reverent traditional liturgy is beautiful. Fastidious traditional liturgy is just as self-important and awful as any of the stuff being critiqued in that video...AND sometimes reverent liturgy can happen beyond the bounds of rubrics, as fond of rubrics as I am.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I do appreciate about a fairly prescribed liturgy is that it offers firm guidance, and many worship leaders seem to need it - as some of the worst forms of "creative interpretations" in the video attest.
However, your point about cultural expressions and influence is very well taken. The self-appointed guardians of the Holy Mass might be well served a slice of humble pie, and acknowledge that there are liturgists who respect and honor the mass, AND know it well enough to allow the adiaphora to bend and stretch and breathe and embrace the many different forms that the life of the Body of Christ encompasses, while still being faithful to what is of the essence.
Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.
ReplyDelete–Jaroslav Pelikan, interview with U.S. News & World Report, July 26, 1989