I remember expressing similar thoughts last year in a sermon,
...the French bishops of long ago did not see the fears and traditions of their flock as a problem. They saw them as an opportunity. What they constructed out of Samhain was a new Triduum, a three day festival analogous to that of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter in which victory over death through Christ would be proclaimed near the close of the Christian year, not by recalling Christ’s glorious death and resurrection but by explaining the consequences of the Paschal mystery for the whole Body of Christ. Indeed, these next three days are a Triduum for the rest of us..
Celebration in these parts were subdued. Choral Evensong this week was an Anglican Requiem Mass. Your humble correspondent quietly chanted the Burial Office on All Souls. But, "the fun don't stop." Tomorrow, my present parish celebrates her patronal feast (transferred, of course, ironically as all Episcopal churches do). The headline preacher is ++Desmond Tutu, and the Choir promises the Faure Requiem.
Item the First: Feminarian recently wrote:
I will tell you a secret, the real dream, the ultimate prize: if I could write anything, I would help to write the next revision of the prayer book. Oh! What a treat that would be!! And I could help inclusivise all the language, and write new prayers for hurricanes and clinical depression. And I could write the same-gender marriage ceremony, and a service at the loss of a pet (despite the giggles in Grief class about counseling people on such a topic). And I could find some way to incorporate the new way we see things...the new way we think in windows and icons (computer not byzantine) and blogs. We see the world differently now in my generation, you know.
Anyway, like if I won the lottery, I'd buy my way onto that committee. If I actually stuck out a PhD or the ordination process, I'd do it for that goal. Even right now, when I'm reading Duck and Wilson-Kastner and Ramshaw, I'm seeing how important this all is. It would just be so cool to be part of writing the great play of the liturgy, the drama of dramas.
Well now that is out of the bag, so I will forever question its propriety. As will you.
Does "buy[ing] your way onto that committee" count as simony? I think so. So *Christopher and Derek may have competition... I really don't think one writes liturgy, by the way (at least in the way we use "write" today) I've grown to consider it to be a form of adaptation.
Item the Second: Recently, it was posted on Titusonenine that +Jon Angelor. (or +Jon Los Angeles or even +Jon Bruno) will preach at a Week of Christian Unity event in these scrubby woods. The flogging then began in earnest... One commenter, I think it was Irenaeus (appropriately enough), noted that "Diocese of LA" could be an anagram for Laodicea. Yes, Irenaeus, get on the wagon. Hugo Schwyzer has been saying this since early 2004 . And I am starting to agree...
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may be find some way to heat up to a great temperature so that the Lord does not spit you out of His mouth.
8 comments:
I really like the idea of a Goth Triduum:) You are blessed to meet ++Tutu, a living saint imho. I hate the transfer bit--I miss all of those holy days from my Roman Catholic times.
It seems derek and I have have competition and probably some tittle of disagreement with the Feminarian on some matters.
One does indeed adapt liturgy or prepare worship, one does not write liturgy or plan worship. Unless of course, by "write" we mean this in terms of the venerable iconographic tradition of visible or enacted Gospel/Reign of G-d. Liturgy is icon after all, and as both an iconophile and iconographer, I would be happy to oblige such an interpretation. But then, the concern is drawing always from the Tradition and not simply making it up, and as you may have noticed, whenever possible I find something in the deposit to "write" from. See my thoughts under "Heterodoxy and the Heavenly City".
What is it with +Bruno or L.A. that suggests lukewarmness? What is the bandwagon about? Do tell.
For the record, I think lukewarmness is a perenniel problem and one best fixed not by sour grapes but sweet honey.
1. Yes, your respect for the depositum fidei shines out from your work. What I objected to in the Feminarian was her talk about writing the "drama of dramas." The Reign of God is the drama of dramas. Liturgy is but our attempt to point to it and render it palpable for ourselves so we may give God our applause. So when she says "write," I only think about the ideology of the autonomous author. I'm an epic poet. I write much more like an iconographer than is fashionable these days.
2. On one hand, +Bruno poses himself as a figure of reconcilation in the House of Bishops, willing to listen to conservatives. But on the other hand, he went to court (and lost) trying to retain the property of some rebel congregations. He also seems quite amenable to some sort of liberal Network nucleating in his diocese. Thus, I can see how conservatives see him as talking out of both sides of his mouth. But I haven't met the man. I have not seen him preach. I have not seen him function in public worship. Maybe he's just like me, he lives obliviously in tension and paradox for the sake of Christ until someone pushes him out of it.
As for LA, there's something about this town that makes it hard to have principles...well, at least ones that seem consistent outside LA.
Hmmm. He sounds like a lot of bishops I know...and rarely is anybody happy with such. I don't envy the position of bishop, but I do think you must be as forthright as possible, not giving anyone mixed messages or worse playing favorites in secret. I hope the scuttlebutt is untrue or that he comes to his senses if so.
Well, I guess LA and SF have something in common, though probably we share certain "principles" like cosmetic surgery and the cult of the body?
And I imagine West Hollywood is muchlike the Castro with perhaps a bit of stardust to give false hopes to all the men who wish to stay boys rather then be men. Not that I'm judging, as I understand the impulse, but responsibility and commitment are marks of adult male life something not taught or encouraged by those who should be my elders and mentors.
I think your generation will be better elders than the generation before.
And as for the common principles of "cosmetic surgery and the cult of the body," I have already heard one person praised for being one of the first celebrities to admit that they had had cosmetic surgery.
Yeah--I'll own up to the Goth Triduum coment ;-)It does make a neat little parallel, though, doesn't it? One for Christ's resurrection, one for ours--though a bit more proleptic in our case.
I've been around seminary communities for quite a long time (as *Christopher has too, I believe). The idea of contemporary and *relevant* liturgy is really exciting in its first flush. It's a neat *idea*. Like dipping dots, for example... A neat idea--but can you survive on it? I pretty much stopped going to chapel services after my first year or so at the seminary where I got my MDiv and later my doctoral work because I found that experimental liturgy is a form of spiritual whipped cream; fun and tasty but lacking in real substance and depth. Seminary liturgy *in particular* ought to be about formation for ministerial practice, not about trying out the liturgical flavor of the month. Sure, there should be some room for experimentation but...
...but that experimentation should be about offering our thanks and praise to the Living G-d. Much of the experimentation is 1) not rooted in any practice "written", 2) often descends into moralizing social justice or otherwise, 3) is often about people working out their issues about G-d on others, 4) celebrates the community and self rather than offering ourselves to G-d as the priority and point.
G-d help me, but the day I walked by the worship preparation team and overheard that we wouldn't be having Eucharist because it would take to long, I nearly died.
Or the time they had a campout communion with donut holes and milk.
How is this going to relate to forming pastors for lives in real parishes and importantly in lives of daily holiness and prayer for the people in their care? Formation in such matters was noticably lacking, and I had to rely on my own knowledge in such matters. It's important, pastors should be in regular prayer each day for those G-d gives them to care for, and if possible, so should their well-ordered household.
Now CDSP (Episcopal) and PLTS (Lutheran) generally do good worship, but the Protestant school I was affiliated with...yuck! Though the new liturgy prof, a German, has begun whipping things into shape--naturally. She imposed the liturgical calendar three years ago after someone gave a raving sermon on St. Paul and how he was wrong about homosexuality during HOLY WEEK!
Absolutely, Christopher. That's the best succinct summary of the problems with contemporary liturgy that I've seen."Moralizing social justice" in particular nails it for the practice of the community I was at.
Sorry. I haven't been here for a while. I've been rather busy.
Donut holes and milk! What excuse is there for such a thing?
The key problem with social justice moralization is that it is almost always self-congratulatory.
I am afraid this bodes very ill. Whither go the seminaries goes the church.
Post a Comment