Tag Archive for ‘loss of the sacred’
This, from a Commonweal blog post on the topic of the loss of the old-school Catholic culture and what that means for the future:
“Every single 60-ish or 70-ish year old Commonweal Catholic can tell you of memories of various thick, ‘ghetto’ practices that imprinted Catholicism into their DNA. The felt banners and coloring books of my generation’s Catholicism neither inspired nor repelled; they just made Catholicism trivial and easily surrendered, for they never made a substantial claim in the first place. The irony is that such a culture–which is ‘given,’ automatic, un-self-conscious, atmospheric, osmotic–now has to be intentionally and consciously constructed so that it can be organic and automatic in the future.”
How do we go about that, constructing something that is automatic and not self-conscious, in an intentionally self-aware way? It seems impossible on the face of it. Yet we have a model.
Think about the way we treat traditional, ethnic music, like for example how the Chieftains play Irish music. They play all the old tunes in an authentic way, but do it consciously. They don’t play Irish music on traditional Irish instruments because that’s all they know or because they only have one fiddle. They do it because they want to. They have many alternatives but choose to make this music. They’ve learned about it and play it in a way that’s both authentic yet unique to our time, with other artists like Sting or the Rolling Stones, Sinéad O’Connor, and Tom Jones (in their album The Long Black Veil), or fusing it with other musical styles to create something new yet recognizable as part of the tradition.
We can never recreate the “thick, ghetto practices” (and who would want to) that gave us the old school atmospheric, osmotic Catholicism of old, but we can understand and take from the riches of the past to recreate the best of the past today, in a way that is true to our time yet yet recognizable as part of the Catholic tradition.
These new traditions may never be “un-self-conscious” but there’s no reason they can’t be atmospheric: as rich in metaphor, aura and beauty as anything in the past.
Tags: loss of the sacred, power of the faithful, sacramental imagination, self-awareness, tradition recreating itself
What is sacramental imagination?
From Andrew Greeley:
“Religion… is imagination before it’s anything else. The Catholic imagination is different from the Protestant imagination. You know that: Flannery O’Connor is not John Updike.”
“The central symbol (of religion) is God. One’s “picture” of God is in fact a metaphorical narrative of God’s relationship with the world and the self as part of the world… The Catholic “classics” assume a God who is present in the world, disclosing Himself in and through creation. The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be somewhat like God. The Protestant classics, on the other hand, assume a God who is radically absent from the world, and who discloses (Himself) only on rare occasions (especially in Jesus Christ and Him crucified). The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be radically different from God.”
More at: http://www.alyosha.com/si/index.html
And here’s from another article at:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/august-5-2009/the-things-of-this-world/3846/
“Theologically, Christianity provides a language—and some doctrinal and historical metaphors or benchmarks—for two such imaginations: the sacramental and the dialectical. The first is broadly linked to Catholic ways of seeing and understanding God and the world, and the second, equally broadly and generally, to a Protestant sensibility.”
“Drawing on the work of Catholic theologian David Tracy, University of Notre Dame theology professor Mary Catherine Hilkert, in her book NAMING GRACE, gives a useful and succinct definition of the two imaginations: “The dialectical imagination stresses the distance between God and humanity, the hiddeness and absence of God, the sinfulness of human beings, the paradox of the cross, the need for grace as redemption and reconciliation…and the not-yet character of the promised reign of God. The sacramental imagination…emphasizes the presence of the God who is self-communicating love, the creation of human beings in the image of God…the mystery of the incarnation.”
Tags: loss of the sacred, sacramental imagination
I think the thing that’s missing, and the thing that would very much appeal to young people, are rituals that are more rich in what Andrew Greeley (hardly a conservative) calls the sacramental imagination. The Vatican II rediscovery of Scripture was marvelous but I think an unintended consequence was the thought that “Meaning could be conveyed better in word than in gesture, better in print than in procession, better in concept than in image.” (The Four Cultures of the West – John O’Malley, great book.)
As a result, church turned into a didactic exposition of texts rather than an experience of the sacred. In a play, rigorous adherence to the rules of drama, and the audience’s understanding of those rules, lead to the willing suspension of disbelief. I would likewise think that rigorous adherence to the rubrics of liturgy, and the congregation’s understanding of those rubrics, would lead to the creation of belief and to an entering into the liturgy which would allow the individuals in the congregation to let their souls be touched by and enriched by the grace of the goings on. This is exactly the involvement that the constant talking and chumminess of too many liturgies so effectively destroys.
Archbishop Gotfried Danneels has a great article on this and other thoughts on the liturgy in an America Magazine article:
Another good article I found a while back also struck me as capturing what has been lost. The philosopher and liturgist Romano Guardini visited the basilica of Monreale in 1929, and told this story in his “Voyage in Sicily.”
“There are different means of prayerful participation. One is realized by listening, speaking, gesturing. But the other takes place through watching. The first way is a good one, and we northern Europeans know no other. But we have lost something that was still there at Monreale: the capacity for living-in-the-gaze, for resting in the act of seeing, for welcoming the sacred in the form and event, by contemplating them.”
Tags: loss of the sacred, sacramental imagination
This marvelous book, with its gorgeous pictures of Chicago’s sacred spaces, is one of the things that made me realize just how much we’ve lost. All that beauty; all that energy. These sacred spaces were also the font of an amazing outburst of social action that provided education, jobs, housing and community services for literally hundreds of thousands of people. Chicago’s old parishes created a vibrant social community and a massive social services organization, beautiful sacred space and a way to mark sacred time, an accessible portal to the transcendent, and a rich web of meaning. And except for the evidence of the buildings, much of it is just a fading memory.
Tags: loss of the sacred, sacred space
If we think of the meaning of the word sacred, we imagine a space, time or action that possesses the specific quality of being distinct from the ordinary and possessing a special and unique dignity that stands out from the daily flow of reality. It explicitly sets itself apart from the ordinary and is entitled to special forms of respect, honor, reverence, protection or veneration. The characteristic of being “set apart from the ordinary” is essential to the sacred; without it, the sacred doesn’t exist. We clearly associate the sacred with religious practice but there are other spaces, times and actions that are legitimately sacred and which can tell us something about what the sacred really means.
Imagine a visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, a space made sacred by the nature and magnitude of the sacrifice it represents. 
This would clearly be a place deserving of special reverence. It would be jarring to see a person chatting on their cell, tossing a frisbee or shouting out to a buddy. Such ordinary, innocuous behaviors would be rudely out of place for the very reason that they are ordinary and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a sacred place which by its very nature set apart from the ordinary.
The behavior of the soldiers who guard the tomb embody this sacredness. I expect that when they are off duty they behave in perfectly normal ways, chatting, waving to people, cheering at football games and leading fully normal lives. But they do none of that when they are on guard.
When performing their sacred roles, they don ritual clothes, behave in rigorously ritual ways, perform all the duties of their job, and don’t break out of that role until they are well away from the sacred space and have removed their uniforms and returned to ordinary life. It is clear when they get to behave in normal human ways and when they give themselves over to the performance of their sacred role.
Now let’s consider the sacred in relation to religion. I don’t think that anyone would disagree with the thought that the church should be a sacred place. The priest still wears vestments, we still use all the sacred objects and we still say Mass and go to Communion. But let’s look at how we do it.
When we enter the church, it’s okay to talk softly, see who’s there, and look around and wave. A low rumble of noise precedes the beginning. The priest, deacon, lectors and servers process in with the deacon holding the book of readings over his head. They all take their places, facing the people, no longer separated by an altar rail as we are all now one in the Lord. People are introduced and announcements are made. All very fine and ordinary. The priest says prayers, the lector reads the readings, we stand, we sit, the Gospel is read, the homily given, the gifts offered. More prayers are said and the Eucharist is consecrated. We say the Our Father, led by the priest, and wish each other peace. Again, very fine, we are one in the Lord. The ministers who distribute communion move to their places, we receive communion, the Mass ends, more announcements are read, the priest processes out and stands in the lobby, still vested, greeting the parishioners as they leave.
What could be wrong with such an approach to worship? Absolutely nothing, except that the very focus on the people of God and the priest coming together as one pretty much thoroughly undercuts the essential “otherness” necessary for the construction of a sacred space, time or action.
And when I say sacred, I mean sacred in the way that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is sacred; I mean the way historically and anthropologically we have always understood the sacred (e.g., Emile Durkheim, Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade) as something explicitly set apart from the ordinary and possessing a special and unique dignity which stands out from the daily flow of reality, the way the Buddhist monk decked out on orange stands out from the ordinary, the way Hindu temples and Muslim mosques stand out (take off your shoes!), the way Holy Name Cathedral and the other great Chicago immigrant churches and old European cathedrals stand out from the ordinary, the way the priest used to stand out from the ordinary, as the one ordained and anointed to perform the sacred rituals. Much of this sacredness has been lost and this is not a good thing.
Tags: loss of the sacred
In the old days, we had priests who knew how to perform their sacred role. They put on the vestments and performed the sacred rituals behind the altar rail where no one else went, the inner sanctum of the sacred space that was the church. Unfortunately they often conflated that role with an often appalling clericalism, assuming that because they performed a sacred role, they themselves (and the institution that supported them) were also somehow sacred. From that they took leave to perpetrate all manner of malfeasance from which we are now still suffering. (In Chicago at least, I bet the white ethnic alderman didn’t invent the blingy pinky ring; I bet he copied it from his pastor.)
In the old days, the sacred role of the priest often became enmeshed with the ego of the priest and the ego in turn of the institution. In the pedophile scandal we have seen the havoc wrought by the egos of some of these priests and the egos of the diocesan institutions that protected them.
Then came Vatican II and all that was supposed to have changed. The sacredotal role of the priest was de-emphasized, the liturgy was opened up so the people could participate, and the role of the priest was broadened beyond just administering the sacraments to the proclaimer of the Word of God, leader of the community and worker for the common good.
What actually happened was that the priest became more human. Many priests became much more approachable and much more socially and politically active (often to the consternation of their bishops or superiors). The Mass also became more human, much more a function of the action of the community coming together as one. Altar rails were removed, altars turned to face the people, the deaconate was opened (to men), and the laity were allowed to distribute communion. The sanctuary, which was once considered off limits, now became all of a piece with the rest of the church. The Mass became the community itself, celebrating the Word of God, rather than a result of the sacred action of the one anointed to offer the sacrifice and the silent, interior but also sacred participation of the congregation.
So what’s wrong with this picture? I totally get the impetus behind it; Vatican II was a long-overdue lurch towards sanity and we have a long way to go until we really get there. But the ritual of the Mass (at least in my experience) has too little to do with the sacred. As the priest discovered his humanity and took himself out into the community and world, that old sacredotal role, enmeshed as with was with clericalism and authoritarianism, got left behind.
But now we face a different kind of enmeshment. Now, if the priest is just an ordinary human being, the ritual he celebrates is also ordinary. To be egalitarian, one must open the ritual to all. Anything associated with the priest as a specially anointed one who celebrates the sacred rituals is seen as pompous and somewhat ridiculous. The priest, being his fully human self, has to be his fully human self not just outside the ritual but inside it. There is no difference. He is Father Joe on the altar, as approachable as can be, saying the words of the Consecration, as much as he is Father Joe, standing in the lobby in full vestments, greeting the parishioners.
(Of course all this egalitarianism is only skin deep. We may have lost the communion rail and the priest may face the people. But he is still a male celibate, the institution still protects its own, bishops are still closing parish schools, the Pope is still smacking down theologians and threatening excommunications–except for the Holocaust denier whose excommunication is getting his lifted. Since Vatican II the church may have lost its sense of the sacred and its understanding of the intellectual content of the faith but it has hung squarely on to its authoritarianism.)
Again, the problem is conflation of ego and role. What is the answer, for those who would like to see a more vibrant sense of the sacred in the liturgy without a return to the authoritarian days of old? I think the answer is to break the enmeshment between the ego and the role. Like the soldier who guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the priest could consciously choose to absolutely distinguish between his role and his person. When in the role, he’s in it, like the soldier is in his role as guard or an actor is in a role in a drama. As a recognition of the sacredness of what is going on, he maintains the role until the ritual is over and the ritual objects are put aside. He would no more chat from the altar than the soldier guarding the tomb would wave to a friend or an actor break the suspension of disbelief in a play by waving to his Mom.
Of course all this assumes that there is a problem, that there is disquiet in the ranks, that there is a perceived lack in the way the Mass is celebrated. Many people I’m sure actually experience a strong sense of the sacred in church or are otherwise quite satisfied with things as they stand; not all experience a lack of the sacred and if they did might not see it as a loss. But many do and that is, after all, the traditional role of religion: to create spaces, times and actions that make manifest the sacred in relation to the divine.
Of course the biggest question of all is this: What exactly is going on at the Consecration? In his sacred role, what sacred act is the priest performing? Our understanding of this will drive the structuring of the ritual. Unless we believe that there actually is something transcendent going on, something set apart from the ordinary, that the actions of the priest bring about the Real Presence of Christ on the altar, then a push for an increased sense of the sacred isn’t going to make much sense.
If we don’t believe it, then what’s the point, let’s all find a nice Protestant church somewhere, complete with good sermons, women ministers, and a nice community. The only reason many of us hang around the Catholic church and tolerate its authoritarian nonsense is because of the sacred ritual of the Mass. If that has become ordinary, what’s the point?
If, however, we do believe it, if we believe that the action of the ordained and specially anointed priest in consecrating the bread and wine is both the sign and the act that brings forth the Real Presence of Christ among us, then what is going on is so much more than a gathering. If that is the case, the ritual needs to be consciously set apart from the ordinary. We need to leave the concept of the priest and the people as one to the Liturgy of the Word and let the priest and the congregation get on with their sacred actions, which are deserving of all the special forms of respect, honor, reverence, protection and veneration that we can give them, not because of the person of the priest but because of the role he is playing. We need to put back the threshold separating the sacred from the ordinary. We can never revitalize the church by returning to the authoritarian days of old or by rehabilitating various right-wing heretics. We can however, return it to its roots by restoring the tradition of the transcendent mystery of sacred space, time and action to the practice of the liturgy.
Tags: bureaucracy, church, loss of the sacred, Vatican II
Here’s my best guess, with a hat tip to Josef Pieper and his book In Search of the Sacred.
The word sacred is used to mean certain tangible objects, spaces, times and actions of this world that possess the specific quality of being distinct from the ordinary and therefore possessing a special and unique dignity: the majesty of death, the dignity of a solemn oath, the ideals of a country, the grave of a war hero. This dignity stands out from the daily flow of reality, explicitly sets itself apart from the ordinary and is entitled to special forms of respect, honor, reverence, protection or veneration.
In relation to religion, the sacred is used to mean those tangible objects, spaces, times and actions that are set apart (with all the above characteristics) because they are directed toward the transcendent, that glimpse of another reality beyond the ordinary: the experience of awe, the experience of the majesty, energy, and mystery of the wholly other. Religious beliefs express the nature of sacred things and religious rites define how we act in relationship to sacred things.
Tags: loss of the sacred, Pieper
I wonder if the loss of the sacred may have been an accidental victim of Vatican II and its desire to encourage the full participation of the whole assembly in the liturgy. This ‘togetherness’ by its very nature is completely opposite a style that would allow the sacred to bloom. It’s as though the style of the Liturgy of the Word washed over the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
In his book In Search of the Sacred, Josef Pieper says that it is important to distinguish between the Liturgy of the Word and the sacred acts. “Proclamation, instruction, teaching, preaching, etc. these are all part of the everyday world.” But at its heart the liturgy is “not common meal or an assembly for instruction, etc. It is the sacred action that brings about the true presence of God among us.”
Structured rituals provide “the unique opportunity for the individual to transcend the confines of his own subjective self precisely by accepting the communal challenge and entering into the objective form of a structured and stately ritual. The sacred action takes the solemnity of its stately form, transcending all individual peculiarities.” And “The consecrated enclosure establishes explicit boundary lines between the area of the ordinary and everyday life ‘outside’ and an ‘inside’ where different norms of behavior obtain. And when a church is consecrated the altar is consecrated. It is a table for the ritual meal and a ‘stone of sacrifice’ upon which the sacred mysteries are celebrated.”
Yet if you think the Mass it just about a ‘common meal’ and the ‘proclamation of the word’ then you don’t really see the need for all that ‘sacred mystery’ stuff. But that’s the very thing we’re missing.
Tags: loss of the sacred, Vatican II
Great stuff on the loss of the sacred, from Gary Wills in Bare Ruined Choirs (a bracingly cynical read).
He points out the obvious, that the Council was conceived and run by the Pope, the bishops and a select number of theologians, not by the faithful. “The Mass was not brought into the vernacular for him–the laity did not ask for the change … the innovations were made in the name of freedom, though they had to be imposed on many laymen, and Latin was not even retained as an option, as a gesture to men’s right of choice. The priest, you see, was the one being freed–the priest, with his face to the wall before him, his only contact with the congregation a brace of juveniles (aka altar boys).”
“Escape from Latin involved for these men more than the Latin Mass; it meant the breviary as well, and–most important–it meant escape from the years of theology learned in Latin by rote … Vatican II was a theologians’ rebellion, that of the periti (expert consultants) against the Curia. The Latin theology class was resented even more than that of the Mass–and both were resented by younger faculty and the recently ordained, not by laymen.”
The layman came to church “to do things–witness the miracle, and believe in it; consume the eucharist, and believe in that. Belief, as a result of the priest’s formulation (and of the people’s expectations, formed on that), had been ritualized; it was not a thing one heard about or held by intellect, but a rite to be gone through. Change the rite, and belief would inevitably change, despite all assurances that it was changeless. A Monsignor addressing the Latin Mass Society of England in 1967 put the matter with stark truthfulness: ‘The Blessed Sacrament has been removed from the high altar by the simple expedient of turning the altar around.’ When the shrine, a thing removed, was brought down into the congregation’s midst, the whole genius of devotion at (and to) that shrine evaporated.”
Tags: loss of the sacred, mystery, Vatican II
Religion is the means by which the sacred is given form; sacredness is the raw material of religion. Beliefs, rites, etc. serve to organize, commemorate, and transmit an elemental experience, ineffable, to render it durable and universal in time and space. And religion is a form of belief that specifically implies reference to the authority of a tradition.
Tradition
Tradition actualizes the past in the present, to restore to people the living memory. And it modifies it as it passes it along – imaginatively projecting a lineage of belief. Tradition is at the center of religion. (And presumably we know about tradition because of our collective memory.)
Collective memory
Collective memory forms and endures through processes of selective forgetting, sifting and inventing. At the core of all religious belief there is belief in the continuity of the lineage of believers.
The framework of collective memory provides everyone with the possibility of a link between what came before and their experience, and the ability to extend the chain of memory into the future, as long as they are able to see themselves belonging to it.
What happened
The rational imperative and the assertion of the autonomy of the individual has delegitimized the “figures of transcendence” by which traditional societies ensured the stability and coherence of beliefs and practices. The growth of secularization and the loss of memory in societies goes hand in hand. The complexity of the world shown in the vast incoherent mass of available information can’t be ordered in the way collective memory used to order it, so collective memory morphs into a plurality of specialized circles of memory. Science made the world more intelligible but it couldn’t create a meaningful whole. (We’re on our own for the big picture.) Collective memory is fragmented infinitely because of specialization and all the unique groups that people belong to. (However, many other institutions that depend on different chains of memory survive, like corporations and political parties and sports and cultural institutions. Yet the church has spectacularly tanked.)
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Tags: church, loss of the sacred
