liturgy

May I apologize to you?  You don’t know who I am, and I barely know you.  I saw your grandmother take you to the front, offering your strong young arms in service.  I watched as the kind young teenager, wearing his glistening robe, prepared himself to help hold the cloth at the chalice, and leaned over to hand you the basket of bread.  But he was told no, one man was sufficient at the cloth.  The other cloth, still hanging from the hand of the priest, was soon taken up not by this same, available teenager but by an older gentleman forgoing his ushering duties in order to fill in the gap left by a dearth of alter boys.

It seems that putting up a provocative Hauerwas quote without explanation is a bad idea. Which is fair because he usually requires some explanation and context. So, in lieu of a reply to a comment, here is simply "Take 2" on Hauerwas.

[quote=Stanley Hauerwas]
One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.
[/quote]

This post is so overdue it is almost pointless, except that I keep returning to this idea of “visual metaphors.” We are used to verbal metaphors which refer things we see, and my current reading companion, Gregory of Nazianzus, uses abundant pictorial language to convey his rhetorically and philosophically rich theology. What I mean here are not metaphors that refer to what we see, but things that we see which serve as metaphors.

Last month when I was at New Skete, Sr. Rebecca and I got into an interesting conversation about the emphasis on sin in the lenten season. Last night, I led an informal discussion about our experience of sin and the liturgy with the monks and nuns. At one point, Br. Christopher asked if there might be something to a 'liturgical ethic'. I jokingly responded that I certainly hope so, as my dissertation depends on the possibility. I also said that I think we tend to have a great vision for what is happening in the 'eschatological' space of the liturgy, but that as long as one among us is hungry, alone, sick, neglected, then I am not sure that our reality corresponds to our vision.

Last night was Holy Wednesday, the Service of Unction. Fr. Peter gave a short sermon in which he answered the question, who may come forward to receive unction, and need they be Orthodox? His answer, which he pulled
from the seven prayers of the priest during the service, was simple: if you are in need, if you desire the healing of God, come forward...

Fr. Thomas Hopko, in the most recent edition of Women and the Priesthood comments that ordaining a woman is tantamount to ordaining criminals and the disabled, both of which he considers problematic.