Universalis

Thursday, August 19, 2004

I've been sitting on this one for a week

waiting for it to be given a url that will last [not just "current"]

Our Bishop Richard Sklba writes to us about how the Eucharist is so much more than certain small red interlinear notes in the Missal. It's true. It's why I make a horrid liturgy cop. I on-purpose go to a Mass to try to see and hear the things that folk gripe about --- who hits breast in the confiteor, who bows in the creed, does anyone drop the also out of "and also with you", etc., ad infinitum. And by the first kyrie I'm so busy praying the Mass that I don't even notice who's doing what, absorbed in those six movements of the Eucharist that have been the way we worship from the beginning --- St. Justin Martyr described them in one of his apologies --- and will be the way we worship until Christ comes again in glory.

Rubrics and liturgical regulations are important, yes. I'm a parishioner at the Cathedral, where the watchword has been for decades that we have to do things right, we are the Cathedral and have to set a good example. But they are not more important than the presence of Christ in all the ways He is present with us. Rubrics serve the People of God, not the People of God the rubrics.
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1 comment:

Steve Bogner said...

Amen to that, Karen! All the talk I've heard/read about on details of proper liturgy just fall flat. The purpose of liturgy - or at least a primary purpose - is to prepare a prayerful environment to worship God. If it is doing its job, we'll be focused on prayer and worship, not on the details of who does what.