Liturgy's Ebb and Flow

“Foot down, hand forward, shift your weight.” These are just a few of the cues often uttered by our tai chi instructor. Tai chi, the ancient Chinese Martial Art, is practiced by millions all over the world as a form of gentle exercise. It is believed to help its practitioners reduce stress, ease joint pain, enhance mindfulness, and improve balance. Tai chi is a series of distinct postures that flow one into the other without stopping. This is one reason tai chi is often called meditation in movement. Whenever I look at a group practicing tai chi, I am mesmerized. The group moves together in a constant flow of perfect synchronicity. The easeful transitions between the postures make the entire exercise look like one continuous movement. The unity of the group transforms ordinary movements, gestures, and postures into something that is powerful and profound. The ancient tradition behind tai chi, the meaning connected to each posture, and the benefits of the exercise help to form and transform practitioners.

Like tai chi, our liturgy is a sequence of distinct postures, gestures, and movements. We stand, we sit, and we kneel. We speak, we sing, we listen, and we remain still in a collective silence. Every moment of the liturgy transitions or flows into the next. The gathering song and the procession into the church flow into the opening greeting, which flows into either the Penitential Act or the Sprinkling Rite, and so forth. We who practice the same ritual patterns in the liturgy, like those who practice tai chi, become more and more in sync with one another.

The scientific word for this is entrainment. Entrainment was first discovered in 1665 by Dutch physicist Christian Huygsen while working on the design of the pendulum clock.

Huygsen placed two clocks, with pendulums swinging at opposite rates, near each other. He found that eventually the pendulums synchronized with each other, swinging at the same rate. Entrainment has been used in everything from astronomy to music. It has helped the scientific world to prove that two opposite oscillating bodies can have enough influence on each other to vibrate in harmony.

We could say the liturgy is a form of ritual entrainment. Our ritual patterns transform ordinary movements, gestures, and postures into something that is powerful and profound. The rituals in our liturgy synchronize us so that together we can be more attuned to creation, to each other, and to God whose very breath began to swing the first pendulum of life.    

Liturgy: A Sensual Experience

Japanese restaurants where the food is prepared in front of hungry guests is a favorite with adults and children alike. That’s not necessarily because the food is extraordinary, but more so because our senses are stimulated by what happens before we eat. When we watch the talented chefs chop, flip, or twirl our ingredients, when we hear the sizzle of the savory meat and fresh vegetables on the grill, when we smell the bouquet of flavors, we can just about taste the food before we put the first forkful in our mouths. When we eat the food, we enjoy it because our senses have already triggered our expectations.

Scientists believe the more we can engage all of our senses when we eat, the more we will enjoy our food. The Church has known this for years. That’s why our liturgies engage all of our senses, so that we might better enjoy our Eucharistic meal.

Think of the last time you went to Mass. What did you smell? What did you touch or what did you feel? What did you hear? What did you see? What did you taste? When we reflect on these questions, we get a glimpse into the sensual experience of liturgy.

When we walk into the church, we smell flowers, candle wax, and perhaps incense. We touch holy water and then touch our forehead, our heart, and our shoulders as we make the sign of the cross. If the sprinkling rite is used, we feel the touch of the water on our bodies. We hear the sounds of music, the words of Scripture, and the sound of a community at prayer. We see our fellow parishioners and the liturgical ministers. We see the environment, the church décor and the colors of a particular liturgical season. If incense is used, we see its smoke rise up as a sign of our prayers ascending to God. We taste the bread, the Body of Christ, and the wine, the Blood of Christ.

When it comes to a more solemn liturgy, such as the Easter Vigil, we experience a sensual banquet. The fire lit in the darkness of night captures our senses of smell and sight. The words of salvation history and the music woven throughout the liturgy of the word animate our aural sense. Then we experience the sacraments of initiation, the colorful parade to the font, the encounter between the blessed water and the Elect, the smell of the balsam in the Sacred Chrism, and the touch of the minister as he anoints the forehead of the newly baptized with the holy oil. All of this helps to prepare the entire community to celebrate the Sacred Meal of Easter.

Liturgical rituals and symbols work through our senses to help us to see, to hear, to smell, to feel, and to taste a mysterious and invisible God. We who experience the presence of God through our senses are called to use those senses to make God present in the world, to see with eyes of love, to listen with ears of compassion, to touch others with hope, to be the “aroma of Christ for God,” (2 Corinthians 2:15) and to flavor the world with life-giving love.

And the Word became flesh

A trip to Bethlehem several years ago inspired me to purchase a new nativity set hand carved from the wood of olive trees grown in the Holy Land. Having that set brings a piece of the traditional birthplace of Jesus into my home. Even though I love my new nativity set, I will never part with the set I had as a child, even though its star has lost most of its glitter, even with its kitschy angels that glow in the dark.

Nativity sets and manger scenes have been a popular part of our Christmas traditions since the first one was established by St. Francis of Assisi in the central Italian town of Greccio in 1223. They adorn churches, homes, and public venues and are made from materials as simple as paper or as elaborate as entire villages such as those found in countries like Italy and Mexico. In some places, people create living Nativity scenes, where live animals and humans reenact the story of the birth of Jesus.

For many, these scenes bring joy and comfort--the joy of a newborn child along with the comfort that God’s promise has been fulfilled. As beautiful and as peaceful as they are, nativity scenes tell only part of the story of the Incarnation. Hints of the rest of that story are offered in the Blessing of a Christmas Manger or Nativity Scene from the Book of Blessings.

“God of every nation and people, from the very beginning of creation

you have made manifest your love: when our need for a Savior was great

you sent your Son to be born of the Virgin Mary.

To our lives he brings joy and peace, justice, mercy, and love.

Lord, bless all who look upon this manger; may it remind us of the humble birth of Jesus,

and raise up our thoughts to him, who is God-with-us and Savior of all,

and who lives and reigns for ever and ever.”

This blessing tells me that the coming of Christ is for all people and that through Christ, I am forever connected with everyone. It tells me that the coming of Christ was part of God’s plan from the very beginning of creation. It teaches me that Jesus manifests God’s pure, simple and steadfast love. The blessing reminds me that if God comes through ordinary human beings like Mary, God can break through my ordinary life and can come in ways surprising and wondrous. The text tells me that when I surrender, like Mary, to God’s will, I, too, can bear the Christ. I, too, can be a vessel of joy and peace, justice, mercy, and love.

I notice that this blessing isn’t directed to God. “Bless all who look upon this manger;” God doesn’t need my blessing, but I sure need God’s blessing. God has come not for God’s sake, but for the sake of humankind.

This blessing reminds me of the humble and chaotic circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. Jesus was conceived in an unmarried woman and when born, he was placed in a feeding trough reserved for animals. After his birth, his family was forced to flee a jealous king who planned to kill him. Despite these circumstances, God chose to be born anyway. This strengthens me to bear witness to God’s presence even when my life is marked by humble chaos.

The blessing ends with the sure and certain hope of the Incarnation.

May we who adorn our homes and churches with nativity sets remember that Christmas is not only about the celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus 2000 years ago, but rather that God became flesh and lives with us now, today, forever.

Liturgical Time

“What time is it?” is one of the most asked questions around the world. Perhaps that’s because from the beginning of time, humans have enjoyed marking time. Take a look back at this year’s calendar. How did you mark time? What events did you observe? Birthdays? Anniversaries? How did you celebrate them? When we mark another birthday, for example, we usually celebrate with friends and family who gather together to share a meal and a birthday cake. We also perform some sort of ritual, e.g., we sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles on the cake. On our birthdays, we might remember our past but we don’t reenact our birth! We remember and celebrate in ways that give meaning to our present.

In the same way, events on the liturgical calendar are marked by friends and family who gather together to share a meal and to perform a ritual. We gather to celebrate major occasions like Christmas and Easter and other less solemn occasions throughout the year.

We mark occasions in the life of the universal Church such as the Dedication of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome, on November 9. We keep anniversaries that pertain to our parish such as the Anniversary of the Dedication of our Church on October 24, and we keep memory of our parish patron, St. Thomas Aquinas, on his feast day January 28. We remember other saints and martyrs on the anniversaries of their death, and we remember Mary, the Mother of God, on several days during the year.

Most of our liturgical calendar is dedicated to mark some aspect of the life of Jesus. Sunday by Sunday and year after year we remember events that happened in the life of Christ. We remember his birth, his childhood, and his ministry. We remember his death, his resurrection, and his ascension. We remember these occasions not by reenacting them, for they could never be repeated, but by remembering and celebrating them in ways that give meaning to the present. If we listen to the texts of the liturgy, we discover that our celebration of these events is always focused on the present.

            “Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)

                        Psalm refrain for Christmas Mass during the night

            “… today you have revealed the mystery of

            our salvation in Christ as a light for the nations.”

                        Preface of the Epiphany of the Lord

            “This is the night of which it is written:

            the night shall be as bright as day.”

                        The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)

            “This is the day the Lord has made,

            let us rejoice and be glad.” (Psalm 118:24)

                        Psalm refrain for Easter

These texts call us to an experience with the person of Jesus in our present. They tell us that God meets us right here, right now, today. They remind us that the time to live the Gospel is now. 

Lamb of God

Whether we are going to Grandmother’s house or cooking at home this Thanksgiving, most of us will gather around a table and break bread with family and friends. Breaking bread together has its roots in the word companion. The first part of the word, com means together with in Latin. The second part of the word comes from the Latin panis, meaning bread. To companion someone literally means to break bread with them. This is what Jesus did at the Last Supper and this is what we do whenever we gather around the table of the Eucharist--we break bread together. For the first Christians, the act of breaking bread together was so significant that they named the entire celebration of the Eucharist “the breaking of the bread.”

“They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” Acts of the Apostles 2:42

To the Apostles, the breaking of the bread symbolized the unity they shared with Christ and with one another, something echoed by St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians.

“The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ. Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”

1 Corinthians: 16b-17

This symbolism was better expressed in the early years of the church, when the priest broke one loaf for all to share. Nowadays the hosts that are consecrated are pieced and prepared in advance and the priest breaks only his host into smaller pieces.

During this breaking of the consecrated Bread, which is also called the Fraction Rite, the Agnus Dei or Lamb of God is said or sung. The text of the Lamb of God repeats the words spoken by John the Baptist upon seeing Jesus:

“There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29

Biblical scholars say when John calls Jesus the Lamb of God, he is referring to the fourth Servant song in the book of the prophet Isaiah:

      “Though harshly treated, he submitted and did not open his mouth;

Like a lamb led to slaughter or a sheep silent before shearers,

he did not open his mouth . . . My servant, the just one, shall justify the many,

their iniquity he shall bear.” Isaiah 53:7-11

In Aramaic, which would have been spoken by John, the words Talya de’laha can be used to mean both “Lamb of God” and “Servant of God.” In the above passage from Isaiah, echoed by John the Baptist, Jesus is prefigured as the Servant-Lamb.

The Lamb of God always ends with the invocation, “Grant us peace.” Whenever we sing the Lamb of God, we give praise to God who desires to share in our broken humanity and grants us a share in his divinity. God’s mercy calls us to imitate the Lamb of God, who was broken for the sake of others. When we do this, we discover the true meaning of the word companion.