Friday, October 15, 2004
(8:30 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Friday Afternoon Confessional: Derrida Week
Our confession today will be liturgical. First of all, because it will have been taken from a liturgy, a particular liturgy—the liturgy of the Roman church, my liturgy, but the liturgy that at the same time has never belonged to me in the way that it belongs to those to whom it belongs, as if I am compelled to confess, “No, I’m not really Catholic, I’m only a convert.” The Roman mass is a liturgy that begins and ends in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and after the celebrant bids the Lord to be with the congregation and the congregation bids the Lord to be with the celebrant, “I confess”—precisely I, uniquely I, the uniquely responsible I, surrounded by a room full of “brother and sister” I’s.We certainly must ask ourselves whether the liturgy had gotten off to a false start—should we not have confessed before entering into this place where, we are told, the Lord is with us, where the Lord is commanded to be with us? And certainly we must ask ourselves who is this “Almighty God” to whom I confess, when we have gathered in the name of the Trinity. The unique I confesses to the unique Almighty God, but at the same time, joined by an indifferent and, to “you, my brothers and sisters”—brothers and sisters in what sense? What founds this fraternity, this sorority? Nothing—except that we have bid the Lord to come among us. Confession to Almighty God is always already confession to “you, my brothers and sisters.”
Not quite a prayer, not quite yet—a declaration, an illocutionary event, as if one could say, “I hereby confess to Almighty God...,” a performative utterance upheld by “you, my brothers and sisters.” God the Father will be a “you” in the rest of this liturgy, but here, the only “you” is “my brothers and sisters,” to whom I must offer up an exhaustive inventory: I, as uniquely responsible for my sin, have sinned “in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do”—in potentiality and in actuality, in intention and in achievement, I have sinned. Through my own fault. I lay claim to nothing but my sin; I can expect nothing other than continuance in my sin. I can’t even pray quite yet—only “ask,” not only the Virgin, the angels, and the saints, but also, again, “you, my brothers and sisters” to pray for me, on my behalf.
I cannot yet address Almighty God directly; I am limited to addressing the human “you,” asking, requesting, perhaps imploring that they address “the Lord Our God,” the one Almighty God whom we share—just as we share this room, where that Lord has already, by some kind of bizarre short-circuit, been commanded to be with us—and it is in that sharing that I find myself called upon to pray. Not on my own behalf, or at least not first of all, but rather for the other “me,” the room full of “me’s,” tied together in a shared not-yet-prayer to the Lord they share—and suddenly, prayer can happen, prayer to this Lord, to the Messiah, but in any case to the Lord, to which prayer the gathering remains primary.
And so, let us call to mind our sin:
All: I confess, to Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, and I asked Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.
Celebrant: May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.
A: Amen.
C: Lord, have mercy.
A:Lord, have mercy.
C: Christ, have mercy.
A: Christ, have mercy.
C: Lord, have mercy.
A: Lord, have mercy.
C: Let us pray...
