Sunday, August 28, 2005
(8:37 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
This is just a tribute
This is not the Church Blog.Yesterday I went to Holy Name Cathedral in downtown Chicago, which is a few weeks away from having become a habit. I don't really want to comment on the scripture readings, the homily, or the songs chosen, but rather at the distinctive "resurrection crucifix". This time, I noticed a curious omission: no wounds. The gospel accounts of the resurrection are very confusing and contradictory in terms of who saw him first, how long he hung around, what superpowers he had, etc., but one point is unanimous -- he still had his scars from being crucified. This crucifix is a powerful image insofar as it highlights the fact that it is precisely the crucified Christ who is raised, but in my mind, that would make retaining the wounds all the more important.
Still, it's clearly superior to the tiny gold crucifixes that get lost in the clutter of the old-style altars (relegated to tabernacle duty or simple decoration now that the celebrant faces the congregation). Listening to the over-enunciated, sing-song readers of the announcements as well as the scripture readings ("Wel-come... to... Ho-ly... Naaame... Ca-thee-dral... Ifff... yooou... have... a celllll... phone......."), I longed for the days when the priest would turn his back to the congregation and mumble in Latin. That kind of reader -- and I'm sure everyone who goes to Catholic churches with any degree of frequency has come across them -- actually makes their message more difficult to understand, since our mind is used to processing language within a certain range of speeds.
The stark, overly spaced words of the reading match the all-too-stark architecture of most churches. Any church that has been built or remodelled within a certain time period has a crisp angularity, a clean and sterile feel -- there are no details to discover, no flourishes to enjoy. There can be a certain impressiveness, even a polished folksiness -- as when the church uses wood and brick rather than drywall -- but the focus is on the word, the spoken word. To an extent, the shift from Latin to vernacular is understandable as a broadening, as allowing more people to "follow what's going on," but then there can be something limiting about all the factors that are incorporated to make sure everyone can "follow" and does "follow" -- a certain overbearing "welcoming" that doesn't as easily open out into the strangeness of feeling genuinely at home.
It's as though the Catholic Church has decided to become "seeker-sensitive" even as it moves toward placing more and more demands on those who seek. So many seeming contradictions: why can there be a corps of women readers and women eucharistic ministers, but no women priests? Why is everything so user-friendly, everything so catered to guests, while at the same time the communion table is closed? Are we looking at more of an "Old Testament" idea of the neighbor who is always one's co-religionist -- "We would like to extend a special welcome to any (Catholic) guests who are here today"?
If Pope Benedict can say that the church has already taken the best of modernity and no longer requires to be open, I might argue that the church has somehow taken the exact opposite of what needs to be taken from modernity. A certain efficiency, a certain tokenism -- i.e., the corps of women eucharistic ministers and readers -- a certain superficial clean-cutness and simplicity, but none of the transparency, very little of the leveling effect.
The liturgy itself has become simple, has become relatively straightforward and non-mysterious -- even frustratingly so. Yet the pronouncements from on high are built on a degree of mystery or transcendance that is not very much in evidence in the everyday life of the church -- the mystery of "sacred" human life, for instance. If we are supposed to accept a sacred/profane distinction of that kind, then how is it that the most obvious confrontation with the "sacred" (in the Eucharist) is so efficient, so quick and easy, like standing in line at the ATM? We receive the Eucharist in our hands, in a standing position, provided by just "some person" from the congregation -- and there's none of the fear and trembling, none of the examination of conscience in the face of the gravity of the sacrament, no real emphasis on confession or on any real practice of preparation (making closed communion even less comprehensible).[*] At the same time, we're supposed to believe that the embryo we've never seen is "sacred" and trumps all possible practical concerns, such that not remaining open to the possibility of creating such an embryo in the properly sanctified form of life (marriage) is a sin.
I am, of course, just some guy on the Internet, a convert to the church, now backslidden, with no positive program to offer as of yet.
[*] I don't intend to judge or assess the experience of anyone in the congregation. I know that there are many regular attenders who have a lively sense of mystery or of the seriousness of the Eucharist and their unworthiness, etc. -- I'm just talking about how the event is structured. Those factors I mention above have become optional, have become something that interested parties can pay attention to, or not.
