Celebration holds first annual conference on effective worship

Although I am a progressive Catholic this paragraph caught me by surprise: "How can we worship without recognition that part of our national calamity is that a huge deficit is funding the hoped-for recovery, paying for two wars against a shadowy enemy who, we are told, may already be in our midst and therefore requires a police state to protect us and our basic rights and freedoms?" Huh, who are you worshiping with? Preaching that diatribe from the pulpit will drive 50% of parishoners away. We gather to worship God, not to be a political party. We don't pollute worship with politics. I thought that as Vatican II Catholics we were supposed to be grown up Catholics who could think for ourselves and make up our own minds and not be "forced fed" as in the bad old days before Vatican II? Leave the right and left political agendas out of worship PERIOD. Want to help others out, have meetings after Eucharist in the parish hall or basement.

I'm still wondering what it means to be "effective". Is God guaranteed to be pleased with this worship? Will all our prayers be answered? 100% on the consecration? What?

"We gather to worship God, not to be a political party. We don't pollute worship with politics."

Seperating spirituality from the world is not from Vatican
II. Speaking out against injustice is not an option for Christians. And there is a difference between partisanship and politics.

Thanks be to God for the Reform of the Reform. Thanks be to God for Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, the Great, for their tireless leadership in curbing the excesses of the 70s and 80s and early 90s and in restoring that which was missing from Catholic liturgy: a sense of the timeless and the mysterious. Thanks be to God that the new generations of priests and seminarians realize that the Mass is a Sacrificial Meal, not a talk show with snacks. Thanks be to God the Holy See has seen the need for translations of the Mass prayers that actually say what the prayer is supposed to say. Thanks be to God tambourines and bongo drums have given way to the pipe organ and Gregorian Chant (both of which, according to the documents of the Second Vatican Council, are to have "pride of place" in our worship).

Conferences such as this one only serve to remind us how far the Church has come away from the liturgical nonsense of the phantom "spirit of Vatican II" and the train wreck that we called Liturgy in the first couple of decades after the Council. Thanks be to God that we can worship God in a manner fitting to Him and to us.

¡Melodrama!

I agree the artcile is too melodramatic for its own good.

Article - "How can we worship without urgent reference to the collapse of the global economy…."

Ken - We can worship because God is great, the Creator. He wants that, and in fact has called us to worship Him.

Article - "How can we worship if our sharing of the Word and our standing together at the family table of Eucharist does not address all this fear and suffering?”

Ken - And so because we do not address all of the problems of this world, we cannot worship God? If we waited until we have resolved issues of race and poverty before we worship God, we would never get around to it.

Think for a moment Pat, before making vast statements like that.

The history of the world basically consists of war, poverty, and injustice. Only in the most recent two or three hundred years has there been anything close to a widespread democratic societies. Only is the last two hundred years have entire societies begun to noticably reduce their levels of poverty and substantially improve their peoples material existence. If you think there was no poverty, racism, or injustice in ancient world or in medieval times, you are wrong. While certainly there are wars around the world, the fact of the matter is we happen to live in the most peaceful and healthy and prosperous times the world has ever seen.

And so I do not accept the premise that things have never been worse, nor do I accept your notion that until we solve all these probelms, we should not take time to worship God.

We worship God because He is God. Indeed, we worship God because He is great, and also because we are so very broken; we implore Him to help us solve the very problems you mention.

Pat - I accept your comments and points about how the Latin community is more and more important to the Catholic church in the US, but your hand wringing and melodramatic handling of other important issues is so over the top that it undermines your fundamental points.

I agree the artcile is too melodramatic for its own good.

Article - "How can we worship without urgent reference to the collapse of the global economy…."

Ken - We can worship because God is great, the Creator. He wants that, and in fact has called us to worship Him.

Article - "How can we worship if our sharing of the Word and our standing together at the family table of Eucharist does not address all this fear and suffering?”

Ken - And so because we do not address all of the problems of this world, we ¡Melodrama!

cannot worship God? If we waited until we have resolved issues of race and poverty before we worship God, we would never get around to it.

Think for a moment Pat, before making vast statements like that.

The history of the world basically consists of war, poverty, and injustice. Only in the most recent two or three hundred years has there been anything close to a widespread democratic societies. Only is the last two hundred years have entire societies begun to noticably reduce their levels of poverty and substantially improve their peoples material existence. If you think there was no poverty, racism, or injustice in ancient world or in medieval times, you are wrong. While certainly there are wars around the world, the fact of the matter is we happen to live in the most peaceful and healthy and prosperous times the world has ever seen.

And so I do not accept the premise that things have never been worse, nor do I accept your notion that until we solve all these probelms, we should not take time to worship God.

We worship God because He is God. Indeed, we worship God because He is great, and also because we are so very broken; we implore Him to help us solve the very problems you mention.

Pat - I accept your comments and points about how the Latin community is more and more important to the Catholic church in the US, but your hand wringing and melodramatic handling of other important issues is so over the top that it undermines your fundamental points.

Liturgical gatherings of this sort always remind me of Annie Dillard's oft-cited quote below:

"The higher Christian churches - where if anywhere I belong- come at God with an air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it any minute. This is the beginning of wisdom."
(p.59 Holy the Firm)

Gabe Huck himself cites this passage in his 1994 "A sourcebook about liturgy" on page 25. Too bad God is too busy to take the time to BLAST a service or two to bits every now and then, just to keep "professional" liturgists on their toes. I wonder if the NEW ICEL translations will also be "certain words which people [shall have] successfully addressed to God without getting killed.!" Perhaps God will make an exception in this case and blast away!