Notes from the 2016 Notre Dame Symposium 5: Ritual - How Do We Form People in a Visual Culture

KIMBERLY BELCHER: "Ritual Formation and Evangelization"

 History,  ritual and formation in the liturgical movement

1. Narrative of the past 

2. Explains one aspect of the present evolution.  Romanticism

Metzger book History of the Liturgy as example: everything took place before 12th century or between then and Vatican II. Liturgy is something that takes place in old books.  For most people text is not the most important thing about their experience of the liturgy.

Liturgy's boundaries  

Through 20th century boundaries were the 7 sacraments.  Text studies fairly limited.... Jewish texts, etc.  

also Liturgy of the Hours  

Liturgical Year

Rites of Burial

Occasional rites a any public prayer in common

Renewal was limited to input of books and output of books.  That is not sufficient.

Liturgy's meaning

Aidan Kavanaugh Three Days story of baptism romanticized

Paul Bradshaw and Max Johhnson The eucharistic liturgies - deconstructs the romanticism... There was no golden age of the catechumenate...

History and the worshiping subject.  Guardini (1918) on the church as beyond the body of the faithful.  In 1964. He said in the 19th century we moved to qwindividualistic inward act and lost the sense of being a member of the body of Christ 

Some implications of ritual

Traditional -----> pluralistic.    In a traditional worlds there is only one way.. The way you have always done it and your parents etc.  we forget there was evolution

Oral----> Post-literate. Transition to culture not adept at interpreting body language, imagery etc.  but are adept at texts. (Now that is transitioning to a culture of images again.

• Distinction between public and private eroding
• Knowledge is embodied  and interpretive
• Individuals do not live  in stable symbolic communities it contrict their social worlds through pastiche 

Ritual: a system of mutually interpreting human behaviors that function as connected tissues....

Ritual and meanings

• Meaning is fluid, not fixed
• Meanings are constructed by practice and reflection over time - we have to go back to it over and over so the ritual can speak to us when time arises
• Individuals are now capable of subversion-assigning sago a practice a earning opposite that prescribed by authority - confirmation
• Ritual can be a space for production of meanings rather than having a meaning of its own

Solutions

Hermeneutics 

Allowing space for questions

Ritual: defying bounds

Ritual is "connective tissue". Can be stretched but retain its connection

• Liturgy has intrinsic tension between its nearness and distance from the everyday
• Liturgy promotes connections bwtwymundane experience, private prayer, and social and cultural life

Ritual and renewal

Not just about new books or old books!

Nathan Mitchell is it possible that modern people don't know how to make a ritual act?

We need to learn to dance! We need to give people permission to thrive in the culture the live in that isnverynnegative

Liturgical evangelization:  

Make space to LISTEN

To decolonizing cultures 

To those we minister to

Build up the partial

Foster BODY  practice. Doesn't just happen in the Eucharist.

How does our culture re-learn how to process?

Video of Kenyan dances at papal Mass

Photography as tool to help people reintegrate their lives

• REFLECT and remember use photos to help the,m remember 
• SPEAK a common language from our experience

Pictures of 2 churches from Flickr...

Pictures take a sustained gaze to generate theological reflection

We need to get together to generate sustained reflection on our rites -theological reflection in communities. 

Ritual evangelization is to assist people in liturgy, not to assess

Q & A

Doing this together communally builds up an assembly that understands how better to celebrate

In our cultures athletes and musicians understand doing things over and over until we get it right.

NEXT: NOTES 6: Music and the New Evangelization

The Stability of Ritual: When Your World is Chaos,Turn to the Mass

In Thursday night's Late Show interview with Stephen Colbert, Vice President Joe Biden, speaking about the role of his Catholic faith in dealing with the loss of his son, said this about the Mass, the Rosary and the comfort he derives from the regular practice of his faith:

“Some of it relates to ritual, some if relates to just comfort and what you’ve done your whole life.”

Bingo. When your whole world is sliding into emotional chaos, the familiar ritual of the Mass can be an island of calm - an anchor in a stormy sea. While Biden might not be able to name why this is so, he knows it in his heart.

I first discovered this truth while attending Mass each week during my RCIA experience, I quickly grew to love the ritual words and actions. I felt I had come "home." For an hour, I could leave my cares behind and enter into a time outside of time. It simply felt "right." Later, I stumbled into the Sunday morning choir Mass one day after my husband had asked for a divorce and received solace not only from fellow choir members, but from participating in the familiar postures, gestures, words and song of the Mass. There was definitely something healing in that experience  for me that day.

In other times of loss or transition through the years, I have similarly found relief in the Mass, most notably six years ago, when the man I loved died suddenly. For the first few months, I remember fighting tears often as song lyrics and Mass prayers caused me emotional turmoil, but I also remember a strong sense of the Mass as a trustworthy anchor in which I felt the presence of God.

The human need for ritual has been well-documented by anthropologists - and more recently, scientists. It's so strong, that even those who don't attend church tend to gravitate toward activities that involve ritual elements (such as sports) or to create "new traditions."

Yet the Mass, as divine ritual, is so much more than mere human rituals. Imbued with the very person of Jesus Christ, present in the gathered people, the person of the priest, the Word and the Eucharist, the Mass joins us to all times, places and believers, including those in Heaven. In remembering Jesus's Paschal Mystery, we discover its power among us today, and taste its future glory. We hear the words of the one who was, is and always will be the Word. We dine at the Eucharistic banquet along with angels, saints and holy ones gathered at the heavenly banquet.

The Mass is quite simply the Ritual of Rituals. It is the summit, the highest form of solemn ceremony, because its roots are in the words and actions of Jesus and his Apostles. So, when Joe Biden says he found "comfort" in the ritual elements of his faith, it's nothing to sneeze at. The spiritual consolations we receive from the Mass are real and important. They are certainly not the only reason we go to Mass, but they may be, in part, what gets people to repeat their participation.

Joe Biden, like many Catholics, rediscovers his center at the Mass, even while suffering the deep grief of a parent who has lost a child. “I go to Mass, and I’m able to be just alone, even in a crowd,”he said. While this is possibly not fully articulated, he appears to be trying to express the holiness and peace he finds, even while part of the gathered assembly. We are one with God, at the same time we are one with each other. In that, we find our deepest selves.

The Mass affords us all an opportunity to experience the dependable love of God, which like the ritual through which it is expressed, is unchanging. May all Catholics who struggle, like Joe Biden, find their peace and hope in the power of the Mass.

Making Class More Like Mass: Beyond the Catechist's Toolbox

Catechists sometimes wonder why students often seem disinterested, disinclined to participate in class, despite efforts to make class engaging. Joe Paprocki has stepped up to challenge that paradigm with a great new book: Beyond the Catechist's Toolbox: Catechesis That Not Only Informs But Transforms (Loyola Press)

Paprocki hits the nail on the head when he says the problem is not with the message we are delivering in catechesis, nor in ourselves, but "with our method of delivery, which for many learners, feels just like another class period in a long school day."  The problem, he points out, is that too often, we are merely "reading the textbook" - using it as the only (or nearly the only) tool for catechesis. Even when catechists use audiovisual technology, games or other activities, these pretty much echo the same educational approach experienced in the dayschool classroom.

Yet, the aim of catechesis, the General Directory for Catechesis tells us, is "to put people not only in touch, but also in communion and intimacy, with Jesus Christ" (80) It is not supposed to be just another class, but an experience that should open students to the presence of God.

When I was sent out on diocesan Catholic school observations a few years back, how well the teacher-catechist made that distinction between academic subjects and "religion class" was one criterion for evaluation. That should apply to the catechetical session as well. Paprocki's book is a recognition of the reality that if we give students textbooks, pencils and learning activities rooted in secular pedagogy, instead of those rooted in divine pedagogy, we are not forming kids in faith, but simply teaching religion.

Catechesis, Paprocki says, "is about more than information. It is about transformation." In this 90-page book, he outlines some methods to help catechists teach using any textbook as a toolbox but teaching "beyond the book"- in a climate "permeated with prayer," making class "more like Mass." How? by including  "the language of mystery" - sign and symbol, ritual and gesture, silence, song, story and myth.

To do that, he says, we don't ADD blessings, anointings, liturgical symbols, processions and other "Catholic" things to the textbook content, but rather translate the content into that language of mystery. Using the 4-step process from the Loyola Press Finding God series, Paprocki outlines how to create a climate of prayerfulness from the moment students enter the room, using ritual action, sacred music, prayer, and lectionary-based reflection. He explains how to engage students by letting them "enter through their door" but drawing them back to varying prayer experiences, including Ignatian guided reflections, interspersed with reading from the textbook and engaging in learning activities that culminate in some form of assessment, followed by closing prayer, sign of peace, music and a ritual of sending forth, again echoing the elements of the Mass.

Paprocki describes this process as "teaching faith as a second language." I call it giving kids "Catholic bones." By infusing the catechetical session with "smells and bells" and liturgical elements, the catechists lets students experience sacred space and sacred time - and to begin to know what it is that makes the time they spend being formed in faith different from the rest of their learning day.

I recommend that every catechist read this book with a prayerful openness and decide which elements he or she can comfortably begin to introduce into their sessions. That could only improve the experience of learning about faith.