A Catholic Concern

The following author maintains that worship reflects the changing perceptions of people involved in the ongoing life of the world. It is imperative, therefore, that worship renewal be a continuous process; listening to the report of the social sciences is one way to promote renewal.

Liturgical Reform as Continuous Event. During most of the church's history, liturgical reform has been characterized by fevered sprints after long periods of inactivity. This is as unhealthy for a social body as for an individual human body. The liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council has been an immense gift to Catholic Christian communities, in both form and vision. One example of these benefits has been the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. But there is no reason for complacency. It is not as though our life of worship has been fully and adequately updated, and we have only to enjoy it. The church has long understood itself to be semper reformanda, in need of continual transformation. But it has not yet structured itself to provide for the future of worship through sustained and continuous research and committed, relentless experiment. It is our conviction that worship is sufficiently connected to the life of the world that the search for its best comprehension and best expression must be continual. What might this continuous and sustained exploration look like? Empirically Committed Theology. Good theology has always been a faithful reflection of faith experience. Fidelity to experience is a touchstone of valid theological reflection. It is commonplace today to recognize that the human sciences are a report upon experience, and that theology must take serious cognizance of that report. An active relation between theology and the human sciences helps faith reflection keep firmly tied to experiential bases. Understanding as "Construction." But there is a larger and perhaps more urgent consideration that compels theology to attend to the human sciences. The human sciences do not merely report upon experience, but they participate in the creation of the experience upon which they report. In a viewpoint widely held today, it is not that there is a kind of "objective" human nature upon which all the human sciences offer their varied perspectives, and against which they can be adjudicated for accuracy. Accurate knowledge is not a mirror of objective fact. Out of an interaction between someone who knows and something that is known, knowledge is concretely constructed. What is constructed is not merely a formal resemblance between knower and known. The knowledge itself is a new "fact," getting some of its character from the subjectivity of the subject and some from the objectivity of the object. That "fact" is clothed with feeling, weighted with value, and replete with meaning. Human knowing does not find meaning ready made. Our quest for knowledge and meaning is always an active engagement in the social construction of reality. The renewal of worship is tied to the conversation between theology and the social sciences because of the role each plays in constructing the world we inhabit. The conversation is too important to be left to happenstance. Playing with Possibility as an Act of Care. Exploring possibilities for the renewal of liturgy involves "wondering into existence" new rituals, in order to exemplify the consequences of positions taken when theology and the human sciences converse seriously. Why not just offer theological reflection? Why wonder rituals into existence? Only a small percentage of Catholics has studied the history or theologies of the Second Vatican Council. Yet the configuration of the Roman Catholic church is very different today because of that council. The differences are not just cosmetic. Even though most people have not systematically studied that council's presuppositions about the church and about human history, its perceptions have gradually seeped into our spiritual center. How has this occurred? While there are multiple answers to this question, certainly one of the most crucial is the liturgy. Even though general absolution is not widespread, its possibility and occasional usage tell us a new story about the communal character of sin and grace. The transposition of the confession of sins from an anonymously dark little room to face-to-face interaction bespeaks a different sense of both community leadership (priest) and community membership (penitent). Removing the altar from the back wall so that it begins to look like a table in the midst of a community brings the notion of eucharistic meal to the forefront. Before long people want bread to look like bread again, and the sacred vessels to look like a plate and cup. The use of the words chalice and paten recedes. Once the language of worship becomes the vernacular, and people sing and pray more interactively, the language about the priest saying Mass begins to disappear. People and priest together celebrate the Eucharist; the priest does not "say Mass" alone. The point is that liturgy is one of the crucial places where a new perception of reality comes to the forefront. The proffering of alternative ritual forms is a vivid way of "seeing" what kind of world the dialogue between the human sciences and sacramental and liturgical theology constructs. These alternatives help us feel what difference it all makes. The projection of possible scenarios is itself an act of hope. It is a way of taking care of a precious possession.