So, I opened the Arlington Catholic Herald last night and saw this letter to the Editor:
Mass ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’
I hope that the way in which the canonization Mass for the three missionary priests (ACH 10/06/03) was celebrated by the pope in Rome on Oct. 5th, 2003 sends “loosen up” signals to those who, citing the new GIRM, are trying to lock the celebration of the Mass into a series of strict “do’s” and “don’ts”. At that canonization Mass (according to CNS) “Catholics…held three-tiered yellow umbrellas over the Book of the Gospels, while women and men … stood alongside holding flowers or pots of incense. Sixteen dancers … accompanied the offertory procession. During the consecration, dancers … performed the ‘Atari rite’ standing before the altar making slow circles in the air with platters of flowers and incense sticks.” While some bishops, priests and laity may shudder at those activities as unnecessary, irreverent, or not allowed by the GIRM, I believe they were beautiful expressions of the People of God celebrating our newest saints.
And I thought… oh brother. Haven’t we had enough “loosening up” sessions?
The fact is, in liturgies at the Vatican there’s been liturgical dance performed when the celebration of the Mass has involved canonizations of Saints from countries in which dance is sacred and an acceptable part of the liturgy. And yes, they can be beautiful, authentic expressions of worship. But that doesn’t mean what is sacred in one culture and sacred in another.
It’s just intellectually dishonest to take the actions from that liturgy out of context and tell everyone else to “loosen up” about how we would do our liturgies. The West is the land of dancing being an integral part of music videos, free love, abandonment of moral restraint, lasciviousness, etc. Do I need to go on?
The GIRM exists to have a consistent framework of prayer and worship, in large part to make sure that our liturgies are prayerful and consist of authentic worship – not just some cultural ejaculation of what seems fun and exciting on any given day. Whenever I hear someone say we need to “loosen up” it’s always followed by some crazy idea about a way to make the liturgy more “relevant.”
People are dying for consistent, authentic Catholic liturgies instead of being bludgeoned with the latest misguided fad or irrelevant cultural act that just doesn’t fit in the West. That’s what the “Do’s and Don’ts” are all about.
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Thank you, John. Its’ not our culture…what they do in India is not done here. What they do in Africa is not done here. There it’s authentic…here it’s not.
Some similar rites were performed at the beatification of Mother Teresa.
If you want to see it, it’ll be on EWTN again 10/25 (Saturday) at 4 PM Eastern.
Many of the people who want Catholics to “loosen up” could use some loosening up themselves. They seem a little wound up, especially when they write letters or articles.
I thought the Atari rite involved joysticks, not incense sticks.
Meantime, papal liturgist Marini is the Busby Berkeley of bongo-and-dancing-girl extravaganzas. Since when are tribal drums and dancing part of the Catholic Mass in any culture? Why not do away with this stuff across the board?
Hahahahahahahahahaha! This convert from Hinduism thinks it’s hilarious that the white liberal Catholics want an “Atari rite” . . . I’m only aware of the Indian tradition of “Arti.” And all arti really is, folks, is the rite of worshiping God with flowers/flame/incense while singing prayers. It’s not an excuse to destroy the Roman Rite in Western countries.
Watching the Masses on EWTN last week, I just KNEW it would just be a matter of time before the “creative liturgy” types used it as a justification for their travesties. JPII didn’t look overly thrilled at the decorative flourishes, and Cardinal Arinze has made it extremely clear that the Mass is not to be a Broadway production, as R.C. mentioned elsewhere on this blog. Every liturgist should read what he said at the link on EWTN. It’s clear as a bell.
Who are any of you to say anything about another culture. Every RCC does not worship or express their love to God in the same way. All of you make me proud NOT TO BE CATHOLIC!!!!
Oh, man, is this gal irate!
She’s not Catholic, but goes searching on the net for “Catholic dance and liturgies”, and finds us. Then she ends up accusing us of saying something disrespectful about other cultures.
It’s an unjustified complaint, as far as I can tell. There’s not a thing on this page that runs down other cultures. One of us even pointed out correctly that religious dance is an “authentic” part of some of them.
Is Ann just displeased to find us not agreeing with her opinions?
RC, you appear to be a little too ready to attack others. Being the “good catholic” man you are, I would have expected you to use a different approach to my comment. Then again, I guess I held a standard that you were unable to reach. However, I can say that I misread the comments.
Thanks for clarifying, Ann. As you probably know, it’s not always easy to gauge the tone of someone’s sentiments from the little bits of text they post on the Internet.
In the case of your comment, I saw the fully capitalized words. On the net, that’s conventionally used to represent “shouting”, so I wrote that you were “irate”.
I just found this article and the comments this april . . . i find it an interesting that anyone would argue that ANY expression of love that is given back to the Lord should be considered wrong. As a person who expresses themselves through music and dance, I find that these generalizations about cultures and the acceptability of certain practices only serves to prove the point that we limit GOD and our relationship to Him. How can anyone dare to claim that any expression of prayer is invalid. I understnad that “the west” has a history of bad joo-joo attached to dance and the arts in general but that is not to say that ligitimate expressions of worship are less valuable. These kinds of poilicies are clear indications of the over all attitude towards freedom, expression and legitimate, vulnerable, intimate life with Christ. I say, go ahead and sit in the pews if you like but this same lack of movement is evident across our country. We struggle to get the lukewarm to fan their flames bright enough to be seen by the world instead of hiding under a bushell basket yet cannot open our hearts. minds, and bodies to other forms of worship. My goal in ministry is to journeyt with my brothers ans sisters to Christ, not find ways to hinder that. we need to get over ourselves and stop pretending that we know exactly what God wants and instead do whats in our HEARTS to please Him.