Today my husband and I were talking about "entertainment churches" that seem to be growing by leaps and bounds in our neck of the woods. Prayer and singing are wonderful ways to praise God but it seems many of my Protestant brothers and sisters (and, alas, my life teen Mass friends) just do not seem to understand that "feeling good" is not an indicator of God's measure of us. It does not bring us into a closer relationship with God. Doing God's will, receiving God's graces, walking that closer walk with our Lord and Saviour is a supernatural event, not an emotional one. (This does not preclude experiencing emotions alongside any supernatural event -- i.e: sacraments, receiving grace, prayer. But emotions are a very fallible human indicator of reality...even in human events!) While I wholeheartedly support entertainment* that is wholesome and Christian based, I am so sad to see this taking the place of worship and Mass. On that note, I am including an essay I found. This was written by our Pontiff in 1988 when he was Cardinal.
*I have used the word entertainment* in this context: an event that is diverting, holds attention, gives pleasure.
Here is the very interesting essay from 1988 by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger:
While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the traditional liturgy, the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there....
I confine myself to coming straight to this conclusion: we ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties.
The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the living God but the priest or the liturgical director.
H/T: New Liturgical Movement
3 comments:
You are so right in this. One of the young missionaries that accompanied us to Haiti (I left a comment about this in your previous post) pointed out that "entertainment churches" can cause confusion because that "feel good" sensation often replaces what one should be experiencing with the Holy Spirit. Too often, this feeling becomes the goal rather than God.
Thanks for a great post. God bless.
Great post! I hadn't seen this quote, either. It's so true! What is worldly and what is pious don't share the same plane, and, I think Bia's missionary friend had it exactly right ~ it can be confusing to try to link the two.
I think if Catholics truly understood the Mass there would not be the clamor for "entertainment" at Mass. I am finding that many Catholics do not even believe or undersatnd the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
My question is HOW to reach these folks. They are missing so much in their Catholic faith.
As one of my little students, (I'll call her Evanne - because I stress to my kids NOT to use their real names online) -- As Evanne would say, "First, Miss Peggy, we should pray!"
She always grounds me!
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