Ministry Training
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Symbols and Rituals
by Paul Mason.
Our sense of God in our life is experienced in many different ways. We can experience a sense of the presence of God in the liveliness of a new dawn, in the evening sunset fire, in the warmth of a loved one’s embrace, in the gift of self in caring for another, and in the surprise of a smile returned from a babe in arms. We can also experience the absence of God in hearing of a senseless murder, in seeing the horrors of war on TV, and in seeing the faces of people who are suffering. Such experience calls us to yearn for a sense of the presence of God once again. And so in times of trouble we gather in churches and look to ritual and symbol to give us once again a sense of the presence of God, a sense shared and affirmed by our community.
Similarly, we look to ritual and symbol at those significant milestones in life – births, deaths and marriages. Baptism, wedding and funeral rituals help formalize our shared experience of the presence of God at these important times.
Christian experience of the presence of God comes in the most tangible way through our experience of the person Jesus. In the 21st century our experience of Jesus is one of absence and one of presence. While Jesus no longer walks and talks as he did during the time of the apostles, he is present to us in the writings of the apostles, and in the sacraments and Christian rituals. The apostles came to understand their experience of Jesus as the experience of God incarnate. “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ,” said the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth. He called the church to be the living symbol of Christ, the symbol of God in the world. And we, as members of this same church, are called today to participate in the universal body of Christ. This challenge to imitate Christ through the teaching of the apostles calls us to regularly reflect on the scriptures and to gather together, joining ourselves to the mystical body of Christ. In this way the Church can learn and actualize the sayings of Jesus, the message of his parables and stories, and the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection. In this way the Church can be what it is called to be, the experience of the presence of God.
Unfortunately, some of the elements of our current language of ritual and symbol do not work that well, often inhibiting our participation in the body of Christ and our experience of the presence of God. Many have become disconnected from our everyday living. The language of our liturgies is often incomprehensible – verbally, symbolically and ritually. To help build up participation in the body of Christ we need to renew and educate. In looking to renew liturgy, we are challenged to always use symbols that are universally understood, and to teach the ritual forms so that people understand what they are doing when they participate in the liturgy.
Next week we’ll look at the makings of good symbols.
Symbol & Ritual: Symbols that Work
by Paul Mason.
Last week I discussed how our everyday experiences of life lead us to our sense of God. In fact it is our personal experience that leads us to know ourselves and our world, our relationship with others and the transcendent. Our feelings of warmth and love - in a baby’s smile, in a loved one’s embrace, in the beauty of creation - come from our interpretation of symbolic communication. As such, our personal experience is the basic symbol through which we are aware and make sense of all things. And so our religious symbols and rituals, which exist to facilitate our sense of the presence of God, must be ground in our personal experience. Otherwise they tend to distance God rather than bringing us to a closer personal experience of God.
Of course we each have unique personal experiences, which may indicate a plurality of religious experiences. But all Christians believe that Jesus is the unique historical revelation of God, in a form that we can all understand, to which we all can relate – the Word of God made flesh. This provides the essence of our unity in the experience of God. For Christians, the historical Jesus Christ is the basic symbol of God. If we take a look at each of our Christian rituals, we see that they all involve an anamnesis of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, events contained in human history and experience. Anamnesis comes from the Greek, and means “not to forget,” “to remember.” It is a technique of symbolic communication used in many other human symbols and rituals – wedding rings, a dozen long stem roses, covenant contracts and the like.
So when we gather together, at our Christian rituals - at weddings or funerals, baptisms or Sunday Eucharist - we bring our individual personal situations and experiences and we participate in the anamnesis of key historical events in Jesus’ life. We express our relationship with God through our own life experience and our experience of Jesus. This is a participation in the symbolic communication of the Holy Trinity – the love of God, who sent his Son to us, and the love returned by the Son, sending the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. We recall the Last Supper, the Baptism of the Lord, the wedding feast of Cana, the Journey to Emmaus, etc. We make those historical events present to us today - the revelation of God to us through Jesus. We “re-member” the Body of Christ!
The question then arises – what are the key symbols in our rituals? Which symbols best relate our basic symbol (our personal experience) and the basic symbol of God (Jesus)? A key symbol is us – the people gathered together as the Body of Christ. Without “us”, there is no symbolic communication. Other key symbols are those involved in our anamnesis of Jesus life, death and resurrection. Each ritual has different anamnetic symbols – Ministry (service), Word (scripture), water, oil, bread, wine, etc. These symbols work because they readily relate to both our personal experience in life and our experience of Jesus. Next week, in the final installment on symbol and ritual in liturgy and life, I’ll explore how these symbols work and what can inhibit their effectiveness. I’ll also look at why some symbols don’t work well and therefore need some kind of reform.
Moments of Silence During the Mass
In our hustle and bustle lives it is difficult to create time for silence. When there is a period of silence, we often are embarrassed or wonder if someone has forgotten their line. Yet silence is an important part of communication, allowing “the other” to speak. In liturgy, silence allows our mind to reflect on our personal situation and collect our thoughts before we pray as a community. It also allows the proclaimed Word of God to speak to our hearts. The new General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) calls for silence at specific times during the Mass to help us in this regard.
Immediately prior to the beginning of Mass, a period of silence should be observed so that all may prepare themselves – body, mind and spirit – for the liturgy. At the start of the Penitential Rite and again at each invitation to prayer (“let us pray”), the Priest invites us to recollect ourselves in silence so we may focus on what we are about to pray. After each reading and after the homily, the reader, the cantor and the Priest allow us a period of silence for the Word of God to penetrate our senses and touch our heart. Again, after all have received Holy Communion, a period of time is allowed for the priest and the entire assembly to praise God in silent prayer. Sometimes, instead of silence, a hymn or other song of praise may be sung by the entire assembly. This unity, in silence or song, is an expression of our unity in Christ in the Eucharist. When a song is sung after communion, the musicians allow a period of silence between the end of the communion song and the beginning of the song of praise.
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