Last week before Mass as I was ironing the lace cottas, a couple of our parishioners approached me about starting something they called a "contemporary worship service." I couldn't make out all of what they were saying, but I understood the gist of it to include guitars and Hawaiian shirts. I spoke to the clergy about this later, and we puzzled over it for some time - "contemporary worship" seemed like an oxymoron at least, if not some kind of practical joke they were going to play on the MC.
We finally decided that they had gotten their words confused, and that after our recent reaching series on Christian mission and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, this was part of a groundswell of people panting after a fuller experience of *Eucharistic adoration.* We had an emergency meeting with the liturgists in the cloister, and started putting together a basic sketch for a Service of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
I couldn't find mention of these "guitars" or "Hawaiian shirts" anywhere, though, and for some reason I could only find Benediction rubrics in liturgy books that date back a few hundred years. I was wondering if any other AMiA parishes have already developed some "contemporary" version of these rubrics for your own Eucharistic adoration that we might lean upon?
Cheers!
feeling the feelings…
7 years ago
Comments
1 comment:
LoL...awesome post man!
I ran across a quote in a book today that made me think of this:
"True worship must reflect the reality of who God is. That is, whatever the liturgical forms may be, they must conform to certain theological norms. But for many advocates of "contemporary worship" this fact is often obscured by attempts at ad hoc constructions of "orders" of worship the pay more attention to what the congregation demands than to what God requires...One gets the impression, that God is nice, accommodating and friendly, always expected to meet my needs and solve my problems. One gets immanence (fascinans) without transcendence (tremendum)...Perhaps we all need reminding that Aslan is "not a tame lion"!...
"...When modern evangelicals-charismatic churches arbitraily construct their worship to cater to human needs and whims, they are doing primary theology. But it is a false theology, because it distorts our vision of the divine glory. This failure to understand what true worship is stems from a failure to understand what the church is. Conversely, a sound liturgical theology will also reveal the true nature of the church."
"Liturgical Theology" Simon Chan
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