Shock of a Weekday Liturgy [June 2, 2011]
[I am trying, using the Internet Wayback Machine, to recover some of my posts from my old blog.]
First a haiku:
Scents of Ascension
Incense, olive oil, beeswax
caught up in my beard
It probably isn’t quite the thing to say this, but I really love weekday liturgies.
For one thing, we are almost always celebrating a weekday liturgy because it is a feast. And a feast means different hymns, probably different antiphons. For another thing, it’s often a small crowd. Which for me, means less distraction. I know it shouldn’t be, but I am easily distracted when we have large crowd. I am smiling at the toddler’s antics, or looking to see if my son’s godfather made it this week, or just wool-gathering. All of which are bad habits, I know. But, there you go. [I may also have ADHD, so that doesn't help.]
And finally, I always smell like church afterwards. I’m not sure why, but it seems like the scent of church fades (either in fact or in my mind) much more quickly on Sunday. Not so on weekday liturgies.
This is also true figuratively as well. I retain the sense of holiness, of worship, of existing Eucharistically more strongly following a weekday liturgy. Perhaps because it is “out of the ordinary.” And that says more about my apathy to the weekly Sunday Liturgy than I am quite comfortable admitting.
But apathy isn’t quite right either; It’s not so much apathy as it is settling into the routine.
Desensitized. That’s closer to what I mean. I sink into a place of being desensitized to the astounding reality that Divine Liturgy is: Heaven on Earth, eating and drinking Christ’s Body and Blood.
I hope you don’t let this happen to you, but I expect it does. For myself, I am going to let the shock of a weekday liturgy–The Ascension of Our Lord no less–shake me from my desensitized trance that this Sunday I can see with open eyes and hear with open ears.
First a haiku:
Scents of Ascension
Incense, olive oil, beeswax
caught up in my beard
It probably isn’t quite the thing to say this, but I really love weekday liturgies.
For one thing, we are almost always celebrating a weekday liturgy because it is a feast. And a feast means different hymns, probably different antiphons. For another thing, it’s often a small crowd. Which for me, means less distraction. I know it shouldn’t be, but I am easily distracted when we have large crowd. I am smiling at the toddler’s antics, or looking to see if my son’s godfather made it this week, or just wool-gathering. All of which are bad habits, I know. But, there you go. [I may also have ADHD, so that doesn't help.]
And finally, I always smell like church afterwards. I’m not sure why, but it seems like the scent of church fades (either in fact or in my mind) much more quickly on Sunday. Not so on weekday liturgies.
This is also true figuratively as well. I retain the sense of holiness, of worship, of existing Eucharistically more strongly following a weekday liturgy. Perhaps because it is “out of the ordinary.” And that says more about my apathy to the weekly Sunday Liturgy than I am quite comfortable admitting.
But apathy isn’t quite right either; It’s not so much apathy as it is settling into the routine.
Desensitized. That’s closer to what I mean. I sink into a place of being desensitized to the astounding reality that Divine Liturgy is: Heaven on Earth, eating and drinking Christ’s Body and Blood.
I hope you don’t let this happen to you, but I expect it does. For myself, I am going to let the shock of a weekday liturgy–The Ascension of Our Lord no less–shake me from my desensitized trance that this Sunday I can see with open eyes and hear with open ears.
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