Summary of the January 2022 issue of Worship
Worship is a peer-reviewed, international ecumenical journal for the study of liturgy and liturgical renewal. Founded in 1926 by Virgil Michel, OSB, and the monks of Saint John’s Abbey, Worship is published quarterly in Collegeville, Minnesota. Subscribe to Worship here.
THE AMEN CORNER
Reflections on Impediments to Synodality:
Polarization and the Escalation of Conflict
Richard R. Gaillardetz
ESSAYS
Let Us Pray Also . . . for Our Muslim Sisters and Brothers:
Catholic-Muslim Relations and the Good Friday Solemn Intercessions
Elizabeth Groppe
In the aftermath of the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, there were important changes to the language of the Good Friday Solemn Intercession for the Jewish people. There is another branch of the Abrahamic family tree who are mentioned in neither the preconciliar Solemn Intercessions nor the postconciliar editions of the Roman Missal: our Muslim sisters and brothers. This article proposes the addition to the Good Friday liturgy of a Solemn Intercession specifically for them. Three theological reasons support this proposal: the distinct character of the relation of the Catholic Church to the Muslim community as articulated in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, our Catholic responsibility for the purification of memory, and the commandment of love of neighbor (Levit 19:17-18; Mark 12:31, Matt 22:38-40).
Finding Divine Beauty in an Age of Liturgical Idolatry
Nicholas Denysenko
If faithful Christians ask their pastor, “Where can I find divine beauty?” many pastors would refer to examples from the liturgy. The liturgical traditions of East and West offer numerous examples of divine beauty. When someone mentions beauty in a community valuing the humanities, it is customary to refer to Dostoevsky’s line that “beauty will save the world.” Following an attempt to identify the contemporary obstacles to seeing divine beauty in the world and in one another, this essay presents suggestions for religious communities with the potential to form faithful, liberating them from the obstacles that cause blindness, and enabling them to see the glory of God in the cosmos and in humankind.
The Theological Challenge of Territorial Acknowledgements in Liturgy
Becca Whitla
In the wake of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission into the residential school system, many communities in Canada are struggling to discern ways to live into the resulting 94 Calls to Action. In this context and spurred on by the Idle No More movement for Indigenous sovereignty and the crisis of over one thousand murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in the country, it has become commonplace for institutions and communities to begin events by acknowledging traditional Indigenous territories. Debates swirl about whether this rite is a genuine action or has become an obligation and empty gesture. This article explores the theological implications of reciting a territorial acknowledgement in Christian worship. I suggest that by adopting a stance of kenosis, or self-limiting, Christians can open out to tangibly giving up power and privilege by interrogating the coloniality inherent in our liturgies and in our lives. Through such a stance, territorial acknowledgements can be understood as an invitation to Christians to understand ourselves not as having dominion over the earth, but as midwives with God, called to care for all creation.
Jesus Hands Himself Over:
The Roots and Reform of Holy/Maundy Thursday in the Roman Rite
Michael H. Marchal
The Roman Catholic celebration of Holy/Maundy Thursday was first revised under Pius XII in the mid-Fifties and then again after Vatican II. Both revisions strove to achieve authenticity within the Roman tradition. Yet, by looking at specific liturgical details such as the use of the color white and the singing of the Gloria, the question must be raised of whether the reforms reflect the deep history of the Roman Rite or more of the piety and devotional practices that evolved in the later Middle Ages. Is the current version of the service celebrating all the events of the night before Jesus’s crucifixion, or is it still a version of Corpus Christi? Does it also reflect the rich eucharistic theology of Vatican II?
Some suggestions are made about how to bring this service might be reconnected more clearly to its scriptural and liturgical roots and to contemporary theology.
BOOK REVIEWS
Mark Roosien reviews Welcoming Finitude: Toward a Phenomenology of Orthodox Liturgy, by Christina M. Gschwandtner. Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. 308 + xxiii pages. $75.00/$35.00. ISBN: 978-0-8232-8643-0; 978-0-8232-8983-7.
Normand Bonneau, OMI, reviews Reading Revelation at Easter Time, by Francis J. Moloney, SDB. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2020. 197 pages. $24.95. ISBN: 978-0-8146-8505-1.
Margaret Daly-Denton reviews Performing the Gospel: Exploring the Borderland of Worship, Entertainment, and the Arts, by Deborah Sokolove. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019. 192 pages. $20.00. ISBN: 978-1-4982-9696-0; 978-1-4982-9697-7.
Irene Nowell, OSB, reviews The Honey of Souls: Cassiodorus and the Interpretation of the Psalms in the Early Medieval West, by Derek Olsen. A Michael Glazier Book. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017. 313 + xii pages. $44.95. ISBN: 978-0-8146-8414-6.
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