Category: Ritual Studies
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When Do We Worship?
If we sometimes wonder why people find mass boring, perhaps the answer has something to do with how well our liturgical space and action evoke a natural sense of worship and true adoration of God.
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An ‘Abundance of Rituals’: selling spirituality in a systemic vacuum
A few weeks ago, Timothy Brunk contributed a blog to this site titled Corporation Rituals (28 September 2020). It caught my eye because it captures an aspect of the ‘ritual boutique business’ that has exploded in the past 30 years (and because it is the focus of my sabbatical research and writing!) So, inspired by…
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Corporation Rituals
On 28 August, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “God Is Dead. So Is the Office. These People Want to Save Both.”
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The Liturgies Marking the Passing of a Loved One
9/16/2019 – One Year Later It was one year ago this evening that I received an unexpected call from Life Alert saying that my mother had activated her button, thinking that she was having a stroke. Her own mother and sister had died of a stroke and she was always worried that this would be…
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Wait, can I do that?
In a time of pandemic, how do our own ritual practices around the liturgy change? What retains the same meaning with different attire, and what is added or lost?
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Again and again let us pray to the Lord
Through repetition, we “remember the future.”
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Brief Book Review: Human Rites
Dr. Melinda Quivik reviews Human Rites: The Power of Rituals, Habits, and Sacraments by Dru Johnson.
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Devotional Prayer and Community
In early October, I was in Nairobi teaching at a program for contemplative nuns, and afterward I spent a few days with the Benedictine nuns at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery outside the city, in rural Kiambu. As I have written about before, this is still a fairly new community, and it is fascinating…
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Monastery Spotlight: Queen of Peace Benedictines, Rutherfordton, North Carolina
While yet a small community, clearly these sisters cherish the beauty of monastic ritual.