{"id":30859,"date":"2015-07-27T15:47:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T20:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=30859"},"modified":"2015-07-27T15:47:48","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T20:47:48","slug":"laudato-si-and-liturgical-life-example-2-how-we-assemble-for-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/27\/laudato-si-and-liturgical-life-example-2-how-we-assemble-for-worship\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLaudato Si\u201d and Liturgical Life — Example 2: How We Assemble for Worship"},"content":{"rendered":"

I keep thinking about the implications of Pope Francis\u2019s Encyclical Laudato Si <\/em>for liturgical life.\u00a0 Today, I ponder some concrete elements of how we assemble for worship.<\/p>\n

First, there is the uncomfortable truth that churches are big consumers of energy, and quite a bit of that consumption happens on Sunday morning.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take the parish of St. Routine as an example.\u00a0 Many of the faithful drive to Mass, often one person or one couple per car.\u00a0 St. Routine\u2019s sizeable parking lot, with conventional asphalt pavement, eases the driving worshippers\u2019 access to the sanctuary.\u00a0 The sanctuary itself is air-conditioned, usually below 74-76 degrees (a recent article in the New York Times<\/em> on America\u2019s addiction to over-air-conditioning made the intriguing point that it serves as a sign of power and prestige to make people feel cold: \u00a0WholeFoods is chillier than Krogers, and Krogers is colder than Piggly Wiggly. — The differing temperatures between \u201cprestigious\u201d and store-front churches will map onto this).<\/p>\n

But of course all this is only the beginning of Sunday morning at St. Routine. We have barely entered the sanctuary.\u00a0 St. Routine, being a nice and welcoming church, has its doors wide open before Mass — never mind the air-conditioning that escapes from the interior. \u00a0Once inside the cool sanctuary, worshippers celebrate what is by most counts a beautiful liturgy \u2013 un-troubled of course by the humanly-engineered threat of ecocide and the desperate need for creation-care (although resources for such liturgical creation care abound, e.g., by the British organization \u201cGreen Christian\u201d (http:\/\/www.greenchristian.org.uk\/<\/a>) which offers online resources like a \u201cprayer guide\u201d and \u201cworship materials\u201d).\u00a0 St. Routine will also never go through a \u201cGreening Congregations Program\u201d (at Earth Ministry (http:\/\/earthministry.org\/<\/a>), take the \u201cSt. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor\u201d (from the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, at http:\/\/www.catholicsandclimatechange.org\/<\/a>), or work through a \u201cworship check-list\u201d about the sustainability of its worship practices (at http:\/\/www.letallcreationpraise.org\/liturgy\/worship-checklist<\/a>).\u00a0 After all, what would motivate St. Routine to consider options like living flowers or plants in the sanctuary; beeswax candles rather than (oil-based) paraffin wax candles; local wine for communion; use of natural lighting, etc.?<\/p>\n

Instead, the faithful file into a nicely air-conditioned hall after Mass, to enjoy coffee in styrofoam cups, before heading home in their cars.<\/p>\n

The trouble with St. Routine of course is not that this community celebrates bad liturgies or that its faithful are bigger sinners than the rest of us.\u00a0 The trouble is that the parish\u2019s liturgical life routinely participates in non-sustainable practices that are by now widely known to further the threat of a catastrophic end to our planet earth.<\/p>\n

And as Pope Francis tweeted on July 2:\u00a0 \u201cStop ruining the garden which God has entrusted to us!\u201d\u00a0 Rather than only the fossil-fuel industry, maybe Francis also had St. Routine in mind?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I keep thinking about the implications of Pope Francis\u2019s Encyclical Laudato Si for liturgical life.\u00a0 Today, I ponder some concrete elements of how we assemble for worship. First, there is the uncomfortable truth that churches are big consumers of energy, and quite a bit of that consumption happens on Sunday morning.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take the parish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2224],"tags":[2969],"class_list":["post-30859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pope-francis","tag-laudato-si-ecology"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cLaudato Si\u201d and Liturgical Life - Example 2: How We Assemble for Worship - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/27\/laudato-si-and-liturgical-life-example-2-how-we-assemble-for-worship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cLaudato Si\u201d and Liturgical Life - Example 2: How We Assemble for Worship - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I keep thinking about the implications of Pope Francis\u2019s Encyclical Laudato Si for liturgical life.\u00a0 Today, I ponder some concrete elements of how we assemble for worship. 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