{"id":32467,"date":"2016-02-16T10:38:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T16:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=32467"},"modified":"2016-02-16T10:38:41","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T16:38:41","slug":"liturgical-study-club-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/16\/liturgical-study-club-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Liturgical Study Club 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last semester, I had a handful of students approach me, asking if they could read more about liturgy. In my mind, I was in 1947, with <a href=\"http:\/\/liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/hans-anscar-reinhold.html\" target=\"_blank\">Hans Anscar Reinhold<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/godfrey-diekmann-osb.html\" target=\"_blank\">Godfrey Diekmann<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com\/2008\/12\/franz-and-terese-mueller-life-in.html\" target=\"_blank\">Therese Mueller<\/a>, imagining what exciting things we could talk about as a reading group, or, as I like to call it, our \u201cLiturgical Study Club.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStudy Clubs\u201d were a fairly common way amongst mid-twentieth century Roman Catholics to gather together to consider a topic related to faith and morals. Organized groups, such as Catholic Action cells, the National Council of Catholic Women, and the National Council of Catholic Men, ran study clubs. Professors in seminaries ran study clubs; groups of college students ran study clubs. On the one hand, study clubs were meant to be educational\u2014but they also served to affirm and shape Catholic identity. People who desired to delve into their Catholic faith and theology took part in these groups, but participation also became a mark of active participation in Catholic intellectual culture and involvement with a Catholic social network.\u00a0 Aside from socializing and snacks, study clubs also required work\u2026and the beginning of any such club often had a much brighter future than at its middle\u2026or end.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, to my inner liturgical-movement-pioneer\u2019s crazed delight, a group of a dozen students (!) past and present, gathered with me and my husband to discuss our chosen topic: liturgical time.\u00a0 We came prepared, having read 1) a section of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel\u2019s <em>The Sabbath <\/em>(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951); 2) a selection from St. Augustine\u2019s <em>Confessions<\/em> from the section on \u201cTime\u201d; and 3) Ir\u00e9n\u00e9e H. Dalmais\u2019 introduction to <em>The Liturgy and Time <\/em>volume from <em>The Church at Prayer<\/em> series (Liturgical Press, 1986).<\/p>\n<p>During the course of our meeting, I was surprised by how some students saw a sharp distinction between Heschel&#8217;s and Augustine&#8217;s presentation of \u201ctime\u201d and \u201ceternity.\u201d One student observed that, while Augustine <em>distinguishes<\/em> between God\u2019s time, or \u201ceternity\u201d and the human experience of &#8220;time,&#8221; Heschel sees <em>continuity<\/em> between God\u2019s \u201ceternity\u201d and human \u201ctime.\u201d Augustine begins his book XI of the <em>Confessions <\/em>by proclaiming:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cLord, eternity is yours\u2026. Who will lay hold on the human heart to make it still, so that it can see how eternity, in which there is neither future nor past, stands still and dictates future and past times?\u201d (11, 1 &amp; 13).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For Augustine, \u201ctime\u201d is a human invention\u2014humans attempt to control time, but descriptions of a \u201clong time\u201d or a \u201cshort time\u201d all seem absurd in the face of God whose \u201cToday is eternity.\u201d (11, 16). In the end, Augustine asks with exasperation, \u201cWhat then is time? \u201d (11, 17).<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the students noticed how differently Heschel describes time. As Heschel explains:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cJudaism is a <em>religion of time<\/em> aiming at <em>the sanctification of time<\/em>. \u2026 Judaism teaches us to be attached to <em>holiness in time<\/em>, to be attached to sacred events\u2026.\u201d (8).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For Heschel, the Sabbaths, marked by hours, form \u201cgreat cathedrals\u201d and the ritual of the Sabbath, festivals, and years, create an \u201carchitecture of time\u201d which <em>is<\/em> God\u2019s time and is\u2014<em>qadosh\u00ad\u2014<\/em>or holy. (9)<\/p>\n<p>Why did this distinction matter?\u00a0 As our discussion continued, I was fascinated that part of the concern the students had with Heschel\u2019s presentation of sacred <em>time<\/em>\u2026was that sacred <em>space<\/em> seemed left by the wayside. Which then, is more significant for the liturgical experience\u2014sacred time or sacred space? Though I would be the first to embrace a classic Catholic sacramental worldview and claim that creation reflects the goodness of God, I have to admit I am compelled by Heschel\u2019s argument: what was the first \u201choly\u201d object in the history of the world? It was no object\u2014neither mountain, nor altar, nor tree nor river. For Judaism, and for Christianity, the first \u201cthing\u201d which is blessed is not a thing at all: \u201cAnd God blessed the seventh <em>day <\/em>and made it <em>holy<\/em>.\u201d (Gen 2:3 ; Heschel 9.)<\/p>\n<p>God created the world, and has asked humans to bless God\u2019s name by building sanctuaries in which they might gather as a community to worship God. But, first, humans are invited to participate in God\u2019s time\u2014eternity\u2014through <em>remembering to keep it<\/em>. Humans begin their worship of God by taking time for the holy.\u00a0 Space, then, becomes the human vehicle to participate in God\u2019s time, when we living, time-bound creatures \u201cgive glory and honor and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever.\u201d (Revelation 4:9)<\/p>\n<p>We meet again this week. Wish us luck, as we take time, in community, to remember the liturgy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Which is more significant for the liturgical experience\u2014sacred time or sacred space?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[619,91,1137,379],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgical-movement","category-liturgical-year","category-teaching-liturgy","category-young-adults"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Liturgical Study Club 2016 - 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\/2016\/02\/16\/liturgical-study-club-2016\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Liturgical Study Club 2016 - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Which is more significant for the liturgical experience\u2014sacred time or sacred space?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/16\/liturgical-study-club-2016\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-16T16:38:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/pt.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"411\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"90\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katharine E. 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