{"id":43684,"date":"2018-10-29T09:39:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T14:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=43684"},"modified":"2018-11-02T07:50:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T12:50:00","slug":"eucharistic-praying-and-consumerism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/29\/eucharistic-praying-and-consumerism\/","title":{"rendered":"Eucharistic Praying and Consumerism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to present here a sketch of how lex orandi, lex credendi<\/em> addresses a consumer mentality.\u00a0 Giving thanks to God is an essential aspect of Christian liturgy, especially Eucharistic liturgy.\u00a0 Giving thanks is mentioned explicitly three times in the Second Vatican Council\u2019s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (in nos. 6, 48, and 105) and six times in the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (in nos. 2, 5, 48, 54, 55, and 62).\u00a0 Acknowledging gratitude and thankfulness occurs throughout the Mass, including, notably, as the final words spoken by the assembly.\u00a0 This is not a matter merely of rendering thanks to God for discrete blessings (e.g., acknowledging God\u2019s revelatory initiative in readings from Scripture).\u00a0 In no. 331 of their pastoral letter Economic Justice for All<\/em>, the American bishops noted that it is a matter of learning a disposition of gratitude:<\/p>\n

The liturgy teaches us to have grateful<\/em> hearts<\/em>: to thank God for the gift of life, the gift of this earth, and the gift of all people. It turns our hearts from self-seeking to a spirituality that sees the signs of true discipleship in our sharing of goods and working for justice. By uniting us in prayer with all the people of God, with the rich and the poor, with those near and dear, and with those in distant lands, liturgy challenges our way of living and refines our values. Together in the community of worship, we are encouraged to use the goods of this earth for the benefit of all. In worship and in deeds for justice, the Church becomes a \u201csacrament,\u201d a visible sign of that unity in justice and peace that God wills for the whole of humanity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Every Eucharistic prayer begins with an opening dialogue, the conclusion of which has the priest saying, \u201cLet us give thanks to the Lord our God\u201d and the assembly responding, \u201cIt is right and just.\u201d\u00a0 Eucharistic Prayers III and IV proceed right away to make express mention of the gift of life.\u00a0 If life is a gift then our appropriation of ourselves as living beings is not patient of every possible use.\u00a0 The Christian objection to suicide, for example, is grounded in part on the notion that one is not authorized to destroy the life that one was given.\u00a0 More than this, however, is that if we accept that life is a gift from God and if we accept that God is good then it follows that life is good.\u00a0 Corporeal life is good.\u00a0 Embodied life is good.\u00a0 Compare this perspective on embodied life with John Kavanaugh\u2019s observation on the message that a consumerist society sends out:<\/p>\n

And this is [the] relentless message which assaults the self-worth and perceptions of millions: your hair is too long, your hair is too short, your skin is too light or too dark, your smells are noxious, you are too fat, too thin, too blemished, you must have a training bra in fifth grade or you will have no friends, your breasts are too large or frightfully small, you can stop traffic in a Maidenform bra, you will be frigid or impotent if you do not use Hai Karate or Musk. Our narcissistic buying is motivated by an<\/em> anomalous self-loathing<\/em>.\u00a0 (John Kavanaugh, Still Following Christ in a Consumer Society<\/em> [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991], 36.\u00a0 Italics added.)<\/p>\n

I am not<\/em> attempting to mount an argument in favor of poor hygiene and poor grooming.\u00a0 Indeed, the quality of the body as gift requires that one care for one\u2019s body.\u00a0 However, I am<\/em> saying that the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi<\/em> implies that our bodies are good.\u00a0 I am also saying that the perfection that can come to our bodies \u2013 of which we have a proleptic glimpse in the body of the Resurrected Lord \u2013 is again something that comes to us as gift.\u00a0 The body, a condition of the possibility of human life, does require appropriate care.\u00a0 Ostentation, however, can imply that the body \u2013 vessel of the gift of life \u2013 simply is not good enough.\u00a0 Lex orandi, lex credendi<\/em>: how we are to come to liturgy reminds us that the body is good enough.\u00a0 The \u2018anomalous self-loathing\u2019 to which Kavanaugh refers is a creature of consumerism and it has no place in liturgy and no place in Christian life generally.<\/p>\n

I would argue as well that Prosper\u2019s dictum implies having gratitude for the presence of others in one\u2019s life.\u00a0 Particularly telling is a line from Eucharistic Prayer II: \u201cWe thank you for counting us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you.\u201d\u00a0 This text might be recast, broadly speaking, as \u201cWe thank you for giving us faith and letting us fulfill the obligations of that faith.\u201d\u00a0 A condition of the possibility for any member of the liturgical assembly to pray these words and mean them is the baptism that seals that person\u2019s faith and that each person has received from another.\u00a0 The assembly participates in the Eucharistic prayer by virtue of the universal priesthood of believers conferred in and through baptism which is something no one administers to him- or herself.\u00a0 Gratitude for being able to stand in God\u2019s presence and render service to God implies gratitude for those people who, as agents of God in one\u2019s life, have nurtured and sustained the faith one brings to the Eucharistic liturgy.<\/p>\n

However important the institution narrative of the Eucharistic Prayer may be, excessive emphasis on that narrative can obscure the wider context of thanksgiving to the Father that is the raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> of the prayer.\u00a0 It follows, then, that excessive emphasis on the institution narrative can weaken the sense in which Eucharistic Prayer counters a consumerist mentality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

However important the institution narrative of the Eucharistic Prayer may be, excessive emphasis on that narrative can obscure the wider context of thanksgiving to the Father that is the raison d\u2019\u00eatre of the 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