{"id":61356,"date":"2023-01-14T13:08:14","date_gmt":"2023-01-14T19:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=61356"},"modified":"2023-02-06T11:06:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T17:06:56","slug":"man-will-one-day-reach-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/14\/man-will-one-day-reach-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Will One Day Reach the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe milestone marked by the first photo of Earth taken from space occurred within the lifetimes of many of our present-day church members.\u00a0 As a human community, we are still in the midst of the same radical shifts in our knowledge and perspective as those associated with Galileo\u2019s telescope.\u201d*<\/p>\n

I encountered these lines while doing research on the topic of children, liturgy, and ecology.\u00a0 I chuckled to myself when I read them because while I am among those about whom the author writes (the photo was taken during my lifetime), I am also among those whose grade-school science textbooks confidently predicted some six years after the event that \u201cman [sic] will one day reach the moon.\u201d\u00a0 Fifth-grade me read those lines and reacted with a \u201cWell, duh.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been to the moon. \u00a0Everybody knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fifth-grade me may have made all kinds of assumptions about literacy and about access to audio and visual news media around the world, but in my classroom, at least, it was universally known that astronauts had walked on the moon.\u00a0 Many of those in subsequent generations could also take this fact for granted, even as they also take for granted the existence of laptop computers, smartphones, and any number of other technical marvels of recent decades.\u00a0 (One might also add having to live in the shadow of 9\/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . )<\/p>\n

Among other things that happen at Mass each week, believers recite or sing \u201cWe proclaim your death, O Lord \/ and profess your Resurrection \/ until you come again\u201d or one of the other variants of the Memorial Acclamation.\u00a0 The fifth-grader who still lives somewhere in me is tempted to react as he did to the science textbook: \u201cWell, duh.\u00a0 Everybody knows that.\u201d\u00a0 This reaction misses at least two points.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It did not have to be this way. That Christ came and died and rose is a function of God\u2019s gratuitous and unmerited love.\u00a0 To take the acclamation for granted is to lose sight of God\u2019s gift.<\/li>\n
  2. The celebration of the Paschal Mystery, which is the context for the acclamation, involves making real and experiencing anew God\u2019s saving power. The acclamation is not a matter merely of repeating data.\u00a0 The recollection of the data, especially in and through the Eucharistic Prayer and the reception of Communion makes of the data an *event* or *happening* of God\u2019s grace in the present even as this gracious power was at work in the life, death and resurrection of Christ.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Point (1) can apply to the photo of the Earth.\u00a0 We could have lived in a world where travel to outer space never happened.\u00a0 We can be grateful.\u00a0 (1) also applies to wars and catastrophes.\u00a0 We can be sober-minded and ponder how to pick ourselves up and try again.<\/p>\n

    With respect to (2), however, when sacramental celebration becomes mere repetition or recall of a past event, then in important respects its sacramental quality is undercut.\u00a0 If God\u2019s kindness is new every morning (see Lam 3:22-23), so too can our praise and gratitude be ever renewed.<\/p>\n

    *Benjamin Stewart, A Watered Garden: Christian Worship and Earth\u2019s Ecology<\/em> (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2011), 13-14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Well, duh.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been to the moon. \u00a0Everybody knows that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":61358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[3119,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","category-liturgical-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nMan Will One Day Reach the Moon - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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