I went to Mass with a devout Catholic friend a while ago who is an accomplished singer, musician, and scholar of medieval music.\u00a0 When I warned her that the liturgical music at that particular\u00a0Mass was likely to give her a headache, she responded\u00a0that she knew better than to come to Mass unprepared — she had ear plugs in her purse, at\u00a0every liturgy she attended.<\/p>\n
This friend stands for what I have come to call pro<\/strong><\/em>-active participation at Mass, the kind of embodied presence I\u00a0bring to worship so as\u00a0truly to be open to encountering the Triune God.\u00a0 Such pro-active participation will be specific to each individual worshipper:\u00a0 it might mean earplugs for a highly-trained musician; it will mean\u00a0hard labor for mothers of\u00a0infants (as I well remember); and\u00a0it will entail\u00a0yet something else for a woman\u00a0wheeling her\u00a0mother who suffers from senile dementia to Mass\u00a0in a wheel chair.\u00a0 Moreover, this kind of pro-active participation\u00a0does not only apply to pro-active preparation <\/em><\/strong>but rather accompanies\u00a0the liturgical celebration as a whole.\u00a0 And it also has nothing to do with what one might call “activist” participation but rather is\u00a0an attentive, pro-active\u00a0opening toward what beckons us — and to what might hinder us, as the particular person we are —\u00a0 in being present, in worship, to the Triune God.\u00a0 (Which means that right now, I really need to get ready to hop on my bike,\u00a0so as not to have to race to Mass but be able to cycle in prayerful anticipation :).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I went to Mass with a devout Catholic friend a while ago who is an accomplished singer, musician, and scholar of medieval music. When I warned her that the liturgical music at that particular Mass was likely to give her a headache, she responded that she knew better than to come to Mass unprepared — she had ear plugs in her purse, at every liturgy she attended. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"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":[17],"tags":[330],"class_list":["post-9761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgical-spirituality","tag-participation"],"yoast_head":"\n