Father, can we do the same thing in mass for a few weeks in a row?

I was the new vicar. At coffee hour that first Sunday I invited people to ask me questions. The first one was from Rose, “Father, can we do the same thing in mass for a few weeks in a row?” I came to understand that they had gone through years of liturgy grounded in the priest’s feelings and preferences. As they descripted it, it would be solemnity one Sunday and balloons the next. Periods in which Rite 1 and 2 alternated weeks; “you” one week and “thou” the next. Changes in prayers to reinforce some point the priest was trying to make in the sermon. Prayer as exhortation.  

They felt jerked around.

There was no common prayer. Real common prayer looks like this:

• We know the words
• We know the gestures
• We know the rhythm
• We own it

One Sunday, when I was in college, I was with my girlfriend Pat at her Roman Catholic parish in Philadelphia. Vatican II had changed the mass and the norms about common worship. I think the priest may have been starting the Great Thanksgiving. He looked at the congregation and said, “Put down the rosary beads and pay attention to the mass!” He’s method wasn’t the best. A bit of empathy might have helped. After all, for generations the mass had been in Latin. Saying the Rosery seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do when you couldn’t understand what was being said up front. And, maybe I had the priest wrong. For all I knew he had with gentleness and patience been trying to bring people along. Maybe it was just a bad day for the man.

He sought their participation.  A good thing. And he didn’t understand their resistance.

I’ve been reading Bruce Reed and Martin Thornton. In The Dynamics of Religion[i], Reed looks at the liturgy from the standpoint of the behavioral sciences. Thornton comes at it in terms of pastoral theology and Christian proficiency.

Using different language systems each assumes the Christian is engaged in a cycle, an oscillation. Reed writes of a movement from extra-dependency to intra-dependency. In essence from dependence upon God as mediated through worship, sacraments, the priest, and a dozen other symbols of religious faith to responsible participation in the life of the world. From dependence on something outside oneself to dependence on one’s own judgement. Thornton writes of the cycle as being “between conscious attention to God and subconscious reliance upon him.”[ii]

Both assume that “health” has to do with managing the oscillation. On the one end of the cycle there’s a need for what I call productive dependency. It is on the individual to manage their participation in a functional manner. And it is on the priest, and other guardians of the symbolic, to manage the communal processes and structures. Either can cut across there being productive dependency and/or completing the oscillation to a free and responsible way of living in the world. 

Reed says, “The paramount skill of the priest is to be aware of and sensitive to process whether consciously or unconsciously…. the power of the ritual to evoke symbols and discharge feelings, and be able to lead it so that the worshipers can be without distractions in worshiping God. … needs to appreciate the place of dependence in life and be able to work with people in the dependent condition.”  Priests that are unable to accept that they are both human and symbols will fail at the task. And we need to acknowledge that no priest is perfect at the task. But there is a spectrum from competent to incompetent.

Back to the priest saying, “Put down the rosery beads.” Over generations people incorporated saying the rosary during mass into the extra-dependence part of their oscillation. Mass in Latin, lots of rhythm and gracefulness on movement, and saying the rosary. The church was now changing the way it wanted people to manage that oscillation. People had to develop a new competence. It took time. They were anxious. The priest was anxious too.

Reed takes note of the priest’s anxiety. Reed suggests that it is by the priest’s “conscious and deliberate investment” in the liturgical action that her own anxiety is managed and the liturgy becomes an authentic offering to God and the congregation. "The priest, when he conducts the liturgy, is in a perpetual tension because in order to manage (the extra-dependence activity) for the benefit of the worshipers, including himself, he has to maintain an intra-dependent activity.”  Newly ordained priests often complain about their inability to worship in the way they could when in seminary or their old parish. Reed assumes that the new priest must have personal qualities including spirituality, needed skills and a capacity for leadership. "Otherwise, lacking these powers he may fall back on his position to assert himself." My take on this is that the new priest needs adequate skill in five areas: leadership ability, emotional maturity, spiritual maturity, competence in priestly skills (preaching, presiding, coaching people in prayer life), and priestliness (accepting that she is just human and is a symbolic person)

Reed continues, “because of this immense strain the priest needs to be clear about his boundaries, so that he knows exactly what to do and say, and be confident in what he represents. The development of set liturgies aids both these, by taking away the uncertainty about the content and diminishing anxiety” about the work activity.

It is in the use of ancient liturgies, shaped and authorized by the whole church, that the priest is strengthened in an identity as a representative of the truth and wisdom which is derived from the apostles. “The use of robes and vestments shows the distinctive role he is taking, and the architecture of the building and arrangement of furniture give clear signals about the significance of the successive phases of liturgy.  During the service and after, the priest needs to be on alert to his own human reactions. If he tends toward overscrupulousness in concentrating on too many details which makes the ritual wooden or disjointed, he realizes that he is using the ceremony as a defense of himself against his anxieties and fears…. If he throws his prayer book away and behaves spontaneously, he may be experiencing the overruling of the Holy Spirit, or he may be succumbing to the seduction of the congregation’s regression to extra dependence which he is unable to control.” Which is to say—the priest steps out of role and gets lost.

In my story of a congregation feeling “jerked around” by a priest too given to his own feelings and instincts we might see the need for Reed’s insight that the development and use of set liturgies allows the priest to more effectively manage her anxiety which rise from her having to be “on”, to be at work. Being yourself and staying in role (accept being the symbol) is easier when you offer common prayer; worship owned by the larger and local church. Worship in which the words, rhythms and gestures are shared, belong to priest and people in a shared offering to God.

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[i] Bruce Reed, The Dynamics of Religion: Process in Movement in Christian Churches, Darton, Longman and Todd publishers, 1978, pp.170-172

[ii] Morton Thornton, Spiritual Direction, Cowley Press, 1984, p. 116

Space for hope

Love tried to stop her, to silence her. Hope freed her.

In today’s New York Times, Amanda Gorman wrote about how she almost didn’t read her poem at the Inauguration last year. Fear was trying to capture her soul. Hope freed her.

“I was terrified.”

She writes about a fear of failing her people and her vocation. Then there was safety. Covid when you’re not vaccinated. Domestic terrorists who had controlled that space just weeks before. High visibility when you are “Black and outspoken.” Friends joking, sort of, about getting a bulletproof vest. Friends and family who love you and want to keep you safe.

Amanda Gorman doesn’t say it as bluntly as I will now. Love can silence us. Love can attack our identity and vocation. Love demands that we stay safe. Love wants us to be in spaces that are safe. With people who are safe. Love wants us to be comfortable. 

She writes, that as she moved toward the dais, “I felt warm, like the words waiting in my mouth were aflame.”  

I hear her and think she was set free by the Holy Spirit’s relentless call to be who you are. In John Macquarrie’s words to be among those who are “free, responsible beings united in love.” Notice how love, real love reenters the picture. It’s the love of a commonwealth and people who are free and responsible.

I hear her poem from that day and hear her hope.  (the text). In a nation being called to find safety in the authoritarian worlds of left or right she “witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.” She invited us to be “a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.”

Our parish churches, those wonderful and sacred mysteries, exist within the context of a society in which most people are afraid to say what they think. It’s the proclamation of false love. Love that would have us be safe. Peter’s fear speaks to us – “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” (Matthew 16:22) Peter had yet to learn what it was to be the rock. Jesus then shares the awful good news “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matt 16:25)

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In-person and online attenders

Father Peter Anthony is the Vicar of All Saints Margaret Street in London. For a number of years, I’ve received the parish’s weekly e-newsletter which includes comments by the vicar. Todays was his reflection on the changes brought about by the mix of in-person and online attenders.  Here are his broad conclusions.

We have substantially more people worshipping with us both online and in person during the week than we used to. By contrast, on Sundays we have fewer Masses than we used to, and fewer people worshipping in person. However, if you include online worshippers, a clear growth in the total number of Sunday worshippers by comparison with the autumn of 2018 is to be seen – which is an extraordinary achievement for our parish given the COVID complications of the past 2 years!

Some key questions emerge from these figures which it will be important for us to think about over the next year. What can we do to increase the number of people attending the Sunday High Mass? Is there worth in restoring the Saturday evening vigil Mass? What trends are discernable in attendance at Evensong and Benediction, and might this become an area of growth? How can we include the needs and perspectives of those who worship online in our thinking and planning?

There is much to reflect upon in these figures, but above all we should give thanks to God for the resources he has given us, which allow us to reach out in new ways to his world. Let us pray for the courage, ingenuity and insight to respond to the new challenges we are presented with in ways that help draw new people to faith in Jesus Christ.

You can read the whole thing at this page on the parish website.

My guess is that many clergy in American parishes are pondering the issue. At St. Clements where Sister Michelle, OA and I attend the shift to a mix of in-person and online attendance has been going on for a number of months. At the moment we’re more online than in-person because of Omicron. But at some point, we’ll return to our new normal – the Eucharist with an in-person congregation of 30 to 40 and a somewhat smaller group joining us online. Then there’s those who attend online later in the day on Sunday through YouTube. My impression is that the totals will continue to be higher than what they were with all in-person worship in 2019.

What will our rector make of all this? What will parishioners make of it? How about your parish? Any broad conclusions being reached?

I think there are at least three levels to that work.

First, what’s the data? What are the actual numbers? How do they compare to pre-pandemic numbers? Who are they? What’s happening to the parish’s worship during the week?  Peter Anthony did look at that for All Saints. He notes, “At the moment, therefore, total daily in-person attendance is in the range of 15-20. If you add online live worshippers, this rises to a daily total of around 30-35.” Also, the “12 noon Mass is broadcast each day. It regularly attracts 10-15 people worshiping in person and a further 15-20 attending virtually.”

Second, what actions are needed now? For example, Fr. Anthony looks at the weekday pattern and concludes that there is no need to return to the pre-pandemic pattern of three daily celebrations. He writes, “It is clear we have better total attendance with two Masses a day than we used to have before COVID with three celebrations of the Eucharist. The daily broadcasting of the 12 noon liturgy is also evidently a valued practice welcomed by many. My own personal instinct is that there is no need for the 8.00 am daily Mass to return, and that we are better off concentrating on two Masses at 12 noon and 6.15 pm.” My first thought was entirely self-oriented -- but, but, but ... when Sister Michelle and I have visited London we have frequently gone to the 8:00 am mass. That, of course, isn't anything Fr. Anthony should pay much attention to in the larger picture. As the pastors of parishes reflect upon the data, decisions will be needed that will unsettle some in the congregation. Leaders are always faced with serving both the mission and the people. And, at times, they are in conflict. 

Third, what do we make of things as we apply models of pastoral theology to the situation? This is a broader and longer term reflection. Though we are wise to take it into account even as we act now.

The recent Parish Development Clinic on Zoom, conducted by Sister Michelle, Brother Poulson, and I made use of the book A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery: A Practical Theology of the Parish Church. What would we see if we made use of the models in the book. 

There’s a chapter called “Power from the Center Pervades the Whole.”  It makes use of critical mass theories seen in Martin Thornton’s Remnant Theory and my Shape of the Parish model. The assumption being that a parish is grounded in faithfulness by those who are proficient in the core spiritual practices of our tradition. The parish becomes both more stable and more resilient as the impact of those people “pervades the whole.”

Our exploration would be enriched if we made use of the ideas in other chapters. What is the effect of in-person and online participation on the cultural density of the parish? How about in regard to certain intrinsic dynamics such as bearing one another’s burdens or the oscillation between baptism renewal and living as instruments of God’s love in daily life? Or take the chapter on the goals of parish development and focus on the Benedictine Promise.

In Stability as a parish we find God here and now in the relationships and pattern of our life together.

In Obedience as a parish we find God as we listen deeply to the world; to Scripture; to the Church, now and through the ages; to each other; to the creation; and to the deepest longings and prayer of our heart.

In Conversion of Life as a parish we find God on our journey together and in the new places we will go as a parish, in losing life to find life, in our openness to transformation.

What is the likely impact of the in-person and online participants on how the dynamics of the Promise will take place in the years ahead?

All this may be a relatively new matter for the church. Other institutions have been struggling with it for years. Do we bring all the sales associates to headquarters to meet in person or do we do it as an online gathering? Online has a less negative financial impact. There are no travel costs. But when we look at the dynamics of group development we see other issues. If we look at Chris Argyris’ “Intervention Theory”  he assumes that a group gets to a high level of internal commitment based on having high levels of engaging “valid and useful information” and “free choice.” Or we might use Tuckman's “Stages of Team Development” that assumes getting to high performance is based on how well a group navigates the earlier stages of forming, storming, and norming. Do we get higher levels of internal commitment and performance when we do more in-person work?

Similarly, does a parish do better with more in person gatherings when we consider power from the center pervades the whole or the dynamics of stability, obedience, and conversion of life? How will we respond when pressure builds to “be more inclusive” by allowing online worshippers to run for the vestry? Will we allow them to vote at the parish meeting? Does it matter if the person is someone we have never known “in-person” or if they have faithfully attended the Eucharist in person for 30 years and now are shut in?

Finally, two quotes from Evelyn Underhill

We are to be transformed, consecrated, made sacred to his creative purpose; and so fulfill the meaning of our life. 

You are the Body of Christ....That is to say; in you and through you the method and work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are meant to incarnate in your lives the themes of your adoration. You are to be taken, consecrated, broken, and made a means of grace; vehicles of the Eternal Charity. 

How does the process of sanctification that she offers occur in relation to in-person and online community? Is the process active but different? What adjustments are needed in community norms and incorporation processes to serve both groups and not water down the process for those in-person because we are concerned about the inclusion of those online?

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ALSO SEE:

EMBODIED WORSHIP

FAITH IN THE METAVERSE

Blessed Desmond Tutu: Spiritual practice and Christian action

I have two images of Bishop Tutu. He is the backseat of a car praying the daily office and Father Trevor Huddleston, CR[i] visiting a thirteen year-old Tutu in his two year struggle with tuberculosis. 

There are two themes, seen in Desmond Tutu’s life, that I’ll explore. First, the relationship between living the spiritual practices of the Anglican tradition and how that influences Christian action for justice. The second, in a future post, on the role of Religious Orders and their members on the rest of the church.

In Michael Battle’s book on Bishop Tutu he wrote, “Serving as Tutu’s chaplain in those years, praying, driving, and even jogging with him, I learned not to talk too much, to allow Tutu to be contemplative in the midst of his hectic schedule. I recall one such trip to St. James Church, a white church in Kenilworth, a suburb of Cape Town. The day before, the church had witnessed a massacre, perpetrated by four black members of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA). Eleven members of the congregation were killed and fifty-eight wounded. Tutu had been called out of morning prayer to make the emergency trip, and as we set off on the journey, I heard him resume his prayers from the back seat. It was at that moment I realized the insight of Tutu’s deep spirituality: the hardest thing for him in the midst of a turbulent world was to keep saying his prayers every day.”

Just as in 1984, when I drove him to address a convention,  there he was in the backseat of a car praying the Daily Office. Battle might be right that the bishop found it hard to stay with the prayers when things were stormy and chaotic. The word that came to my mind was “necessary.” It was necessary for him to be steadfast in the church’s rhythms of adoration and praise. His ability to engage what he faced was depended on his relationship with God and his relationship with God had its grounding in mass, office, and personal devotions, especially silence and reflection.

He was clear about the nature of the church and its worship.

The Church is the fellowship whence adoration, worship and praise ascend to the heavenly throne and in company with the angels and archangels and with the whole host of heaven we sing as did the cherubic choir in Isaiah’s vision and as we shall soon be bidden to do in his glorious service: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

That’s from Tutu: Voice of the Voiceless, Shirley Du Boulay, p. 213. It’s from a sermon by Bishop Tutu as he was enthroned as Bishop of Johannesburg. Du Boulay introduced the quote this way – “for the most part, however, his charge was a theological dissertation on the nature of the church and his intentions for the diocese. He questioned whether the church was a cozy club, a mystical ivory tower, a spiritual ghetto or a center of good works. No, it existed primarily for the worship of God.”

At the center of his spiritual practice was the Threefold Rule of Prayer. It was the Prayer Book Pattern of Eucharist, Daily Office, and the assumption of personal devotions. And all that then adapted to his personal temperament and African context and sensibilities. Du Boulay wrote of the “rich diversity” of his nature. It was both formal and informal, dignified and intimate. Deeply Anglican, it held African elements in an easy embrace, deeply spiritual, it was imbued with the spirit of festivity. Its high seriousness did not exclude humour” (p. 257)

“When he was an active bishop, Tutu kept a rigorous schedule. At four in the morning he would wake, and then be on his knees in prayer for an hour. At five thirty, Tutu would walk and be silent. He would shower and be at his desk around six—often reading but also doing some desk work. At seven forty-five there would be morning prayer followed by the eight o’clock Eucharist. Breakfast would come around eight thirty.” (Michael Battle, Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa’s Confessor) This was the kind of disciplined prayer life he had been formed in when a student at St. Peter’s preparing for ordination. “Every day there was compulsory meditation before breakfast, followed by Matins and Mass. There were frequent retreats and devotional addresses. He was continually impressed by the amount of time these men devoted to prayer; apart from the round of monastic offices, there was always someone on his knees in the Fathers’ chapel.” (p.48)

The bishop’s approach seems to have been grounded in a sensitivity that Evelyn Underhill expressed this way.

“One’s first duty is adoration, and one’s second duty is awe and only one’s third duty is service. And that for those three things and nothing else, addressed to God and no one else, you and I and all other countless human creatures evolved upon the surface of this planet were created. We observe then that two of the three things for which our souls were made are matters of attitude, of relation: adoration and awe. Unless these two are right, the last of the triad, service, won’t be right. Unless the whole of your...life is a movement of praise and adoration, unless it is instinct with awe, the work which the life produces won’t be much good.” (p 22 Concerning the Inner Life, Evelyn Underhill)

“For the real saint is neither a special creation nor a spiritual freak. He is just a human being in whom has been fulfilled the great aspiration of St. Augustine – “My life shall be a real life, being wholly full of Thee.” And as that real life, the interior union with God grows, so too does the saints’ self­-identification with humanity grow. They do not stand aside wrapped in delightful prayers and feeling pure and agreeable to God. They go right down into the mess; and there, right down in the mess, they are able to radiate God because they possess Him.” (p 96)

The parish development work related to this is about how we ground a core of parishioners in the same Threefold Rule of Prayer, our tradition's starting place for adoration and praise. In such work we properly orient people toward the true nature of the church, connect them with the ancient practices that nurture the stability and flexibility needed for modern life, and strengthen them for their efforts "right down into the mess."

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You can find handouts of the Threefold Rule of Prayer among the Shaping the Parish Resources

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[i] Trevor Huddleston served as a priest in South Africa from 1940 to 1956. Most of that time was at the Community of the Resurrection mission station at Rosettenville (Johannesburg, South Africa). He later served as master of novices at CR's Mirfield mother house in West Yorkshire, as prior of the order's priory in London, as Bishop of Masasi (Tanzania), and Bishop of Stepney, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of London.

Being wise

This posting is a bit of wisdom from Mother Erika Takacs, rector of Atonement, Chicago. I’ll add a few thoughts of my own at the end.                         

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There is this silly joke that says if the Wise Men had been Wise Women, they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, and brought diapers, formula, and a casserole instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I’ve never loved this joke; I’ve always found these kind of gender stereotypes to be a bit silly, honestly. But for some reason this week, this joke made me wonder: what does make the wise men so wise? After all, they’re late, they don’t seem to be able to find where they’re going without Herod’s help (even though there’s a huge glowing star to lead the way)—and, yes, they don’t bring the most practical gifts. (Maybe a picture book of gold, frankincense, and myrrh would have been better?)

But, of course, wise men they are, and they show us this wisdom in some surprising—and surprisingly relevant—ways:

1. They’re late to the party, but they show up anyway. How many times have we thought that it was too late for us, that there was too much ground for us to cover in our faith and so we might as well just go on home? How many times have we wondered if this time, Jesus would just slam the door in our face? But when the wise men arrive, long after the shepherds and angels have gone home, Jesus is there to meet them. Jesus is always there for us, no matter when we happen to show up.

2. They’re humble enough to ask for help. Even though they’re wise enough to travel all the way from “the East,” they don’t seem to actually know where they’re supposed to end up. And so they do (all jokes aside) ask for directions. How many times have you or I been spiritually stuck, lost in limbo or mired in discernment, and we’ve been reluctant to ask anyone for help? The wise men remind us that we are not alone, that God puts others in our lives (even surprising people like Grinchy King Herod) to help us find the paths of truth and righteousness.

3. They’re flexible. They had a plan—go see Herod in Jerusalem, then go see the child, then go back to Jerusalem to update Herod—but after having met the Christ Child, they know that their plans have to change. They pivot, away from the power of the world and towards the power of God. Good grief does this ring true for us right now. How flexible have we all been these past two years?! We’re all doing things now that we never thought possible. Some of them don’t bring us much joy, truth be told, but the practice of flexibility, of responding to the situation we’re in and (more importantly) to the Christ present in that situation, is the beginning of true wisdom. Who knew we’ve been such magi since March of 2020?

So maybe the wise men didn’t bring a casserole. But they do show us how showing up, asking for help, and being willing to change our plans can all be signs of true Grace, true faith—true wisdom. May we all manifest this kind of wisdom to the world.

The Very Rev’d Erika L. Takacs
Rector, Church of the Atonement 

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Sister Michelle Heyne, OA and I are working on a program to offer at St. Clement’s, Seattle. It emerged out of a lunch meeting we had at Fr. Kevin’s home with him and the two pastoral associates, Susan and Rick. The idea is to offer a practical pathway of training and coaching for a few parishioners who want to develop a more disciplined and flexible spiritual practice. The kind of practice that Martin Thornton saw as the stuff of what he called the Remnant and what in the Shape of the Parish model we refer to as the Apostolic. The core of what we’re putting together is to assist them in establishing a workable practice for living the threefold rule of prayer (Eucharist, Office, Personal Devotions) and more effectively living in the isolation between renewal in our baptismal identity and purposes and our daily life apostolate.

Mother Erika's three points -They’re late to the party, but they show up anyway. They’re humble enough to ask for help. They’re flexible

At St. Clements we’re mostly an older group of people with long established spiritual life patterns. There are also a few younger and new to the whole enterprise. If you’re 50 or 60 or 70 it’s easy to think we’re too late to go to this party and it’s somewhat embarrassing to not have faced into it earlier in life. I think older people split into two groups. One becomes less flexible emotionally and spiritually, the other become more flexible. So, maybe this opportunity will offer a safe route into personal renewal for the one group and an opportunity for those already longing for a pathway.

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