Fasting is one practice that enables the practitioner to become aware of their less fortunate brothers and sisters.
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Category: Liturgy and Virtues
Humility and Worship
Humility as a precondition for worship and as contributing factor to participation in worship can remind us all that liturgy and life form a closed circuit and yet a circuit that opens to the in-breaking of the kingdom of God.
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Standing together: the solidarity of prayer
I am not attempting to erase differences between Christianity and Islam or even advocate for interreligious prayer, but I find it helpful to reflect on how a visual and kinesthetic practice embodying an Islamic lex orandi lex credendi may function as a call to reflection on Christian liturgy and the importance of solidarity in body as well as spirit.
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“You Know What to Do:” Liturgy as a Labor of Love
I admit to nursing a bit of envy when I think of the ways Catholic worshipers are formed.
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More Mercy on the Brain
The humility of which Augustine speaks, then, is surely a matter of not aiming too high. (See Adam and Eve, fall of.) Knowing oneself is also, however, a matter of not aiming too low.
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Liturgy, Preaching, and the Social Teaching of the Church: Going Back to Our Roots
Jesus did not die as a result of old age. Neither did he die from natural causes. He was murdered by the political and social powers of his time.
Read moreLiturgy and Patience
Patience is not a substitute for the pursuit of justice and compassion in the world. It is a complement to that pursuit, borne up always by the gracious God who seeks to bring to completion the good work that he has begun.
Read moreWhen a Stranger Offends the Liturgical Aesthetic
“The service was over, but the ritual was not. Jim had unexpectedly entered the ritual space and interrupted the silence with his signs and voice. His soiled clothing was adding unwanted shades of grey to the color palate that was otherwise dominated by the hues of golden candlesticks, red marble pillars, velvety green banners, and warm brown pews. Plus, he was getting the ritual completely wrong. Unlike others in the space, he did not direct his petition to God. Instead, he was begging from the people around him.”
Read moreLiturgy and Fortitude
Do we experience our liturgies as (re)empowering our fortitude to resist the temptation of hating the other and / or of responding to hate with hate? Or do our liturgies mask the ways in which we are complicit in generating and maintaining fear and hate in our world?
Read moreLiturgy and the Virtues: Rooted in Hope
I’ve slid into a choir stall in the Abbey Church three or four times a day most days for the last two years. I am not vowed to this routine, and there are many times when class or work could keep me plenty occupied. But the liturgy gives me hope, and that hope draws me in day after day.
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