More on Liturgy and Life

Tom -- Thanks very much for reminding me to cast a wider empirical net before reaching any conclusions on whether the seeming relationship between the sacred in liturgy (e.g. the Host) and and the sacred in morality (e.g. unborn life) is intrinsic or simply accidental in some Catholic circles. You rightly point to liturgically traditionalist Protestants (e.g. many Episcopalians) who are untraditional in morality, and to liturgically innovative Protestants (e.g. charismatics? Baptists?) who tend to be traditionalist in morality.

But I think that the categories of the great and the holy (as in the Orthodox name for Great and Holy Week) are not coterminous with the traditional or the grand or even the mysterious. Liturgy can be very "high" but merely aesthetic rather than holy. For example, I view choirs as potentially desanctifying, because one can just enjoy them as entertainment, precisely because of their beauty. By contrast, it's harder not to enter into words of adoration that one is oneself singing. By the same token, a seemingly "low" liturgy can be filled with a very reverential spirit. I'm thinking of hymns such as "How Great Thou Art" or "Our God is an Awesome God". Even if, in the lower traditions, God's great holiness is not transferred to any concrete element in church (e.g. host or altar), i would think such hymns to be excellent preperation for reverence toward the image and likeness of that great and awesome God that we find in human beings, including the unborn.

By the way, Jody Bottum and Robert Miller pick up on this discussion on the First Things blog for Jan. 11 & 12. See 

RE: Liturgy & Politics

Posted by Robert T. Miller on January 12, 2008, 1:46 PM

I agree, Jody, that there is an interesting and important connection between the division in the Church over liturgy and the division in the Church over moral issues, and that it’s no accident that those who support traditional morality also support the traditional liturgy while those who support moral innovations also support liturgical innovations....