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Episode 33 – Save the Liturgy, Save the World – The Art of Living Well Podcast
A Catholic Response to Web 3.0
Episode 33 – Save the Liturgy, Save the World
Episode 33 - Save the Liturgy, Save the World - The Art of Living Well Podcast
Yes, yes, yes. You’ve nailed it, to my mind.
One of the things which struck me was the only term we have which describes ‘getting it’ – the substance, the ‘guts’ of the Mass – how the interior and the exterior interrelate as you describe it so well, seems to be ‘understand’ the Mass.
For example, we could say, if people ‘understood’ the purpose of the music, then…
However, more often than not, because the term ‘understand’ is so ‘thin’ (made anaemic by the Enlightenment mindset we absorb from the culture), it then spirals off into the mind and intellect as being the sole criterion and importance in the matter – proofs and justifications, conjectures and refutations – which seem to miss that rich substance or substrate ‘behind’.
It seems to me, we need to have a gestalt in terms of the Liturgy, but sadly, we don’t seem to have an alternative for ‘understand’, which encapsulates the more richer term, verstehen* for example, which takes it out of the intellect by going beyond it, without jettisoning it, thereby applying it in a far deeper sense. It doesn’t see the intellect or understanding in one dimension: that of ‘facts’ or ‘knowing about’, in a text book-like manner.
Therefore we, before him bending,
this great Sacrament revere;
types and shadows have their ending,
for the newer rite is here;
faith, our outward sense befriending,
makes our inward vision clear.
In other words, it seems we can get so trapped in the ‘types and shadows’ which does anything but make our ‘inward vision clear’.
* ‘…Sociologists must try to understand the meaning of an act in terms of the motives that have given rise to it. This type of understanding would require you to find out why someone is chopping wood – Are they doing it because they need the firewood, are they just clearing a forest as part of their job, are they working off anger, just doing it because they enjoy it? To achieve this Weber argued that you had to get into the shoes of people doing the activity. …’
Thanks Paul