Very good on describing the ideal . . .
Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground
The mass is a show. Of what? Of God’s great mystery reenacted, his dealing with men, women, and children) as we know it through Scripture and Tradition. It’s been a long, hard slog through the ages, starting with Abraham. Neither peep show nor lecture but something symbolic and much more .
Consider it as drama. Gordon Graham, Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary, did in 2007 in an essay that explored liturgy, especially the Catholic Mass and its high-church Protestant counterparts “as a kind of drama.”
The Mass, he said, is “a dramatic enactment of the gospel in which all present participate in a variety of roles.”
A sort of choreography is in play, that is. He elaborates.
There is first the “Gathering of the People,” including “latecomers who join in the opening hymn” unknowingly in the role of “physically representing the church as it…
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Blithe Spirit 