Word to the Wise
Friday, July 31, 2009 - St. Ignatius of Loyola
[Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34-37 and Matthew 13:54-58]The Lord said to Moses, "These are the festivals of the Lord which you shall celebrate at their proper time with a sacred assembly....."
The Book of Leviticus would not likely be on the list of the top ten favorites of the Bible for most of my readers! Most of us don't particularly enjoy reading legislation (except for a few of us who are lawyers, and even then it's not exactly a spiritual experience!). Nevertheless, today's first scripture - a list of the important liturgical feasts of Israel - is worth our attention. Once upon a time, even in my own memory, we were a lot better at observing sacred days and holding sacred assemblies! The list in Leviticus wasn't handed to Moses in the form reported today. It took a long time for the Children of Israel to develop these festivals. They were influenced by surrounding cultures and by their own history in this development. Since we are speaking in terms of hundreds of years in their regard and our own nation/culture is less than three hundred years old, we might benefit from giving some thought as to how we have celebrated certain liturgical/historical festivals over the years. It was always an enjoyable experience for me in campus ministry to describe to some puzzled and occasionally delighted college students how our Church did things prior to the Second Vatican Council, especially such things as Forty Hours Devotion, the May Procession, etc.etc. ("COOL!" is an unusual word to use for a liturgical expression, but there you have it!) Those of us who grew up in very large cities with diverse ethnic Catholic populations would be familiar with or remember a large number of different festivals and their accompanying parades. Sacred Days and festivals have an important role in the collective memory and identity of a community. Even the most resolutely secular societies recognize that. What is worrisome to me is the loss of a desire to have our own religious celebrations APART from the major secular ones. Holy Days of Obligation for the past decade or so have been most notable to me for the low attendance at Mass ("Father, I have to work that day!") Christmas and Easter have taken on a tremendous amount of secular cultural baggage: Santa and the Easter Bunny. The Harvest Festival is more obsessed with weird costuming and controlled Trick or Treating. Indeed, how many of us plan our year according to secular calendars instead of religious feasts: the academic year comes to my mind! Leviticus reminds us today that our consciousness of the relationship between faith and time and celebration is eroding! AMEN
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