RBWords - Volume 23 - Number 8: August 2010
Something to Think About
Our Southern Dominican Province has recently accepted responsibility for a new campus ministry at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. I had the opportunity to attend a couple of the opening liturgies in the past few weeks due to my service at another parish in the area. The numbers of Catholic students were large and the energy generated by the presence of such numbers as well as by the very competent staff which our friars have joined was exciting. It was also an occasion for me to reflect on a phenomenon which is becoming widespread not only in the United States but around the world, and impacts strongly those who work with young people. Our Order is seeing this phenomenon in those who are entering our way of life, but it was something I noted during my time at Tulane (1998-2003). What I’m talking about is the movement toward the use of traditional liturgical and devotional practices from the past to express the spiritual needs of the present. College students are very much interested in these expressions which include particular vestments, incense, ceremonial events, devotions, religious garb…. Some of the students I met at these liturgies definitely indicated their interests in these expressions.
One may look at this in terms of a very broad category such as “generations.” Clearly the young people attending college now were born well after the Second Vatican Council. The struggles and challenges and excitement of that time are “ancient history” to them. Those of us who entered religious life and/or were ordained in the first twenty-five years after the council were shaped by all the decisions and actions taken with a view to “implementing” the council. Recent decisions by Pope Benedict XVI in regard to liturgical expressions, especially the Latin Mass, have been viewed by many of my own generation as almost a betrayal of what the council achieved! The newer generation finds the feelings of the older hard to understand. As one who feels that he has one foot in the earlier and one foot in the later, I find it all unsettling! There were (are?) elements of Dominican liturgical expression that were part of the initial attraction for me in considering a vocation. Many of these disappeared very quickly! Now they are reappearing but the whole context for them that existed when I was a college student (1960-64) is long gone. How can I make sense of the old in the situation of the new? It’s like trying to express myself today in the English of Shakespeare. It is beautiful beyond belief but it’s not the English of our time! It’s one thing to pour new wine into old skins (as Jesus warns us about) but quite another to pour old wine into new skins!
On the level of religious life, the recovery of the core charism of the Dominican Order – Preaching – led to an emphasis on “mission” which placed community life and observances in a secondary light. The newer vocations to the Order are asking for a considerable recovery of community life and observances! It’s not just a matter of dusting off old books and vestments, it may be a matter of dusting off OURSELVES! IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!
It Has Been Said
“There are many theories which I find immensely exciting theologically, but I want to sit lightly enough on it all so that if something new and perhaps contradictory is revealed I won’t be thrown off-center, as were Darwin’s frightened opponents, but will go on being excited about the marvelousness of being – of snowflake and starfish and geranium and galaxy.
From SOLD INTO EGYPT : JOSEPH’S JOURNEY INTO HUMAN BEING by Madeleine L’Engle