The deeper illness is that we have forgotten the sense of mysticism and participation in the transcendent and swapped divine worship for a happy meal, campfire songs and a pep talk. As someone else wittily put it, “We have traded our birthright not for a mess of pottage, but for a pot of message.”
It gets worse I’m afraid. This travesty of worship which passes for the majority of Catholic masses in the USA is the sign of an even deeper disease–a fundamental lack of belief in the transcendental and supernatural aspect of our faith. We are not reverent in God’s house because we don’t really believe he is dwelling there. We do not kneel to receive him because we think our “human dignity” is more important than his divine majesty. We do not truly worship because we have come to believe that the church is just a place to meet our friends and talk about changing the world.
What is the answer? I’m not sure, because in our utilitarian consumerist society the language of sign and symbol of liturgy and drama has largely disappeared.
I sense, however, a return of the human spirit to these fundamental things, and it is in the stirrings of the religious life. I think more and more young men and women will be called to the enclosed life of prayer and from that source will come to the renewal of the imagination that will spark a counteraction.
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