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Among my earliest childhood memories is Catholic mass. The changes wrought by The Second Vatican Council had not yet taken a firm foothold in our church and the mass was still Latin and high. I remember the breathtaking space revealed as we moved from the vestibule into the nave, the surreal light filtered through the stained-glass windows, the visceral sound of the pipe organ, and the smells of incense and candle wax. Awed is a word I can rightly use to describe my impression of this long and complex ritual that was mass. There was something magical about that time and place; and while most of what I felt at that age was filtered through a veil of fear and anxiety, these are good memories.
I learned the strange words, the formal acts involved in celebrating mass, and even some of the meanings attendant to certain acts. Even years later, long since belief was a part of my life, I recognize and appreciate the comfort and succor that such ritualistic celebrations offer. Ritual lends texture to our lives; we use them—some as simple as handshakes, others as involved as a Japanese tea ceremony—to express emotion, build and strengthen personal and group identity, and to orient ourselves in space and time.
Catherine Bell, who was a professor in Santa Clara University's Religious Studies Program and a leading authority on ritual, approached ritual as an action that lacks a “practical relationship between the means one chooses to achieve certain ends.” In other words, ritual is an act that, through its formal and traditional performance, has the potential of transforming the profane into the sacred.
As far as I can tell, ritual has been a part of human existence for almost as long as humans have existed. There are rituals in all societies and have been at all times in recorded history. The most conscious aspect of ritualistic behavior, however, would be the lament at its passing. As societies and communities change so change the rituals that were so much a part of the old order.
Reacting to what they saw as form over substance in Catholic ritual, Reformationists moved away from a strict adherence to formal ritualistic acts in favor of an emphasis on the individual's internal state of grace—think about the Calvinistic view that God's salvation is unconditional and unconnected to any act or characteristic of the person so chosen. Rationalists likewise carved away at religious ritual from the other end, arguing that an act that has no rational connection to its perceived core is simply irrational—lighting a candle in the transept and reciting rosary may cast a lovely light on the walls and produce a mesmerizing chorus of murmured prayer, but these acts won't heal the afflicted.
Then again, social scientists tell us that ritual is effective on some levels.
Despite the absence of a direct causal connection between the ritual and the desired outcome, performing rituals with the intention of producing a certain result appears to be sufficient for that result to come true. While some rituals are unlikely to be effective – knocking on wood will not bring rain – many everyday rituals make a lot of sense and are surprisingly effective.
We don't, of course, need a social scientist to tell us what we know as true: there is an innate and basic human need for ritual.
Xunzi, one of the early architects of Confucian philosophy, believed that ritual can be individualistic or shared but that it is crucial for reforming humanity’s original nature. As
Donna Henes more blithely and alliteratively observes, "[c]eremonial observance adds lucid layers—depth, dimension, drama and distinction—to our lives, making the ordinary seem special, and the special, extraordinary." Still another take on ritual is offered by Mike Spindell in a thought-provoking essay entitled "
A Meditation on Ritual":
Ritual...is a combination of repetitive actions, rites and procedures performed by two or more individuals that provides comforting feeling and a sense of shared togetherness. The behaviors tap into the most universal of human archetypes and thus are easily recognized as reassuring by participants and by groups.
Every generation laments the death of ritual and the observance of the old ways. Perhaps in these days of pluralism and individualism ritual
is ebbing some; or perhaps some established rituals are evolving into others that we believe stand more of a chance of revealing to us the sacred within the profane. For me, ritual is simply practiced behavior that signifies an inner trust and belief that there is more to life than what occupies our present.
I can't hold The Second Vatican Council as responsible for the destruction of the Catholic mass any more than I can hold the 60s activists responsible for destroying the so-called happy days that preceded them. As much as I embrace ritual in my life, there is no doubting that it can and has been used to perpetuate and reinforce the status quo—to strip meaning from the very actions that were meant to foster revelation. We challenge and wrestle with our parents' rituals in order to blaze more meaningful paths for our own times. After all, the Calvinists (damned or not) live ordered, productive lives within vibrant communities, Rationalist still fall in love over coffee and Mozart, and unbelievers like myself still find spiritual meaning and moral direction on our uncompassed search for enlightenment.
Grab your coffee and pull up a chair.
What's on your mind this morning?