Liturgical Hermeneutics
2005 Louisville, Kentucky
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Convener 2005
David A. Stosur (academic dean/associate professor of liturgical studies, Saint Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Seminar Participants 2005
Ron Anderson, David Buley, Jim Challancin, Edward Foley, Ken Hull, Margaret Mary Kelleher, Richard McCarron, David Hoyt Pfleiderer, Kathryn Ann Rickert, Susan Smith, David Stosur, Catherine Vincie, Mark Wedig
Visitors: James Caccamo, James O’Regan, Jane Vann
Seminar Report 2005
The 2005 meeting continued the work of previous years in exploring the theme of interpreting liturgy as performance/event/action.
Presentations
Susan Smith pursued the question of ritualizing in situations for which no provision is made in the liturgical books, utilizing her lens of five “Principles for Generating Christian Ritualization”: (1) the starting point is the focal person(s) for whom the ritual is designed; (2) a Christian ritualization must bear responsibility for making the Church present; (3) the paschal mystery is identified as already present in the person’s life; (4) the mystery of death and life is incarnated through the juxtaposition of contraries; and (5) the relationship of the action to baptism should be clear. Cases involving lament situations were presented. Discussion included the following issues (among others): pastoral care as a ritual criterion; the distinction between/spectrum of ritual modification and ritual invention; the recognition of the needs of the “focal person(s)” in relation to the leader’s presuppositions about symbolic competence, personal and communal boundaries, willingness to use ritual as exploratory, etc.; and the place of “sacrifice” which emerged as a recurring theme.
David Buley summarized Howard Gardiner’s multiple intelligence theory, raising questions for placing it in conversation with liturgical hermeneutics. He suggested that more helpful than the schema of the eight intelligences (linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, inter-personal, intra-personal, naturalist) is Gardiner’s identification of “Entry Points to Understanding”: narrational (story/narrative), logical-quantitative (numerical/deductive), foundational (philosophical/terminological), aesthetic (sensory/artistic), and experiential (action/doing). Buley recounted the case of deaf persons’ reaction to a stirring musical performance as an illustration of how a different “domain” of intelligence from the musical was being engaged. The entry points may suggest a “family of stances” that liturgical theologians and ministers may want to consider in the presentation, design, and interpretation of liturgy “to enable holy people to communicate wisely about the truth.”
David Stosur discussed Paul Ricoeur’s essay on “meaningful action considered as a text” in light of Lawrence Sullivan’s proposal for “putting an end to the text as primary.” Ricoeur considers the traits of discourse in the movement from speech-event to fixation in writing as a paradigm for understanding the meaningfulness of human action. Sullivan critiques the exclusive reliance on textual metaphors in describing human intelligibility, to the neglect of root metaphors in other domains which may be more pertinent in historically non-literate cultures. Questions discussed included the value of Ricoeur’s analogy between text and action in accounting for liturgy’s performative nature, and the concrete task of developing a liturgical hermeneutics which honors Sullivan’s critique.
James Caccamo offered numerous interesting entry points for discussion of Graham Hughes’ Worship as Meaning, the key question of which is, “How do we make sense in a disenchanted world?” Along with a broad set of questions, Caccamo offered a schema of Hughes’ description of C.S. Peirce’s semiotics and its application to liturgical implementation and theology. Discussion was rich and wide-ranging, with the recognition that more time should be given to this book in 2006, with particular attention to Hughes’ use of Peirce.
Kathryn Rickert presented a typology of public, communal lament in worship, offered through her analysis of hymn texts in The United Methodist Hymnal. In asking the question, “How might we cry out to God together in distress in the midst of ‘Eucharist’?” one must recognize lament as “embodied sound” and acknowledge tendencies to place obstacles in the way of authentic lamentation. Rickert identified eleven clusters of texts positioned in a spectrum from praise only to pure lament. Discussion centered on the specificity and clarification of the categories and the question of a methodology to address the place of sound in relation to text.
Other work of the seminar
Plans for 2006 include continuing with Hughes, along with Alejandro García-Rivera’s The Community of the Beautiful (which also utilizes Peirce); inviting a guest who may guide us with Peirce; and Richard McCarron presenting on imagination, embodiment, and meaning in liturgy. Work on music and semiotics is projected for 2007.