Worship for the Domestic Church (20210526)

Human

Contemporary Catholic Belief and Action

The mission of ARCC is to bring about substantive structural change within the Catholic Church by seeking to institutionalize a collegial understanding of church where decision making is shared and accountability is realized among Catholics of every kind and conditio n.

Once people start to believe change is possible,

the drive to achieve it accelerates.

- Patrick Sullivan, ARCC President

Worship for the Domestic Church

Ray Temmerman STM

Ray Temmerman, a Catholic, and his wife Fenella, an Anglican, are involved with the Interchurch Families International Network: IFIN

Ray operates the IFIN website: http://interchurchfamlies.org

Ray also operates the ARCC website:

https://www.arcc-catholic-rights.net/

This covid-19 time has placed great stress on our ability as Catholics, and as Christians of all traditions, to gather in prayer, worship and thanksgiving. Unable to be close, to touch, to participate fully and actively together, we have remained in our homes or, at best, worshipped together in distanced small groups.

As Catholics, forced as we are to enter a eucharistic fast, unable to take and eat, take and drink, we have had a surfeit of opportunities to watch Masses streamed from various locations. In so doing, we have been able to take a consumerist approach to these streaming spectacles, choosing this preacher over that one, this ambiance ahead of another.

It is my firm belief that the approach the Church has taken in offering predominantly the possibility of streamed worship services is a grave error. It has focused once again on the clerical dimension of the Church, in the process stripping away any sense that all members of the whole Christian body are the actors in worship and thanksgiving. I believe further that this has completely missed an opportunity to nurture and develop the faith life of the people in their own right. The result will, I believe, prove completely counterproductive.

We need to take up once again that ancient sense, revitalized at the Second Vatican Council, of the domestic church, the church in the home, making it the focus of our faith development, encouraged and aided by the parish, but without making the parish the focus. And the best way to make the home the focus of our faith development is not by encouraging study and catechesis (both good in themselves) but by encouraging the people who form the millions of domestic churches to delve into the way the Scriptures impact them, live a life of faithful worship, then carry that into their daily lives. How might we do that?

I suggest we take a page from our Hebrew forebears, with their focus on the Sabbath meal. We disciples of the Hebrew Jesus of Nazareth, might do well to emulate their pattern of worship, thereby catechizing our children (and ourselves) through liturgical action, as we gather with each other and the saints who have gone before (friends, relatives, saints we have never met), tell the family stories (the scriptures), converse with each other about what those stories mean (breaking the bread of the Word), expressing what the scriptures have shown about shortcomings in our lives and calling on God’s mercy, stating again our faith, then giving thanks together. In this, one person could lead the whole liturgical work, or the leadership could be shared. Finally, we could take and eat, take and drink, remembering that wherever two or more are gathered in his name, Christ is present among us. The bread and wine can remind us of his presence, but also that he seeks to come to us in forms we can touch and taste.

We can continue to do this for as long as it takes for this pandemic to settle down to the point where our domestic churches can once again gather as one, as Church, to celebrate and give thanks together, priest and laity as one body. And we can continue thereafter as well, drawing always into a deeper experience of God, of Christ’s saving work, and of the Spirit leading, guiding, enabling and encouraging us in our walk of faith together as Church, Christ’s Body here on earth.

A sample service can be found at:

https://arcc-catholic-rights.net/index.php/other-writings/worship-for-the-domestic-church/#Order