Susan A. Ross

Bodies and Liturgy: An Interview with Mary Deeley

Susan Ross interviewed Mary Deeley, PhD, a pastoral associate at the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Susan and Mary began their conversation by talking about the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (abbreviated here as GIRM), which was issued in 2003, and about other ways that bodies are a central part of the liturgical experience. The GIRM speaks of the dignity of the liturgy, the significance of movements, postures, singing, and silence and the roles that these play in liturgical practice.

The Body in Liturgy

In these days of virtual everything—dating, taking college courses, reading newspapers and magazines, keeping in touch with family and friends—it is no surprise that worship has also been affected by the technological revolution. This past semester, in a course I taught called ‘‘Sacramental and Liturgical Ethics,’’ my students and I found the internet very helpful for, among other things, watching the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons in the midst of the controversy surrounding Senator Obama and learning about different preaching styles. But, in the long run, what is our worship life without ‘‘showing up’’ with our bodily presence? Worship means actually being in the worship space, seeing and hearing the sermon, standing, sitting, or kneeling, singing, smelling, and tasting. This issue of Liturgy explores a few of the many dimensions of what it means to be embodied people in the liturgy. By no means is this an exhaustive treatment of this complex topic. Regrettably, one contributor who was to have written about singing and worship in the African American experience had to withdraw at the very last minute due to illness. My hope is that the essays here will help the readers of Liturgy to reflect more deeply on the embodied character of our worship and to consider how some of the ideas here might be relevant to their own worship situations. In the first essay, Therese Lysaught, an associate professor of theology at Marquette University, offers a very helpful overview of what it means to consider the meaning of the worshiping body. Using the analogy of training, Lysaught argues that we do in fact train our bodies to become the body of Christ, and that this process really changes us, or ought to do so. Next, the Reverend Jacqueline Schmitt, an Episcopal priest, shares some of her experiences as a woman priest and how some of her parishioners have responded to this. The suggestion that one of her parishioners makes about her hair leads her to reflect on what difference it makes to be human, female, and Christian, a religious tradition that celebrates God’s becoming flesh in a human body. The Reverend Robert VerEecke, SJ, a Jesuit priest, shares his experiences as someone who has worked for years to incorporate liturgical dance into Christian worship. While some have objected to dance as being too bodily— it is suggestive, and perhaps even seductive, some argue—VerEecke points to

Beyond Ritual: Sacramental Theology After Habermas

[1] There are few, if any, scholars of sacrament or liturgy who have not lamented the sad state of contemporary worship. Whether their criticisms concern the music (there are web sites that advocate a moratorium on the music of Marty Haugen and David Haas), the lack of connection between liturgy and the rest of human life, or poorly prepared homilies, theologians interested in the sacraments have no dearth of material with which to work. It is no longer the case that Catholics worship more regularly than Protestants; and the Eucharist itself has become the focus of political debate, with controversies over pro-choice U.S. politicians receiving Communion. Post-Vatican II sacramental theology has moved beyond its initial exuberance having been freed from its ties to canon law and has entered into conversation with almost every area of philosophy, theology, anthropology, and sociology. But the developments of the last forty years have yet to result in a coherent theology or a satisfactory practice. [2] Siobhán Garrigan’s Beyond Ritual is a welcome contribution to the literature in sacramental theology and ritual (despite the title). The crisis in the sacraments, she argues, is a crisis not just of practice but of institutions— institutions which are ‘too remote’ from the practical meaning of the Christian message. Garrigan proposes to draw on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action as both a method and a way to access ritual. In the first part of her book Garrigan offers a very helpful summary of developments in recent sacramental theology, paying particular attention to Louis-Marie Chauvet’s (and others’) argument for a non-metaphysical sacramental theology. She next surveys ritual theory for its contributions and concludes that both sacramental theology and ritual theory find themselves ‘at an impasse’ (67): unable to move beyond traditional categories. Neither sacramental theology nor ritual theory does what needs to be done: ‘sacraments must be studied as lived events’ (38) [3] In Part II, Garrigan turns to Habermas and develops the implications of his theory of communication for liturgy. While aware of some of the criticisms of Habermas – e.g., that he is inattentive both to religion and to feminist concerns – Garrigan nevertheless finds in the German thinker a welcome pragmatic focus on the event-character of communication and in particular, its emancipatory function. She then uses his theory to analyze liturgical events. Much of the rest