"Domestic" Liturgy

[pmcleanj]

Is it possible to have "liturgy" that is outside the context of the larger Christian community?

Etymologically, "liturgy" means (roughly) "public duty", but its acquired meaning is the rites and rituals, particularly the participative and explicitly-defined actions, that characterize corporate worship. I say "corporate" worship, because one rarely hears "liturgy" applied to private worship, even when one uses an explicitly defined rite such as Morning Prayer for one's private devotions.

However, in between the formal context of congregational worship inside the church building, and private worship in one's own closet, is a grey area. Is it "liturgy" for example, when a home-group celebrates the Lord's Supper in a member's house? Is it "liturgy" when a mother and her children pray or worship in an explicitly-defined manner? As long as "two or three of us are gathered together", is there a fundamental qualitative difference between worship inside and outside the church building that makes one "liturgy" and the other not?

Many parishes have special liturgies for red-letter days in the Church year. Celebrating the church year in a deliberate way connects the "chronos" of our secular lives to the "kairos" on which we dwell with God. For those of us who live in diocese where liturgy is a largely neglected art, our only choice for connecting in that way is to celebrate the Church year in our homes or our small groups. Can such celebrations be dignified by the descriptor "liturgy"? Can there be such a thing as "domestic liturgy?"

[bfoos]

Tons of good thoughts and questions in your post.

If I may suggest, the term liturgy is not the sticking point to some of your questions. I use the term liturgy to describe the morning office no matter who is doing it or how many.

Liturgy in the home is paramount to the rise of the Church in our modern world. We must have a return to a rule for one's life--everyone's, not just the priests', or the brothers'. Lex orandi, lex credendi--what we pray is what we believe (and the inverse is true as well).

In America, the morning office as a congregational office never really caught on. In England, it was well attended until the industrial revolution. You can imagine what that shift in population, etc. did to attendance. The New World was so large, that it became fairly impractical for families to attend daily services and get back to work in a reasonable time. Family prayer became the solution.

Family prayer is still a good beginning to us Americans recovering the daily office. It is, though, only a beginning. The daily office is not just a nice add on. It is part of the texture and fabric of Christian living. It is a needed part of our day. It should be done corporately, if possible.

The Church calendar can and should be celebrated at home (especially when one is without the benefit of a Church body that follows the calendar) as the natural outworking of our corporate prayer and worship through the seasons in the Church. There are all sorts of ways and means to do this, from family prayer to Church and family traditions, etc.

The home life of parishioners should be a natural reflection of the corporate life of the Church. In a place where the corporate life is somewhat lacking, then, by God's grace, the home life can lead where the corporate life is not. It's not the way it should be, but it's better than neglecting God's time altogether.

All of the structured and ordered prayers of the Church, whether at the Church building or somewhere else, whether with many members or with few, are liturgical.

The differences between them depend upon what Biblical, liturgical (if you will) function they are fulfilling. Daily prayer should be in the context of the corporate life, if possible. That daily morning and evening prayer life is a biblical and catholic norm. It is, I believe, something fundamentally different from my prayer life at 2:00 in the afternoon when I am dealing with a recalcitrant student and my heart needs to be adjusted.

The Sunday liturgy is, again, fundamentally different. When we worship corporately in the temple of God and sup at his table, something is going on that is not going on during my devotional time and something that is even more unique than corporate morning prayer.

The corporate aspects of worship are of grave importance and we neglect them to our peril. It is not a beautiful building that makes the Eucharist what it is. A priest can celebrate in someone's home with a very small number and still be doing the "real thing". Yet, if we have a beautiful building, wisdom says to use it.

The early Church, of course, worshipped in homes. Yet, when they means and resources, they build buildings particularly for the worship of God (and not also for potluck suppers and basketball courts!).

Hopefully, I haven't rambled too badly. Fundamentally, the qualitative difference is between private devotional life and corporate worship, not inside or outside the church building...although one tends to be inside and the other outside.

bfoos

[Rising_Suns]

interesting questions. :)

From a Catholic perspective, I believe the two most prominent and defining aspects of the Liturgy are a communal gathering and the sacrament of Holy Communion, which is the body and blood of Christ. So, in response, yes I do believe there can be a domestic liturgy, as long as a validly ordained priest is there to consecrate the bread and wine.




May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

[pmcleanj]

interesting questions. :)

From a Catholic perspective, I believe the two most prominent and defining aspects of the Liturgy are a communal gathering and the sacrament of Holy Communion, which is the body and blood of Christ. So, in response, yes I do believe there can be a domestic liturgy, as long as a validly ordained priest is there to consecrate the bread and wine.

I agree with you, that the Lord's Supper is a liturgical action, regardless of where it is celebrated. The point you make, that the presence of a priest is required, inherently means the celebration is "corporate" in that it goes beyond the closed circle of the family. More importantly, in any Eucharist the worshippers join with all the Church and with the Angles and Archangels and all the company of heaven, so the celebration is inherently and transcendently "corporate". And equally importantly, I think, is that the celebration is not private. Any regular communicant present -- other members of the family, visitors, servants -- should be welcome to participate in the celebration, not just members of the small group or bible-study group that's holding the Eucharist (and the door of the house should be unlocked, or even thrown wide, during the celebration, in the theory that even passers-by who hear the call to worship should be welcome to join the Eucharistic celebration).

But "liturgy" as a general term applies to many actions besides celebration of the Lord's Supper, even though "the Divine Liturgy" is sometimes used as a specific term for the Service of Holy Communion, and is sometimes shortened to "the Liturgy" in that context. The word has become somewhat imprecise, which is part of what I am exploring here:

- The etymological meaning of the greek root, "laetourgis", means "civic duty" and so refers to corporate worship where participants have a defined role. Most liturgists reserve the word for corporate worship where defined roles include a defined lay participation. But some refer to worship as "liturgical" even where the only defined role is the priest's.

- Defined roles and lay participation require structure. People can't participate if they have no idea of what's coming up next. So in other contexts, "liturgy" has come to mean any structured worship. Even a Baptist church may refer to its service as "liturgical" if they have decided to follow some set structure -- regardless of whether the underlying structure was borrowed from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, or drafted last Wednesday by the young peopel's group.

- The most familiar structures for worship are the traditional structures of the Daily Offices and the Lord's supper. You'll see in bfoos' post, that he says "I use the term liturgy to describe the morning office no matter who is doing it or how many. " This is an example of "liturgy" meaning worship that follows a traditional structure.

- Finally, the most familiar traditional worship structure is the Lord's Supper, which in specific use sometimes becomes synonymous with "the Liturgy".

Your example makes the point that it's not the church building itself that defines the nature of worship, but rather the participants and the actions of those participants -- in most cases. Yet there are circumstances where the church building is deemed the "correct" location for specific special services -- weddings being an example. Of course, we do have weddings performed in gardens and office tower atriums, and the Zoo -- but in some diocese or parishes such locations are not options, and in other places their use is strictly constrained. And other services, like the eucharist, can be performed with much greater freedom.

Actually, what I was thinking about were pure domestic rituals. Our diocese is somewhat liturgically impaired when it comes to celebrating the Red Letter days. So if Candlemas falls on a Tuesday, and not a single church in the Diocese is having corporate worship that Tuesday night, and Pamela and her two children light candles on the way home from work and after-school care, sing phos hilarion together, and then move through the dark, cold house lighting all the candles in the house while praying for special intentions with each candle lit -- is that "liturgical", or just flakey? (We know it's not eucharistic, so that's not the definition being used in this question.)

[Rising_Suns]

yes, interesting thoughts. I believe the tradition should be held to; in liturgical celebration within the walls of the Church. Although in certain circumstances, I believe that tradition could be broken, if say, there is no access to a Church, or possibly the threat of persecution, etc.

Are you familar with what the fathers wrote about the liturgy?



Praying for humility,
-Davide

[Polycarp1]

The original meaning of laitourgoV in pre-Christian Classical Greek was that thing done by a citizen as a representative of the people for the benefit of all. Sponsoring your city's young athlete in the Olympic Games, for example, was a "liturgy," as was putting up enough money to pay the two oboloi paid by the city to day laborers to enable them to take a day off to vote in the Assembly (ecclesia, intriguingly enough).

The usage came to be defined in Christianity as the common act of the people in honor and celebration of God, especially as He worked among us in the person of Jesus Christ, and therefore the Great Thanksgiving was the liturgy par excellence -- which remains the Orthodox usage to this day.

But, with one foot firmly placed in the Holy Catholic tradition and the other in the Reformation, we share with the Protestants the sense that not every liturgy must be the Divine Liturgy (AKA Mass / Lord's Supper / Eucharist / etc.).

[Rising_Suns]

But, with one foot firmly placed in the Holy Catholic tradition and the other in the Reformation, we share with the Protestants the sense that not every liturgy must be the Divine Liturgy (AKA Mass / Lord's Supper / Eucharist / etc.).
Quick question poly; can you give a modern example of a liturgy in the Anglican Church without the Eucharist, and the reasons for such?

Coming from a Catholic viewpoint, the Mass essentially revolves around Holy Communion, and without it there would be a huge void, and the Mass would be incomplete.

[Polycarp1]

See the Useful Links thread, and click on any version of the Book of Common Prayer. The first hundred or so pages of it are the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, the non-Eucharistic daily worship, designed largely for congregational use though readable as a private devotional as well. Likewise, the rituals for Holy Baptism, Confirmation, Ordination, etc., are so structured that they are understood to be elements in Eucharistic celebrations but are also rubrically structured that they can be done without making Eucharist as well.

[Father Rick]

Outside of mass, there is also liturgy for other sacraments, such as annointing of the sick, baptism, etc. which may be performed outside of the church and in case of emergency can even be performed by a lay person.

[Rising_Suns]

Outside of mass, there is also liturgy for other sacraments, such as annointing of the sick, baptism, etc. which may be performed outside of the church and in case of emergency can even be performed by a lay person.
more good news. same in the Catholic Church. :)