Inside ML

Making a name for ourselves

As souvenirs go, it may not rank up there with Mark McGwire's 62nd home run ball, but you may want to hold on to this issue of ML. It is the last one that will carry the name Modern Liturgy. Several people have been asking me what the "new" ML will be like after the name changes to Ministry & Liturgy. Regular readers will have heard my answer before -- that the name is catching up to the content. ML has always -- especially in recent years -- been a magazine that is not focused solely on the technical production of the liturgy. Rather, ML strives to be useful to all the members of the parish leadership team. For example, in this issue ML interviews Melissa Musick Nussbaum (page 4) about the connection of the domestic church to the parish church and how home ritual flows from and leads to parish ritual. Liturgists and religious educators might find helpful information there, as well as in Michael Grammer's article on how the diocese of Greensburg, Pa., restored the order of the initiation sacraments for children baptized in infancy (page 8). Grammer makes the point that even those who have only skimmed the introductory material to the rite of confirmation will find that this sacrament has a theology and is not searching for one.

Grief ministers will want to read Joyce Carr's description of a consolation ministry that takes place behind bars (page 12). And the movers and shakers in your parish will need to see Anna Douthwright's article on liturgical dance (page 10).

ML's point has long been that all the ministries of the parish flow from the liturgy. That being the case, all the ministries of the parish have a stake in how the liturgy is celebrated. If the liturgy is celebrated well, youth ministry, catechetical ministry, pastoral ministry, liturgical ministry, etc., all grow stronger. ML strives to help the leaders of those various ministries understand how good liturgy leads to good ministry. The next time you read ML, it will have a new name that better reflects that mission.
NW 

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