Inside ML

I don’t need to know about everything in life. For instance, I have never seen Survivor nor Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I used to think the same way about “post-modernism.” I thought it was a fad that would go away eventually.

Well, it’s not a fad and it’s not going away just because I ignore it. Postmodernism is not easy to understand, but that doesn’t relieve parish leaders from dealing with this shift in thinking about the way things work. “Postmodernism” is a term intended to sum up the way the world now thinks or will think about life, art, architecture and even God. Some of us are firmly rooted in our “modern” or even “pre-modern” ways of thinking, and we believe it’s good enough for us. No doubt that’s true.

The rub is, it’s not good enough for our children. People in their twenties and younger are thoroughly postmodern. When we were teenagers, many of us rebelled against our parents’ values. In a sense, that meant we had to understand what their values were in order to rebel against them. And the values we argued for instead were understandable, if not acceptable, to our parents.

Children today, however, are not rebellious. They are clueless. At least, clueless about the way you and I understand the world and the way things work. Postmodern children are not rejecting our values; they just live and move and have their being in something of a parallel universe.

The reason this matters is because we have to figure out how, out of our modern (“old”) way of thinking, we are going to pass on the faith to the next, postmodern, generation. Kenan Osborne believes one starting place is with the way we celebrate sacraments. ML interviewed him about his ideas and his new book on the topic. See page 12 for a peek into the future.

Faithful colors

Another something that is not a fad is stained glass. This art form has been transforming the hearts of our worship spaces and the worshipers within them for more than 1,000 years. Yet, artists are able to envision new ways of mixing color, texture, light and space to create living and life-giving art. See some of today’s best examples, starting on page 6.

Good liturgy

What are your core values for good liturgy? That was a question that came up in regard to “Fourth of July Masses,” and it’s also part of a recent discussion about “Polka Masses” on ML’s website. And it’s probably, at least subliminally, part of any discussion you’ve had with a bride and groom about wedding planning.

I find it harder and harder to answer that question. The true test of any liturgy has to be how effective it is at converting the hearts of the assembly to go out and build the kingdom of God — to make the world a place of justice and peace. Can that happen if, at Mass, we sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” or a Holy, Holy set to the tune of “The Beer Barrel Polka”? Can the world become more godly if we let brides process in to “Here Comes the Bride” and let the couples light unity candles?

Clearly, some things are worth taking a stand for and some things aren’t. All of us have a line that we will not cross. For some of us, the line is more “liturgically correct.” For others, the line is more “pastoral.” But the line we draw is neither if it does not set us fervently about the mission Jesus left us.

One would like to hope and believe that good liturgy — liturgy that is beautiful, rich in symbol, well crafted, well celebrated — will be more effective at accomplishing that mission than liturgy that is slipshod and perfunctory. To that end, Linda Krehmeier and Marilyn Morgan offer their help to liturgy committees as they do their important planning work (see page 20). But even parishes with the “best” liturgy need to test the quality of that liturgy against what happens after we “go in peace.”

ML

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