Inside ML

We who choose to remain in this troubled and sometimes broken church struggle daily with the temptation to seek a less painful way. We offer the very best of all that we are, often to see our gifts misused, ignored, or disregarded because of our age, gender, or state of life. We who minister in liturgy stand with our eyes fixed on that holy mountain and our feet firmly planted among God’s people. People are sacrament and they form the sacramental life of the church. It is that sacramental life, that living water that swirls around our ankles and fills us to the brim, that holds us fast. Certainly it becomes harder each day; with each new allegation, each new restrictive “instruction,” each newly ordained “expert,” we struggle to remain. But when that holy people sings their prayer with and through us, for that graced moment our unity and God’s Spirit transcend the struggle. In that experience of sacrament we find the courage to remain and keep watch, to drink the cup, and to know the cross.

Our sung prayer has profound power. Reflecting on specific texts and what they have to say about ministry and life is part of ML’s challenge in this issue. J. Michael McMahon offers a prayerfully balanced perspective on the text of “Singing a New Church” and how this speaks to the constant call to mystery and new life. Deanna Light explores the reasons why we remain in ministry as she considers the text of “Now We Remain” in a reflection of perseverance in service. As powerful a unifying force as music can be, though, it too is part of the struggle in today’s church. Joseph Swain reminds us that this is not unique to our time and suggests how to understand this controversy in context. In a reflection geared more for the novices among us, Gerard Chiusano shares the ways in which we are called to service in “The Servant Song.” In a striking witness to the power of another aspect of ritual, Ron Raab describes a liturgy that reaches out to include those in the community whose needs and voices may not be heard because of the doors we so often close to them. 

In song and ritual, prayer and promise, we find from moment to moment the grace to remain. It is not for any earthly reason that we do so but simply because it is what our Lord asks. 

We hold the death of the Lord deep in our hearts.
Living, now we remain with Jesus, the Christ
(“Now We Remain,” David Haas © 1983 GIA). ML

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