Amy Welborn har på sin blog nylig skrevet om flere besøk i katolske kirker med østlig ritus, og opplevd rikdommen fra «Kirkens andre lunge». Hun oppsummerer sin erfaringer i sju punkt:
Some things I think a Latin Rite Catholic, new to the Eastern Catholic liturgies, might learn or take away:
1) A sense of antiquity and rootedness.
2) An encounter with beautiful, prayerful liturgical traditions.
3) Physicality – lots of bowing and kissing of icons and crosses, crossing oneself and so on.
4) Amid the elaborate ritual and lengthy prayers, a relaxed sense of what the congregation does.
5) The organic integrity of the chanted liturgy.
6) A pretty direct encounter, I think, with the catechetical function of liturgy.
7) An insight, perhaps, even if you have never attended the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, what that is all about.
I kommentarene til hennes innlegg, finner vi også flere interessante ting:
When trying to describe what liturgy should “feel” like, I tell people that the Latin Rite Mass should look more like the Eastern Rites than a Lutheran service.
…. it’s important to remember that much of this physicality consists of making physical gestures of humility, mortification, self-effacement, and penance, and not in celebrating the wonderfulness of one’s self or one’s community, as physical participation seems to be construed in some other versions of the liturgy.
… I’ve been privileged to attend Divine Liturgy. I’m always impressed by two things: how small I am and how great God is, and how much He loves us. It really is heaven meeting earth in a way that’s more tangible than the Latin Rite. It involves all the senses.
… The Mass, as it is celebrated in the Latin-rite parishes that I have attended, has been essentially “protestantized” – in most places, it seems that there has been a thorough and conscious effort to eliminate any sense of Divine Mystery. The elimination of chant and polyphony in favor of contemporary “songs,” the rejection of incense except for a few major feasts, the proliferation of lay “ministers” around the altar, communion in the hand rather than the tongue, and the casual laid-back attitude of most celebrants all contribute to the loss of the Sacred, the sense that it is truly God we encounter in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Amen, amen, amen!