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Consumerism and the Liturgical Act of Worship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2013

Timothy Brunk
Timothy Brunk
Affiliation:
Villanova University
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Abstract

This paper selects three aspects of consumerism (individualism, the chronically reinvented self, and viewing nearly everything as a product or commodity) and assesses how they pose a challenge to liturgical worship, which is properly grounded in a Christian indentity that is fundamentally communal. When consumerism takes the form of shopping for a parish, it threatens to undermine this communal identity. At the same time, parish-shopping may well be an expression of a sincere search for a vital Christian community. This paper thus neither condemns nor condones parish shopping but stresses rather that there is work to be done to build up the sense of community in Roman Catholic parishes. Liturgical worship is an essential element in that process, but liturgy by itself cannot build or sustain community.

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Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Spring 2011 , pp. 54 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 2011

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References

1 Miller, Vincent, “The iPod, the Cellphone, and the Church: Discipleship, Consumer Culture and a Globalized World,” in Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel, ed. Laarman, Peter (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 173–191, at 173Google Scholar.

2 These enshrinements range from France's “Declaration of the Rights of Man” in 1789 to the United Nations' “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in 1948. The Roman Catholic Church took a significant step in this direction with the promulgation of Pacem in terris by Pope John XXIII in 1963.

3 David Wells offers a series of similar examples, including “Just Do It” (Nike), “Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules” (Burger King), “Some people embrace the night because the rules of the day do not apply” (Bacardi Rum), and “Your World Should Know No Boundaries” (Merrill Lynch). See Wells, , Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 67Google Scholar.

4 Gaillardetz, Richard, “North American Culture and the Liturgical Life of the Church: The Separation of the Quests for Transcendence and Community,” Worship 68 (1994): 403–16, at 405Google Scholar. Note the similarity here to the classic definitions of religion offered by William James and Alfred North Whitehead.

5 To cite just two examples: van Enam, Sam, On Earth As It Is in Advertising? (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005)Google Scholar and Turpin, Katherine, Branded: Adolescents Converting from Consumer Faith (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2006)Google Scholar.

6 In this connection, see Gaillardetz, , “North American Culture,” 407Google Scholar; Lathrop, Gordon, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 27Google Scholar; and Fagerberg, David W., Theologia Prima: What Is Liturgical Theology? (Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2004), 83–84Google Scholar.

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9 Craig Gay forcefully claims that “consumerism implies foolishness, superficiality, triviality, and the destruction of personal and social relationships by means of selfishness, individualism, possessiveness, and covetousness.” Citation taken from Gay, Craig, “Consumerism,” in The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity, eds. Banks, Robert and Stevens, R. Paul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 220Google Scholar.

10 For a brief debate on the legitimacy of shopping for a parish, see Feuerherd, Peter, “Sounding Board: You Better Not Shop Around,” U.S. Catholic, 1 December 2003, online at http://www.thefreelibrary.com/You+better+not+shop+around:+countering+the+current+trend+to+shop. . .-a0111403523Google Scholar and the reply of Andrew Manion, letter to the editor “In Defense of Parish Shopping,” U.S. Catholic, 1 February 2004, online at http://www.thefreelibrary.com/In+defense+of+parish+shopping.-a0112483526 (accessed 8 February 2010)Google Scholar. See also the discussion between Melissa Nussbaum, Musick, “Sticking with an Imperfect Fit,” National Catholic Reporter, 24 July 2009Google Scholar, 5a and Robinson, Mark T., letter to the editor, National Catholic Reporter, 21 August 2009Google Scholar. With Bennett, Jana, Nussbaum has written Free to Leave, Free to Stay: Fruits of the Spirit and Church Choice (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009)Google Scholar.

11 Study cited in Leege, David C. and Welch, Michael R., “Catholics in Context: Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Studying American Catholic Parishioners,” Review of Religious Research 31/2 (Dec. 1989): 132–48, at 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As of this writing, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate has announced that it will soon conduct the first parish study similar in scope to the Notre Dame study.

12 The CARA Report 8 (Winter 2003): 6Google Scholar. The Report adds: “Regardless of whether they currently attend the parish closest to their home, 19 percent of Mass attenders are identified as having ‘shopped’ for a church. This means they visited other area parishes before joining or they actually switched from another parish.”

13 Study cited in Castelli, Jim and Gremillion, Joseph, The Emerging Parish: The Notre Dame Study of Catholic Life Since Vatican II (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), 60Google Scholar. 20% said leaving would “not be very upsetting” and 21% said leaving would “not be upsetting at all.” On the other hand, recent years have seen a number of protests in diocese such as Boston, Cleveland, Springfield (MA), and Camden (NJ) when authorities in those dioceses moved to close or merge parishes.

14 Wells, , Losing Our Virtue, 88Google Scholar.

15 Wells notes: “If the circumstances of life are indeed determined by choice rather than by fate, then there is always the possibility that one chose unwisely. This is what lies behind some of our unease; we sometimes imagine what would have resulted if we had chosen a different career path, or a different spouse, or a different place to live” (Losing Our Virtue, 87).

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20 Kubicki, Judith, The Presence of Christ in the Gathered Assembly (New York: Continuum, 2006), 129Google Scholar. In this same connection, see also Chauvet, Louis-Marie, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, trans. Beaumont, Madeleine (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 187Google Scholar; idem, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001), 34; Searle, Mark, Called to Participate: Theological, Ritual, and Sociological Perspectives, ed. Searle, Barbara and Koester, Anne (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2006), 34Google Scholar; Morrill, Bruce, “Hidden Presence: The Mystery of the Assembly as Body of Christ,” Liturgical Ministry 11 (Winter 2002): 31–40 at 36Google Scholar; and Cooke, Bernard, Sacraments and Sacramentality (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 2004), 102Google Scholar. From the opposite direction, C.S. Lewis presents advice given to a demon seeking to undermine a sense of liturgical com-munity in the mind of a person he is seeking to corrupt: “When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbors whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbors. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew” (Lewis, C.S., The Screwtape Letters, with Screwtape Proposes a Toast (New York: MacMillan, 1961), 16Google Scholar.

21 Searle, Mark, “The Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life,” Worship 60 (1986): 312–33 at 321Google Scholar. Factors included the presence or absence of music or a choir, use of the kiss of peace, etc. This sort of fragmentation within a single church community leads Marva Dawn to announce her belief that it is “utterly dangerous for churches to offer choices of worship style.” Cited in Dawn, Marva, A Royal “Waste” of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 98 (emphasis in original)Google Scholar.

22 Morrill discusses seminarians of his acquaintance who used such criteria; see Morrill, , “Hidden Presence,” 33Google Scholar. He makes fine points about how the “I just want Mass” attitude undermines a sense of the sacramentality of initiation envisioned by the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

23 See for example, Fulmer, Burt, “Augustine's Theology as a Solution to the Problem of Identity in Consumer Society,” Augustinian Studies 37 (2006):111–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Miller, Vincent J., Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum, 2005), 7Google Scholar.

24 See On Christian Doctrine, 4, 4.

25 Expressed with particular emphasis in Confessions, X, 27, 38.

26 For a treatment of what is gained and lost by “no user serviceable parts inside,” see Gaillardetz, Richard, “Doing Liturgy in a Technological Age,” Worship 71 (1997): 429–51 at 431–32Google Scholar.

27 Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium), no. 14, in Flannery, Austin, ed., Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents (Northport, N.Y.: Costello, 1996), 124Google Scholar

28 Fagerberg, , Theologia Prima, 7Google Scholar.

29 Searle, , Called to Participate, 16Google Scholar.

30 Searle, , “The Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life,” 322–23Google Scholar.

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33 Sacrosanctum concilium, nos. 9 and 10, in Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, 122.

34 For a sustained critique of the notion that sacraments have automatic effects, see Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament.

35 McCormick, Patrick, A Banqueter's Guide to the All-Night Soup Kitchen of the Kingdom of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004), 8–9Google Scholar; Miller, , Consuming Religion, 38–39Google Scholar.

36 Cavanaugh, William, “When Enough Is Enough,” Sojourners 34 (May 2005): 8, 10, 12–14 at 10Google Scholar.

37 Miller, Vincent, “The Liturgy and Popular Culture,” Liturgical Ministry 15 (Summer 2006), 161–70 at 161Google Scholar. Marva Dawn points out that the solution is not to make worship more glamorous: “I worry about congregations that focus on having ‘exciting’ worship services because this merely fosters our society's self-gratification and does not welcome believers into the disciplines of the alternative lifestyle of Churchbeing. We might attract lots of consumers if our worship services are merely entertaining, but, unless we continually increase the emotional hype, we cannot expect consumers not to turn away to other diversions when the difficulties of being a Christian surface—or else we are merely continue contributing to their shallowness” (A Royal “Waste” of Time, 131).

38 For further discussion of the “anterior” and the “posterior” work of liturgy, see Floristán, Casiano, “The Assembly and Its Pastoral Implications,” in The Church Worships, ed. Wagner, Johannes and Rollings, Heinrich (New York: Paulist, 1966), 35–36Google Scholar. Vincent Miller makes a similar point in “Body of Christ or Religious Boutique,” 17.

39 Mouw, Richard, “Spiritual Consumerism's Upside: Why Church Shopping May Not Be All Bad,” Christianity Today, 1 Jan 2008, 50–52 at 51Google Scholar. One might also put John Henry Newman in this category.

40 Ibid., 51–52.

41 Lonergan, Bernard, “Existenz and Aggiornamento,” in Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 4: Collection, eds. Crowe, Frederick and Doran, Robert (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1993), 226Google Scholar.

42 Martos, Joseph, The Sacraments: An Interdisciplinary and Interactive Study (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2009), 230–31Google Scholar.

43 Mitchell, Nathan, “Consuming Liturgy,” Worship 79 (2005): 168–79 at 171Google Scholar (emphasis in original). Mitchell repeats this important point in “New Horizons,” Worship 84 (2010): 171–80 at 176Google Scholar.

44 It is not without reason that St. Augustine refers to the “congregation or communion of saints” as “a universal sacrifice to God” (City of God 10.6). See Augustine, , City of God, trans. Walsh, Gerald et al. (New York: Image Books, 1958), 193Google Scholar.

45 Searle, , Called to Participate, 74Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., 73. In a similar vein Parker Palmer argues that “We must not abandon the quest [for community]. It is the equation between community and family intimacy which we must abandon” (In the Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America's Public Life [New York: Crossroad, 1983], 121Google Scholar).

47 O'Malley, Timothy, “The Hermeneutic Sacramentality of Augustine: Learning to Contemplate the Invisible Reality of God in the Visible Creation” (paper, College Theology Society Annual Meeting 2009)Google Scholar. The published version of this paper, with the same title, appears in God, Grace and Creation, College Theology Society Annual Vol. 55, ed. Rossi, Philip (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010), 23–42Google Scholar. Only the line about the “bubbling brook” appears in the published version of the paper (27–28).

48 See Dei Verbum, no. 2.

49 On this, see Chauvet, Louis-Marie, “Sacrements,” in Catholicisme hier, aujourd'hui, demain: Encyclopédie publiée sous le patronage de l'Institue Catholique de Lille, vol. 13 (1993), col. 356Google Scholar.

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51 McCormick, , Banqueter's Guide, 17Google Scholar.

52 Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, “The Role of Human Creativity in Centesimus Annus and Its Implications for Christian Economic Ethics” (paper, Second Conference of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, “In the Currents of History: From Trent to the Future,” Trent, Italy, 24–27 July 2010). I am grateful to Dr. Zimmerman for the use of this material.

53 Ibid.

54 See http://www.ncrlc.com/page.aspx?ID=51 and select the links for “Harvest Prayers,” “Prayers for Rural Families,” etc. The National Catholic Rural Life Conference is active in promoting social justice concerns in rural America. Regardless of whether parishes are able to raise awareness about agrarian concerns via participation in a farmers' market, action for justice for farmers is still a path parishes may pursue.

55 Hovda, Robert, “Money or Gifts for the Poor and the Church,” Worship 59 (1985): 65–71 at 68Google Scholar.

56 The practice of collecting and distributing items to aid the poor is of course a practice of ancient standing, documented as far back as Justin Martyr. See Justin's, First Apology, chapter 67, Text available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.lxvii.htmlGoogle Scholar or in Deiss, Lucien, Springtime of the Liturgy, trans. O'Connell, Matthew (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1979), 93–94Google Scholar.

57 Hovda, , “Money or Gifts for the Poor,” 69Google Scholar. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal from which Hovda is working is the 1975 edition, which actually says in no. 49 concerning the presentation of the bread and wine, “This is also the time to receive money or other gifts for the church or the poor brought by the faithful or collected at the Mass. These are to be put in a suitable place but not on the altar.” No. 73 of the 2002 General Instruction says essentially the same thing: “It is well also that money or other gifts for the poor or for the Church, brought by the faithful or collected in the church, should be received. These are to be put in a suitable place but away from the eucharistic table.” My point is that Hovda changes “money or other gifts for the poor or for the Church” to “money or other gifts for the poor and the Church”; my aim is simply that of accuracy.

58 Michel, Virgil, “The Liturgy: The Basis of Social Regeneration,” Orate Fratres 9 (1934): 536–45Google Scholar.

59 Himes, Kenneth, “Eucharist and Justice: Assessing the Legacy of Virgil Michel,” Worship 62 (1988): 194–224Google Scholar.

60 Smolarski, Dennis, Eucharist and American Culture: Liturgy, Unity, and Individualism (New York: Paulist, 2009)Google Scholar.

61 Osborne, Kenan, Community, Eucharist, and Spirituality (Liguori, MO: Liguori, 2007)Google Scholar.

62 See Gaudium et spes, no. 24.

63 Cf. 1 Cor. 11:17–29.

64 See Pope John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliation and Penance (2 December 1984), no. 4, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_02121984_reconciliatio-et-paenitentia_en.html.

65 Kavanagh, , Elements of Rite, 21Google Scholar.

66 On the significance of “for you,” see Chauvet, Louis-Marie, Thèmes de réflexion sur l'eucharistie (Lourdes: Congrès Eucharistique International, 16–23 July 1981), 17Google Scholar.