homepage
  roll on christmas  
click here to find out more about ship of fools click here to sign up for the ship of fools newsletter click here to support ship of fools
community the mystery worshipper gadgets for god caption competition foolishness features ship stuff
discussion boards live chat cafe avatars frequently-asked questions the ten commandments gallery private boards register for the boards
 
Ship of Fools


Post new thread  Post a reply
My profile login | | Directory | Search | FAQs | Board home
   - Printer-friendly view Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » When does silliness become sacriligeous?

 - Email this page to a friend or enemy.    
Source: (consider it) Thread: When does silliness become sacriligeous?
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

 - Posted      Profile for Beeswax Altar   Email Beeswax Altar   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I'm watching a documentary that claims a house became haunted after Satanists performed a Black Mass inside it (or something like that I'm not paying that close attention). A Black Mass is supposedly the words of the Roman Catholic Mass somehow inverted, using a naked woman as the altar, and said in worship of Satan. It is doubtful if such as mass was ever actually performed.

Anton Le Vey said a Black Mass was the parody of any religious ritual used to make fun of it. This got me to thinking about religious worship that is meaningful to some people but seems silly at best or sacrilegious to others. I thought of funerals.

Recently, I celebrated a Requiem Mass for an older gentleman who had no family. His friends made the arrangements. They wanted a Rite III Eucharist using Prayer C with additions from the New Zealand Prayer Book. I went through with it. I told Mrs. Mother Beeswax Altar that if that happened at my funeral I would lead the Zombie Apocalypse.

Another was a funeral of a member of my former parish. She was a high church Episcopalian. Her very Evangelical daughter couldn't bring herself to allow her mother a proper Episcopal funeral. Instead, we had a memorial service at a funeral home with poorly done contemporary Christian music and a rather overly sentimental liturgy that almost made me laugh out loud. I got to speak last. I tried my best to reconcile the deceased's Episcopalianism with her daughter's Evangelicalism.

In seminary, I attended a funeral for the non-religious which included people who couldn't sing performing semi-original works in honor of the deceased. I began to wonder why the death of a loved one often lead to those who couldn't sing wanting to sing. Oh well...

What rituals that are meaningful to others do you find silly or especially sacrilegious?

Have you ever witnessed such a ritual?

Have you ever officiated at such a ritual?

[ 02. November 2012, 15:15: Message edited by: dj_ordinaire ]

--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032

 - Posted      Profile for Anselmina     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:


In seminary, I attended a funeral for the non-religious which included people who couldn't sing performing semi-original works in honor of the deceased. I began to wonder why the death of a loved one often lead to those who couldn't sing wanting to sing. Oh well...


You mean a bit like this?

Balloons goes a bit over my head ( [Big Grin] ), as a funeral custom in some places.

--------------------
Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!

Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643

 - Posted      Profile for dj_ordinaire   Author's homepage   Email dj_ordinaire   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I'm really enjoying having a thread with the title of 'Black Mass' going the rounds in Eccles (how much blood? What brand of dead man's grease? should the defiled virgin be facing west or east? Oh, think of the fun we could have!)

However... I don't think that this is really the point of the thread and we have tended to say that Eccles and the MW project are restricted to Christian worship which would seem to exclude, ahem, Antichristian worship... 'Unrestfulness' does, after all have its limits!

So, I'm reluctantly going to change the thread title to something a little more prosaic but perchance more accurate, if this is acceptable.

dj_ordinaire, Eccles host

--------------------
Flinging wide the gates...

Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
PD
Shipmate
# 12436

 - Posted      Profile for PD   Author's homepage   Email PD   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
The worst thing that has happened to me has been the odd painfully sentimental and individualistic hymn at funerals. I suspect that is because negotiations start from the position of 'I am sorry to hear of your trouble. Your (Insert title/name) was a good man/woman/complete bastard. This is what the church does at funerals' not 'Hey, Pastor, can we..." followed by tacky bright idea.

On the other hand there were some worship sessions which rode the rail between hokey, silly and sacriligious when I was at Uni. The UCCF were the usual culprits, so if they took over the college chapel for an evening I fled elsewhere. They were nice folks, but wonderloaf and grape juice communion led by a layman, and adult baptism in bath tubs (with the incorrect formular) were not my thing, and for me hover on the line between silly and sacriligious!

The Anglo-Catholics who usually ran the College Chapel were occasionally guilty of bad taste, but nothing worse! The really tacky copy of the icon of Our Lady of Somewhere-in-Poland-I-cannot-spell was fairly grim, and the statute of Our Lady by the altar had a strange smile on her face. As a result she was known as 'the Madonna of the Craft Fart."

PD

[ 02. November 2012, 15:46: Message edited by: PD ]

--------------------
Roadkill on the Information Super Highway!

My Assorted Rantings - http://www.theoldhighchurchman.blogspot.com

Posts: 4431 | From: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Circuit Rider

Ship's Itinerant
# 13088

 - Posted      Profile for Circuit Rider   Email Circuit Rider   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
This one is a staple at funerals in my area. Try arranging a decent funeral liturgy around that and keeping a straight face. You never know until you show up at the funeral home what the family have chosen for "special music."

--------------------
I felt my heart strangely warmed ... and realised I had spilt hot coffee all over myself.

Posts: 715 | From: Somewhere in the Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Kayarecee
Apprentice
# 17289

 - Posted      Profile for Kayarecee   Email Kayarecee   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Not really sacrilege, but it seems like a lot of places I've been to in the past, when they have Advent wreaths in the worship space, make the lighting of the wreath into a Big Event with a family from the congregation coming up and one of the parents reading a little inspirational passage about the significance of the candles on the wreath while the kids stand there and look bored, then one of them lights the candles, while the congregation sings the appropriate verse of "Light One Candle to Watch for Messiah" or something similar.

I get that it's important to people, and that if the servers just lit the candles on the wreath during the prelude, when all the other candles are lit, it wouldn't have the same sort of significance for them, but it bugs me. Like I said, not sacrilege at all, I just find it kind of silly.

(Also, nobody ever lights the pink candle, when they have one, during the right week.)

[ 02. November 2012, 16:14: Message edited by: Kayarecee ]

Posts: 25 | From: The Cornfields | Registered: Aug 2012  |  IP: Logged
Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513

 - Posted      Profile for Alogon   Email Alogon   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
If the kids look bored, then clearly it's not important to them, even though they are supposedly the ones for whom it is being done.

I have no problem with an Advent wreath in church, or with some kind of ceremony around it as long as it is is instructive or meaningful to those participating. But everyone should be encouraged to make it a dinnertime practice at home, too, where it primarily belongs. I have very distinct memories of the introduction of the Advent wreath into our family when I was seven years old when we were becoming Episcopalians. Over a period of time, it made a strong impression and we all looked forward to it. In this more intimate setting, there are ways that a child can participate without boring so many classmates or strangers [Smile] And if that means everyone's sitting down to a meal together when it has not been the family's custom, so much the better.

In general, the church's rubrics should carry more weight than our personal preferences as to what we find silly. If they allow a given practice and a member of the congregation wants it, then shouldn't it be carefully considered? I'm thinking particularly of an authorized hymn in the hymnal: I don't think that a rector or a choirmaster has any more legitimate veto power than a fellow congregant has to say no, we'll never sing that hymn here because I hate it. This might go for other suggestions as well. Profiting financially from a spiritual monopoly, or an attempt at one, might not be the only way to be a money changer in the temple.

--------------------
Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.

Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Offeiriad

Ship's Arboriculturalist
# 14031

 - Posted      Profile for Offeiriad   Email Offeiriad   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I thought a 'eucharist' celebrated in our college was silly heading for sacriligeous. It was the 'trade off' for the previous day's High Church outing, and involved a celebrant in collar and tie and a bun.

The bun was still frozen, and fought back at the Fraction. The celebrant sank to attempting to chop it up with the edge of the paten: it was then that he (and we) realised the bun had currants in it....

Posts: 1426 | From: La France profonde | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472

 - Posted      Profile for Fr Weber   Email Fr Weber   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
"Just like Jesus did it, innit?"

--------------------
"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."

--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM

Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
Offeiriad

Ship's Arboriculturalist
# 14031

 - Posted      Profile for Offeiriad   Email Offeiriad   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Absolutely authentic liturgical reconstruction of a patristic rite, Father! It taught me a great deal... [Big Grin]
Posts: 1426 | From: La France profonde | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
jugular
Voice of Treason
# 4174

 - Posted      Profile for jugular     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
When I was commissioned to a previous position as School Chaplain, I discovered that there had been a tradition of featuring liturgical dance during the annual Founders' Day Liturgy. Newly-arrived, I was to be commissioned during said liturgy. For the gospel acclamation, we were treated to teenage girls in bright-orange lycra dancing to Heal The World. There are no words.

In other news, some would consider Pirate Church sacrilegious. In that case, however, it is 'loving satire' rather than 'trying to be trendy and meaningful'.

--------------------
We’ve got to act like a church that hasn’t already internalized the narrative of its own decline Ray Suarez

Posts: 2599 | From: Australia | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged


 
Post new thread  Post a reply Close thread   Feature thread   Move thread   Delete thread Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
 - Printer-friendly view
Go to:

Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement

© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0

 
follow ship of fools on twitter
buy your ship of fools postcards
sip of fools mugs from your favourite nautical website
 
 
  ship of fools