[amc] Re: Catholic Mennonites? Mennonite Catholics?
- From: "Nevitt D. Reesor" <reesor@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Austin Mennonite Church <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:16:30 -0500
Steve,
I agree with your sentiments. Whatever critical sense my comments may
have had should be taken as clumsy satire.
I grew up Southern Baptist, and I was taught that ritual and
elaborate worship environments are meaningless wastes of resources.
My visitations in Episcopal, Catholic, and Christian Orthodox
Churches, however, have convinced me otherwise. I often experience
the most severe, non-liturgical Protestant worship services as
sterile and dry intellectual exercises by comparison. Meaningful
rituals and worship environments draw the mind into a symbolic world
where the over-active intellect may be calmed, allowing the heart to
rest in mystery. This can also be a more holistic experience
involving all the senses (incense, music, bread and wine, icons,
etc), thereby at least pointing the way toward recovering an embodied
sense of spirituality, something most of Christianity has sadly tried
to reject. (Thanks to the worship committee and to Garland for
incorporating more "liturgical" elements into our own services from
time to time.)
Anyway, the notion of Catholic Mennonites just struck me as funny
after working through the Reformation in Sunday School. If any of you
decide to convert to Catholicism, that's fine with me. Maybe we can
lower an occasional bucket of water to you in the afterlife.
Nevitt
On Apr 12, 2006, at 7:55 AM, Steve Friesen wrote:
Mennonite/Catholic doesn't sound so strange to me. I'm sure there
are many
reasons why people move in this direction, but I'm guessing one of
them is a
growing appreciation of ritual. Mennonites inherit a profound
skepticism
about ritual, as though it was a bad thing (or at least very
dangerous). My
experience in MCC with the Romanian Orthodox helped me see that there is
also deep meaning in the regular ritual of commumunion/eucharist/Lord's
supper.
Then for the last 4 years in Missouri we were in a Disciples of Christ
congregation where the Lord's Supper was part of every Sunday
worship. I
developed a taste for the regular bread and wine (well...crackers and
grape
juice, actually). It became an important way for me to express my
discipleship, an expression that had no words from my mouth but
involved my
whole body.
All that's to say, I think Mennonites are, as a tradition, starved for
ritual. And sometimes people cross denominational lines to regain
ritual.
Steve
-------
Austin Mennonite Church, (512) 926-3121 www.mennochurch.org
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