"When people tell me that they find Mass boring, I want to say to them: It's supposed to be boring, or at least seriously underwhelming."
"Christian worship is predicated on the understanding that there is nothing left to achieve."
"[Worship requires] no whipping up of emotions in order that we glimpse the crucified and risen Lamb. Exactly the reverse. The crucified and risen Lamb is just there."
"Because he is just there, our liturgy is an ordered and relaxed way of habitually making ourselves present, as worshipping group, to the one who is just there, already surrounded by festal angels and our predecessors in the faith. If you like, it is an orchestrated detox of our mimetic fascination with each other which is the only way we are going to be able to glimpse the other Other who is just there, and who has been inviting us, all along, to his party."
Cool!
These quotations (via The Ekklesia Project) all come from James Alison's latest book Undergoing God which I somehow didn't hear about when it was published last fall.
Alison is unparalleled as a theologian, and I am particularly excited to read his thoughts on liturgy.
Labels: James Allison, liturgy
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