Franciscans and the Liturgical Life:: Let Us Praise, Adore, and Give Thanks

Chapter Two: Sacramentality and Franciscan Worship

CHAPTER TWO SACRAMENTALITY AND FRANCISCAN WORSHIP1 Judith M. Kubicki, C.S.S.F. Introduction If ever there were a person who cultivated a sacramental view of life, it was Francis of Assisi. Everywhere he looked, Francis perceived God’s presence: in the beauty of creation, in the smallest of God’s creatures, in the silence of contemplative prayer. His devotion to the humanity of Christ through his celebration of the crèche at Greccio and the Stations of the Cross, or his composing the ecstatic Canticle of the Sun—all of these express a sacramental worldview that saw and heard God’s presence in all aspects of creation. Francis intuitively grasped a core belief of Christianity: that God uses simple elements of ordinary, everyday life to cultivate a deep and abiding relationship of love with humanity, both individually and corporately. Furthermore, these simple elements of creation are the symbols that we as Church use to weave and reweave relationships—with God and with each other—when we gather to celebrate the liturgy. This paper explores three ideas: (1) the meaning of sacramentality and the importance of cultivating a sacramental worldview; (2) the centrality of the sacramental worldview within the Franciscan tradition ; and (3) a way for Franciscans to approach worship, given our strong tradition of viewing life from a sacramental perspective. 1 Many of the ideas in this article are more fully developed in Judith M. Kubicki, The Presence of Christ in the Gathered Assembly (New York: Continuum, 2006). Judith KubicKi, c.S.S.F. 12 Sacramentality I have the very good fortune of sometimes spending time at Cape Cod with a sister friend whose brother owns a house in Eastham. One of our vacation rituals is to get up before dawn and drive a few short miles to the beach to watch the sunrise. Oftentimes the fog or thick clouds prevent us from seeing the event for which we sacrificed precious sleep. Nevertheless, each morning we join the locals and tourists who come to the beach, often bracing in the wind, clutching their coffee cups and waiting in silence. Everyone’s attention is fixed on the ocean’s horizon in eager expectation of the first glimpse of the rising sun. When, on a clear day, it finally appears, a palpable experience of awe and wonder can be read in the faces and bodies of those who—especially in the summer months—have ventured out very early to witness this daily drama of promise and hope. Perhaps many of these “dawn seekers” rarely darken the threshold of a church. Yet, in this simple ritual of rising early and heading out to the water, they are drawn into an experience that opens them to an awareness of the sacred or the holy. Many might call this an experience of creation’s innate sacramentality. Let us begin, then, by reflecting on the notion of sacramentality. This first section will consider four aspects: the sacramentality of the universe, the need for contemplative openness, the importance of embodiment or bodiliness and the sacramentality of time. Having a sacramental worldview involves having our eyes and ears attuned to the intimations of a benevolent God who is always inviting us into a transforming relationship. Such a point of view requires an openness of the imagination to being constantly surprised by the presence of God in all the mundane elements of our existence. A sacramental perspective views the world as the locus where God reveals Godself and where we respond to that revelation. The New Testament expresses the notion of sacramentality with the Greek word mysterion, meaning “hidden” or “secret.” In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses the word to speak about the hidden wisdom of God revealed through Christ’s death and resurrection (1Cor. 2:7). Today we use the phrase “Paschal Mystery” in this same sense. The early Church used the Greek word mysterion within a worship context to speak about a variety of rites, symbols, liturgical objects , blessings and celebrations. But by the Middle Ages, the Latin Sacramentality and FranciScan WorShip 13 translation for mysterion, that is, sacramentum, came to be restricted in its usage to refer only to official sacramental rites of the Church.2 In Kevin Irwin’s judgment, the notion of sacramentality has diminished in the contemporary Christian imagination. Furthermore, he asserts that this notion must be retrieved if liturgy and sacraments are to survive as meaningful...