For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. " - 1st Corinthians 10:17This weeks' Church offertory lead to an epiphany - making that 15" journey from head to heart!
Our choir director gave the men and women in the sanctuary different words to sing, like a round. The men sang their part then the women sang theirs then both sang their different parts together and it was wonderful!
It wasn't a show I watched but an event - and I was part of it, reminded Church is not a show to watch but a participation to share!
The realization went further!
Why the liturgy with its printed prayers, times of sitting, rising, kneeling, eating, singing songs we can actually sing? - not for a love of ritual but because Church is not a show to watch but a participation to share. We may detour throughout the service, each having our own part as the Holy Spirit leads, but then we return and continue together.
I participate in a shared fellowship - I sing, I pray, I kneel, I eat, I make the sign of the cross - participating with my body as well as my soul and spirit. There is a place for the "I" in the voluntarily participation with the "We"! I belong.
There is a reason the Eucharist is also called "Communion" - we commune with Jesus and his body, a shared participation.
- fritz
