Visual Liturgy

This volume assembles in one place many of the documents needed by pastoral ministers and students of the liturgy. Each document is preceded by an outline of the text; also included is a cumulative index of material found in this volume and in The Liturgy Documents: A Parish Resource, Volume 2.

Sunday worship, baptisms, weddings and funerals are the shop window of the church and there is nothing more important for mission than getting them right. How do we help congregations and occasional visitors encounter God through them? This practical guide draws upon the treasury of the church’s tradition and experience to establish good practice

Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... "a module compatible with Visual Liturgy 4.0; this links each biography electronically to its allocated Holy Day, allowing users to access that day's information at the click of a button. The CD-ROM also contains searchable PDF files of the Saints on Earth material."--Page 4 of cover.

What does it mean to be a visual aid in worship? Moving Liturgy: Dance in Christian Worship provides readers with powerful ideas to bring prayers, parables, hymns, and scripture passages to life in the most direct way--storytelling in dance and movement through the body--the best visual aid! This book offers practical and artistic information for anyone interested in learning about, or re-affirming, the use of dance and movement in worship. Jane Wellford has worked extensively in the arts of liturgical dance and drama in collaboration with clergy, musicians, conductors, visual artists, dancers, and entire congregations. Successful ideas for worship, as well as creative possibilities, are all included in this book. I believe that worship should be made multi-sensory, exciting, and as connected to real life experiences as possible. The more senses that are involved in worship, the more likely the message will be received. When we hear the word of God shared through words or music, see it come to life through dance, drama, or other visual arts, experience it through speaking the prayers, confessions, or creeds, and sing it through hymns or chants, we are more actively engaged in the experience of worship.

Examining the history of altar decorations, this study of the visual liturgy grapples with many of the previous theoretical frameworks to reveal the evolution and function of these ritual objects. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book uses traditional art-historical methodologies and media technology theory to reexamine ritual objects. Previous analysis has not considered the in-between nature of these objects as deliberate and virtual conduits to the divine. The liturgy, the altarpiece, the altar environment, relics, and their reliquaries are media. In a series of case studies, several objects tell a different story about culture and society in medieval Europe. In essence, they reveal that media and media technologies generate and modulate the individual and collective structure of feelings of sacredness among assemblages of humans and nonhumans. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies, early modern studies, and architectural history.

This volume offers 37 original essays from leading scholars on the crucial topics, issues, methods, and resources for studying and teaching religion and the arts.

Cally Hammond looks at how words function as carriers of semantic content (communicating facts and doctrines; telling stories; articulating emotions and spiritual perceptions) and then contrasts this with words as they function as physical entities striking the ear, so as to evoke emotions, memories and spiritual perceptions. This basic antithesis between words as carriers of meaning and words as evokers of feeling, emotion, and memory leads to four chapters that explore in fascinating detail the four main aspects of liturgical speech: posture, repetition, rhythm and punctuation.

Father Anscar Chupungco fondly recalls his first class as a student at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in 1965. Professor Salvatore Marsili 'famed theologian, liturgist, and cofounder of the institute 'entered the lecture hall, and after a prolonged and awkward silence finally asked, And so, what is liturgy?" This seemingly simple question underlies Chupungco's untiring love for liturgy and his lifetime of searching for answers. His is a passion deeply rooted in tradition, which is evident in this volume. Relying on Scripture, patristic writers, and conciliar and postconciliar documents 'and with great skill, prudence, and the fundamental virtue of obedience 'he carefully examines current liturgical trends that are the subject of fierce debate. At a time when we focus so intently on the debate itself, Chupungco cautions us to remember: "At the end of the day what matters are not personal opinions but what truly contributes to making the prayer of the Church an encounter with the person of Christ." It is this most sacred encounter that is at the heart of What, Then, Is Liturgy? And it is this encounter that will lead us day by day to the ultimate heavenly liturgy, our eternal and perfect offering of praise to God. Anscar Chupungco is a Benedictine of the Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat in Manila. He is former president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome, where he taught history of the liturgy and liturgical inculturation. Chupungco was Executive Secretary of the Philippine Episcopal Commission on Liturgy for eighteen years and is currently Secretary of the Asian Liturgy Forum. He has served as consultor to both the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, was a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) for ten years, and for some time served as Chair of ICEL's Translations and ReVisions Subcommittee. Chupungco edited the five-volume Handbook for Liturgical Studies and is author of Liturgical Inculturation (both published by Liturgical Press), Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy, and Liturgies of the Future. "