The other day we watched the libs meltdown. Being all discombobulated, some of the tender things weren’t able to cope with daily tasks. They needed “safe spaces” in which they would receive hugs and reassurances and teddy bears.
“What a great moment for liturgical rite!”, quoth I. “We need to accompany these people, in mercy and because, well, we don’t hate Vatican II!”
So, putting my head together with a couple priests, one for ideas and one for text, this is what we have so far. Please note the Latin neologism:
The Proposed liturgy
The faithful, and others, come together in the gathering space, lit by soft lights powered by renewable resources. Any offensive imagery should be removed. Okay, let’s face it, the walls should be bare, but unobtrusive lest those offended by bare walls get stressed out.
Okay, maybe we should do this in a park somewhere. But not a park named after a civil war general, or slave owner, or heteronormative cisgender patriarchial oppressor.
Okay, we’re gathering in Judy’s apartment complex community room.
Softly lit soy candles are held aloft in the cardinal directions by the Sisters Servant of Jesus the Revolutionary, newly back from their bus tour. Ursapupifers hand out stuffed bears (made by undocumented immigrants being paid a just wage under old-growth redwoods and using all natural fabrics). The gathered community can begin softly signing any hymn from the Cure’s 1989 album “Disintegration.”
Leader of Prayer: I apologize for being the leader, and acknowledge the leadership in all of you.
Community: We affirm your discomfort at leadership, and beg the pardon of all those offended by hierarchy.
Leader of Prayer pinning a safety pin on his/her sweater vest: I proclaim this to be a safe space and invite you all to safety and trust. They all ensafetypin themselves.
Commissioned Agitator: O God, or whoever, or whatever: deign in your mercy to hear the cries of your people – wounded, hurt, destroyed, demolish, brought down low, despair, crying, angered, irritated, annoyed, vexed, bothered, mildly displeased, anguished, oppressed, confused, down trodden, misgendered, mispronounced, miffed, freaking out – hear our cries and our unreasonable demands. Make it stop. May the shade-grown vanilla soy latte of your countenance pour forth and scald the mean people that have done this to us, while bringing us half-caffeinated and gluten-free enjoyment.
Community: Amen (and Awomen, and Anon-binarygendered).
Reader: A reading from the Apocalypse according to van Jones
“I’m so mad. I think this should give us a lot of empathy for the kids in Syria and other wartorn countries who want to get away from crazy and to come here. The fact that someone said mean things was able to become president traumatized a whole generation of children. No building got blown up next to them. They didn’t see their dad get torn apart in a car bomb. Just one mean person saying mean things, being put in a position of power, traumatized half a generation of kids.”
Community: Yes, we are terrified. You shall know us by the browning of our pants on that sad day. Ooooo, people who disagree with us are scary.
A moment of silence as teddy bears are hugged. Appropriate touches may be given, after proof of signed consent is provided.
Commissioned Agitator: Will the genderless professor of multicultural, multiethnic, multilateral, multisexed, multidimensional transnuminous studies come forward for the inexhaustible litany of pronouns.
The community sits. This is gonna take… awhile.
Leader of Prayer: Let us now share in the community cake, which was baked by a conservative Christian baker (the crowd shudders and moans in unison) who made this celebratory cake in protest under fear of being shut down and sued (crowd lets out a muffled, hooray!).
Commissioned Agitator: Father… Mister… Othered Roy Bourgeois will now unfurl an inexplicable banner demonstrating the offense we feel at how other people having been poopy-heads. Will the assigned assistant unfurlers come forward.
They unfurl. Then refurl.
Leader of Prayer: Please stand for our litany of grievances. Your response is, “I just can’t even.”
L: Dude, we so thought we had this election in the bag.
C: I just can’t even.
L: I mean, he’s gonna be the President. That’s so freaking bizarre.
C: I just can’t even.
L: I hear he’s already opening concentration camps for minorities and that he bathes daily in the blood of bludgeoned baby seals.
C: I just can’t even.
L: We might have to get jobs!
C: I just can’t even.
L: Dude, I can’t afford to pay for my girlfriend’s birth control, let along her girlfriend’s gender reassignment surgery!
C: I just can’t even.
L: I know that pot’s been legalized just about everywhere, but is there really enough weed to get us through the next four years?
C: I just can’t even.
L: And what if he’s elected and is president for eight years?
C: I JUST CAN’T EVEN.
Commissioned Agitator: Let the biodegradable tissues be handed out.
Leader of Prayer: Please turn and affirm one another in our okayness. You may exit through the back doors, or the windows, or into the next dimension through a time-space portal. Or stay here. I really have no power to force you to do anything.
Commissioned Agitator: Let the community gather again tomorrow night for more prayer and healing, except those who have jobs.
Community: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. See you tomorrow!
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Father, weren’t they supposed to sage the community room on first entering, to banish all residual negativity?
And at the exit there is someone handing out Xerox copies of a Google map with driving directions to Canada.
My congregation’s Liberal Religious service this Sunday was lovely. Theodore Parker’s “creed” took a prominent place in the service (“Be ours a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere; its temple, all space; its shrine, the good heart; its creed, all truth; its ritual, works of love; its profession of faith, divine living.”) There was an ironic note in the choice of prelude before things got underway, which was Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, sure. But hymn selections included “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The words spoken held out the hopes for the racism, sexism, bigotry, dehumanisation and unbridled anger of the campaign to abate. Also heard were commitment to justice, equity and compassion. So on the whole I’d say what we had was a service with some sorrow for the outcome of the election which gave way quickly to commitment to a brighter future. That’s the thing about deeply held faith: you may have a setback, even a big one, but that’s not the same thing as being pushed off the path you know to be righteous.
Speaking for myself, I’m disappointed and sad, but like most well-educated liberal elites I have a good income, diversified investments and cash in the bank. If it comes to that, I even have an Irish passport to supplement my American one in the safe deposit box. I’ll be OK and so will most of my cohort. You’re a Wisconsinite, correct? Perhaps you might check in with Garrison Keillor’s thoughts if you want the barometer of liberals in your state:
“You shall know us by the browning of our pants…” I laughed out loud on my train ride home from work. Thank you for that!
Roy Bourgeois…
…now where have I heard that name lately? Hmmmm…
I think I broke a rib laughing. . .charitably laughing, of course!
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
“Well educated.” “Proud illiteracy.” Yeah, right. The liberal childishness continues.
I agree, the sage or other fake “native American” stuff was left out. Needs mandala references too.
Well … I don’t need eyedrops anymore! (laughing so hard that I am “in tears”)… LOL
BTW, forgive my poor Latin: Ursapupifers = an orphan she-bear? [possibly, one who is a ward of the State?]
This is great. Many hilarious lines. Thanks to Fr. Z and his trusty companions.
A thought occurs: Baronius Press should print this up and sell it to liberal churches through a front company. The proceeds could then go to the monks at Norcia. Everybody wins!
PostCatholic: Try a Birra Nursia- it’s refreshing!
(If I may add, a buddy texted me that KHOU in Houston is reporting that a 40-year old woman was arrested for punching a police horse. Apparently no Ursapupifer was nearby.)
Leader of Prayer pinning a safety pin on his/her sweater vest: I proclaim this to be a safe space and invite you all to safety and trust. They all ensafetypin themselves.
Owwwww….I stuck myself! Hey I thought this was a safe space!? I’m suing the Church!
Meanwhile, Emperor Nero Obama is insisting that “my vision is right.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3938752/My-vision-s-right-Obama-delivers-lecture-world-view-prevail-admits-Americans-voted-against-it.html
As if his ideas were the only ones worth considering. This sanctimonious tyrant couldn’t leave soon enough.
Donald Trump needs to see this.
In the interests of ecumenism, this needs to be shared with the Standing Commission on Liturgy of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Maybe it can be added as an appendix to the Book of Occasional Services.
I too demand my own liturgical safe-place: A regular Ordinary Form Mass in Latin with chant and incense.
I guess this is as relevant here as anywhere. I just found out about a petition apparently now being circulated at my alma mater, a (nominally) Catholic university. It requests the university president to declare the school a “sanctuary campus” due to “recent political events and the imperiled status of undocumented students on this campus and in this nation.”
It mainly talks about an alleged Catholic moral obligation to “actively refuse to comply with immigration authorities regarding deportations or raids.”
It saves the best for last, though, with the final request being the creation of “particular spaces on campus where those who feel threatened can seek refuge and protection.”
I just checked, and their online copy has 201 names on it, mostly students, but also including some alumni and staff.
BTW, forgive my poor Latin: Ursapupifers = an orphan she-bear? [possibly, one who is a ward of the State?]
Literally, it means something like “bearers of obamacare bears”.
Methinks a rough translation of ursapupifer would be “carrier of bear dolls”.
Ursapupifer, ROFL!
But seriously, I want the FSSP or ICKSP to come to this country because I want to seek refuge and protection.
Over the top! Perfection.
Rumor has it that you were seen emerging from Trump Tower. Speculation has it that Mr. Ryan has suggested to Mr. Trump that you would be the right guy for Congressional Chaplain.
Benedict Joseph, chaplains of the House and Senate are selected by those bodies so maybe there can be a mail campaign!
I bow to the splendour of your satire…
As a post-liturgy exhortation, perhaps you could read this in order to restore yourself from an attack of the vapours:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.hdYgzDoN8#.cjDbNeKjJ
Serious point though, as it is quite interesting!
Best thing I’ve read all week. Truly a service for the ages.
I blinked twice at “realistic normal patriarchial oppressor”, but then I remembered I have a text-replacement browser extension in effect and started chortling. Said chortling continued the whole way through, with an especially loud guffaw for “ensafetypin”.
I read about an event in a LAW SCHOOL in a Midwestern university where the students were going to be given Play Doh, crayons and Legos to “play with” in the library to overcome their trauma. It’s even gotten pretty hard to satirize such a reality!
JabbaPapa and Filipino Catholic, gratias ago tibi ex toto corde meo.
Geoffrey, Do you really prefer the Novus Ordo Latin of “V: ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord.'”, “R: ‘For we have sinned against you!'” to the verses of “the Judica”, Psalm 42, as they are used as the prayers at the foot of the altar? Joy is chatacteristic of Psalm 42; as the notes in the hand missal read, “The celebrant longs to ascend to the altar of God, there to perform his [priestly] office and to draw near to the Lord God, even to union with Him in the Eucharist. He (through Psalm 42) confides himself to the mercy of God, [who is the] source of light, salvation, and peace, Who imparts to us unalterable youth of soul and blissful immortality.”
Besides “all of that”, the first verse of the Psalm itself has the line, “Ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.” Truly an expression of the reality of our need for God’s protection… The opening to both forms of the Latin Rite express the words that we find in the canticle of Tobias, “[The Lord] scourges us for our sins but he will save us according to His mercy.” But Dom Gueranger expresses it well when he says that we take David’s prayer (Psalm 42) “and make it ours; and we say to our Heavenly Father: send forth Him, who is thy Light and thy Truth!”
My major point is that the prayers at the foot of the altar in the TLM express not only–merely–our desire for God’s mercy for our lowliness, but also our hope in and desire for the coming of Jesus (a third ‘parousia’ of which we can speak) at the transubstantiation, as well as our desire for the final parousia: “The glorious return and appearance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ … at the end of time … when history and all creation will achieve their fulfillment”, as the new Catechism defines it. Psalm 42 in the TLM orient the Mass from the outset toward the “eschaton” that we pray for daily in the Pater Noster, “Thy Kingdom come…”. A mere “miserere nostri, Domine” does not seem to do justice to the very content of the Credo, and our desire to be raised with Christ at the end of time.
Post Catholic: “Perhaps you might check in with Garrison Keillor’s thoughts if you want the barometer of liberals in your state:”
Wow, I’d no idea he did satire so well!
Oh wait, you mean…?
Semper Gumby, I’m a bit set in my ways in that on those rare occasions when I drink beer, I strongly prefer it to be dark, rich, and Irish.
PostCatholic: My guess is that you are referring to that boon from God: Guiness. By the way, enjoying said pint does not improve one’s ability to sing The Rose of Tralee.
Sweater vest…Hahaaaaaa!
I’m lost for words!
Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha!
Perhaps they now have a fraction of an incling about how those of us who were economically devastated by Obama’s fiscal policies and struggled to adequately support our families off the dole felt in 2012.
My grandmother had a wise saying for times like these:
Suck it up, buttercup.
Ursapupifers – “Bear-bearers”