When the Homily is about Immunology

The Morning Coffee has been particularly strong lately

Much conversation (and a little bickering) has been happening in Alana’s kitchen nook as of late. A particular little tributary of the main conversations has got me thinking - no big suprise, is it? Some of those thoughts were expressed in comments there, but I’d like to develop them more fully here at home. (If any of you were over at Alana’s you will forgive some of the repetition I am doomed to make here.)

Someone mentioned they were not big fans of ritual, preferring instead to focus on the “bigger” things like loving your neighbor. No point in trying to argue with this…rather I simply added that the two needn’t be at odds. But, ritual is a big part of Orthodoxy and we like it, thus I feel obliged to express why.

What is ritual?

Well the dictionary offers both a religious and secular usage, which really aren’t all that different:

1. The prescribed order of a religious ceremony.
2. The prescribed form of conducting a formal secular ceremony

Are we humans naturally attracted to ritual? Well, could we imagine a president being sworn in without some elaborate and perhaps even moving ceremony? Could we remember 9/11 on its anniversary without some solemn and formal procedure? What about our funerals and our weddings? Can we fathom these hugely important events just being proclaimed on paper as having taken place or being recognized and then…well…then nothing else. You’re married now, you’re dead now, you have remembered a devastating and history altering event now, or you are the president of the United States now. How strange…and empty…unsatisfying. Would we not feel unfed? Unsatisfied. Would it not feel unreal?

Truly, rituals MEAN something to us…they move us and affect us. They seem to help us to feel the importance of some event…they validate deeply held emotions and convictions. They testify to the importance of the fuel, which inspires the ritual. I contend that we NEED ritual.

Why should our religious life be any different? If the Church is right about the claim that in the Eucharist we partake of the Divine Nature, ought it not to be a very profound and deeply significant ritual? Ritual is like art. It certainly may not have any direct observable utilitarian purpose, but so what? Can we imagine a world without art? Would it not be a world without real humanity?

We humans are creatures and creators. We actually manifest beauty through art and likewise through ritual – which is art, no? We express, teach, and even heal ourselves through ritual. Ultimately I think ritual testifies to the fact that we can, must, and do transcend utilitarianism. There is no either/or between ritual and “loving your neighbor”, only an “and.”

And, speaking of “and”, I think that if one looks closely at oneself they will find that they do indeed see the meaningfulness and importance of ritual.