A Christian Should be an Alleluia
-from the desk of David Orzechowski, Director of Liturgy and Music
“A CHRISTIAN SHOULD BE AN ‘ALLELUIA’ FROM HEAD TO FOOT”
-St. Augustine of Hippo
As we continue our celebration of the great fifty days of Easter, one cannot but be filled with awe at the many ways Easter is being expressed in our very midst. Everything about the Church’s liturgy proclaims the ethos, meaning… and implications… of the beloved word, “Alleluia”: the Paschal Candle, the glimmering baptismal font, the beautiful flowers, the many songs with “Alleluias” ringing clear! It is a word very near and dear to us as Christians. When Lent arrives each year, we put the “Alleluia” away for a while, and sorely miss it. It’s always a joy and a relief when it appears again in the liturgy at Easter!
By now you may have noticed that we did not hang the familiar “Alleluia” banner in our sanctuary this year. You may have been wondering why? Recall a statement that I made toward the end of last week’s Liturgy Spotlight article: “Before information, the liturgy is about imagination.” Perhaps I should add a few words to this sentence which might make its intent more clear. Here’s another go of it: “Before the communicating or imparting of information, the art of creating good liturgy should be about stimulating and inciting the assembly’s imagination.” What this tells us about the discipline of creating appropriate art and environment in worship is that it deals with non-verbal, non-textual elements of liturgy. The liturgical environment is not about communicating information. Nor is it about communicating what sardonic liturgists and artists like to refer to as “liturgical advertising.”
We live in an information-based society. In our culture, when people want to communicate a message, the first thing they do is hang a sign. The end result is that we now have a society that is so inundated with signs and verbal messages, most of us tend to simply ignore almost all of them. It should come as no surprise that municipalities have felt a need to formulate sign ordinances. As another example, have you sat in a fast-food restaurant lately? It’s almost impossible to simply look out a window and enjoy the world that is right before our very eyes because of all the plastic cling-on signs that hang in the windows! There are all of those beautiful plate glass windows… the kind many of us would love to have in our living rooms and sun porches… and yet, such limited vision because of all the signs! Signs are like wallpaper to most of us today; always present but barely noticed. Then there is the internet. Who among us does not become irritated with online pop-up ads? Words, words, and more words! Stop the madness!
Liturgy, on the other hand, does some of its best work using non-verbal signs and symbols that in turn elicit non-verbal responses from those assembled. When we feel water sprinkled on us during Easter, we can’t help but feel a sense of being washed, renewed, made clean. We don’t need to read about what the water means to us…we feel it. No one needs to hang a sign at Christmas over the manger scene: “Here is love come down to earth.”…we just “know” that this birth is special and the beauty of the scene being depicted communicates love, tenderness, Divinity enfleshed. A sign would merely cheapen the scene.
In recent years, church banners have been moving away from using words for some of the very reasons cited above. You still see banners with words in some places. Yet, this does not necessarily mean they are appropriate. As with anything, some localities remain more current in their practices than others. Some more readily lead the way while others adopt change very slowly, if ever. Another place where one might still see banners using words is in the worship spaces of some Christian traditions whose liturgy or order of service focuses more exclusively on Scripture and the written word of God, and less (or not at all) on a Sacramental life and the use of Sacramental signs or symbols. For example, it would not be surprising to find more banners employing words in the “Bible Belt” down South, where many Protestant congregations emphasize memorizing and being able to cite Scripture passages and verses by heart. Admittedly, this is an over-simplified example, and no doubt a gross generalization. (over) However, I think the reader will understand the comparison of emphasis that is being made. For us who live in a “Sacramental” Church, the Sacraments themselves are signs. Remember the classic definition of a Sacrament? “A Sacrament is a sign instituted by Christ to give grace.” No banners employing words are needed or called for.
Catholics have been moving away from using words on banners for about the past thirty years. This is certainly true to form, since the beauty, richness and mystery of our liturgy has historically placed more emphasis on employing non-verbal elements which are intended to engage all of our senses. The use of lighting and varying liturgical colors changes how we visually experience a given liturgical feast or season. We see wine and bread offered. We feel water that is sprinkled or oil that is poured. We smell incense and Sacred Chrism. We hear God’s Word proclaimed in the readings, homily and in the music that is played and sung. We hear more than words themselves can convey when water is splashed during a baptism or the font is merely trickling constantly in the otherwise quiet church. Best of all, we taste of the Lord’s goodness and love for us in the Eucharist! Our Catholic liturgical tradition appeals to all of the human senses!
Then what about the use of banners in Catholic liturgy? The practice today has moved more toward using colored fabrics without any images or texts. The size, placement, texture, patterns, weave, and whether the fabric is opaque, sheer or silk-screened with geometric patterns…all are enjoyed for their own sake, and not for any “message” they are meant to communicate. Some banners are meant to hang still, some to be carried. Some are meant to catch the light and actually change in appearance as the light of each day progresses. Others catch the wind and move slightly on a breezy day or when the fans go on. The viewer is left to delight in, enjoy and interpret the beauty of the banners in their own mind and heart. For example, if the way a certain banner sweeps dramatically toward the ceiling reminds you of our joyous prayer rising up to God, then that is what the banner means to you. If the gentle interplay between contrasting textures or colors reminds you of our human diversity and the gentle, loving way God interacts with all of humanity amidst that diversity…then that is the meaning of the banners for you. This is where liturgy starts to excite the imagination rather than merely communicate information. Fabrics are hung, suspended, draped, hung as swags, knotted, tied together, pleated, carried…all in an effort to delight the eye, entice the imagination and lend grace and beauty to the liturgy without specifically “telling” the viewer what they “should” or “should not” feel. The viewers decide for themselves the meaning. This makes the impact of liturgical environment more effective and more personal than any stock printed message might convey. The use of symmetry can convey a sense of stability and being “grounded.” It can also be static and lacking dynamism. Asymmetry often creates a sense of movement and visual freedom.
Let’s get back to Easter and “Alleluia.” I offer another quote from St. Augustine:
“WE ARE AN EASTER PEOPLE, AND ‘ALLELUIA’ IS OUR SONG!”
Notice that St. Augustine didn’t say “…and ‘Alleluia’ is our sign.” An “alleluia” sign is not needed, for the entire church building has become a sign of “Alleluia.” Even more importantly, the people who gather are themselves a sign that proclaims “Alleluia!” How? Think of all the baptisms, confirmations and first communions that are occurring this Easter season not only in our own parish, but in our local area, diocese, nation, world! Think of how many times the word “Alleluia” is being sung in countless hymns and songs! All of us Christians who are “‘Alleluias’ from head to foot” are now the sign that proclaims that “Alleluia” outwardly. We are this sign by the new life we share in the risen Christ. We proclaim “Alleluia” by the mere fact that we are counted among the baptized, that we have a relationship with God as individuals and as a faith community, that we have been loved and redeemed by Christ and by the many signs of God’s presence active and at work in all the things that happen to us.