The Fruitful Work of Rest (On Christian Rest, Part V)

As a priest, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about ritual, and find that I spot pretty quickly instances of ritual when I encounter them in the wild. One such ritual caught my eye recently in the context of a conversation about how people go to sleep. It began with a few parents sharing stories about the routines surrounding bedtime for their children of various ages. And even though they were not initiates of the same rites, the basic shape of their liturgy was the same: some sort of dinner, bath, story, and lights-out. Those present without kids spoke in similar terms of food, Netflix, hygiene and beauty, and then surprisingly elaborate rites including sound-machines, CBD oil, melatonin, mindfulness, and still usually-fitful sleep.

On Liturgy: Liturgy and Experience

There is a resurgence in attraction to liturgy. This is, in part, a reaction against the subjectivity of contemporary worship. The latest new thing in worship can diminish in attraction over the years. It can come to feel like the latest attempt to manipulate the emotions—like most communication in the marketing and consumer culture.

On Liturgy: The 1928 Book of Common Prayer

This will be the first of several posts on the topic of liturgy. The word liturgy means literally “the work of the people.” It was used in ancient Greece to refer to offerings made for the public good. However, in the church the word liturgy refers to acts of corporate worship that form us into the Body of Christ.

Praying for the Civil Authorities

One of the gifts of good liturgy is that we do not have to question it every time we approach it. Good liturgy is elegant, challenging, and familiar; it draws us out of ourselves without fear of harm. From time to time, however, it is good to ask why we do what we do in order that we might remember that there are reasons for what we do, that we are able to articulate those reasons, and so that the faithful might have greater confidence in the soundness of the liturgy and thus more willing to submit themselves to it.

Prayer, Liturgy, Christian LifeFr. Hayden ButlerOctober 14, 2023prayer, liturgy, civil authorities, america, united states

Hand to Hand

Thus far, we have defined tradition by its literal sense of ‘giving over’ and spoken of the ways that tradition is practiced in both sacred and secular senses. We also spoke of the specter of traditionalism and the way it parasitically feeds on sacred tradition to ensnare those who are seeking a reintegration with the Church before and after, the Church above and among. Traditionalism is a counterfeit of tradition that aims at secular power, using the gifts of the past as artifactual weapons…

Eucharistic Devotion

Liturgy, SacramentsFr. Hayden ButlerJanuary 28, 2023eucharist, devotion, liturgy

The Fruitful Work of Rest (On Christian Rest, Part 5)

Christian Life, Spiritual DisciplinesFr. Hayden ButlerOctober 8, 2022rest, reflection, liturgy, sacrament, time, routine, ritual

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