The Value of Liturgy

Check out this blog post by the author of my second-year Greek textbook. There is some stuff in there that got me to thinking.

I've read about some people who have "crossed the Tiber" and become Roman Catholics because they crave tradition in their worship services. The longer I spend at our megachurch, the more I understand that. However, I firmly believe that it is more important to be biblical than traditional. There is a part of me that wishes I didn't have to fight my mom so much about Catholicism. I wish I could embrace the tradition, the beauty, the pageantry, etc. But as I read the Bible I just can't do it.

What I do think about is the incredible murals painted on the ceiling of my mom's childhood church of St. Procop. I did a bit of digging and found that you can take a virtual tour of the windows and see one of the ceiling murals. St. Stanislaus is another beautiful church, but in the Gothic style. Going to Mass there makes you feel connected to something that has existed for centuries.

I've also had a sense of that from reading through my new Bible atlas and looking through the photos in it. So much art is based on Bible stories because they were so important to the artists. It's great to look at works of art like the windows at St. Procop and think about the stories they represent.

I understand the reason behind the austere buildings used by most Protestants. I understand that most people in America can read and they don't need a series of stained-glass windows to tell the gospel story. However, I also wonder if maybe there is something to be said for some of that today. It's pretty incredible to look at the baptistry in Florence and realize that Michaelangelo was baptized there as an infant. We just don't have stuff like that in America. Maybe it's something that we can work on. The question is -- do enough people care to work on it?