Ritual Theory and Performance
2005 Louisville, Kentucky
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Convener 2005
Tom Splain, S.J. (professor of cultural anthropology, The Gregorian University, Rome)
Seminar Participants 2005
Mary Fran Fleischaker, Cliff Guthrie, David Hogue, Richard McCall, Troy Messenger, Gerard Pottebaum, Thomas Quartier, Tom Splain, Susan White
Visitors: David Buley, Ken Hull, Martin Modéus
Seminar Report 2005
Thomas Quartier started us off by presenting the results of an empirical study that he and a team at Nijmegen University had conducted on beliefs about the past and future expressed by participants who attended ten Roman Catholic funeral rites in the Netherlands. The research team attended the liturgies between February and August 2002. Initially, the pastor gave questionnaires to participants. Later, members of the research team also met with the mourners. 539 questionnaires were distributed. 229 were returned for a response rate of 40%. The purpose was to ascertain beliefs about the past and future of the deceased and look for correlation of these beliefs with the Roman Rite.
The act of remembering takes place in the mind of individuals but it cannot be understood without a collective actor. The corporate body continues to exist when an individual ceases to be part of that body. The liturgy has both an anamnetic and an epicletic nature. Within this, the researchers targeted four dimensions for their investigation: communicative-liturgical remembrance and communicative-liturgical hope, cultural-liturgical remembrance and cultural-liturgical hope. In the communicative-liturgical remembrance and the communicative-liturgical hope, the individual characteristics of the deceased are remembered and made present. (There may or may not be an anticipated future.) Cultural-liturgical remembrance and hope pivots on understandings of salvation and resurrection.
Conceptualization of Liturgical Remembrance and Hope
|
Liturgical Remembrance |
Liturgical Hope |
Cultural |
|
|
Salvation |
God’s salvation during the life of the deceased |
God’s salvation for the deceased in the future |
Resurrection |
Death and resurrection of Jesus for the deceased |
Resurrection of the deceased with Jesus Christ in the future |
Communicative |
|
|
Individual |
Intrinsic value of the deceased in his or her life |
Meaning in the future in what he or she leaves behind |
Social |
Meaning for others of the deceased during his or her life |
Meaning in the future in what he or she leaves behind |