By this I mean, liturgy and fixed worship practices as opposed to a non-liturgical style.
I don’t think this question has ever been asked before.
It can be, but generally among those who are unfamiliar with Jewish and Christian history.
It was a matter of stumbling for a good friend of mine. He was raised in a Holiness/Pentecostal community. His view of Christianity and “church worship” was 30 years of attending his small church in rural Alabama wherein people carried and read from the King James Bible into church, following extemporized sermons and spontaneous hymn singing that was selected “on the spot” ‘by how the Spirit moved’ the choir director.
Upon the release of the Revised Common Lectionary and his visit to a similar church community that had adopted it, my friend was highly aggravated, feeling that such “structured worship” was blasphemous. He did not return to this church, to say the least, nor did he accept an invitation to worship with me in Catholic community right away either.
Later on his own he learned the historical background of liturgy, how the Christian community universally adopted liturgical worship due to its Jewish foundations, and that even the Jews followed a liturgy. The Psalms themselves were composed under inspiration of God for this very purpose, liturgical Temple worship. He secretly studied for some time on how Christians made this there form of worship, and how “free-style” worship was really a relatively new innovation in Christianity.
He came to appreciate that his previous “judgment” of this “other” church was due to his own ignorance on the matter. But what was interesting was his realizing that ignorance was not the main obstacle.
Recalling his words the best way I can, he stated: “What keeps you from accepting that there is another way is the pride we simmer in our hearts that convinces us we are always right about our views on God. Nobody goes around thinking, ‘You know, I could be wrong.’ Even when I would bring up questions to other Christians, asking them what they thought of things, I was being dishonest as I was looking for an avenue to take to turn things into a reason to testify on how I a have the right way of worship and yours is wrong. Anything that speaks of saying that you are wrong, you ignore without giving a chance. I hated the feeling of being wrong, so I would not face it for a long time. I almost didn’t.”
We are all subject to this. We tend to never go about doubting our adopted views on religion. We are always thinking we are right and generally see other views are wrong, even those we have never fully investigated.
This is often a greater obstacle than any newly introduced forms of worship one may discover upon investigating the Church. We are not creatures of immediate humility. My friend above accepted the facts about liturgy years before entering a Catholic Church. His slowness of response was due to an obstacle greater than the liturgy. It was his pride. Some of us may never master it as completely as he has.
