Would you agree they should be regulated by reason and subject to control of the will? My point is at times they need to be restrained.
If you mean the responses, yes I would agree. If you mean the emotions themselves, I would disagree. Let me use a semi-parable.
When my kids were growing up we would, like most families, make trips with the kids to see my parents and my wife’s parents. My father was of German stock–who in my experience are mostly not physically expressive–and in their house the kids were always expected to be quiet and “well-behaved”, even when receiving gifts. Hugs were not given nor received and the proper response to receiving a gift was a polite “thank you”.
At my in-laws however–who are physically affectionate people of Latin stock–the kids were allowed to be noisy and playful, and to run around as long as they were careful. They were always hugged on coming and going and the response to receiving a gift you really liked was some sort of a gleeful sound, followed by running across the room to give a hug in thanks. Which of these do you think is the better situation?
You might think that I would say the second. And for my particular kids you would be right. But from all of my study of psychology and organizational behavior, the right answer is “it depends”.
To force noisy kids who want to hug on my father would not have been a wise thing, or the right thing to do. To deprive my in-laws of those very same hugs however, or the joy they found in seeing the kids have fun, would have deprived them of great joy. As such, as early as my kids were able to understand they were taught the difference in what was expected, regardless of what their own preferences might be.
The second question though becomes: which situation will people gravitate toward? And of course the answer is “the one that most respects them as individuals”. My kids hated going to my parents house, and my mother to this day is saddened by the lack of relationship with them that was the result of their being stifled. That would not be true though for many kids who themselves are just not physically expressive or would prefer to quietly read a book rather than run and play tag or hide and seek.
Our Church does in fact recognize that it has both sets of “kids” in it, and has gone to great lengths in most cases to try to accomodate both. Unfortunately, some within the Church seem to think that their temperment is the ONLY temperment, and that anyone who reacts differently than them is being “less Catholic” or is being abusive of the liturgy.
We have parishes where the dominant culture is “quiet reverence” and we have parishes where the dominant culture is a charismatic “Amen brother”. And we have parishes where they have different Masses for their different “kids”. That is not a “right or wrong” issue. As long as the liturgy is being followed and the devotion is there, our expression of that devotion is somewhat flexible, as the Church has made clear in numerous places.
Some cannot restrain a spontaneous “hallelujah” while others of us just don’t feel right if there isn’t total postural unity and near total silence. The fact is though that none of us get to have it exactly the way we want it all the time. As you often say, the liturgy is not the “private property” of the individual, and the Church has built in the flexibility to allow communities to express their dominant cultures, as long as they are within the rubrics.
We don’t need a
universal Disney-created Mass with a Pius V automatron in every church speaking the exact same words with the exact same gesture at the exact same moment, all the while attached to sensors to let it know to scream “anathema” if someone unfolds their hands to scratch their noses.
If you want an “emotionless” liturgy with only people who stay totally silent with their hands folded, I’ll be totally behind you in trying to secure one. But
please try to recognize that God made others of us differently and we need just as much to address Him in the way He made us. To not acknowledge that, in many cases, makes people look like they are just incapable of experiencing joy, and by golly they’re going to make sure nobody else does either!
I’d rather help people feel the same joy I do, but I also recognize that maybe their joy is just a quiet joy that is expressed differently and that I just don’t fully understand. I do know though that our
Abba is greatly pleased when we come to Him, however we express that joy.
Peace,
)
