The Dance of the Eucharist

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James_2_24 said:
I couldn’t get all the way through this video. It made me sick. It is of the Priest along with what appear to be teenage youth, doing some kind of dance around the monstrance. What can be done to stop such things?

domusdei.org/2006/11/07/liturgical-dance/
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Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

I watched this RIGHT after I watched that Halloween Mass video. Not a good day for me.
 
I suppose it’s admirable the priest genuflected before picking up the monstrance and dancing with it, but in my mind I have to admit I wondered - and now you decide to show reverence? Didn’t last long.

And, at least my fear of a spontaneous conga line forming behind the priest and the monstrance didn’t appear to happen.
 
James_2_24 said:
I couldn’t get all the way through this video. It made me sick. It is of the Priest along with what appear to be teenage youth, doing some kind of dance around the monstrance. What can be done to stop such things?

domusdei.org/2006/11/07/liturgical-dance/
Click to expand...
I don’t think that it’s actually a church. It looks like a television production in Rio. There’s even a medalion in the bottom corner.
Maybe it’s a Madtv for Rio skit.
 
Let me start by saying that I in no way agree with picking up the monstrance and dancing with it - not in the slightest.

Having said that - bear in mind that this video appears to be from BRAZIL and NOT any western country. And it appears to be in the context of some religious congress rather than a Mass or exposition within a church.

Let us remember that Brazil is indeed a country that has a very rich and long history of using dance for all sorts of occasions. Including, I dare say, religious ones as well.

And even Cardinal Arinze, bless him, has only ever, to my understanding, gone so far as to say that dance is not part of liturgy in the WEST and the US. A case could possibly be made that in Brazil, as in Africa, dance is indeed acceptable within certain limits.

Don’t jump on me for having said the above. I’m not stating it as certain and I for one would need to know a bit more, and certainly think this particular dance exceeded what might be permissible.

I think, though, that the God who was fine with David dancing in front of him half-naked isn’t averse to all liturgical dance.
 
2 Samuel 6:14-16 said:
14 Then David, girt with a linen apron, came dancing before the LORD with abandon,
15 as he and all the Israelites were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn.
16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Saul’s daughter Michal looked down through the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.
. . .
20 When David returned to bless his own family, Saul’s daughter Michal came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has honored himself today, exposing himself to the view of the slave girls of his followers, as a commoner might do!”
21 But David replied to Michal: “I was dancing before the LORD. As the LORD lives, who preferred me to your father and his whole family when he appointed me commander of the LORD’S people, Israel, not only will I make merry before the LORD,
22 but I will demean myself even more. I will be lowly in your esteem, but in the esteem of the slave girls you spoke of I will be honored.”
23 And so Saul’s daughter Michal was childless to the day of her death.
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I am merely playing the devil’s advocate here, I have not fully made up my mind on this video. As a previous poster mentioned, LD is not prohibited in Brazil. Secondly, God was physically present in the Ark, and sometimes I think we forget that. David, and the whole royal court danced before the Ark. Dancing was an organic part of the culture, much like it is in Brazil. I put that last line in just because I’m feeling ornery. . .

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

EDIT: LilyM, I should have read to the end of your post, mine is a bit of a repeat.
 
Originally Posted by 2 Samuel 6:14-16, 20-23
14 Then David, girt with a linen apron, came dancing before the LORD with abandon,
15 as he and all the Israelites were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn.
16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Saul’s daughter Michal looked down through the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.
. . .
20 When David returned to bless his own family, Saul’s daughter Michal came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has honored himself today, exposing himself to the view of the slave girls of his followers, as a commoner might do!”
21 But David replied to Michal: “I was dancing before the LORD. As the LORD lives, who preferred me to your father and his whole family when he appointed me commander of the LORD’S people, Israel, not only will I make merry before the LORD,
22 but I will demean myself even more. I will be lowly in your esteem, but in the esteem of the slave girls you spoke of I will be honored.”
23 And so Saul’s daughter Michal was childless to the day of her death.
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And wasn’t he dancing kinda naked?
 
I watched the Video and it had a website which was a Catholic Charismatic Website at the end of the video so it must be a real church or a Charismatic Catholic church concert or something.:confused:
 
Thursday1 said:
As a previous poster mentioned, LD is not prohibited in Brazil.
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And perhaps this is just the problem. Often people point back to the Old Testament to justify their actions in the liturgy today… I find it a bit odd.

For example, when people talk about lyre and harp… stringed instruments, etc. And so they go from this to the Mass. Two different things if you ask me.
 
LilyM said:
occasions. Including, I dare say, religious ones as well.

And even Cardinal Arinze, bless him, has only ever, to my understanding, gone so far as to say that dance is not part of liturgy in the WEST and the US. A case could possibly be made that in Brazil, as in Africa, dance is indeed acceptable within certain limits.
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Can you provide a text or source for this information on Cardinal Arinze? I thought he said dancing was okay, but not in the Church building or not in the liturgy? To be sure, I am not jumping on you, I just thought he said the opposite.

Thanks.
 
James_2_24 said:
Can you provide a text or source for this information on Cardinal Arinze? I thought he said dancing was okay, but not in the Church building or not in the liturgy? To be sure, I am not jumping on you, I just thought he said the opposite.

Thanks.
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Fraid I can’t. Perhaps someone can help us out. Although I do recall a reference to rhythmic processions with the gifts, which presumably would take place during Offertory and hence inside the church.

And what’s wrong with lyre and harp? Have to be way better than electric guitars and drums 😉

Never thought I’d say this, but praise be we Australians are pretty much deathly afraid of most anything resembling public dancing, so LD has never really been an issue here 😃
 
James_2_24 said:
Can you provide a text or source for this information on Cardinal Arinze? I thought he said dancing was okay, but not in the Church building or not in the liturgy? To be sure, I am not jumping on you, I just thought he said the opposite.

Thanks.
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Actually what he said was that in the procession bringing the gifts a small amount of swaying of the head and shoulders from side to side was acceptable but that other forms of dancing were better suited to the parish hall after Mass. This was discussed at some length on this forum a while back and there were links to the actual document.
 
adoremus.org/1003Arinze.html

Has liturgical dance been approved for Masses by your office?

There has never been a document from our Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments saying that dance is approved in the Mass.

The question of dance is difficult and delicate. However, it is good to know that the tradition of the Latin Church has not known the dance. It is something that people are introducing in the last ten years – or twenty years…

… We do not come to Mass to entertain one another. That’s not the purpose of Mass. The parish hall is for that.

…We don’t come to watch people, to admire people. We want to adore God, to thank Him, to ask Him pardon for our sins, and to ask Him for what we need.

…
A moment – we Africans are not always dancing! [laughter]

Moreover, there is a difference between those who come in procession at Offertory; they bring their gifts, with joy. There is a movement of the body right and left. They bring their gifts to God. That is good, really. And some of the choir, they sing. They have a little bit of movement. Nobody is going to condemn that. And when you are going out again, a little movement, it’s all right.

But when you introduce wholesale, say, a ballerina, then I want to ask you what is it all about. What exactly are you arranging? …

I saw in one place – I will not tell you where – where they staged a dance during Mass, and that dance was offensive. It broke the rules of moral theology and modesty. Those who arranged it – they should have had their heads washed with a bucket of holy water! [laughter]

Why make the people of God suffer so much? Haven’t we enough problems already? Only Sunday, one hour, they come to adore God. And you bring a dance! Are you so poor you have nothing else to bring us? Shame on you! That’s how I feel about it.

Somebody can say, “but the pope visited this county and the people danced”. A moment: Did the pope arrange it? Poor Holy Father – he comes, the people arranged. He does not know what they arranged. And somebody introduces something funny – is the pope responsible for that? Does that mean it is now approved? Did they put in on the table of the Congregation for Divine Worship? We would throw it out! If people want to dance, they know where to go.
 
Walking_Home said:
adoremus.org/1003Arinze.html
A moment – we Africans are not always dancing! [laughter]

Moreover, there is a difference between those who come in procession at Offertory; they bring their gifts, with joy. There is a movement of the body right and left. They bring their gifts to God. That is good, really. And some of the choir, they sing. They have a little bit of movement. Nobody is going to condemn that. And when you are going out again, a little movement, it’s all right.
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Thanks for the quote, Walking Home. What Arinze describes as “all right” doesn’t seem to be a wholesale dance at all. He said “movement of the body right and left”. If he is talking about what I have seen before, it didn’t look like what I would describe as “dancing” but a sort of rhythmic walking; a swaying.

He also talks about the choir having a “little bit of movement”. I believe this is also a swaying. Nothing like that exxagerated “dancing” of the choir that you often see in Baptist Churches.

But I think what Arinze describes and what we have seen in this video are two very very very different things.

Thanks again, Walking home.
 
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