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Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites
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Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Theologies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 16345

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Kimberly Hope Belcher

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
Interests: sacramental and liturgical theology; ritual studies; ecumenism; phenomenology and trinitarian theology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Christian liturgy addressing sin, sickness, and death historically includes the anointing of those who are sick, the reconciliation of serious sinners, funerals, as well as liturgies responding to natural disasters, such as medieval public processions. At the same time, initiation, eucharist, and the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year also feature responses to individual and communal crisis. This volume will bring these Christian liturgies of crisis and healing into conversation with contemporary rites of crisis: public shrines on city streets, memorial museums recalling genocide, truth and reconciliation commissions, protests of racial and economic injustice, vigils for the dead, rites addressing climate change. Together, these provide new understandings of ritual processes for crisis and healing.

Theologically, rituals of crisis and healing might lament past or present evils, while they also hope for God’s promised future. Together, these two aspects of Christian liturgy demonstrate a commitment to the world and its history as well as an expectation of an eschatological interruption of that history. They balance a sense of the liturgy as a foundation for Christian ethical agency with a respect for the uniqueness of God’s action. How do our liturgical practices surrounding suffering and distress build up the liturgical understanding of time and eternity?

Contributions from multiple disciplinary perspectives are encouraged: for example, phenomenological, systematic, critical theoretical, or ethnographic studies of liturgical practices; theological work on eschatology, time, and memory as represented in liturgies of healing or crisis rites; historical liturgical practices and material culture surrounding sickness, death, schism, or sin; or social scientific analysis of affliction rituals. Protestant, Eastern, and Catholic rites are all ripe for interpretation, and comparative approaches with traditional religions, other world religions, or non-religion are encouraged.

Dr. Kimberly Hope Belcher
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • liturgy
  • sacrament
  • eschatology
  • crisis
  • healing
  • anointing
  • sickness
  • death
  • justice
  • reconciliation
  • genocide
  • memorial

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 300 KiB  
Article
Iconic Reconciliations in a Secular Setting: Recent Bohemian Examples
by Pavel Kolář
Religions 2022, 13(8), 723; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13080723 - 10 Aug 2022
Viewed by 1324
Abstract
In recent years, new exciting, publicly debated, and further thought-provoking events have appeared in the Czech Republic including, the restoration and benediction of the Marian Column on the Old Town Square in Prague, Darina Alster’s art performance, the Non-binary Madonna, the opening [...] Read more.
In recent years, new exciting, publicly debated, and further thought-provoking events have appeared in the Czech Republic including, the restoration and benediction of the Marian Column on the Old Town Square in Prague, Darina Alster’s art performance, the Non-binary Madonna, the opening of the new Jan Palach Memorial in Všetaty and the temporary memorial to the victims of COVID-19. All these events, taking place in public, manifested qualities associated with religious practices and the concept of the sacred. Pointing selectively to trends in religious geography (Kong) and utilising the concepts of liquid religion (de Groot) and iconic religion (Tweed, Knott), this case study describes and analyses those events and shortly discusses their public reconciliatory character. It claims that the religious or sacral character of public objects or acts in a secular setting is permanently subject to questioning, contesting and opposition. Ritually enacted boundaries between non-negotiable values (the sacred) and values permanently negotiated (the profane) are always temporary and elusive in the public domain, as so it is with public acts of reconciliation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
11 pages, 1952 KiB  
Article
“Water Brought Us Together”: A Baptismal Ethic from Flint
by Kristen Daley Mosier, Daniel E. Moore, Sharon Saddler, Greg Timmons, Monica Villarreal and Andrew Wymer
Religions 2022, 13(8), 716; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13080716 - 08 Aug 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1628
Abstract
What lessons and insights can the broader Church learn from Christian faith leaders in Flint, Michigan, who have been in a sustained struggle for justice amidst the still unfolding impacts of environmental racism? How did the baptismal identities of faith leaders function as [...] Read more.
What lessons and insights can the broader Church learn from Christian faith leaders in Flint, Michigan, who have been in a sustained struggle for justice amidst the still unfolding impacts of environmental racism? How did the baptismal identities of faith leaders function as a resource in this struggle, and on a broader level how might Christian baptismal practices and theory be a resource for solidarity in the struggle for racial and environmental justice in and beyond Flint? In other words, might the waters of Christian baptism also “bring together” Christians to tangibly resist racism? This essay emerges from a qualitative research project examining baptismal practices amidst the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Using liberationist methodology and employing conversation as a means of co-constructing theological knowledge, this article seeks to define a baptismal ethic born from the water crisis based upon the lived experiences of Christian leaders and their communities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
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15 pages, 3565 KiB  
Article
Saint Wilgefortis: A Queer Image for Today
by Stephanie A. Budwey
Religions 2022, 13(7), 616; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13070616 - 04 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2857
Abstract
An increasing number of people identify outside of the sex/gender binary, many of whom are in crisis and under attack simply because of how they choose to identify. There are few opportunities for them to experience healing in liturgies, particularly as these liturgies [...] Read more.
An increasing number of people identify outside of the sex/gender binary, many of whom are in crisis and under attack simply because of how they choose to identify. There are few opportunities for them to experience healing in liturgies, particularly as these liturgies often perpetuate a normative view of the sex/gender binary through language and art. This article offers Saint Wilgefortis as an emancipatory image that offers healing while also transforming ethical attitudes and behaviors toward those who identify outside of the sex/gender binary. First is an examination of the history of the cult of Wilgefortis. This is followed by interpretations of the medieval devotion to Wilgefortis, providing a liberating depiction of someone who blurs boundaries, who is ‘both and neither,’ who is and is not Christ (human and divine), and who is and is not ‘female’ or ‘male.’ Next is an exploration of contemporary portrayals of Wilgefortis, providing a queer, multivalent, and prophetic image for today. Finally, there is a discussion of how Wilgefortis could be incorporated into liturgies that minister especially to those who identify outside of the sex/gender binary while also expanding the imagination of those who struggle to see sex/gender as a spectrum. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
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15 pages, 2174 KiB  
Article
Crisis, Solidarity, and Ritual in Religiously Diverse Settings: A Unitarian Universalist Case Study
by Sarah Kathleen Johnson
Religions 2022, 13(7), 614; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13070614 - 03 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1807
Abstract
How can religious ritual foster solidarity in religiously diverse communities in times of crisis? This question is crucial in social contexts characterized by increasing religious and nonreligious diversity and ongoing intersecting crises associated with violence, inequality, and climate change. Solidarity is necessary both [...] Read more.
How can religious ritual foster solidarity in religiously diverse communities in times of crisis? This question is crucial in social contexts characterized by increasing religious and nonreligious diversity and ongoing intersecting crises associated with violence, inequality, and climate change. Solidarity is necessary both as an immediate response to crisis and to the pursuit of long-term solutions that address underlying causes. Situated in the literature on disaster ritual, this study draws on Randall Collins’ sociological theory of interaction ritual chains to analyze the weekly ritual of sharing “Joys and Concerns” followed by a “Meditation” practiced by a theistically diverse Unitarian Universalist congregation. Anchored in one year of ethnographic research in this community, it concludes that the trusted structures, shared stories, and embodied symbols associated with this practice contain the ritual ingredients necessary to produce social solidarity in response to personal and societal crises and may be a model to apply in other religiously diverse contexts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
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0 pages, 302 KiB  
Article
Anger and Hope in Rural American Liturgy
by Benjamin Durheim
Religions 2022, 13(7), 590; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13070590 - 24 Jun 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1405
Abstract
Sociologists and political scientists have published a number of studies recently dealing with the tumultuous and often angry ethos of rural and small-town America. However, while a number of scholars have recognized that the anger and resentment present in much of the atmosphere [...] Read more.
Sociologists and political scientists have published a number of studies recently dealing with the tumultuous and often angry ethos of rural and small-town America. However, while a number of scholars have recognized that the anger and resentment present in much of the atmosphere of rural and small-town America is multifaceted and deeper than a simple desire for policy change, very little scholarly work has focused specifically on the role of ritual in exacerbating or alleviating social anger in these contexts. This article argues that the liturgical cultivation of hope is a powerful antidote to the vitriol of the political atmosphere in rural and small-town America (which can often be cultivated in its own right by rituals such as political rallies), and examines the ways in which such cultivation of hope takes place in rural Christian liturgy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
15 pages, 236 KiB  
Article
Liturgy in the Shadow of Trauma
by David Farina Turnbloom, Megan Breen, Noah Lamberger and Kate Seddon
Religions 2022, 13(7), 583; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13070583 - 23 Jun 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2952
Abstract
Much of the work surrounding the crisis of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has focused on how the abuse remained simultaneously widespread while being kept private, but not how the effects of the abuse impact the liturgy itself. Paying particular attention to [...] Read more.
Much of the work surrounding the crisis of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has focused on how the abuse remained simultaneously widespread while being kept private, but not how the effects of the abuse impact the liturgy itself. Paying particular attention to PTSD, moral injury, and moral distress, this article examines how systemic clergy perpetuated sexual abuse (CPSA) has damaged liturgical efficacy for both abuse survivors and Roman Catholic laity. Focusing on PSTD, moral injury, and moral distress frames the issue in a way that illuminates the church’s ongoing role in preventing the healing of survivors and limiting the potential for grace in the sacraments. In light of the exploration, we suggest that in order for widespread healing we must move towards a relational ontology that realigns with the survivors and reject language and practices that blame survivors for their discomfort in the church, instead affirming the dignity in the options to seek grace and relationship with God outside of the Roman Catholic tradition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
27 pages, 2681 KiB  
Article
Crisis, Liturgy, and Communal Identity: The Celebration of the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite in Toledo, Spain as a Case Study
by Nathan P. Chase
Religions 2022, 13(3), 216; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13030216 - 03 Mar 2022
Viewed by 2671
Abstract
The Hispano-Mozarabic Rite is a helpful case study for liturgists interested in the construction of community identity across time and in light of various types of crises. From the 6th century to today, a number of internal and external crises—political and ecclesial—have shaped [...] Read more.
The Hispano-Mozarabic Rite is a helpful case study for liturgists interested in the construction of community identity across time and in light of various types of crises. From the 6th century to today, a number of internal and external crises—political and ecclesial—have shaped the Rite and have threatened its continued existence. From the Arab invasions in 711 CE, the Rite has been key to the preservation of the Mozarab community, the group of Christians who remained in Muslim-ruled Spain and continued to celebrate the Rite. The Rite is key to their self-understanding and preservation. At the same time, the Rite has been coopted throughout its history for burgeoning Spanish nationalist visions. It has also challenged the centralized ecclesiology of the Roman Catholic Church. In order to shed light on the relationship between crisis and communal identity in this tradition, this article will begin with a historical study of the Rite. The second half of this article will look at the modern celebration of the Rite in Toledo through the use of participant observation. This will reveal the way several communities (the Mozarabs and Spaniards) have used the Rite to navigate various crises throughout history. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites)
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