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Document Details : Title: 'I Like Latin Mass'? Subtitle: Sonntagsgottesdienst und Frauenleben Author(s): BERGER, Teresa Journal: ET-Studies Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Date: 2010 Pages: 265-281 DOI: 10.2143/ETS.1.2.2126621 Abstract : This essay seeks to re-situate the earlier discussion on liturgy and women’s lives as it emerged with the growth of women’s liturgies. For the most part, that discussion posited a disjunction between 'women today' and 'traditional' worship, a disjunction which then served to explain the appeal of women’s liturgies. My interest in revisiting and reconfiguring this explanatory narrative is based on the recognition that most (Catholic) women today live their liturgical lives not in women’s liturgies but in parishes, and that means mostly in the Sunday Mass celebrated there. This liturgical site – the 'normal' Sunday liturgy – and the manifold ways in which it intersects with the ever-changing and diverse lives of women today deserves renewed attention. Such attention must make use of interpretive tools and strategies more nuanced than earlier ones that concentrated almost exclusively on the chasm between this ('patriarchal') liturgical site and contemporary women’s lives. My essay will highlight a number of quite different factors and developments that challenge the 'facts' of the earlier discussion about liturgy and women’s lives. One of these factors is the recognition that – contrary to the popular narrative – there were some women-identified losses in the liturgical reforms after Vatican II; these losses should be acknowledged even in a tense climate of ecclesial contestations over the Council’s reforms. Another factor to take into account is the rapid change in our understanding of gendering processes, a change that has complexified how we interpret the relationship between gendered embodiment and liturgical life. This change has also brought gender differences beyond 'women' to the forefront of liturgical politics (e.g., in questions about the ordination of openly gay Christians, same-sex marriage, 'queer worship', etc.). I will argue that these changes do not, however, mean that the subject of women and worship has become an agenda of the past. On the contrary, the majority of worshippers today are women, after all. I will suggest the liturgical category of con-celebration to allow us to acknowledge the many ways in which contemporary women – in all their diversity – continue to make meaning with the liturgy of their church. |
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