by Fred Moleck
Liturgy on Ice
During my multiple involvements at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, I was tutored by one of the many liturgical gurus who occupied important faculty positions.
He maintained that the Notre Dame football weekend had all the requirements for a good liturgy. Here are some.
The Vigil. The faithful gather on the night before, light their bonfires, consume food and drink(s), and remember how good it was and how good it was just being there within the shadow of the golden dome.
The vigil picks up again the next day with the tailgate parties with more elaborate food and drink.
The Liturgy at Dawn. The next day the festival atmosphere heightens with food, music, and general milling around the campus getting ready for the entrance rite.
The team had been sequestered the night before in the Seminary residence hall. They were preparing to celebrate the mysteries of the next day and they needed a quiet space.
The faithful had already donned their vesture of green Izod shirts in the first half of the season and then green hoodies in the second half.
Some younger people also painted the green war paint on their presteroid bodies.
The Liturgy during the Day. At the appointed time, the Mighty Notre Dame Marching Band began the procession with Notre Dame bodyguards who protected the arch-emcee of the celebration, the Notre Dame leprechaun, all of which focused the reason why folks were there.
Hundreds of the faithful followed the band into the coliseum and took our places with the other faithful.
And now my feet are standing within your gates, O Mother of us all.
Then the celebrants, each with a type of modified miter on his head and outer vesture with identifiable numbers on each celebrant’s shirt, entered, which brought the faithful to their feet in loud acclamations.
It is there, it is there that the tribes go up.
The full liturgy now began.
Sock ’em! Bust ’em! That’s our custom.
Fight, team, fight! (—the antiphon for the day)It all smacked of Volksliturgie—the people’s liturgy.
Volksliturgie came to Pittsburgh the past three weeks.
The Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team began the finals for the championship playoffs of the National Hockey League. The prize is the Stanley Cup (La Coupe Stanley), a.k.a. the Holy Grail, on which the names of the team, coaches, and everyone else are engraved on it. It is central to each night’s activities.
I detected no synchronized motion that would indicate some type of ritual movement present in the Notre Dame games. There were no worship aids.
There was vesture, however, both on the team members and the faithful. For the playoffs, the Penguin fans wore white shirts, jackets, etc., signifying, I guess, some type of symbolic connection to the white breast of a penguin.
The ritual that came as close to any type of liturgy or tribal action occurred after the game.
The Reconciliation rite. After the players caught their breath and wiped their faces and took off their helmets, they formed two single lines—one for the Penguins and the other for their opponent, the Detroit Redwings.
Each team member in strict orderly fashion came by and shook the hand of the opposing team member, and shared commentary—all with large smiles and warm, deep, meaningful hugs.
It was touching. After all the body slamming and attempts to make the goalie swallow the puck and other body attacks, all seemed to be forgiven and reconciled.Hockey is a violent sport. Yes, here in a matter of seconds the faces of the hockey players are transformed into faces of reconciliation.
And the lion and lamb shall lie together.
The Stanley Cup. The awarding of the trophy to the victors, the Redwings, had its own rite. Each player received the trophy, kissed it, and held it high for the approval of the faithful.
I saw it is a type of propitiation ritual of offering it up to the god of sports, Jock, for his approval.
By this time, many of the faithful had already left the Ice Temple and ignored the two rituals. It put me in mind of Catholic congregations leaving Mass early. So much for fidelity.
Let me return to the reconciliation lovefest. I was amazed that, after so much physical damage wrought upon the opponent and bloodthirstiness present in their eyes, they would want to leave and plan to meet the other guy in the alley for further damage.
There has been another confrontational epic that has also kept me glued to the TV screen. Like the Stanley Cup epic, it is drawing to a close—the Obama-Hilary battle.
If Hilary is named, I wonder if there will be a public ritual of reconciliation.
O: Gosh, I wasn’t serious. I was just being rhetorical.
H: Golly, so was, I. Bill gave me the script and said to memorize it.
O: Well, I really kept my fingers crossed, which I did in grade school to say I was just fibbing.
H: And I resorted to mythic heightening a few times to make the story more interesting.
O & H: Gosh, oh golly. You mean we were both just funning?
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net