A liturgical dream

I very seldom remember dreams so I have dashed to the computer to record this one!
I was to serve at an ordination but seem to have missed the rehearsal! I had my black cassock on and was following Fr Michael down a dark corridor when we suddenly confronted by a cardinal in pink. We all prostrated on the carpet because the cardinal was so terrifying and like a wolf. Next we were in Brentwood cathedral or at least a modern building downstairs crowding into a sacristy. I was given a long pink cassock with a hood and my immediate thought was do I wear the hood. More and more people crowded into a line in a room as the music started above us with me at the end. The cardinal turned to me and turned out to be friendly. There was a dash to put on the pink cassock over my black one and when we reached our places there was an elderly lady kneeling on her stool without any shoes on so I did the same but kept my shoes on! The lady then passed out from the heat so we all tried to help her. Next a sort of circus unfolded with floats and dancers to show off the glories of the diocese. This included acrobats jumping over us! We never got the actual ordination as I woke up.
Maybe this was a response to The Tablet's article about an Australian bishop Mark Coleridge that "Time may be up for 'chatty' worship".
"Where once our churches were places of silence for the sake of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, the custom has arisen in recent years for people to talk freely in the churches, certainly before and after Mass. The same is true of the sacristy. The sign of Peace is not a hearty 'G'day' to the world: it is a ritual action, expressing something different and deeper".

Comments

I am refraining from giving you the psychoanalytical interpretation, but I did find your dream interesting. I do like your profile photos of you and your daughter and you at her wedding. Proud father indeed. Graeme.
I was fascinated by your article. No, I had not read the original article in The Tablet. Some reports about not touching the host seems absurd in the reformed Catholic tradition, as our tongues touch it, apart from our insides. I have never received standing up; always 'meekly kneeling upon our knees' as our former priest would have said. I do find it curious that many priests rush at it all; maybe it's because they Administer to so many people at once and have another Mass in a short while. The reported 'Protestant' angle of centering upon the meal is new to me, although I was brought up as a child and teenager in the 'low church' protestant ethic. In more recent times my paper on the psychoanalytical viewpoint of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ as an unconscious, total and unique experience, when there is a sense of an 'holy mystery' taking place and
afterwards we can't put our finger on it, yet know we are changed in some way, is all to do with an ego-syntonic experience of Christ within us. RC's use different language and say that only RCs know everything it means. I don't agree. Christians also understand, as well as 'Catholics' (i.e., RCs). When the Catholic Church exclude Christians from the Mass, by saying it is only for RCs, they are excluding Christ from the Altar. In internal and unconscious reality, there is no difference between so-called Catholic Dogmatic teaching and that of the reformed Catholic Church in relation to the inner experience of Holy Communion. Ah well...the debate will continue and keep theologians arguing for centuries I suppose. If Jesus IS present at the Euchartist, I wonder what he would say? Graeme.
Please don't refrain Graeme. I can see there the dislike of missing rehearsal and the fear of the VIP. The darkened entrance and music already started came from the recent Mass at Bridgewater Hall and there again we were held up and missed the rehearsal! Do look up the Tablet correspondence if you can - I'm afraid I don't have the references but it's all in the last month. Above all this is a mystery and we struggle to comprehend it.

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