Where symbols really matter
Baumann, Paul
WHERE SYMBOLS REALLY MATTER Paul Baumann My aunt, my mother's older sister, died in September after a fierce but relatively brief struggle with lung cancer. As a Navy wife- her husband is a...
...Isn't it much more the case that we pride ourselves (often for good reasons) on being suspicious of precisely those external forms and rituals, such as saluting the flag or kissing the cross...
...Her funeral Mass was held in the chapel at Fort Meyers, adjacent to Arlington...
...An example of the differing sensitivity to symbols is the regard in which the American flag is held by those in or out of the military...
...As a Navy officer, the chaplain lives in a world that values signs-uniforms, hierarchical rank, flags, and many other rituals and nonverbal expressions of individual identity and group loyality-in a way that many of us "civilians" do not...
...I'm afraid not many Masses are done as well as this one," I said...
...As a Navy wife- her husband is a retired rear admiral-she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac from the nation's capital...
...Those of us who prize individual autonomy and social mobility tend to regard ritual as superfluous to the real business at hand...
...A strongly structured and bounded group like the military or an athletic team is more likely to develop an appreciation for signs and symbols than can be cultivated in most other walks of life...
...Except for funerals or weddings, my brother hasn't been inside a Catholic church in probably twenty years...
...But to the extent that we live such independent lives, I fear that a ritual of cosmic solidarity like the Eucharist must seem increasingly opaque...
...What I think struck my brother at some unarticulated level was that the chaplain's posture and manner clearly conveyed a belief in the efficacy of the signs he was manipulating at the altar...
...Clearly, he didn't think anything needed to be added to the words of the Mass itself...
...I don't think a "restoration" is possible or desirable...
...What was it about the military chaplain's celebration of the Mass that is so often absent in the liturgy?-or at least the ones I go to...
...it is the physical, crudely literal embodiment of what men and women in the military have dedicated their lives to defend...
...But I do think that dissatisfaction with and grave confusion about the liturgy are widespread, and much of that uneasiness can be linked to our growing insensibility to the most basic sort of symbolic grammar or frame of reference...
...He has obviously never served in the military...
...Public authenticity is hard to come by...
...And beyond the deft choreography and his considerable personal presence, something else was at work...
...He stood for the community or institution as a whole in the way that the conduct of a judge can come to embody the rule of law...
...We cannot continue to strip away every tree from the dense symbolic terrain once built up around the Eucharist and expect the richest layer of topsoil-the Real Presence-not to erode...
...This is not the time or place to write about my aunt's life...
...It seems to me that the chaplain instinctively presented himself to us as a representative-a bodily symbol-of an authority and reality much larger than himself...
...Nor do I think good liturgy is confined to military bases...
...This is a limited perspective, I think...
...Was it because the priest was a military man...
...In this fashion, the priest conveyed a belief in the power and authority of what he was doing that was absolutely unambiguous...
...He didn't italicize any of the prayers with dramatic inflection or elaborate on them ideologically...
...in the military...
...Only the iconoclast belittles such ritual acts as meaningless or unnecessary...
...The military, like other tightly knit and highly structured organizations- fire departments, athletic teams, the Girl Scouts, the mafia, some families, even some neighborhoods-believes in the efficacy of ritual and symbolic action...
...For soldiers, the nation's flag is not some extraneous emblem...
...The tone set by the chaplain was formal, direct, and disciplined, but never stuffy or aloof...
...Christian life and authority cannot be divvied up between the clergy and the laity as it is between an officer corps and the enlisted troops...
...Even voting is a purely voluntary responsibility in our loosely joined society...
...In saluting the flag, they honor all it stands for...
...The logic of our workaday lives, spent largely in the pursuit of individual expression or achievement, naturally lends itself to the celebration of internal and personal spheres of experience...
...In short, he handled the elements of the sacrament as though they were real signs of the grace they effected...
...D Paul Baumann is the associate editor of Commonweal...
...He handled the chalice and every other object on the altar with an assurance that reminded me in some way of how a doctor grasps his instruments or how a good carpenter handles his tools...
...Why did this Mass make such an impression on my brother and even on the more liturgically jaded...
...But in its ceaseless regard for solidarity and proper order, the military is always, to borrow a phrase from the anthropologist Mary Douglas, "making explicit its representation of itself to itself...
...Military pallbearers bore her flag-draped casket in and out of the church as well as to the grave site...
...The words of the Mass, the bread and wine, his own priesthood, were as necessary to the work of the world as any carpenter's square or doctor's scalpel...
...Yet I was not entirely surprised by his comment...
...It naturally focuses their lives and drapes their coffins...
...Certainly, recent polls suggest that the gap between the experience and beliefs of American Catholics and traditional explanations of the Real Presence is widening...
...In the best sense, he presided, he didn't implore or dictate or merely participate...
...I certainly do...
...But I do want to suggest that social experience and social structure have implications for religious practice...
...I would, however, like to describe her funeral Mass, for I have thought about it a great deal...
...Those who think that the authoritarian nature of military life can offer only false analogies to genuine worship or who think flag waving a form of idolatry, place aside your reservations for just a minute and consider the following...
...I'm not arguing that we all must join the Navy or return to the ghetto church...
...Her funeral Mass was celebrated by a Navy chaplain, who gave the final graveside blessings dressed in his Navy whites...
...And isn't that what, according to the two articles on the Real Presence in this issue, the church does in celebrating the Eucharist...
...If I could find a Mass like this, I might actually consider going to church," one of my brothers whispered to me at the end of the service...
...A way must be found to make modest signs of community identity and authority-such as meatless Fridays or the representative nature of the priesthood-resonate again...
...Many people outside the military think that saluting the flag or protecting the flag is a "merely" symbolic act-the flag's true meaning lies elsewhere...
...How many of us work or engage in activities that require public forms of symbolic expression that even remotely resemble the highly condensed symbolic actions and language of the Mass...
...that was never merely personal and yet did not alienate...
...I am not trying to equate military experience with the liturgy or the chain of command with the Body of Christ...
...We rightly value our freedom and individual expression...
...His voice was strong and clear and his movements purposeful...
...I, too, had been impressed...
Vol. 122 • January 1995 • No. 2
