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Roy Doorenbos's avatar

I'm new to Substack and find your posts worth reading. I find Jordan Peterson very interesting as well.

The liturgy goes through a cycle which leads on a journey to a destination of beatification, becoming ever more like God. Circles and lines, journey and destination can be uneasy companions but productive if addressed as complementary rather than competitively. The secular world has a clear handle on the cycles, but strggles with the linear, given that a supernatural, divine orderliness and intellegibility is downplayed or absent. I believe that in order for that tension to be most productive, faith is needed. It can be done secular-ly (is that a word?), that is, with human reason alone without faith, but it is more likely to go wrong and destroy rather than build.

Having joined the Catholics 35 years ago from an evangelical Protestant Calvinist tradition, I'm aware of the disjunction between the traditions. The Catholic liturgy and tradition is "open-source" and anyone can take bits and pieces of it that seem to work for them. The challenge is that each of those bits and pieces is part of a deep and rich tradition which developed organically over thousands of years, woven together in the sacraments. Taking them outside of that order certainly can be done, but the implementation is bound to be weakened and a bit ragged.

As I browse, I keep finding more interesting posts. You are doing well. Keep it up!

Roy

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Caitlin H. Mallery's avatar

The contrast of linear and cyclical makes sense. Though i see it as a cycle that perpetually moves one forward to the sense of resurrection and the work we are supposed to do on earth.

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