View source for Thomas Berry on the Cosmic Liturgies of Medieval Christianity

=Discussion=

Thomas Berry:

"Such integral association with the natural world is
found also in the Christian world up through the
medieval period. From the decline of Rome to the
brilliant medieval civilization, the transition was carried
out successfully by dedicated religious persons who
integrated Christian belief and ritual with the great
cosmic liturgy of the natural world. This was the force
that created Western civilization from remnants of
the Classical Mediterranean world combined with the
energy and the traditions of incoming tribal peoples of
central Eurasia.

Few civilizations have been so totally integrated with
the great cosmic liturgy as was Medieval Europe. This
integration we see with total clarity both in the architecture and symbolism of the great cathedrals and in
the colorful rituals that were enacted there almost
continuously. It is seen especially in the great poem of
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), The Divine Comedy.
Here the natural world is seen as primordial scripture, a
scripture predating the Bible. The opening language of
the Bible itself repeats the creative words that brought
the natural world into being. Only when there is
a natural world can communication pass between the
divine and the human. Indeed humans have no conscious interior spiritual world unless it be activated by
the outer world of nature. The natural world and the
divine, these were mutually explanatory. Thus the great
medieval teachers began their writings with observations on how these two scriptures, the natural and the
verbal, explain each other. This we find with special
clarity in the brief essay of Saint Bonaventure entitled
The Mind’s Road to God. So, too, the daily ritual was
coordinated with the diurnal cycle of the sun’s rising
and setting. Dawn and sunset, the rise and setting of the
sun, the passing from night into day and day into night,
these were recognized as moments of special presence of
the divine and the human to each other. These are the
intimate moments of the day when, as individuals or as
families, we offer prayers of thanksgiving and petition
to that primordial divine source whence all things come.
In the evening parents and children are especially intimate with each other.
The Christian liturgy, referred to as the “Divine Office”
or the “Divine Worship,” was considered the framing
context for daily life. The word itself “liturgy” is derived
from two words meaning “public work” or “public activity” because such recognition of the divine was considered society’s primary daily activity. The carrying out
of this “primary public work” was assigned principally
to monks, men who, since early Christianity, had daily
ritually chanted the psalms of the Bible and sung sacred
hymns, composed later by persons such as Saint Bernard
(1090?–1153) and Saint Hildegard (1098–1179). In this
context, the term “work” has more affinity to artistic or
musical production than to the activities of an ordinary
day-laborer.

Besides the daily insertion of the human project into
the day–night sequence, there was the even more
dramatic seasonal cycle whereby the springtime renewal
of life after the winter quiescence was celebrated
throughout the society. This festival, known in the
Western world principally as the Easter Resurrection
festival, was determined in its time of celebration as the
first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring
equinox. The religious calendar of Christians depended
on these dates determined by the position of the sun
and the moon in relation to the Earth. The other most
solemn Christian festival, known as “Christmas,” was
celebrated at the winter solstice, the time when the
sun was lowest in the sky. The date celebrated is 25
December because that was considered by the Romans as
the solstice moment. This was the time for celebrating
the meeting of the divine and the human in the person of
Christ.

While such moments of the diurnal and seasonal
cycles in the natural world determine the larger
context of religious celebration in much of the
world, there are other more intimate aspects of personal
spiritual life developed in intimate association with
nature. In the Western world, for example, we find
personalities such as hermits living in uninhabited
regions regarded as sacred. In India, their counterparts
are forest dwellers or homeless wanderers. In Buddhism
there are also monks living in the depths of the natural
world."

(http://www.religionandnature.com/ern/sample/Tucker--Berry,Thomas.pdf)


=More information=

* [[Relational Worldviews in the Western and Christianity-Derived Traditions]]

[[Category:Civilizational_Analysis]]
[[Category:Spirituality]]
[[Category:Ecology]]