I suppose that is what I don’t understand in these liturgy discussions.

You’re faced with an imperfect celebration of liturgy.

What’s the proper spiritual response, while you’re sitting there? Get ticked off? Nurture your sense of pride? Thank God that you’re better than everyone? Be griefstruck? Mentally compose a letter to the bishop, the pastor, the editor or your next blog posting?

What would the saints do?

Sure, I guess there are problems that need to be solved and problems that need to corrected and directions that need to be shifted, and we all play a role in that, but what I am really most interested in is what we do with our hearts when we are sitting there.

I cannot imagine that rage and bitterness is what we should be about.

There are things that, at any given moment, you can and cannot control. At a liturgy, what you can control is your spiritual stance and your openness to God, right here and now. And believe it or not, it is possible to connect with God’s Real Presence in any liturgy, anywhere. Sure, there are circumstances that make it more challenging – as there always are. And if a situation is impossible, we find one that is more amenable, in terms of the externals of liturgy.

But in the moment is what I’m talking about. And harboring anger and resentment during the liturgy is not an act of opening one’s heart to God. I just don’t see it.