atla0001558213 _ wilson _ liturgy and ethics

7/28/2019 Atla0001558213 _ WILSON _ Liturgy and Ethics

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Stephen . Wilson

Liturgy and Ethics: Something Old, Something New

During the past century, theologians have given an increasing

amount ofattention to the ways liturgy and morality mayrelate to

one another. The focus on this topic is in evidence in the earliest

stages ofthe liturgical movement in the United States, most notably

in the writings ofVirgil Michel,1the founder of The Liturgical

Press and Orate Fratres(now, ofcourse, Worship). Since Michel's

death in 1938, scholars have continued to discuss this subject withsignificant depth and breadth. They have done so from the per

spective of both liturgical studies and theological ethics. Scholars

like E. Byron Anderson,2

MarkSearle,3

Geoffrey Wainwright,4

and

James F. White5

have explained the possible connections between

corporate worship and morality as part of their workin liturgical

Stephen B. Wilson teaches in the department oftheologyat Spring Hill College

in Mobile, Alabama.

1

Michel wrote numerous works on this topic, including many of the early

articles in Orate Fratres. For example, see his "Mass and the Life of Christ/' Orate

Fratres4 (1929) 72-77; "The Liturgy the Basis ofSocial Regeneration/' Orate Fratres

9 (1935) 536-45''"Frequent Communion and Social Regeneration," Orate Fratres

10 (1936) 198-200; "Modern Greed and the Mass," Orate Fratres11 (1937) 322-24;

and "Social Justice," Orate Fratres12 (1938) 129-32.2

E. B. Anderson, Worship andChristian Identity: PracticingOurselves,VirgilMichel Series, ed., Don E. Saliers (Collegeville, MN: Pueblo 2003).

3

M. Searle, "The Liturgy and Catholic Social Doctrine," in The Future ofthe

Catholic Church in America: MajorPapersofthe VirgilMichelSymposium, July11-14,

1988 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press 1991); "Serving the Lord with Justice," in

Liturgy and SocialJustice, ed., MarkSearle (Collegeville: Liturgical Press 1980);

"Liturgy and Social Ethics: An Annotated Bibliography," Studia Liturgica 21 (1991)

220-35;a n

d "Serving the Lord with Justice," in Liturgy and SocialJustice, ed., Mark

Searle (Collegeville: Liturgical Press 1980) 13-35.4

G.Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise ofGodin Worship, Doctrine andLife (NewYork: Oxford UniversityPress 1980) 399-434 and "Eucharist and/as Ethics,"

Worship 62 (1988) 123 37


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studies, while ethicists such as Stanley Hauerwas,6 Bryan J. Hehir,7

Richard A. McCormick,8 Harmon Smith,9 and John Howard Yoder10

have undertaken similar analyses from the perspective of moral

theology. Of all the treatments of this topic, one of the most fruitful

has been Don E. Saliers's visionary article "Liturgy and Ethics:

Some New Beginnings/'11 In this article, which just reached its

twenty-fifth anniversary, Saliers states that deliberations about the

nature of morality cannot be limited to ethics alone because the

"norms and practices in ethics are never simply ethical/'12

With this

statement he alludes to the fact that ethics requires a set of practices

and a vision of life within which its moral claims can be rendered

intelligible. Put simply, morality and ethics require an ethos. Theliturgy, in turn, becomes morally significant for the manner in

which it helps express the Christian ethos. These considerations

lead him to posit a thesis: "The relations between liturgy andethics are

most adequatelyformulatedby specifying how certain affections and

virtues are formedand expressedin the modalities ofcommunalprayer

andritualaction. The modalities ofprayer enter into theformation of self

in community/'13

The remainder of the essay consists of a reflection

on how liturgy serves to accomplish this task. It states that one ofthe salient features of communal worship is its ability to foster

Christian identity by giving Christians a location in and orientation

6 S. Hauerwas, "The Liturgical Shape of the Christian Life: Teaching Christian

Ethics as Worship/' in In GoodCompany: The Church as Polis (Notre Dame: Uni

versity of Notre Dame Press 1995) 153-68.7

B.J. Hehir, "The Liturgy and Social Justice: Past Relationships and Future

Possibilities,/,

in Liturgy and Social Justice, ed., Edward M. Grosz (Collegeville, MN:Liturgical Press 1989) 40-61.

8R. A. McCormick, "Scripture, Liturgy, Character and Morality," in Readings in

MoralTheology, No. 4; The Use ofScripture in MoralTheology, eds., Charles E. Curran

and Richard A. McCormick (New York: Paulist Press 1984) 289-302.9

H. Smith, Where Two or Three are Gathered: Liturgy andthe Moral Life (Cleve

land: The Pilgrim Press 1995).10J. H. Yoder, "Sacrament as Social Process: Christ the Transformer of Culture,"

Theology Today 48 (1991) 33-44.11

D. Saliers, "Liturgy and Ethics: Some New Beginnings," Journalof ReligiousEthics 7 (1979) 173-89. This essay has been reprinted as part of Saliers's Festschrift

Liturgy and the MoralSelf: Humanity at Pull Stretch Before God eds E Byron


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toward the world.14

It does so in two interrelated ways. First, through

its textual components, especially prayer, liturgy helps one see the

world in a specifically Christian manner. Saliers notes, "In the very

activity of re-presenting and rehearsing features of existence de

scribed in the Scriptures, worshippers articulate their fundamental

relations to one another and to the world/715

Second, ritual actions

serve to embody that which liturgical texts articulate.16

Ritual

action serves as an enactment of the vision of life that liturgical

texts articulate. The identity fostered by liturgical participation is

important for Christian ethics because the Christian life can be

characterized by the virtues and affections cultivated by exposure

to the rituals and stories of the liturgy.Saliers's use of the language of character and virtue marks an

important trajectory to explore in developing our understanding

of the liturgy's possible impact on Christian morality because it

broadens the scope of ethical inquiry to include the formation of

character. In effect, his work demands that we look beyond many

common conceptions of ethics (e.g., deontology and consequen-

tialism) in order to find the appropriate conceptual categories for

exploring the wider significance of the church's worship. In theremainder of this essay, I will develop his basic insight concerning

the relation of liturgy and ethics by drawing on more recent work

in virtue theory. In the twenty-five years since the publication of

"Liturgy and Ethics: Some New Beginnings," there has been a

groundswell in the number of books and articles devoted to the

virtues. One of the leading lights in this retrieval has been the

moral philosopher Alasdair Maclntyre. Here it is important to

note that Saliers's work was influenced by the theological ethicist

Stanley Hauerwas, particularly his 1975 monograph Character and

the Christian Life, which was reprinted in 1994. The reprint contains

a new Introduction in which he discusses the increased attention

given to the virtues in recent scholarship. He argues that one of

the most significant factors in this retrieval has been Maclntyre's

After Virtue.17Hauerwas states, "With his virtuoso performance

14Ibid., 18.


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Maclntyre has changed the agenda of contemporary philosophers

and theologians by an almost violent redirection of their attention."18

Because of the importance o After Virtue for subsequent develop

ments within virtue theory, I will use this work to develop Don

Saliers's initial insights on some of the connections between liturgy

and ethics. I will especially draw upon Maclntyre's account of a

moral practice in Chapter Fourteen and his discussion of the moral

importance of narrative in Chapter Fifteen, supplementing the

latter with some insights from Stephen Crites, to describe how the

liturgy can provide a context within which Christian virtues can

be cultivated.

LITURGY AS A MORAL PRACTICE

The first aspect o After Virtue that I will discuss is its account of a

practice. Maclntyre's definition ofa practice is rather involved,

referring to this type of pursuit as "any coherent and complex form

of socially established cooperative human activity through which

goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of

trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropri

ate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with theresult that human powers to achieve excellence, and human con

ceptions of the ends and goods involved are systematically

extended."19

Owing to the complexity of this formulation, it may

prove helpful to explain its constitutive elements. Essentially,

practices have four basic characteristics. They are coherent yet

complex, social and cooperative, possess internal goods, and have

standards of excellence. Understanding each of these four compo

nents will allow us to comprehend what a practice is as a whole.

When Maclntyre says that practices are both coherent and

complex, he means that they have multiple subsidiary elements,

yet all of these elements are ordered toward unifying ends. In

order to explain this point, it is useful to provide an illustration.

As Maclntyre himself does, I will draw on the example of games,

in this case basketball. The sport of basketball consists of many

elements. Coaches must formulate a game plan. Individual players


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must be able to dribble, shoot, defend, rebound, pass, and move off

the ball to receive passes. Teams must collectively run a variety of

offensive "sets," as well as plays such as in-bounding the ball

when it has gone out of bounds. They must also work in unison

defensively to make sure each player is carrying out his or her role

within the particular defense being run. Despite the inherent

multiplicity of components, these items are all centered on a two

fold end: scoring and preventing the other team from doing so.

This twofold end thus brings unity to the various aspects of the

game, making basketball both complex and coherent.

It is important to note that in this example the activity being

engaged in is inherently social and cooperative, which brings us tothe second aspect of the definition ofa practice. Even basketball,

which in many ways reflects the competitive, Homeric account of

virtues centered on the agn, has a social and cooperative dimension,

such that it has affinities with the Aristotelian notion of cooperative

virtues of life in the polis. There is, of course, the obvious character

of teamwork necessary for team sports. In addition, playing the

game of basketball brings one into a relationship with current and

former practitioners of the game.20 One even enters into relationship with those against whom one is competing because the com

petition is one for excellence at a task that is already agreed upon

as important no matter who wins or loses a particular contest. The

reason that the social and cooperative dimensions of practices are

important is because practices are produced by and thus are reflec

tions of a community, rather than the products of the whims of

individuals. Indeed, they are partially constitutive ofa community's

corporate life. This emphasis is in keeping with Maclntyre's thesis

that morality and moral philosophy always presuppose a social or

political framework within which actions and accounts of actions

are rendered meaningful.

The third prominent aspect ofa practice is that of goods internal

to a practice. These goods are defined as those that can only be

achieved by participating in a given practice or ones similar to it.

To return to our example, one of the goods achieved through a sportsuch as basketball is a certain form of physical fitness, one that


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combines elements of quickness, speed, endurance, and agility.

Such fitness can only be achieved by participating in basketball or

some other form of athletic pursuit, such as soccer, which requires

and cultivates those same qualities. Since internal goods can be

achieved only by participation in a practice or its cognates, Maclntyrecontrasts them with goods external to a practice, which can be

achieved by other means and are only contingently attached to a

practice. If one achieves a certain degree of proficiency at basketball,

one may receive an athletic scholarship. The scholarship would be

an external good, since scholarships can be gained in other ways

also. A further point of distinction between internal and external

goods is that external goods are subject to the law of scarcity, while

internal goods are not.21 For example, if two people play basketballtogether throughout their childhood, advancement in the skills of

the game by one person does not preclude a similar development

by the other one. In fact, as one gets better at playing the game, the

other may also by playing against increasingly improving competi

tion and learning from him or her. If, however, the first person is

offered a college scholarship for basketball, the second person may

be prevented from receiving a scholarship for the simple reason

that there are only so many scholarships available. They are, inother words, scarce resources.

The final component ofa practice is that of standards of excel

lence. As the name would suggest, standards of excellence involve

the criteria by which we judge whether or not we are engaging in

a practice proficiently. Like goods internal to a practice, these

standards arise from within the practice itself. The standards,

moreover, are performance-based; that is, they are not simply the

rules that partially define the practice, though they will always

flow from a following of the rules, and may result in changes to the

rules. Rather, standards of excellence are those performances of a

given practice that are heretofore the most accomplished. Thus we

know what it means to play basketball well because we have seen

Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls play the game. To carry the point

further, we know that the Bulls were good because we had the

prior standards of Larry Bird's Boston Celtics and Ervin "Magic"


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Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers, which were surpassed by the Bulls.

Because of teams like the Bulls, people who play basketball have

the criteria by which they can evaluate their own performances.

Maclntyre notes: "To enter into a practice is to accept the authority

of those standards and the inadequacy of my own performance as

judged by them. It is to subject my own attitudes, choices, prefer

ences and tastes to the standards which currently and partially

define the practice."22

Maclntyre does not back away from the full

implications of the historically contingent character of standards of

excellence. Because they can develop, they may also decline.23

With this description ofa practice in place, we are now in a posi

tion from which we can discern whether liturgy can be considereda practice. Maclntyre himself suggests that practices cover a wide

range of human activity: the arts, scholarship, games, certain forms

of politics, and the sustaining of family life. In addition, critics of

Maclntyre's work have approvingly noted that his notion of prac

tice can be applied to a range of human endeavor, the significance

of which he may fail to detect.24

It should come as no surprise,

then, that theologians have appropriated Maclntyre's account of

practice for explicating the moral significance of various aspects ofthe church's life.

25If we look at the correlation between the previ

ously highlighted four components of practices and liturgy, we can

see that it is appropriate to consider liturgical rites, not only as

individual practices, but as constituting a coherent set of practices.

22Ibid.

23 Ibid., 189.24

In Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals andTheir Discontents (Boston:

Beacon Press 1988), Jeffrey Stout argues that the most helpful aspect ofAfter Virtue

is its account of the virtues in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters, including

his description of a practice (266). Yet, Maclntyre, as Stout reads him, does not

sufficiently appreciate the significance that the multiplicity of practices within

liberal societies (an object of Maclntyre's scorn) may have for moral discourse

within those societies (271).25

See, for example, Murphy, Nancey, BradJ. Kallenberg, and Mark Thiessen

Nation, eds., Virtues & Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics afterMaclntyre (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International 1997); Jonathan Wilson, Living

Faithf ll i a F a t d World L f th Ch hf Ma l t ' "Aft


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We begin with liturgy as a socially established and cooperative

activity because, of the four aspects of a practice, this is the most

self-evidently seen in the liturgy. That liturgy is fundamentally a

social phenomenon is rather obvious and is reflected in the

etymology of the term. As is well-known, our term "liturgy" is

derived from the Greek word leitourgia, which is most commonly

translated as "the work of the people." As such, the very nature of

the liturgy requires that it be a communal celebration in which

each person has an important function. Sacrosanctum Concilium

puts the matter this way: "Liturgical services are not private func

tions but are celebrations of the Church, which is 'the sacrament of

unity/ namely, 'the holy people united and arranged under theirbishops/ Therefore, liturgical services pertain to the whole Body of

the Church. . . . It must be emphasized that rites which are meant

to be celebrated in common, with the faithful present and actively

participating, should as far as possible be celebrated in that way

rather than by an individual or quasi-privately."26 This passage from

the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy clearly affirms the notion

that Christian worship is an inherently social activity, rather than

private action of an individual. Christian worship requires thateach person contributes to the celebration through active partici

pation in a given service. In doing so, Christians engage each other

and God, thereby making liturgy a truly cooperative activity.

Christian liturgy also coheres with Maclntyre's emphasis on the

coherent and complex nature of practices. This holds true both for

particular rites and for the worship of the church as a whole.

26Sacrosanctum Concilium, nos. 26-27. Translation taken from Austin Flannery,

O.P., ed., Vatican CouncilII: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, rev. ed.

(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press 1992) 10-11. Because Maclntyre's work in

After Virtue is dependent on antique notions of virtue, with their roots in the agn,

the social character of the liturgy, owing to its basis in charity, would surpass

Maclntyre at this point. Maclntyre has been critiqued by theologians for not sig

nificantly appreciating how Aquinas's understanding ofcaritas transformed the

nature of the virtues in a manner that removed them from the competitive realm

of the agn and placed them in arenas of charitable mutuality. For examples of

this critique, see John Milbank, Theology & Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason


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Particular rites are made up of a variety of components: prayers,

music, postures, readings, ritual actions, and material elements.

Despite the complexity ofa given rite, each rite has a unity that is

constituted by the interlocking goals toward which a particular rite

is directed. For example, in baptism one is incorporated into Christ

and the church. Likewise, the focus or climax of the Eucharist is

when people come into communion with God and each other. The

liturgy, rightly understood, is not simply a collection of disparate

practices. Instead, the liturgy as a whole makes up a kind of liturgi

cal complex in which the various rites work together to help shape

Christian life from birth to death. The unity of this liturgical

complex is constituted, in part, by the overall goals of liturgy, thegoods internal to the practice of the liturgy.

Although it may atfirstsound odd to think of the liturgy in terms

of goods, upon further reflection there are indeed such goods. To

name but three internal goods, there are the glorification of God,

the sanctification of humanity, and communion. All three are

achieved through liturgy and similar types of practice, such as the

corporal works of mercy. In addition, with all three cases, "posses

sion" of these goods does not prevent their "acquisition" by othersso that they are not subject to the law of scarcity. These three goods,

moreover, can be seen as ordered in such a way that glorification

and holiness are ultimately directed toward communion with God

and other human beings (hence the centrality of the Eucharist),

which provides for the unity the coherence within complexity

for individual rites and the whole of the church's liturgy.27

Standards of excellence make up the final aspect of Maclntyre's

definition of a practice we need to discuss. The discernment of

such standards is difficult because it seems almost nonsensical to

ask the question "who is worshiping better?" and in turn use that

person or group as a gauge for others. Although trying to discern

some standard for worship may at first seem difficult, if not impos

sible, we may be able to find a way around this apparent problem

27This threefold distinction is misleading in that it would seem to suggest that

these three goods are individuated in a manner that overlooks their intimate


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by keeping in mind the purposes of worship, the goods that worship

seeks to obtain. The seemingly problematical question "who is

worshiping better?" is more easily addressed when it is reformu

lated into "who provides the standard for rendering God glory,holiness, and communion with God?" The answer to this question

is, of course, Jesus Christ. Christ lived and died in a manner that

was focused on self-emptying love or kenosis, allowing the lives of

Christians to be depicted in these terms as well. Christ's kenotic

love was manifest in his incarnation and ministry, but most fully in

his passion. Christ's self-giving, in turn, is presented as source and

standard for Christians through the liturgy, especially the Eucha

rist. In summary, one could say that Christ's kenosis is the basis forthe church's offering of itself in thanksgiving in the Eucharist,

which in turn becomes a basis from which Christians glorify God,

become holy, and live in communion with God and neighbor

through the whole of their lives.28

What does Maclntyre's account of a practice provide us with in

terms of the liturgy? Essentially, his description of a practice gives

a "thick" account of the way that liturgy can be viewed as a context

within which Christian virtues are cultivated. When conceived of

as a practice in the technical sense, liturgy is morally significant

because it provides an activity within which the concomitant ele

ments of character and the virtues can be cultivated. In order to

see why this is so, we need to highlight Maclntyre's definition of a

virtue as it relates to practices, "A virtue is an acquired human quality

the possession andexercise ofwhich tends to enable us to achieve those

28 The employment of Jesus Christ as a criterion moves away from Maclntyre'swork in a significant manner. Jesus as moral standard is in keeping withMaclntyre's insistence that standards emerge historically. Jesus was a particularhuman being, who lived at a specific juncture of Jewish and Roman history.Nevertheless, for theological reasons, it would be impossible to say that the standard of Christ can be historically transcended. Ifsuch were the case, then thevery logic ofthe Incarnation and Christianity would become unintelligible. It is

possible to maintain a historicist stance, however, by highlighting the church'sstatus as the body of Christ. If the church is always in the process of realizing" h f ll f Ch i " (E h i 4 13) h i f h i


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goods which are internal to practices andthe lack ofwhich effectively

prevents us from achieving any such goods/'29 From this framework,

Christian virtues would be those qualities that allow us to render

God glory, become holy, and live in communion with God andneighbor.

The most important virtue for achieving these ends, as the Chris

tian tradition has consistently affirmed, is charity. Because of the

importance of charity for the Christian life, it may prove useful to

show how it is embodied in the dynamics of the Eucharist in order

to concretize what has been said above. To do so, we must begin

with creation, which is the presupposition of the Eucharist. In crea

tion God gives humans life and all that is necessary for the supportof life. In a sign of unlimited graciousness, God also gives us the

gift of his Son because of our misuse of creation. Humanity, then,

rightfully takes a portion of this creation wheat, water, and

grapes and changes them through human effort into bread and

wine. We take these elements and give them back to God in

thanksgiving for God's gifts of creation and of his Son. God, then,

takes this offering, transforms it, and returns it to us as the Body

and Blood of Christ. Upon reception of these gifts, whereby we become what they are, we are sent into the world "to love and serve

the Lord." Even from the schematized rendering of the Eucharist,

it becomes apparent that the logic of the rite is one that centers on

self-giving. Such kenosis is the defining characteristic of charity.

Accordingly, the Eucharist is charity embodied, and "full, active,

and conscious" participation in the Eucharist becomes a means by

which Christians practice that virtue.

NARRATIVE, THE LITURGICAL YEAR,

AND MORALITY

As Don Saliers noted in his essay that serves as the springboard

for this article, one aspect of the liturgy's moral significance resides

in the ability of its narratives to characterize the participants in a

specifically Christian manner. Here I will supplement Saliers's

insight by providing a more detailed account of how such narratives help foster identity. In order to carry out this task, I will once


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again draw on the insights of Alasdair Maclntyre, though this time

with some assistance from Stephen Crites. Although Maclntyre's

description of the moral significance of narrative covers a variety

of distinct yet related topics, ranging from particular actions to the

histories of communities (i.e., traditions),30 our primary concern

here will be with the role of communal stories for shaping how we

understand and live our lives. An appropriate place to begin this

discussion is with the raw datum of ethics intelligible human

action.

According to Maclntyre, a given action can be described in

multiple ways, but the adequacy of those descriptions must be

tested against the action's underlying short-term intentions.

31

Forinstance, one could describe the same segment of behavior by little

Bobby as either "hitting Suzy" or "throwing a baseball." In order

to find out which description is the more accurate, we would need

to know whether he intentionally hit her or did so inadvertently

while attempting to throw the ball to Suzy's brother. Little boys

being what they are, it may very well be that Bobby would say that

he was trying to throw the ball to her brother, though he really

wanted to hit her. This insight brings us to a second point. Propercharacterizations of short-term intentions need to make reference

to long-term intentions. If there were a history of animosity be

tween the two children, then his statement about not intending to

hit her would be less believable. But, if he actually liked her, then

his statement would have more credibility. These long-term inten

tions, in turn, can best be described in reference to the wider sets

of beliefs that inform such intentions. If one knew that he was a

gentle child, who had been raised to believe that it was always

wrong to hit other people, then one would have more evidence

that his hitting of Suzy was unintentional. Conversely, if he, like

many young boys, believed that little girls were little more than

nuisances, then "hitting Suzy" may turn out to be the most accurate

30

L. Gregory Jones has noted seven distinct uses of the category of narrative byMaclntyre, some of which may be in tension with each other. For Jones's analysis,

see "Alasdair Maclntyre on Narrative Community and the Moral Life/7 Modern


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description for his action. As this example indicates, the correct

description of an agent's actions requires a causal and temporal

ordering of intentions and beliefs. Put schematically, "A" (belief)

leads to "B" (long-term intention) leads to "C" (short-term inten

tion), which results in "D" (action). The important thing to note

about this chain of practical reasoning is that a proper rendering of

this action entails that we place that action within the larger con

text of the person's life. Because of the necessity of such historical

contextualization, narrative becomes indispensable for describing

intentional human action.

Since human action is rendered intelligible by its location within

such larger historical frameworks, it follows that Maclntyre discusses the historical and thus narrative quality of human existence

as a whole. When he says that human life can be described as a

narrative, he does not mean that otherwise random events can

have an order imposed on them through the subsequent use of a

narrative artifice. Rather, human life is itself narrative in nature,

which is why life can be depicted using narrative: "It is because we

all live out narratives in our own lives and because we understand

our own lives in terms of the narratives that we live out that theform of narrative is appropriate for understanding the actions of

others. Stories are lived before they are told except in the case

of fiction."32

The reason that life is inherently narrative in nature is

because life is historical. Humans understand and relate their lives

through narratives because that life is first experienced as an

historical narrative that has the stock features of most narratives:

beginnings, middles, and ends; characters; a plotline with an un

known outcome (depending on one's place in the story); and so on.

Maclntyre develops this point by arguing that the difference

between stories that are lived and stories that are merely told lies

in their respective authorship. "The difference between imaginary

characters and real ones," he tells us, "is not in the narrative form

of what they do; it is in the degree of their authorship of that form

and of their own deeds."33

This comment on authorship brings us

to a second significant aspect of his discussion of the narrativecharacter of human existence. Although each person is the author


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of his or her life, that person is not the only author of that life. He

makes the point forcefully: "Now I must emphasize that what the

agent is able to do and say intelligibly as an actor is deeply affected

by the fact that we are never more (and sometimes less) than the

co-authors of our own narratives. Only in fantasy do we live the

story we please."34 The reason that we are only co-authors of our

own stories is that the life of any person is necessarily influenced

by other people and events, including the lives of family members,

cultural forces, membership in various communities, and historical

contingencies. Because of such variables, a person's story is ren

dered intelligible insofar as it is understood against the backdrop

of these wider influences, which provide certain constraints andpossibilities for that person. "Embedding" is the technical name

that Maclntyre gives to this interlocking of narratives. He illustrates

this concept by use of historical examples, pointing out how the

life and work of Thomas Becket was embedded within the reign of

Henry II and how Mary Stuart's life was embedded within that of

Elizabeth I. Because of the phenomenon of embedding, the life of

any one person is shaped by that person's relationships with other

people. More broadly, the communities within which people liveprovide them with the means by which they come to understand

themselves and their place in the world. Accordingly, every person's

story is part of an interlocking set of narratives that partially set

the agenda for how that person's life is lived and understood.

One of the most significant ways communities form their mem

bers through narratives is through the telling and retelling of those

stories that express the core beliefs and values that are partially

definitive of the community's identity. These stories are expressed

in multiple ways such as fairytales, myths, scriptures, and legends.

Maclntyre's description of this point is fundamental to our work,

necessitating that we quote him at length: "It is through hearing

stories about wicked step mothers, lost children, good but mis

guided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who

receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world

and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living andgo into exile to live with the swine [sic], that children learn or


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mis-learn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of

characters may be in the drama into which they have been born

and what the ways of the world are. . . . Mythology, in the original

sense, is at the heart of things. Vico was right and so was Joyce.

And so too of course is that moral tradition from heroic society to

its medieval heirs according to which the telling of stories has a

key part in educating us into the virtues."35 As should be evident

from this quote, he is suggesting that communal stories such as

myths provide the dramatic resources by which people come to

see themselves and the world in which they exist. Unfortunately,

he does not tell us precisely how such stories fulfill this function.

In order to develop this point more fully, we need to turn to anauthor whose work is at once similar to that of Maclntyre, yet who

gives more attention to the importance of myth for day-to-day life

than he does. One such writer is Stephen Crites, especially in his

essay "The Narrative Quality of Experience."36

Like Maclntyre, Crites begins by suggesting that human life has an

inherently narrative "quality." After arguing for the importance of

narrative for understanding human life, he takes up the topic with

which we are now concerned, namely, the relation of myths andlived life. He begins the discussion by introducing the categories

of "sacred stories" and "mundane stories." He states that sacred

stories are narrative forms within which people live: "within the

traditional cultures there have been some stories that were told,

especially on festal occasions, that had special resonance. Not only

told to be ritually-enacted, these stories seem to be allusive expres

sions of stories that cannot be fully and directly told. . . .These

stories lie too deep in the consciousness of a people to be directly

told: they form consciousness rather than being among the objects

of which it is directly aware."37 He provides a helpful metaphor for

describing the nature of these stories. He tells us that they are not

35Ibid., 216.

36

S. Crites, "The Narrative Quality of Experience/ in Why Narrative? Readingsin Narrative Theology, eds., Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans 1989) 65-88. This work was originally published under the same title


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stories they presuppose. Crites writes: "Between sacred and mun-

dane stories there is a distinction without separation. From the

sublime to the ridiculous, all a people's mundane stories are im

plicit in its sacred story, and every mundane story takes soundingsin the sacred story. But some mundane stories sound out at greater

depth than others. Even the myths and epics, even the scriptures,

are mundane stories. But in these, as well as in some works of

literaryart, and perhaps even in some merry little tales that seem

quite content to play on the surface, the sacred stories resonate."39

After discussing sacred stories, mundane stories, and their rela

tionship, Crites explains how they converge in the shaping of per

spective. He introduces this topic by putting forward a thesis:"I want... to propose that the form of active consciousness, i.e.,

the form ofits experiencing, is in at least some rudimentary sense

narrative. That is why consciousness is able to mediate between

sacred and mundane stories through which it orients itself in the

world."40

He supports this claim in a series ofsteps, which begin

with a discussion of the relation ofconsciousness to reality. Ac

cording to Crites, consciousness grasps reality in a temporal manner

in which past, present, and future are of a piece. Without such

temporal coherence, "Consciousness would be locked in a bare,

momentary present, i.e., in a disconnected succession of percep

tions which it would have no power to relate to one another."41

Crites develops this point by discussing the purpose of what he

terms "memory" and "recollection." Memory, for its part, serves as

a chronicle of experience in which those experiences are recorded

in a bare manner, that is, simply in terms of before and after.Recollection, however, involves the ability ofconsciousness to

re-order images from the chronicle of memory into new patterns

ofmeaning and comprehension. He elaborates on the relation of

memory and recollection: "Images do not exist in memory as

atomic units, like photographs in an album, but as transient episodes

in an image stream, cinematic, which I must suspend and from

which I must abstract in order to isolate a particular image. The

most direct and obvious way of recollecting it is by telling a story,


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though the story is never simply the tedious and unilluminating

recital of the chronicle of memory itself.And, of course, I can

manipulate the image-stream in other ways. I can abstract general

features and formal elements ofit for purposes oftheory, or suspend

it in order to draw a picture, or splice episodes from it in a way thatgives them new significance."

42

Crites then spells out the implications of this insight by suggest

ing that it is possible to re-collect the images of memory in very

different ways. In other words, the "same" story can be told differ

ently based on the way that certain things are emphasized or

omitted, the importance of succeeding events that contextualize

and re-contextualize the event(s) being told, changes in perspective

that arise from new experiences, and anticipated outcomes offuture events. The last comment introduces another key compo

nent of his position "the scenario of anticipation," which is a

narrative form that looks to the future. According to Crites, antici

pation and memory work hand in hand to create a sense ofself-

hood: "Our sense of personal identity depends on the continuity

of experience through time, a continuity bridging even the cleft

between remembered past and projected future."43

Having discussed the role of narrative for personal identity,

Crites turns his attention to the role of sacred stories and mundane

stories in the shaping of that identity. In a passage worth quoting

at length, we are told that the stories "people hear and tell, the

dramas they see performed, not to speak of the sacred stories that

are absorbed without being directly heard or seen, shape in the

most profound way the inner story of experience. We imbibe a

sense of the meaning of our own baffling dramas from these

stories, and this sense of its meaning in turn affects the form of a

man's experience and the style of his action. Some cultural forms,

both sacred and mundane, are of course socially shared in varying

degrees, and so help link men's inner lives as well as orienting

them to a common public world. Both the content and the form of

experience are mediated by symbolic systems which we are able to

employ simply by virtue of awakening within a particular culture

in which those symbolic systems are the common currency.


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Prevailing narrative forms are among the most important of such

symbolic systems. It is not as though a man begins as a purely

individual consciousness with the incipient story and musicality of

his private experience, and then casts about for a satisfying tale to

lend it some higher significance. People awaken to consciousnessin a society, with the inner story of experience and its enveloping

musicality already infused with cultural forms. The vitalities of

experience itself may in turn make a man feel that some of the old

stories have a hollow ring and may be the source of originality in

the formation of new stories, or even kinds of stories. But the way

we remember, anticipate, and even directly perceive is largely

social. A sacred story in particular infuses experience at its root,

linking a man's individual consciousness with ultimate powersand also with the inner lives of those with whom he shares

common soil."44

If one applies these insights to the narrative portions of liturgical

worship (e.g., lectionary readings, eucharistie prayers, and creeds),

one can begin to state the possible significance of these elements

in the formation of Christian identity. These mundane stories are

rehearsed and ritually enacted in the various celebrations of the

liturgical year. These rehearsals and enactments provide Christianswith access to the sacred story of the triune God's relationship

with the world. These stories, then, provide a stock of dramatic

resources that can help form how Christians see themselves in

relation to God, the entire Christian community, and the whole

of creation.

Before leaving our discussion of narrative, we need to say some

thing about how story relates to the virtues, which is the central

theme that I have been developing in this essay. In order to elabo

rate on this topic, we need to return to Maclntyre and specifically

his depiction of both the teleological and unpredictable nature of

human life. He argues that human life is teleological in the sense

that we live in anticipation of achieving certain goals and aspirations.

As he states it, "There is no present which is not informed by some

image of some future and an image of the future which always

presents itself in the form of a telos or a variety of ends and


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quest for the good, by enabling us to overcome the harms, dangers,

temptations and distractions which we encounter, and which will

furnish us with increasing self-knowledge and increasing knowl

edge of the good."

48

It is important to note that he refrains fromproviding us with any specified content of the good, while also

avoiding naming any particular virtues that one might cultivate in

seeking that good. His reason for these omissions is significant.

Historically speaking, it is impossible to give a single account of

what the good life is and what are its concomitant virtues. As he

points out, "What the good life is for a fifth-century Athenian

general will not be the same as what it is for a medieval nun or a

seventeenth-century farmer."49

It is our positioning within historically changing communities and the acceptance of those communal

roles that provide us with the specific possibilities, limitations, and

obligations that constitute the basis from which we live. Because

communities differ, so too does a good life within those

communities.

It is at this point that the liturgy once again becomes paramount

for an understanding of virtues within Christianity. Not only does

the liturgy serve as a practice within which Christian virtues are

fostered, it also serves as an ongoing expression of the central ele

ments of the Christian tradition, thereby providing followers of

Christ with the communal narratives by which their lives can be

lived and understood in a specifically Christian manner. It does so

to a great extent through the celebrations of the liturgical year. In

both the temporal and sanctoral cycles, the church rehearses those

stories that reflect what it means to believe, think, feel, and act as aChristian. It is also important to note that the heart of the liturgical

year the temporal cycle has a christological pattern to it.

Hearing the stories of Christ's nativity, ministry, death, and resur

rection provides Christians with the means by which their stories

can resonate with that of Christ. For example, by telling the stories

of the paschal mystery during Easter, the church rehearses what it

means to undergo redemptive suffering and transformative rebirth.

In turn, these stories can provide Christians with the hope by


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which they also can undertake such suffering in their efforts to be

faithful witnesses to Christ and the kingdom of God.50

When liturgical scholars and moral theologians talk to each other,

there is always the danger that they may talk past each other. Aswith all academic disciplines, these two have technical vocabularies

that assist them in their respective tasks. As helpful as technical

language may be, it can prevent helpful in some cases, neces

sary dialogue from occurring, as the two parties become

trapped within their respective "language games" (Wittgenstein).

The issue is especially significant because liturgical scholarship

and moral theology focus on different aspects of the same issue,

namely, the Christian life. Part of the brilliance of Don Saliers'"Liturgy and Ethics: Some New Beginnings" was that it served as

an attempt to find a common language within which the relation of

liturgy and morality can be discussed by both sets of scholars.

Saliers did so by drawing on the tradition of discussing ethics in

terms of character and virtue. His work, while ostensibly about

"new beginnings," was very much rooted in a classical, if often

ignored, manner of talking about ethics. Here I have attempted to

further his fundamental insights by highlighting some of the more

recent insights in scholarship on the virtues. In doing so, I have

hopefully shown that something old can also be something new.

50Here it is important to note the direction ofinterpretation. I have not started

with suffering in general and then proceeded to discuss the Passion as merely aninstantiation ofsuch suffering. Such a move would be both theologically andpsychologically suspect. In terms ofthe former, such an approach would suggestthat Christ's crucifixion was merely one example, though an important one, ofthe fact that pain and death are part of"the human condition/' This view overlooks the fact that Christ's suffering was unique in that he was the God-man.

His death is also unique in that it brings the human reality of death within God'sown "experience." In terms of the latter, it would suggest that suffering in general


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^ s

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