A couple of points, picking up on what others have said thus far.
Firstly, Thinkingstuff and others have asked what is meant by the 'Gospel' and in what way I heard this preached in the sermon at Mass the other week. Being an evangelical board, I won't make the 'mistake' of saying "the reading from the Gospel", although of course we did have that at Mass too. No, for me, the Gospel is the Good News about Jesus Christ, His incarnation, death and resurrection; specifically His mission to save us from our sins by taking the punishment due for them upon His body on the cross so that, through faith in His death and resurrection and a grace-borne desire to follow Him, we may attain eternal life, free from sin and its consequences.
That was, in essence, the sermon the other Sunday. It was the feast of the Baptism of Jesus and, after a preamble about why Jesus was baptised and what baptism was to the Jews (references to the Essenes and Dead Sea Scrolls etc), the priest moved on to the core of his homily: Jesus' baptism in the context of His mission to save us from sin. He mentioned, amongst other things, the following points: Jesus taking the punishment for our sins on the cross, the need for a personal faith in Jesus and His death and resurrection, the availability of a direct relationship with God through Jesus to be appropriated by faith, and an exhortation to share that faith with others. Reference was also made to Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit at His baptism and the need for us to do likewise and minister and evangelise in the power of that Spirit as Jesus did. We were told very firmly that it was insufficient to merely 'go through the religious motions', to just turn up to Mass every Sunday and leave unchanged, but that we needed to personally meet with the risen Lord and to study His Word in the Scriptures daily if we were to grow in faith and relationship with our God.
That do?
Secondly, a point about liturgical -v- non-liturgical and emotions. I would say that in part one's emotional response to types of worship and music used in that worship depends very much on one's personality. I have to say that I have encountered far more of what I would call 'emotional' worship at Baptist churches* than I have at those more liturgical places further 'up the candle' as it were. I'm not sure that we can neatly package worship in that way, nor am I convinced that we can compartmentalise our response into 'carnal' and 'spiritual'; that seems to me to run the danger of injecting a form of gnostic dualism (matter=evil, spirit=good) into the equation, and I'm not sure that's healthy...
*Both in terms of the more contemporary, 'charismatic'-style choruses and the old, 19th century 'rabble-rousing' hymns.
Firstly, Thinkingstuff and others have asked what is meant by the 'Gospel' and in what way I heard this preached in the sermon at Mass the other week. Being an evangelical board, I won't make the 'mistake' of saying "the reading from the Gospel", although of course we did have that at Mass too. No, for me, the Gospel is the Good News about Jesus Christ, His incarnation, death and resurrection; specifically His mission to save us from our sins by taking the punishment due for them upon His body on the cross so that, through faith in His death and resurrection and a grace-borne desire to follow Him, we may attain eternal life, free from sin and its consequences.
That was, in essence, the sermon the other Sunday. It was the feast of the Baptism of Jesus and, after a preamble about why Jesus was baptised and what baptism was to the Jews (references to the Essenes and Dead Sea Scrolls etc), the priest moved on to the core of his homily: Jesus' baptism in the context of His mission to save us from sin. He mentioned, amongst other things, the following points: Jesus taking the punishment for our sins on the cross, the need for a personal faith in Jesus and His death and resurrection, the availability of a direct relationship with God through Jesus to be appropriated by faith, and an exhortation to share that faith with others. Reference was also made to Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit at His baptism and the need for us to do likewise and minister and evangelise in the power of that Spirit as Jesus did. We were told very firmly that it was insufficient to merely 'go through the religious motions', to just turn up to Mass every Sunday and leave unchanged, but that we needed to personally meet with the risen Lord and to study His Word in the Scriptures daily if we were to grow in faith and relationship with our God.
That do?
Secondly, a point about liturgical -v- non-liturgical and emotions. I would say that in part one's emotional response to types of worship and music used in that worship depends very much on one's personality. I have to say that I have encountered far more of what I would call 'emotional' worship at Baptist churches* than I have at those more liturgical places further 'up the candle' as it were. I'm not sure that we can neatly package worship in that way, nor am I convinced that we can compartmentalise our response into 'carnal' and 'spiritual'; that seems to me to run the danger of injecting a form of gnostic dualism (matter=evil, spirit=good) into the equation, and I'm not sure that's healthy...
*Both in terms of the more contemporary, 'charismatic'-style choruses and the old, 19th century 'rabble-rousing' hymns.
