Principles of Labyrinth Design (Part 1 - Elements)

 There are as many kinds of labyrinth as there are dimensions in which to design them (excepting the first dimension alone, which permits only a binary and trivial variation). The 2-dimensional labyrinth is, of course, the simplest non-trivial variety. Of the 2-dimensional labyrinths, there are two kinds; linear and non-linear. 2-dimensional, linear labyrinths include only four directions; south, east, north, and west. Non-linear labyrinths are omni-directional (throughout 360 degrees). 

A 'simple labyrinth' is any 2-dimensional linear labyrinth.

A 'true labyrinth' has only one exit, and therefore one non-trivial solution.

A labyrinth's 'direction-value' (DV) is the number which denotes the total orientation of its solution. A right turn equals +1 to the DV. A left turn equals -1 to the DV. Hence, if a labyrinth's solution necessitates 5 right-turns and 3 left-turns, its DV equals 2.

An 'open labyrinth' has its exit on the periphery of the labyrinth. This kind of labyrinth always has a DV of -1, 0, or 1.

A 'closed labyrinth' has an end-point that is enclosed within the perimeter of the labyrinth. A closed labyrinth is not necessarily direction-neutral.

The fundamental, or "1st order", elements of simple labyrinths can be laid out and enumerated such that each element corresponds to a number of the hexadecimal system (fig. 1):

With this system of labeling, any simple labyrinth can be described numerically with a matrix. For example, the following simple labyrinth (fig. 2) can be described with the corresponding matrix (fig. 3). This matrix can be written as follows: 326/451/035.

Simple labyrinths are modular; that is, larger matrices can be reduced to smaller matrices, or even single numbers. For example, fig. 3 can be reduced to 'c' because fig. 2 is reducible to a north-facing dead-end. However, the DV of a given labyrinth is not affected by modular reduction: Every fundamental dead-end has a DV of zero, whereas fig. 2 has a DV of -4.

Reörienting every labyrinth so that the initial orientation is north (i.e. the entrance always faces south), and fully modulating it to its most fundamental solution, we can see that every simple open true labyrinth can be reduced to 1, 3, or 6. Every simple closed true labyrinth can be reduced to 'c'.

There are elements composed of 1st order elements, called "2nd order" elements. The 2nd order elements are 'loops' and 'trees'. Both loops and trees can be open or closed.

A loop is any pattern which leads back to its initial point. Examples are 36/75 for a closed loop and 36/b5 for a closed loop.

A tree is any pattern which diverts to multiple paths (i.e. branches) from one path. E.g. a/b.

3rd order elements are composed of 2nd order elements. The 3rd order elements are 'wheels' and 'double loops'.

A wheel is a conjunction of trees, such that there are multiple branches in all four directions from a single point. E.g. bb/bb.

A double loop is a loop circumscribed by a loop.

Commentary on Jean Daneliou's "Prayer as a Political Problem" (Part 1)

The Church of the Poor

The argument in this chapter is that Christianity is universal; its message and promise is destined to all people. The ‘poor’ does not mean simply those of meager economic power, but those of meager power in any regard. The poor lack intellectual and even spiritual means as well. If the Church is the “church of the poor” because it is universal, it cannot be an elite society. 

With this truth in mind, Danielou identifies an urgent problem: The world is inhospitable to the Faith. This is not a new revelation by any means. “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh” (Gal 5:17). “The lust of the flesh is of the world” and “we received not the spirit of the world” for “the world knew Him not.” We are called therefore to be “in the world but not of it.” That the Faith is not of the world, however, is a fact of its divine origin. Our mission is to be the light of the world, to spread the Gospel, and to baptize all nations, for the world belongs to Christ.

Danielou is addressing a deeper, more troubling fact about the world that is particular to modernity: “A world has come into being in which everything serves to turn men away from their spiritual calling.” The world is infested with temptations to every kind of vice, temptations that are carefully crafted for maximum effect to yield maximum profit. Not only is the man of Faith a stranger in this world, but any kind of religious activity whatsoever is alien. Christianity is a supernatural revelation and therefore will never be quite at home in the world, but religion is perfectly natural. Man is born with an impulse to revere the divine and the sacred; to conduct himself with respect to what is mightier, nobler, and more sublime than himself. Yet modern society is hostile to religion of any kind. One who seeks to sanctify the mundane with daily practices of devotion will constantly struggle against conflicting duties, social expectations, and the more pressing human needs which arise as their result. Even civic holidays and the vestigial pastiches of religious festivals like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween have been reduced to motions of mere economic expedience. For the Christian, to consider only one example, Holy Days of Obligation are observed only under tension with one’s obligations to his employer or to his family (by either “taking the day off” to hear morning mass or forfeiting his evening to hear evening mass–in either case there is no impression of a sacred festival). The seasonal patience of thaw, harvest, and solstice; the cyclical tempo of light and dark, expectation and remembrance, abundance and want, is lost. Even the pagan spirit of bacchanalia, which seems to persist in some recognizable forms, is neither ritualized nor dedicated to any god, but is rather tolerated as a useful stimulus to the most banal functions of modern life.

Such is our problem. Hence, Danielou says, “it is sufficiently clear that Christians ought to be trying to change the shape and pattern of society so as to make possible a Christian life for the whole of mankind.”

Common Objections Against the Existence of the Soul

 It might seem that the soul is some emergent property or function of matter arising out of a material cause:

1. If the soul is the form of the body, then the soul only exists insofar as it informs the body.  Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that the soul is something dependent on the body.

2. If souls are identified according to their activity (as a vegetative soul vegetates and a sensible soul senses) then we ought to consider them precisely to be activities and nothing more.  For what we observe in living things are not souls as such, but vegetation and sensation, by which we infer that there is something other than what we observe which performs those activities.  But this is an unnecessary abstraction, as we perceive nothing other than activity in a material body.

3. If the soul is the principle of movement in material things, then it interacts with material. But what is immaterial is impassible and cannot interact with what is material.  Therefore the soul must not be immaterial but something material.

4. The end of a living thing is to preserve its life.  But self-preservation is achieved in and through the preservation of the body.  Therefore, life-as-end is not distinct from the body but is merely the integrity of the body and its functions.

Contra 1: If we regard the form as dependent on matter as a kind of supervening quality, then we would subvert the order of substance and accidents.  What is accidental to a thing is secondary to what the thing primarily is, which is its substance.  When the soul is called the form of the body, it is precisely meant as the substantial form.  Even though matter is a necessary part of a natural living thing, the matter is not enough to identify that thing as what it is, as we see that a plant or animal can grow and diminish over time while maintaining its individuality.  But to say that a living thing's soul exists only insofar as it has matter is to put accidents prior to substance or else make matter the substantial form of the body, which is absurd.  Hence, if we wish to concede that there are individual living things, then the primacy of the soul is a necessary conclusion from what is perceived.

Contra 2: We ascertain the form of a thing when we identify what it is specifically (i.e. according to a species), for matter is informed according to its species by its form.  This is not merely a logical device, for to refer to a substantial form is to say that there is some active principle in that living thing which unifies the parts into a whole.  Now when we observe some activity in a certain thing, we can attribute that activity in two ways; to the part in which the activity is manifested, and to the whole to which the part belongs.  E.g. when a worm is prodded, we may say that there is a reaction in certain material parts of that worm, and that what we observe is the action of material apparata in response to some material stimulus.  This may be true with respect to chemistry, but it is ultimately unintelligible without respect to the thing acting, viz. the worm.  If we cannot account for the substantial form of the worm, then we cannot say that the worm moves, but only that the parts of the worm move.  But this is an unnecessary reduction, whereas it is reasonable to attribute the movement observed within a thing to the thing itself.

Contra 3: It would indeed seem that immaterial things cannot interact with material for two reasons; viz. that what is material cannot harm or hinder what is immaterial (e.g. we cannot tie down an angel or transplant a soul) and that there is no known mechanism which would explain how such an interaction could take place.  But we should not form too simple a concept of immaterial things.  Some tend to think of interaction in terms of bodies reacting to force or contact, like two rocks hitting together.  But no interaction at all can be attributed to purely material causes.  The rocks that one knocks together are being moved ultimately by something that does the moving.  So the answer to the question, how does the immaterial interact with the material, is found in the question, “what is interaction?”  Strictly speaking, “pure matter” does not act.  To hold this would ultimately be to conflate material cause and efficient cause and to disregard the act-potency distinction altogether.  Therefore we must concede that there is something immaterial in a living thing which is the principle of its action.

Contra 4: If the soul is the substantial form of a living thing, then the body is the matter which is informed by the soul, and by means of which the soul acts.  Thus the integrity of the body is due to the soul's act, which works in and through the body as the means to preserve its proper place as form.  It does not follow that what is attained by means of the body is the body itself.

The Black Mirror

John Dee was a widely-respected and influential mathematician, navigation tutor, cartographer, and scientific adviser to Queen Elizabeth I of England. When Francis Bacon was just nine years old, John Dee wrote an impassioned introduction to the English translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry. In it he glorifies the “thaumaturgy” made possible by the mathematical arts and urges the reader to view the pursuit of scientific marvels as an honorable Christian pursuit and pleasing to God: He also finds it necessary to explicitly distinguish the wonder-working of science from conjury and diabolism. It is easy to see in Dee’s writing the seeds of the spirit of modern science; the conviction that knowledge ought to be pursued liberally and not for its own sake, but for what it can be used. The scholastic tradition of the centuries prior had a different take. Aristotle famously observes that all men by nature desire to know, because to know is man’s greatest activity. Truth is therefore sought for its own sake. Yet Aristotle’s greatest commentator, Saint Thomas Aquinas, explains that, while truth is good in itself, it is possible for the desire or pursuit of knowledge to be sinful; that is, the sin of curiosity. The quest for knowledge becomes vicious curiosity when it is driven by pride, when it distracts from one’s duties, when it involves illicit means, or when it is simply too great an undertaking for his mental resources, as it were, so that one ends up more confused and ignorant than before he started. There is one more way one may fall into curiosity, which is perhaps the most pertinent to Dee’s exhortation; namely, when knowledge is not referred to its due end. In other words, if what one endeavors to learn does not lead us closer to God in some way, such as by increasing our understanding of Him, by rendering the practice of virtue more effective, or by helping us to fulfill our station in life, then we might be giving into curiosity.

The supposed thousand-year suppression of science by the medieval Catholic Church is still a common trope, but Saint Thomas and his medieval colleagues were no opponents of science. Thomas' intellectual work was heavily influenced by the work of Aristotle, the ancient biologist and metaphysician who systematized classical logic. It is well known that Thomas’ teacher, Saint Albert, was among the first proponents of Aristotelianism in Europe. At that time, the university system (which the Catholic Church had recently invented) received newly accessible Latin translations of manuscripts preserved by Muslim scholars in the near east. Albert generated a considerable amount of controversy by his endorsement of Aristotle and patiently restrained his opinions while the Church decided whether the new school of philosophy was reconcilable with the Faith. It decided in Aristotle’s favor, of course.

Those familiar with the history of medieval scholasticism might also be aware of Saint Albert’s love of natural philosophy and his extensive research and contributions in geology, zoology, biology, botany, and astronomy. It is perhaps not so well known that Saint Albert worked on some marvelous science projects in his laboratory at the university of Cologne. One of these projects was an automaton; a mechanical bust which could move and speak of its own accord. The automaton was eventually destroyed, but neither by decree of the Inquisition nor at the hands of a frightened mob. Saint Thomas, the legend says, was poking about in his teacher’s lab one night when he was startled by a jangling voice which belted from the darkness “salve!” Thomas instinctively lashed out at the thing, smashing it to pieces. Albert was of course annoyed that so much of his work had perished so frivolously, but this was anything but a life-ruining moment for him. The purpose of Albert’s study was not to dazzle or to hoard power, but to deepen his understanding of truth. Likewise, the spirit of inquiry evident in scholasticism was typically not curious, because it was not vain.

Whether the spirit of modern science ushered in by John Dee and others of his era amounts to the deification of curiosity is a moot point, but it is clear that Dee was himself a profoundly curious man. In the latter half of his life, Dee toured Europe with his confidant, Edward Kelley, a rather shady character with a checkered past. It had come to Kelley’s attention that the man of science was attempting to extract knowledge from higher “angelic” powers by occult means, so he made his acquaintance with Dee by offering his services as a scryer and a medium. Throughout their travels, the two together conducted countless hours of divination sessions using a variety of implements including sigils, incantations, and crystal balls. Dee recounts these practices in his own diary.

Perhaps the most famous relic of Dee’s career as a conjurer is a polished obsidian mirror, into which he set his gaze and purportedly saw weird visions from another plane of existence. Today his mirror is displayed at the British Museum of History, along with myriad other items which no well-formed conscience would ever consider keeping in his own house; not just objects used in black arts, but sacred vessels that belong in God’s service, and human remains that deserve repose. The display is itself a testament to the vain and voyeuristic spirit of curiosity. Considering the institutionalization of such curiosity and its malign origins, one might be tempted to call such a spirit not merely curious, but luciferian. Again, we can be quite clear in Dee’s case, as the origins of his pastime reveal.

Researchers have ascertained that John Dee’s mirror is ultimately of Aztec origin. Many similar mirrors have been discovered in Mexico and are typically associated with the worship of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca (sometimes translated as “Smoking-Mirror”). The god was believed to be omniscient; able to see all things in his mirror, including the thoughts and actions of men. The Aztec elite carried obsidian mirrors to show that they too had special knowledge and could commune with the gods by looking into their world through the glass. Smoking-Mirror was thought to be both a creator deity and associated with discord and conflict. Such associations are only paradoxical at first glance. Creation, it seems, is typically a violent affair. To make a house, one must cut down trees, saw them into pieces, and nail the pieces together. Similar acts of violence and struggle go into all manner of making things, whether it is baking bread or birthing a baby. This dynamic is especially evident with the introduction of new technologies: As the mathematical arts produce for us some new marvel, some other artifact is rendered obsolete, and with it all the patterns of life which accompanied it. Creation thus necessitates destruction as the old gives way to the new: So goes the demonic logic.

The strongest lies most easily pass as truth. Of course, only God can create, properly speaking. We know from divine revelation that creation is from nothing, and it is a peaceful process. God spoke, and it came to be, and it was good. When creatures produce something, they ideally elevate one form of existence into a more noble one: It is, for example, better for a tree to house the sons of God than to stand alone in the wilderness. Any heartache that accompanies man’s attempt at ordering the world is a consequence of sin. Yet in the haze of sinful ignorance these truths are easily missed, and one should expect prevarication from an infernal spirit masquerading as a creator deity.

Those under the spell of such a spirit, as John Dee was, might accustom themselves to the idea that the marvelous products of knowledge require sacrifice. Dee’s curiosity was motivated by the desire to produce wonders. He recounted tales of marvelous images which fooled the senses, mechanical doves who sang as sweetly as real doves, and artificial eagles which could fly of their own accord. The beauty of ages past which we as a society have sacrificed for such vanities has become a tired topic. But each person who yields to curiosity must inevitably render sacrifice as well. There is an allegory hidden in the explicit sacrifices which the Aztecs made to Smoking-Mirror. A full year before the sacrifice was to be made, a prisoner of war was selected. For that year, he was treated as though he were the god himself. He was given royal clothes, luxurious living arrangements, and even a modest harem. He spent his time indulging himself, eating, and playing music. Finally, on the day of the sacrifice, he was brought to the temple where the priests cut out his heart.

I would wager that what motivated the Aztecs to sacrifice to this cruel deity is precisely what motivated the royal English scientist to continue some of their traditions. It is what today motivates a growing social acceptance of occultism in general, even as we simultaneously lionize science. We are all perhaps primed to accept the vain promises of unbounded inquiry because we unwittingly participate in its rituals. Most of us carry on our person a little device into which we gaze for countless hours. We tend to think of our little black mirror as a kind of window. Through it we can see what we presume is the whole world. Some even impetuously declare that the whole sum of human knowledge is contained in it. The Aztecs thought of mirrors as windows into another realm. I remember playing with mirrors as a child, trying to outwit my reflection or to see around the corner of the mirror’s boundaries. But all this is childish fancy. Mirrors and windows are two very different things.

Windows are meant to let the light in and to let a person who is inside see what is outside. Those who have heard the saying “eyes are windows to the soul” might have heard it in the context of art. Eyes are a very telling feature of the face. If you look at a person’s eyes, you can get a read on what is happening interiorly. Hence, an artist can say a lot with eyes. The saying is also used in the context of spiritual direction. Saint Thomas notes the special relationship vision has to knowledge: Knowledge begins in the senses, and sight is our primary sense. All manner of things can enter the soul through the eyes. We must therefore take great care in what we set our gaze on. Custody of the eyes is a rare virtue today, but one can imperil his soul by simply looking at what is unwholesome. Mirrors, on the other hand, reflect. They turn our vision back onto ourselves. Mirrors are therefore a symbol of pride and vanity. No one complains about the overuse of windows, but spending too much time before a mirror is a strong indication of vice.

Maybe it is fair to say that a smartphone is a window in some ways; in others it is a mirror. In its glass we can conjure up whatever we wish to see and learn whatever we wish to learn. Though its obsidian surface is animated by the hidden processes of arcane mathematical arts, its use of course does not qualify as a direct compact with demons. However, it is certainly a product of the kind of spirit which we have presently identified, and its utilization very easily disposes one to pay tribute to such a spirit in perilous ways.

“Screen time” is not an uncommon object of fasting for Christians today. To warn of its mere overuse has become a platitude. But what we might miss between the platitudes of older generations and the tired pre-internet romanticism cherished only by the extremely online is a kind of knowledge that absolutely cannot be received through the glass. This knowledge is at first apophatic; a purely negative experience of life without the mirror. One who fasts from screens will invariably find, alarmingly soon, that the world is in fact very big; overwhelmingly big. And in the immensity of the world, he might find himself terribly alone. His friends are likely many miles away. He might find that his own microcosm, disconnected from the others, is quite empty. He has only so many things with which to occupy his time; books and a few odd hobbies perhaps. His leisure time moves excruciatingly slowly. In the immensity of his time, he might have an unbearable many thoughts; thoughts that cannot be developed or verified by a quick Google search. Out of sheer necessity, he might begin to develop what the Benedictine tradition calls “poverty of mind,” wherein he abandons the cacophony of thoughts that are vain, distracting or unhelpful, and embark into a desert of internal silence. With grace, his curiosity will begin to wear off.

The experience might gradually become kataphatic; one that is positive and enlightening. He might become aware that his brain is purging itself of excess humors; clarifying his thoughts and alleviating his anxieties. As he becomes more acutely aware of the present, so too will he begin to sense eternity. His soul becomes still, and prayer feels natural. Maybe. 

More likely, he will become enamored anew at the thrill of the little world in the looking glass. He will gaze back into the mirror, despite his better instincts that he is watched inasmuch as he watches; that he pays for his curiosity with indulgence; that his indulgence is preparing him for a final sacrifice.

The Order of War

I assume the definitions of ‘power’ and ‘authority’ here.

Just war is, in a sense, power applied to bring social order out of social disorder. War is understood to involve at least two contrary powers. In order for war to be possible, there must be an order to which both powers actually belong.

An analogy to war is competitive sports. In football, two opposing teams compete against each other. Each team tries to accomplish two goals at once; to score touchdowns against its opponent and to prevent its opponent from scoring touchdowns against itself. There are intrinsic and extrinsic common goods proper to each team: Individual athletes must work well together as a team, and they all share in their team’s victories. There are, however, common goods proper to the game of football in general; goods in which all teams share even as they compete against each other.

With respect to the intrinsic common goods of the sport, if there were no rules for playing football, then there would be no game to play; and, if it were not assumed that both teams would honor the rules equally, then competition would not be possible. As for the extrinsic goods of the game (the goods for which those who compete or), were there none to be enjoyed, there would be no purpose for playing at all.

War is similar in the sense that there is an extrinsic common good that is supposedly exclusive to one party in the conflict: viz., the terms of victory and the driving motives for declaring war. However, if there were no fundamental order that was shared by all opposing forces, there would be no war: It is impossible for man to forge order out of absolute disorder. Man works with the raw materials of nature to fashion what he wills.

So, what is the order that enables man to wage war? Primarily, man desires to live and to live well. War is waged on this assumption; that death and needless suffering is to be avoided. However, peoples wage war by means of those who actively risk death and suffering on their behalf: The essence of a warrior is to undergo such risk for the sake of victory.

The relation between the warrior and the authority which empowers him to wage war implies the common nature of victory: Even fallen warriors can share victory. However, the good to which the warrior consecrates himself is greater than the admittedly thin consolation of posthumous victory and honor. If it were not the case that the warrior’s risk is itself a testament to the greatness of his cause, a good that encompasses his whole community, then military service should have no honor attached to it. In other words, if individual life and prosperity is the greatest good to which a man can aspire; if the commonweal is nothing greater than the totality of individual goods; or if the warrior’s moral calculus simply means gambling his life for a greater number of potential beneficiaries, then the warrior is reckless by nature.

 

Labor and Property

A robust understanding of the relationship between labor and property can be developed from the concepts of order and authority. In this way, we can avoid the nebulous attribution of "value".

A man, by his labor, incorporates something into an order: i.e. it is reordered to some good that is extrinsic to it; the laborer's work is given a new or deepened participation in the order of man, as it were.

The man, whose reason and will has moved it into a more noble participation, assumes authority over it. In a sense, the laborer is a lawgiver over his work. We should here avoid such misattributions as "legitimacy" or "sovereignty". The laborer has authority over his work insofar as it does not contradict with the order in which he himself is a part.

With such an approach to labor, we can honor P. Leo XIII's judgment on the relation of labor and property; viz. that man has the right to property by virtue of reason through labor.

We may also maintain St. Thomas' position; viz. that common property is by natural law granted to man to furnish the necessities of life, and private property is a matter of positive law. Positive law builds, as it were, on the natural law; human authority maintains the order of society (a perfectly natural thing) by promulgating among his subjects ordinances of reason for their common good. Labor begins as an ordinance of reason, and is carried out as obedience to that ordinance.

It is not appropriate to consider labor separately from that for which labor is accomplished; labor is immediately undertaken for the sake of the social order of the family, and ultimately for the good of the state. Here, too, various extremes may be avoided: The order of the state ought not to be contradicted by so-called "private" interests, yet without the household dimension, (most) labor becomes inordinate by reason of proportion to its end.

Because labor is bound up with order, and property is that over which one has authority by virtue of his labor, not all activities which serve to accumulate possessions are labor, properly speaking; and not all possessions are property. For example, theft, extortion, and usury are intrinsically disordered activities: possessions obtained unjustly are not proper to those who hold them, as opposed to the things a man might get through, say, farming poorly (a disordered, but intrinsically good activity).

Thoughts on Civic Liturgy

 The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the archeology of liturgy as follows:

At Athens the leitourgia was the public service performed by the wealthier citizens at their own expense, such as the office of gymnasiarch, who superintended the gymnasium, that of choregus, who paid the singers of a chorus in the theatre, that of the hestiator, who gave a banquet to his tribe, of the trierarchus, who provided a warship for the state. The meaning of the word liturgy is then extended to cover any general service of a public kind. In the Septuagint it (and the verb leitourgeo) is used for the public service of the temple (e.g., Exodus 38:27; 39:12, etc.). Thence it comes to have a religious sense as the function of the priests, the ritual service of the temple (e.g., Joel 1:9, 2:17, etc.). In the New Testament this religious meaning has become definitely established. In Luke 1:23, Zachary goes home when "the days of his liturgy" (ai hemerai tes leitourgias autou) are over. In Hebrews 8:6, the high priest of the New Law "has obtained a better liturgy", that is a better kind of public religious service than that of the Temple.

So in Christian use liturgy meant the public official service of the Church, that corresponded to the official service of the Temple in the Old Law.(1)

The liturgy of the New Law is primarily indicative of the Celebration of the Eucharist (called the Sacrifice of the Mass in the Roman Rite, and the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern Rites). There are several important aspects of this perfect and sacred Liturgy: It has four ends, viz. adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation, and petition; all members of the Church participate in it, though only the Priest alone is its minister; and the Eucharist, as Pope St. Paul VI says, "contains the entire spiritual boon of the Church, that is, Christ Himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, by the action of the Holy Spirit through His very flesh vital and vitalizing, giving life to men who are thus invited and encouraged to offer themselves, their labors and all created things, together with Him."(2)

With the Sacred Liturgy as the perfect model, we can define liturgy in general according to certain essential characteristics: It is a ritual, performed on behalf of a community, which is at once the expression of a common good of that community, and is a common good itself. These characteristics are entirely possible to achieve on a natural level, in what I shall term 'civic liturgy'. 

So, setting aside the supernatural economy of grace made known in the revelation of Divine Law, what does civic liturgy look like?

We have examples of civic liturgy from the world and from history. The simplest and most common is the parade: Its purpose is usually to commemorate some event, honor a holiday, or to celebrate a personal achievement that has redounded to the benefit of the community (e.g. the Roman Triumph). In any event, a parade is always held for a reason, and that reason often assumes the parade itself: The anniversary of a nation's founding, for instance, is established as a commemorative festival; the parade commemorates the event, and becomes a part of the event. Parades also follow a set ritual, albeit a very simple one; the members of a parade march or process down a public avenue. Moreover, parades are held for the community, though not every member of the community is a part of the parade; yet it would be absurd to hold a parade without a spectating public. Hence, there is common participation, though relatively few liturgical "ministers."

The distinction between participant and minister is more drastic in liturgies wherein one assumes public office. The most extravagant and fitting example is the coronation, though any ritual in which a citizen is sworn into office is certainly liturgical. The ritual aspect is essential to these events. Precise actions must be performed for the purpose of the liturgy to be consummated: A hand is raised, words are recited, a crown is donned, etc. It is obvious that these rituals are performed for the good of the community. By such a ritual, a leader is appointed and the ritual is the appointment: The common good is expressed through the ritual, and the common good contains the ritual. Moreover, the entire community participates in this ritual insofar as they are implicated in it: Their leader is appointed, and the order of the community in which they share is continued.

A third example of civic liturgy is the award ceremony; usually academic, military, or occupational. Such ceremonies celebrate the achievement of an individual insofar as it has served the common good of his community (e.g. a medal of merit or Nobel prize), or has elevated the mode by which he participates in the community (e.g. a school graduation or military promotion).

Is civic liturgy needed under the reign of Christ? All of the above examples, and indeed any civic liturgy that is originally secular are, simply put, celebrations of the highest natural goods. As such, they are good in their own right; they affirm a good to which we are ordered by nature and which we receive ultimately from God, Who is the source of all good. Civic liturgy, then, is not competitive with Christian liturgy, because it belongs to a different "tier," as it were. Even so, any civic, secular liturgy can be "baptized," and history provides us with countless examples of Christianized civic liturgies.

Unfortunately, the popular sense and understanding of liturgy is weak. Just as the Divine Liturgy is mocked by "neo-pagan" or satanic "masses" which invert the purpose and significance of sacred liturgy, there are perversions of civic liturgies which express not the common good of the community, but its affliction and fragmentation. Examples of such perversions can be seen in "pride parades," which are more like a foreign army's show of force in a conquered city than they are a common celebration of a shared good (albeit even a conquering army expresses a good that is intrinsic to its own community, despite offense to the native public), and certain awards ceremonies (such as the Academy of Motion Pictures Awards) which are focused on individual achievements specifically to the exclusion of others.

Nevertheless, the proliferation of  (good) liturgical practice can increase the goods which those liturgies express. Just as a healthy body rejoices in its health by engaging in physical activities which in turn contribute to its good health, so too is a healthy community replete with ritual expressions which spur its members to participate more fully in their community.

(1) Fortescue, Adrian. "Liturgy." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 5 Sept. 2020 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09306a.htm>.

(2) Presbyterorum Ordinis, 5.