EXPRESS: The psychological role of music and attentional control for religious experiences in worship

This study investigated the psychological dynamics during worship experiences under the influence of different music conditions. 60 believers were recruited to participate in experiments where they were asked to engage in worship and to connect with God while continuously ranking how strongly they sensed the presence of the divine. After each condition, they were asked to rate how well they were able to focus on God during the worship procedure. Based on a previously published feedback loop model that portrays global psychological mechanisms in worship, we deduced two hypotheses: (i) the ability to focus on God is positively associated with how strong the subjective religious experience becomes; (ii) and the different musical conditions yield varying degrees in the intensity of the felt presence of God. Our statistical analyses on the current sample demonstrate that both alternative hypotheses can be accepted. For the latter thesis, two further assumptions were at play: (a) we speculated that religious worship songs were associated with stronger divine experiences than with secular ones; and (b) it was assumed that if they could worship to their own selection of songs, the experience would be more powerful than with the ones that were provided by the research team. Whereas upon our investigation the former assumption can be deemed correct, the latter shows a positive but insignificant association.

The Eucharistic Presence and Making Christ Present in the Word of God: A Study Inspired by the Views of Robert Sokolowski

Robert Sokolowski wrote that biblical words activate the presence of God. But can we speak of the “sacramentality of the word” analogous to the sacrament itself? This paper collects reflections on the “making present” of the word of God intra mysteriorum celebrationem. This issue is related to the theme of the relationship between past and present in the Eucharist, which was dealt with by Sokolowski. The article summarizes this philosopher’s views on the Eucharistic presence, in dialogue with which it then reflects on the presence of Christ in the word of God. From the “Passover-centricity” of the Holy Scriptures stems a kind of making present the anticipatory self-giving of God in the events to which the inspired texts testify. The liturgy of the word must lead to the climactic event of Passover and its sacramental making present. There can be no question of “two presences” of the Lord at Mass. The words of institution from the Last Supper have a role in the actualization of the Passover, while the inspired words are not in the same way “instituting” words. It is only in their inner orientation that they lead to the mystery of Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament.

THE ART INCULTURATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS GANJURAN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE PEOPLE

The connection between art and religion is found in several places. The Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Ganjuran, Yogyakarta is proof of the cohesion between art and religion in Indonesia. Inculturation is the process of adapting Catholic teachings with local culture, one of which is with art. This study aims to describe the cultural unquenching that occurred in the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Ganjuran Yogyakarta and its implications on the spirituality of the people. This study uses descriptive qualitative methods with phenomenological approaches. The results showed that the inculturation that occurred resulted in a variety of art activities and art artifacts including Javanese liturgy, liturgical gamelan, Javanese architecture such as pendopo (Javanese pavilion), Javanese versions of Jesus and Mary statues and temples. The spirituality of the people is awakened with the concept of Java which is thick in its worship. Liturgical gamelan is one of the integral components in worship that makes a bond as man's sacred activity with God. The contemporary aspect can be seen from the gamelan classical rules that combine with the choir that forms a new aesthetic. It can touch the people in feeling the presence of God through local culture. The cohesiveness of the value of art and religion can stimulate people to experience the same religious and aesthetic experiences in worship.

The Phenomenon of Simone Weil as “Excess” and “Lack” in the Symbolic Structure of Philosophical Language: a Personalist Approach

Simone Weil as a subject of philosophizing is the effect of excess, vacuum, or scarcity in the harmoniously coordinated system of paradigms that make up the indicators of intellectual language. Her concept of “God-absence” (silence) as the negative presence of God in the sacred experience of the atheist is a paradox of meeting with God through a metaphysical break with religious orthodoxy. The article analyzes the synchrony and diachrony of S. Weil’s views from materialism to spiritualism in interdisciplinary discourse outside the linear stages and sectoral fragmentation on the methodological basis of personalism. The author pays special attention to reading S. Weil’s autobiographical essay Waiting for God and her Diaries. In these works, S. Weil as an expression of the semiotic unity of the life and the text describes his own experience of emptiness, the Other, attention, desire, faith, dis-belief, love, encounter with Christ. Analysis of the works of famous philosophers and theologians gives grounds to conclude that the views of S. Weil had an impact on modern psychoanalysis, philosophy of dialogue, critical theory, traditionalism, phenomenology.

Pantheistic versus Participatory Christologies: A Critical Analysis of Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ in Light of Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on John

This essay will present Richard Rohr’s central claims about Jesus Christ and the presence of God in creation and then consider them in light of Aquinas’s teachings with particular attention to his Commentary on John. This essay attempts to show that Rohr’s claims are incomplete and ultimately misguided and that Aquinas’s participatory account of creation and the Incarnation allows him to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence in all of creation while also maintaining the salvific uniqueness of the Incarnation.

Driven to Move into the Wilderness to Pray: The Fourth-Century Desert Tradition

This study examines fourth-century spiritual elders who responded to the command of Christ by migrating into the desert hills outside their home-towns in order to seek the presence of God in solitary prayer; and finds that their deep spiritual askesis, handed on from elder to disciple from generation to generation, produced a rich treasury of wisdom Sayings (Apophthegmata) treasured in the heritage of the Orthodox Church.

Living as a diakonos of Christ and pastoral care to the narcissistically entitled person

In many research documents, the current age is called the age of entitlement. Closely associated with some forms of entitlement is narcissism. When the church encounters such widespread phenomena, she should consider possibilities and ways to address those in her pastoral care.The theoretical argument of the article is that the church could pastorally care for a Christian who leads a life of narcissistic entitlement, by guiding him to lead the life of a diakonos of Christ according to the New Testament. The relationship between narcissism and entitlement is described, as well as the characteristics of narcissistically entitled persons, and how problems may develop from a narcissistically entitled attitude. A short description is then given of a pastoral process that might be used. Part of the counselling process is to bring someone in the presence of God (coram Deo) to understand what God’s mercy and his prescriptions mean to him or her in his problematic situation.Contribution: Lastly, different passages in which the diakon-words occur in the New Testament were studied and applied to the pastoral care of a narcissistically entitled person in the coram Deo-phase of pastoral care. Based on the results, it can be concluded that in the coram Deo-phase of the pastoral process, the pastoral care of narcissistically entitled persons may be enhanced by leading them to embrace and practise their identity as diakonos of Christ.

PRATYAHARA REGARDING TO SWAMI KRIPALVANANDJI : A STUDY

The goal of human life is possible through the study of YogaDarshan of Sage Patanjali. He described yogain series of eight limbs. The highest goal of human life is self realisation. The practice of Pratyahara is very important and essential restraint among other limbs of yoga. The Prana is the major driving force in the body and all the actions are performed with its help. To cycle the transmigration, one has to perform the practical of Pratyahara. There is no entry in to meditation without Pratyahara. because the release of prana leads the seeker to Pratyahara. So the study of this paper is an attempt to understand the Pratyahara. Sense organs are of five types i.e.1. Ears, 2. Eyes., 3. Tongue,4. Nose,5. Skin. They are required to withdraw from their respective subjects, i.e. Listen, Sight, Taste, Smell, Touch. Pratyahara is the process of withdrawal of mind from senses and withdrawal of senses from their respective subject. They are as under (1) Ears are attached with wordssound it is possible through the process of Nadanusandhan. (2) Eyes can see the God everywhere to control the sense of seeing. (3) Skin can feel the touching the presence of God at the inner self. (4) Taste of tongue can recognise the virtues of God. (5) Nose can recognisethe airfor fragment and obnoxious, odour and control of breathalso. Pratyahara is so difficult for the seeker and common man but ancient sage of Veda make it easy to achieve the goal of life through the process of yoga and Pratyahara, Knowledge of Pratyahara eliminates the enemies of human being such as selfishness, greediness, desire, ego, etc., and to behave with others positively

Liturgy and Apophaticism

The Orthodox liturgy is a religious phenomenon that can be analyzed phenomenologically and theologically alike, given the emphasis that both phenomenology and Orthodox theology place on experience. By proposing the Kingdom of God instead of the natural world without being able to annihilate the latter in the name of the former, the liturgy seeks divine-human communion. Through the dialogue of prayer, through symbolic and iconic openings, as well as through apophatic theology, the liturgy emphasizes the horizon of mystery as a horizon essential to the way man positions himself before God. The present text attempts to demonstrate that apophaticism, understood as an experience of the mysterious presence of God, is one of the crucial dimensions of the Orthodox liturgy; and that this apophatic presence of God reveals a way of thinking which does not become onto-theology, not even when using concepts borrowed from metaphysics. The overcoming of onto-theology is achieved here not by abandoning concepts such as “being” and “cause” but by placing the language game in the field of prayer and apophatic theology.