As citizens of late modern life, we seek to avoid boredom. We alleviate the stillness of a quiet moment by turning to our smartphones. We delight in the arrival of new emails, fresh stories and notifications from social media. Abiding in a world in which the “novel” is considered normative, we divinise disruption.
This approach to boredom has a negative effect upon religious practice among Catholics. In Catholicism, our liturgical life is unavoidably a bit boring (at least by the standards of the age). We pray the same (or similar) Eucharist Prayers from Sunday to Sunday. We hear the same Scriptures from year to year. We sing along to the same hymns and chants. The gift of the liturgy is this same-ness.
