Daily Reading for May 23
In one of the apocryphal Christian books, the Acts of St. John, we learn that after the Last Supper our Lord, Jesus Christ, came down from the table and danced a sacred round with his twelve disciples and ‘Having danced these things with us, the Lord went forth. And we, as though beside ourselves, or wakened out of deep sleep, fled our separate ways.’ The second council of Nicaea attacked and condemned the Acts of St. John. At the time of the council, the dance round, the Hymn of Jesus with words sung by Christ, was widely believed to be a ritual of imitation with Christ as the mystagogue or teacher of the mysteries.
Why did the early Church Fathers suppress the apocryphal Acts of St. John? Sacred dance and holy liturgy involves us bodily, emotionally and intellectually, for through the dance of the liturgy my own person and the group are brought into an expected relationship. Even though it may be conceived and born from group and self, that relationship is a new thing with a life of its own, and in turn renews all three . . . the threefold dance of creation and of the Holy Trinity. . . . When we dance, when we celebrate, we are writing our theology with our hands and feet and voices, into our bodies.
The danced hymn of praise signifies the fulfilment of the Lord’s Supper. The inward dynamic consists in the offering of praise with Christ standing in the centre and the twelve apostles moving around him in a circle. Here the disciples are united with their Master in the mystery of at-one-ment. Sounding through the dance is the voice of Christ and this voice as the original sound at the beginning and end of creation, is there imparting the essence of its mystery through the dance.
In the early Church it was held that angels were always present during the celebration of the Eucharist. They participated with Christ in the performance of the sacred mystery. Christian art has, throughout the centuries, amply illustrated this notion of the singing and dancing angels. Early Fathers of the Church often commented on the dance as a means of worship and of linking the faithful to the angels and blessed souls in Paradise:
“Could there be anything more blessed than to imitate on earth the ring-dance of the angels, and at dawn to raise our voices in prayer and by hymns and songs to glorify the rising creator?” (St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, fourth century)
From Lord of Creation: A Resource for Creative Celtic Spirituality by Brendan O’Malley. Copyright © 2005, 2008. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com