The Distraction

The Distraction

 It was on a Sunday,

The Fourth after Trinity,

When liturgy renewing its One way

Mocked Divinity.

 

Whether intentional,

(Perhaps egotistical),

Or a knowledge sophistical,

It nonetheless smacked of the atheistical.

 

While offering the Great Thanksgiving

The Prayers of the People were read

For those passed and for the living.

But so revised it was something dread.

 

The reader not a layman

But the ordinary leader,

Voicing like a shaman

To his own glory a feeder.

 

Indeed, a disastrous distraction

By one who knows better.

His free-form liturgical infraction

Chose himself and to God locked in fetter.

 

The local congregation

Astonished and not amused,

And knowing its place and station

To the ordinary reader should they accuse

 

And bring him before

The Body of Christ?

Perhaps this distraction they would ignore

And to the bins of history dice.

 

But this distraction should be addressed,

Observing repentance and forgiveness,

And not without acknowledging those distressed

Disciples observing the abuse of God’s liturgical business.

 

© 2023 Worth Earlwood Norman Jr