The Place of Asian Resources in Festivals and Liturgies in Christian Churches

Abstract

The Place of Asian Resources in Festivals and Liturgies in Christian Churches Greer Anne Wenh-In Ng For purposes of this essay, I start with understandings of spirituality as articulated by Sandra Schneiders, "A capacity for self-transcending integration in relation to the Ultimate, whatever the Ultimate is for the person in question," and of Christian spirituality as articulated by Michael Warren, "A systematic way of attending to the presence of God." When applying these understandings to the context of Asian American and Asian Canadian Christian churches, however, a dimension neither acknowledged nor made explicit in the definitions above will inform the discussion, that is, the corporate or communal aspect of spirituality as practiced in community, whether it be the community of an ethno-cultural group, or the community of the church. It is this additional communal aspect of spirituality that will inform the following discussion about the place of Asian resources in the festivals and liturgies of North American Christian churches in this first decade of the 21st century. Characteristics of Festivals All peoples and cultures celebrate a cycle of festivals each year. Some of these are seasonal, arising out of nature's rhythms of change (for instance, summer and winter solstices); others are historical, originating from significant events in that people's common life (the Jewish Passover, the Christian Easter). Such regular, recurring celebrations share a number of characteristics, according to Ellen Tanouye: they are occasions for gathering and incorporating the community; they give identity to newer and younger participants and strengthen a sense of belonging for all; and they act as occasions for renewing, often implicitly, the covenant which members of that community have made with one another. 1 Do these characteristics apply to both Asian cultural seasonal festivals and feasts in the Christian liturgical year? Perhaps a look at how the two sets of festivals, at how they relate to each other and to what extent they reinforce or work against each other, may throw some light on the way the communal aspect of spirituality can be nurtured for Asian American/Canadian Christians in their faith communities. The festivals selected as examples to examine here, mostly from Chinese, Japanese and Korean religio- cultural realities, are: 1) locating festivals of ancestral commemoration, namely Qing Ming (April 5) [End Page 249] and Qong Yang (ninth day of the ninth lunar month) in tandem with Easter and All Saints'Day (November 1) in the Christian liturgical year; 2) celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival (15th day/night of the eighth lunar month or Korean Thanksgiving) along with Thanksgiving; and 3) recalling the "winter festival" aspects of Christmas as the lunar new year is celebrated, usually several weeks later (first day of the first lunar month). Being Asian, Being Christian, through Asian Festivals and Christian Feasts 1) Connecting with one's ancestors and commemorating their lives is an integral aspect of being Asian. Since the introduction of Christianity into Asia by missionaries from Europe and North America, however, traditional rituals and practices of ancestral veneration have been condemned as "pagan," and Christian churches have tended to shy away from any overt reflection on the dilemma, leaving it up to individuals and families to work out what they feel comfortable with in terms of observance. More recently, however, a few English-speaking Japanese American churches have experimented with incorporating a ritual of remembrance or mini memorial service into their monthly holy communion or Eucharist. 2 In the meantime, some Chinese American congregations have begun to observe Qing Ming ("Festival of the Clear and Bright") by holding special remembrance services for the recently dead as well as ancestors, then as a group going to the cemetery to clean up family grave sites, as that festival requires. A Christian faith community, however, may not include the traditional burning of paper money and the lighting of incense in gravesite observances, although bringing fruit (instead of the traditional...