The "Fruits" of RECongress 2007

Bongos, Dancers, and Father-Mother God
Richard Rohr’s Mass at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress

At the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress on Saturday evening, March 3, Franciscan Father Richard Rohr celebrated a “general liturgy” in a ballroom at the Anaheim Convention Center. Father Rohr is a founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico and a Congress presenter.

The processional hymn was “Christ Be Our Light,” accompanied by bongo drums. Liturgical dancers carried large, flowing banners down each of the aisles in the ballroom. Reaching the front of the ballroom, the dancers stood along either side of the podium, twirling the giant banners.

Rohr, making no sign of the cross as he began the liturgy, said to the assembly, “as a fellow member of the Body of Christ, I thank you for allowing me to speak in your name. The Eucharist is always set in the form of a dialogue. First of all, I recognize the presence in you, and you return the compliment, and then the body is born.”