The Liturgy of Hiroshima

Last updated on: August 7, 2015 at 12:11 am

August 7, 2015 by Matthew Tan

In Theopolitical Imagination, William Cavanaugh described the nation state as a parody of the Church, with the waging of war as its liturgy. It is a secular simulation of the Divine Liturgy, with highly perverse parallels and even more perverse results.

No where do we find a more vivid reminder of this when one reads the Lectionary for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the 6th of August, the Feast on which the atomic bomb was dropped in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In the first reading, we find the following passage from the Book of Daniel

I beheld till thrones were placed…his throne like flames of fire: the wheels of it like a burning fire. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before him: thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him: the judgement sat, and the books were opened… (Dan 7:9-10)

From there the Liturgy of the Word culminates to the Gospel of Matthew, in which the following passage is found

And [Jesus] was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun; and his garments became white as snow…(Matt 17:2)