The Essay: The Meaning of Ritual

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The Essay: The Meaning of Ritual: Shaping Time

Shaping Time

The Meaning of Ritual

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Meaning of Ritual, Shaping Time

Madeleine Bunting reflects on how ritual marks the passage of time.

The Christian liturgical year marks times of work and rest and punctuates the seasons. But in secular Britain, writer Madeleine Bunting asks, what rituals have taken its place?

One of the important functions of religious ritual used to be to create a cycle of special days and times of year. The Christian liturgical year marked times of work and rest, punctuated the changing of the seasons and placed the individual in a wider chronological context. 

With the decline of religious practice, the writer Madeleine Bunting argues, that structure is gone. So where does that leave people like herself, who grew up a Catholic but turned away from the faith? Madeleine explores new rituals that have taken the place of Sunday worship: in her own case, pond swimming. 

This BBC Radio 3 series explores aspects of ritual throughout this week, including public and private Christmas rituals, and asks what the Covid pandemic has taught us about their significance. 

The series producer is Kristine Pommert for CTVC.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Madeleine Bunting explores whether public and private ritual has outlived its usefulness.

Ritual is often perceived as empty and devoid of meaning. Writer Madeleine Bunting explores whether we are witnessing the demise of ritual or its transformation.

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