Is Dancing Appropriate Inside the Church?
And the sin that can make us think twice about it
“To sing is to pray twice,” says St. Augustine. And so we raise our voices as we worship. We pray with music through the songs that we sing. But can this also be applied when it comes to dancing? Can we also say that to dance is to pray twice the better?
Many churches that follow the charismatic style of worship have somehow leaned in favor of dance as a form of worship. Prayer meetings abound with dance movements. Many church celebrations and festivities include dance performances.
Perhaps the most radical of all these are those who try to include some form of dance within the Catholic mass. Is this even permissible? Can dance be a part of the Liturgical celebration?
While a document called “Dance in the Liturgy” had already been issued by The Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship, I will try to reserve its conclusion at the end of this article.
What I would like to do first is to ask some questions that could help us discern for ourselves whether dance is appropriate or not inside the Church (especially during a Catholic mass).
Here are some questions we can consider about dancing inside the Church:
1. What are you driven by?
There are some who cite an occurrence in the Old Testament when King David danced before the Lord’s ark.
“David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was clothed in a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the LORD’s ark with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet.” — 2 Samuel 6:14–15, WEBBE
David danced in the spirit of joy and celebration before the Lord. Some say that David was acting like one of the prophets in the spirit of prophecy, pre-figuring the joy of John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth when Mary (bearing the child Jesus and is the new Ark of the Covenant) came to visit them.
Can we also say that if we dance, we’d also dance with the same spirit of joy and prophecy like David?
2. Whom are you trying to please?
It is very easy to say that we all want to please God. But there is a very real temptation to please others and to please ourselves when we dance.
Would our dance still be an act of worship? Or would it end up as an act that entertains us? Would we be tempted to please others with our performance and receive their applause?
3. Would dancing contribute to decency and order within the Church?
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he encouraged everyone to act in a manner that will build up one another. Even if a person can speak in tongues, not everyone should do so. That is to maintain order within the assembly.
If we introduce dancing inside the Church, would this contribute to an atmosphere of worship and order?
“Let all things be done decently and in order.” — 1 Corinthians 14:40, WEBBE
4. Is it suitable to the time, place, and culture we are living in?
While primitive people usually incorporate some form of dance in their worship, would it also be suitable to the culture and period where your Church exists?
Talking about the western culture, here’s what The Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship has to say:
“Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses: such dancing, in general, is not pure.
For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: that would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.”
5. Would dancing take away the people’s focus away from God?
We can never judge what’s within the heart of each person. But we can have a good idea about the tendencies of our human nature.
Unlike singing, dancing takes more effort. It also takes a lot more factors into consideration. What kind of dance would not be seen as worldly or tempting? What kind of dance will not look absurd or laughable? Will everybody have the skill to dance in a good and decent way while not taking their attention away from worship?
“When you hear Mass, do you come in the same frame of mind as the Blessed Virgin at Calvary? Because it is the same God, and the same Sacrifice.” — St. John Vianney
6. Would it be worth the risk of sin?
We can say with all sincerity that we are dancing for the sake of the Lord. But we can never know how other people would see it. Would they be encouraged to worship God because of our dance? Would it lead them to think that we are desecrating the holiness of the Church?
Would they see our movement as earthly and enticing them to temptation?
To cause other people to sin is to commit the sin of scandal, especially for those in positions of authority.
“Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.” — CCC 2284
“Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!”- CCC 2287
“For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?” — 1 Cor.8:10, WEB
“…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a huge millstone were hung around his neck and that he were sunk in the depths of the sea.” — Matthew 18:5–6, WEBBE
Final Words
While David danced before the Ark, it had only been recorded as a one-time event. Even though he was the one in charge of the music worship, he did not include dancing the way he incorporated singing.
Our actions inside the Church should help engage us in the spirit of solemn prayer and worship. To introduce various actions such as dancing, clapping and boisterous jokes for the reason that we simply “feel” inspired doing it would create opportunities for other actions that lack order and discipline later on.
Let us call to mind that we have currently set various actions like standing, sitting and kneeling because they help us focus our attention to God and give respect to Him.
“Nothing so becomes a church as silence and good order. Noise belongs to theatres, and baths, and public processions, and market-places: but where doctrines, and such doctrines, are the subject of teaching, there should be stillness, and quiet, and calm reflection, and a haven of much repose.”
— St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church
“The dance has never been made an integral part of the official worship of the Latin Church.
If local churches have accepted the dance, sometimes even in the church building, that was on the occasion of feasts in order to manifest sentiments of joy and devotion. But that always took place outside of liturgical services.
Conciliar decisions have often condemned the religious dance because it conduces little to worship and because it could degenerate into disorders.”
-Dance in the Liturgy (The Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship)
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Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief
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Jocelyn Soriano is a Catholic devotional writer and poet. Aside from Medium, she also writes at I Take Off the Mask and Single Catholic Writer.