Barefoot-ingenue-with-incense.

Large and long meetings of church personnel have to have a Mass. You cannot bring a hundred or more church workers together for several days without one. Well why not? They're believers, aren't they?

Yet, in this day of commonplace spectaculars, the organizers can't simply arrange an ordinary Mass. They have to plan a Big Liturgy. The larger the group, the bigger the liturgy; like inviting the in-laws to their first dinner at your house, the stakes are high. The hosts of a church meeting know that every one of their liturgical moves will be compared and critiqued. Their professionalism and their positions on the issues of the day are on the block.

Planning a Big Liturgy, especially in a hotel or convention center, can be daunting. Fortunately there is now a formula. And the formula is available: printed programs from previous conventions; audio and video tapes, official and pirated; and a growing number of technicians familiar with the required electronics, from equalizers to pink sound--all available to would-be Mass planners.

About fifteen years ago, when the formula was in the making, one of 'he elements introduced to great acclaim was the barefoot-ingenue-with-incense, the BIWI. Liturgies are meant to start with processions, so big-time liturgies must start with big-time processions. The traditional processional cross and candles just won't do as the show opener--hence the BIWI.

Got up in a belted, ankle-length, but not-too-filmy crepe de Chine gown, barefoot of course, and carrying a several-gallon, earth-colored pot, the BIWI appears at the door, long-steps to the foot of the entry aisle, and prepares to lead the way. The earthen pot, of course, is visibly aloft and smoking with incense.

Processions usually advance in a slow-paced, stately way, but the BIWI, devotee of the dance that she is, must keep her feet in constant motion. With the smoking pot aloft above her head, she has to do a lot of light-footed lefting and righting up the aisle, this in contrast to the oxen-paced linearity of everyone else in the procession. Hopping around underneath a large incense pot, however, can look as though you're fighting a la Stan Laurel to keep the thing from crashing down upon your head. To show design and not inadvertence, the BIWI must keep hefting the pot up in the air, now to the right, now to the left, now back up to the right, all the while dancing side-to-side. And, of course, smiling--ingenuously.

My first encounter with a BIWI was in a concrete-floored auditorium, in winter. At her first appearance, I thought we were being picketed. But I was assured, "No, I think it's part of the plan--something new." The weather was cold, the aisle was long, and like many of those watching the BIWI dart from side-to-side on the cold, concrete floor, I was tempted to tell her when she finally reached us at the altar to set down her warm pot and put her frozen feet on top of it.

But, seated on the stage, facing out and quite visible, I had to behave myself. Memory had already reminded me that this was not "something new." I had seen this performance many times before: in my youth, at the Rivoli Theater on Saturday afternoons. It was rare, indeed, when Sinbad, Ali Baba, Moses, Victor Mature, or the Cobra Lady would enter their respective temples without a throng of BIWIs. And the crepe de Chine? Filmy. Very filmy for a ten-year-old.

When it comes to spectaculars, Hollywood does it better. And the trouble with the BIWI is that her proper medium is entertainment, not liturgy. Most church people, whatever we may say about them as liturgists, are better prepared to worship convincingly than to entertain convincingly.

In a society in which the principal leisure-time activity is watching television, the temptation to let TV entertainment become normative is great. Those of us who want to involve people in worship, education, politics, or social services compete with TV. But that fact does not have to mean that we should try to beat the tube at its own game. It does not mean that we have to become entertainers.

The desire for spiritual nourishment is real enough. But I would like to believe that spiritual nourishment is not the same experience as entertainment. There is no reason, of course, why spiritual values cannot be articulated and translated into visual and auditory media in ways that do not subordinate them to the media, whether it is song or dance--the church has been doing this for almost two thousand years. But it does mean that those of us responsible for the liturgy--from presider to choir director to planner--have to articulate and explain those spiritual values and beliefs in ways that artists--singers, dancers, musicians--can understand. That this requires great effort should not be a surprise; nor should it be seen as peripheral to the church's worship. When we succeed, the liturgy carries spiritual values in a way that entertainment cannot.

We have not succeeded with the BIWI.

David O'Rourke, O.P., resident at Saint Mary Magdalen parish, Berkeley, California, is writing a book on fundamentalism.