All his life he had struggled with ceremonial occasions -but he recognized this as a defect in himself, and greatly admired those friends of his who had the gift of ceremony. For there are times and seasons when ceremony is required of us...He learned to love such ceremony when it was offered to him, even though he was not good at it...
"It delights me that there should be moments in the services of my own church when my priest stands and I kneel," he said. As democracy becomes more and more complete in the outer world and opportunities for reverence are successively removed, the refreshment, the cleansing, and invigorating returns to any quality which the church offers us become more and more necessary.
It is the eternal life that Jesus promises and for which we were made that requires us to play the great game of ceremony. And as he prepared to enter into God's presence, Lewis sought to overcome his awkwardness, and learn to participate in the solemn fun of proceeding from one world to the next.
-Alan Jacobs, The Narnian
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