We live in times generally unfriendly to ritual, religious or civic. For fifty years now, at least, churches have stripped away once-glorious liturgical rituals, in order, they say, to render themselves more accessible, even as pews have emptied. On the civic side, great art museums, some would say the cathedrals of our secular age, once invited visitors to a ritual that gave a rest to the feet and the eyes while enhancing the experience of being there in the first place.