Thinking allowed

Alternative Services

on Friday, 27 February 2015 at 12.55 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as history, liturgy

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the enact­ment of the Pray­er Book (Altern­at­ive and Oth­er Ser­vices) Meas­ure 1965.

It was this Meas­ure of the old Church of Eng­land Assembly which for the first time enabled the Church to revise the 1662 ser­vices of the Pray­er Book and to make extra pro­vi­sion. Until that point only the 1662 Book (with minor amend­ments passed by Par­lia­ment in the 19th cen­tury) had been leg­al, and the Church’s great attempt after the First World War to revise the Book had twice been lost in Par­lia­ment after passing the Church Assembly. The Church’s response to that fail­ure was a resolve to nev­er again sub­ject litur­gic­al texts to Par­lia­ment­ary revi­sion. But it took nearly 40 years (with an inter­ven­ing World War) before this Meas­ure was approved by the Assembly (Bish­ops: 30 in favour, 0 against; Clergy: 200 to 1; Laity: 203 to 11) and then by each House of Par­lia­ment. The Meas­ure did not con­tain any litur­gic­al text, but provided a mech­an­ism whereby texts which were altern­at­ive to or addi­tion­al to Pray­er Book texts could be approved by the Church Assembly for use for a few years.

The first fruits of the Meas­ure were the author­iz­a­tion of large parts of the pro­posed 1928 Book, and these became known as the Altern­at­ive Ser­vices First Series. Almost sim­ul­tan­eously a Second Series began to be pub­lished and author­ized. These rep­res­en­ted the work of the new Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion, and in many cases they depar­ted from the struc­ture of the Pray­er Book ser­vices, intro­du­cing the fruits of litur­gic­al schol­ar­ship and ecu­men­ic­al think­ing, but still using lan­guage that was lightly tra­di­tion­al. The First Series mar­riage and buri­al ser­vices con­tin­ue to be author­ized, and much of the Second Series Holy Com­mu­nion ser­vice con­tin­ues as Com­mon Wor­ship Order One in Tra­di­tion­al Language.

The Meas­ure provided for tem­por­ary exper­i­ment­a­tion over a small num­ber of years, and it was an essen­tial step on the route to the mod­ern lan­guage ser­vices of Series 3, brought togeth­er only 15 years after the Meas­ure in the Altern­at­ive Ser­vices Book 1980. By that time the Meas­ure had been replaced, repealed entirely by the Wor­ship and Doc­trine Meas­ure 1974. That Meas­ure enabled the Church to make pro­vi­sion by can­on law for the author­iz­a­tion of ‘forms of ser­vice’, and is the cur­rent leg­al basis for all litur­gic­al texts includ­ing the 1662 BCP as well as Com­mon Wor­ship.

Modelling Liturgical Presidency

on Thursday, 5 February 2015 at 7.56 am by Simon Reynolds
categorised as liturgy, thinking liturgy

A Tale of Two Con­trast­ing Consecrations

The ‘Octave’ from the feast of the Con­ver­sion of Paul (25 Janu­ary) to Candlemas (2 Feb­ru­ary) was an event­ful one for the Church of Eng­land. York Min­ster was the ven­ue for the two epis­copal ordin­a­tions (or con­sec­ra­tions) which were the focus of this event­ful­ness. It provided the Min­ster with a won­der­ful oppor­tun­ity to demon­strate why Eng­lish cathed­rals have exper­i­enced such growth over the past dec­ade. The fusion of space, music, move­ment and col­our merged to provide that elu­sive and indefin­able, but tan­gible, exper­i­ence we often describe as ‘trans­form­at­ive’. The bal­ance, pace (and tim­ing) left you with the crav­ing to come back for more.

Peter Moger, the Min­ster­’s Pre­cent­or, deserves buck­ets of sym­pathy and admir­a­tion in equal meas­ure. It requires a cer­tain degree of insight and exper­i­ence to craft acts of wor­ship such as these, where the over­all impact is mem­or­able – as opposed to being over­loaded and exhaust­ing. In a pre­vi­ous life, I was respons­ible for arran­ging sev­er­al con­sec­ra­tions in the south­ern province. I know the com­plic­ated ter­rain intim­ately: the recip­roc­al horse-trad­ing; the end­less tele­phone calls; the missed dead­lines; proof-read­ing in the wee small hours; man­aging con­flict­ing expect­a­tions; not to men­tion the sleep­less nights. These are all ines­cap­able in the build-up to these occa­sions. Des­pite the fail-safe rehears­al plan, there is always the poten­tial for ‘some­thing’ to go awry on the day – object­ors notwithstanding!

My con­cern is with the strik­ingly dif­fer­ent man­ner in which litur­gic­al pres­id­ency was mod­elled at the two con­sec­ra­tions. The pre­text for this dif­fer­ence is well known and hardly needs rehears­ing here. How­ever, it was more than appar­ent that, behind all the agon­ised exeges­is of the Five Guid­ing Prin­ciples and the desire to mod­el gen­er­ous restraint, some­thing vital was lost in the second of the two con­sec­ra­tions. The cohes­ive shape and flow of the liturgy felt as if it was creak­ing under the weight of unreal­ist­ic expect­a­tion – pre­cisely because the pres­id­en­tial mod­el­ling seemed disorientated.

The first of the two con­sec­ra­tions (Libby Lane’s) was a mod­el of how to order an epis­copal ordin­a­tion. Reac­tions to the ser­mon have been mixed; but there is no doubt about the theo­lo­gic­al, eccle­si­olo­gic­al and litur­gic­al assump­tions which under­girded the rite. A sense of cohe­sion was self-evid­ent in the Arch­bish­op’s pres­id­ency, com­ple­men­ted by the appro­pri­ate litur­gic­al min­istry of oth­ers. As the intro­duct­ory note to the Euchar­ist in Com­mon Wor­ship acknowledges:

The unity of the liturgy is served by the min­istry of the pres­id­ent who, in presid­ing over the whole ser­vice, holds word and sac­ra­ment togeth­er [my ital­ics] and draws the con­greg­a­tion into a wor­ship­ping com­munity. The pres­id­ent … expresses this min­istry by say­ing the open­ing Greet­ing, the Abso­lu­tion, the Col­lect, the Peace and the Bless­ing. The pres­id­ent must say the Euchar­ist­ic Pray­er, break the con­sec­rated bread and receive the sac­ra­ment on every occasion.

The Arch­bish­op’s mod­el­ling of this ideal felt organ­ic, innate and con­trib­uted to a sense that, as the con­greg­a­tion was car­ried by the peaks and troughs of the liturgy, as dif­fer­ent voices spoke, silences emerged, pro­ces­sions moved and music intens­i­fied the pray­ers and hopes those present, the unam­bigu­ous centre of grav­ity was the Arch­bish­op as litur­gic­al president.

In the second con­sec­ra­tion (Philip North’s) it was far less clear how the unity of the liturgy was being served. Some will say, inev­it­ably, that the lack of pres­id­en­tial cohe­sion exper­i­enced on this occa­sion was an all-too-real reflec­tion of the uncharted eccle­si­al, litur­gic­al and theo­lo­gic­al ter­rit­ory being nego­ti­ated. But need it have been so?

Quite often, it felt as if the fun­da­ment­al ques­tion of how pres­id­ency of the whole liturgy would be expressed to give unity and cohe­sion to a great cel­eb­ra­tion, sank under the accu­mu­la­tion of so many oth­er com­pet­ing demands. The leg­al and canon­ic­al rights of the Met­ro­pol­it­an were well emphas­ised, as were ques­tions of who would, and would not, lay hands on the can­did­ate; not to men­tion the per­il­ous pro­spect of tread­ing a safe path through all the media dis­cus­sion about pur­ity and taint. The (doubt­less unin­ten­ded) out­come was that the Archbishop’s stated desire to mod­el ‘gra­cious restraint’ was under­mined by the appar­ently ran­dom man­ner in which he seemed to appro­pri­ate aspects of the pres­id­en­tial role.

Instead of there being a centre of grav­ity in the liturgy, there was an impres­sion of two bish­ops com­pet­ing for the same space in a litur­gic­al game of music­al chairs. The one who greeted the con­greg­a­tion, absolved them and then blessed them at the con­clu­sion of the liturgy, did not recite the Euchar­ist­ic Pray­er, break the con­sec­rated bread, or invite the con­greg­a­tion to receive com­mu­nion. The notion of the unity of word and sac­ra­ment being embod­ied in the pres­id­ent was frac­tured. The focus of litur­gic­al unity was obscured.

I am left ask­ing why the Bish­op of Chichester could not have been gran­ted the Arch­bish­op of York’s com­mis­sion to preside over the whole rite. The Arch­bish­op was always going to be a vis­ible par­ti­cipant, exer­cising his min­istry at key moments (as preach­er and as Ordin­ary who received the oaths of due obed­i­ence). Such a litur­gic­al ges­ture of gra­cious restraint, and respect for theo­lo­gic­al con­vic­tion, would not require him to cede his author­ity as Met­ro­pol­it­an in his cathed­ral. But it would have enabled him to allow the unity of the liturgy to be served by the pres­id­ent, where the hold­ing togeth­er of word and sac­ra­ment is embod­ied in one bish­op, who is the centre of grav­ity for the wor­ship of the whole people of God.

At a less the­or­et­ic­al level, it is largely assumed that cathed­rals exem­pli­fy good prac­tice. And they do – York Min­ster included. But I have this awful feel­ing in the pit of my stom­ach that quite a num­ber of clergy, lay read­ers and oth­ers from the Black­burn Dio­cese (and fur­ther afield) will have come away from York Min­ster on Candlemas day think­ing that the mod­el of ‘pres­id­ency’ they wit­nessed at Philip North’s con­sec­ra­tion is a good thing (even down to wear­ing cum­ber­some copes instead of the tra­di­tion­al Euchar­ist­ic vest­ments usu­ally worn for the Euchar­ist in the Min­ster). ‘Let’s give it a try next Sunday,’ they will be thinking!

Much par­ish wor­ship in the Church of Eng­land is less than the trans­form­at­ive exper­i­ence it should be at present, pre­cisely because there is a lack of theo­lo­gic­al insight; a paucity of spa­tial and artist­ic ima­gin­a­tion; but most of all, con­fu­sion about what con­sti­tutes good pres­id­ency – and how good pres­id­ency enables the whole people of God to fully cel­eb­rate the mys­ter­ies of faith in the sac­ra­ment of unity. If this can be under­stood – and mod­elled prop­erly – before the next con­sec­ra­tion of a tra­di­tion­al­ist bish­op, it will be for the bet­ter health of the mis­sion of the entire Church of England.

Simon Reyn­olds is the author of Table Man­ners: Litur­gic­al Lead­er­ship for the Mis­sion of the Church (SCM, 2014).

Photo by Clive Lawrence, copy­right Dio­cese of Blackburn

Additional Texts for Holy Baptism (GS 1958A)

on Thursday, 29 January 2015 at 5.19 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical texts, liturgy

The Agenda for the Feb­ru­ary ses­sions of the Gen­er­al Syn­od was pub­lished recently. On Thursday after­noon, the Altern­at­ive Bap­tism Texts return to the Syn­od after the revi­sion com­mit­tee stage:

The fol­low­ing items (full details of which are con­tained in Spe­cial Agenda II – see page 9) will be taken:

600 Altern­at­ive Bap­tism Texts (GS 1958A)
– Report of the Revi­sion Com­mit­tee (GS 1958Y)

and the note on page 9 says:

ALTERNATIVE BAPTISM TEXTS (GS 1958A)
Art­icle 7 Business
Con­sid­er­a­tion of a Report by the Revi­sion Com­mit­tee (GS 1958Y)
The Chair of the Revi­sion Com­mit­tee (the Bish­op of Truro) to move:
600 ‘That the Syn­od do take note of this Report.’

Notes:
1. Notice of motions for re-com­mit­tal under the pro­vi­sions of Stand­ing Order 77(a) must be giv­en in writ­ing to the Clerk to the Syn­od by not later than 5.30pm on Tues­day 10 Feb­ru­ary 2015 (Stand­ing Order 10©). Any such motions will appear on a Notice Paper.

2. If no such motion is car­ried, the litur­gic­al busi­ness will auto­mat­ic­ally stand com­mit­ted to the House of Bish­ops under Stand­ing Order 77(f).

The texts (GS 1958A) and the report of the Revi­sion Com­mit­tee (GS 1958Y) can be found with oth­er papers for this group of ses­sions here.

Liturgical dates for 2015

on Sunday, 4 January 2015 at 9.52 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgy

There is a tra­di­tion of announ­cing at this time of the year the prin­cip­al dates of the eccle­si­ast­ic­al calendar.

Greg Kandra at ‘Don’t for­get to chant the date of East­er this Sunday’ lists the dates and the usu­al formula.

Of course nowadays you can just use a prin­ted alman­ac – or even an online one such as mine.

Religious Architecture

on Sunday, 4 January 2015 at 5.54 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as architecture, liturgy

It is inten­ded to say quite a bit at Think­ing Liturgy on the sub­ject of church archi­tec­ture. Mean­while, here is an inter­est­ing col­lec­tion of pic­tures of

PHOTOS: See the award win­ners for stun­ning reli­gious architecture

Take a visu­al jour­ney of sac­red spaces around the world through the win­ners of the 2014 Inter­na­tion­al Awards Pro­gram for Reli­gious Art & Archi­tec­ture, giv­en out by Faith & Form, the inter­faith journ­al on reli­gion, art and architecture.

A five-mem­ber jury of artists, archi­tects, litur­gic­al design­ers and clergy handed out 32 awards from 134 submissions.

From the press release:

“Jury mem­bers agreed that reli­gious art and archi­tec­ture are flour­ish­ing through­out the world, and that artists, archi­tects, litur­gic­al design­ers, stu­dents, and oth­ers are explor­ing ways to bal­ance tra­di­tion with new demands of reli­gious prac­tice. The land­scape of sac­red space is chan­ging, along with dra­mat­ic shifts in organ­ized religion.”

The designs will prob­ably not be wel­comed by all, and they include places oth­er than Chris­ti­an ones. They are also largely, but not exclus­ively, North American.