The
Winds of Liturgical Fashion
From St John's
Eagle, September 2000
I have been a member of St. John's
since 1951 --- nor far short of half a century. It is instructive to look back
upon some changes that have occurred in our parish worship during that period
of time.
In 1951, The Reverend Reginald Charles being rector,
St. John's had long since felt the influence of the Oxford Movement of the 1830s
and 1840s and the subsequent rise of Anglo-Catholicism. Far behind us were the
days when some bishops refused to visit a parish in which the "Communion table"
could not be picked up and carried around: we had a massive fixed-and against-the
back-wall "altar." No longer were candles and processional crosses denounced as
papistical. Mr. Charles (Mister was then the customary title of address) used
a plain white linen chasuble, at least at eight o'clock; other, more adventurous,
parishes bordered theirs in the Liturgical colors of the day or season. We followed
the 1928 Prayerbook to the letter. And in those days, women had no role to play
in worship (or in parish government); they could only sing in the choir and carry
out the housekeeping duties of the Altar Guild.
It would be
an entire essay to list the innovations introduced by Mr. Charles's successor,
the Reverend Warren W. Traub. Virtually all of then were in the direction of a
more Anglo-Catholic worship: chanting, incense, full Eucharistic vestments in
all the colors save black, copes for processions, the Eucharist at all services,
crucifix next to the pulpit, aumbry and sanctuary lamp, a chapel decorated in
the color in the Blessed Virgin. Father Traub (an imposing figure at the church
in his black cape and biretta) urged the celebration of the eucharist at weddings
and funerals --- and, with conspicuously less success, solicited private confessions.
In sum, St. John's had become moderately high church -- true, no Asperges, no
holy-water fonts, no statues or confessionals, not St. Mary-the-Virgin-spikey-high,
but quite high enough for Ithaca.
Father Talbot's rectorship
saw few, of any, liturgical changes: his innovations took a different direction.
But in the last few years a movement away from Anglo-Catholic formality has been
apparent. Partly, this is associated with the use of 1979 Prayerbook; sixteenth-century
English as our liturgical language of the Eucharistic prayers to the faux-modern
idiom of the psalms. Phrases like "as printed in the handout" and "let's stand
and say the Creed" are jarring to ears accustomed to the cadence of Thomas Cranmer's
prose. Chasubles, if used at all, are rarely in traditional styles and colors.
The exchange of the peace (which could be done in a solemn liturgical manner),
is a homey, friendly affair, and the "commercial break" has become a relaxed interlude
between the Ante-Communion and the Eucharistic proper. Our new calendar abounds
in saints days, but they have never been less in evidence at St. John's" even
the Eagle no longer takes note of them. We have, in short, become considerably
more "low church" --- more, if you will, a mixture of liturgical styles. This
is not purely a local phenomenon; Anglo-Catholicism has everywhere a somewhat
faded look these days.
I have made these observations not
judgmentally but as a matter of historical interest. Adaptability to changing
circumstances has always been part of the genius of Anglican worship, and what
we are now doing at St. John's seems to be meeting the needs of most of our congregation.
(The objectors write check s and stay home.) Some periodic oscillations keep us
from attaching undue (I.e. idolatrous) importance to any particular type of churchiness.
And who can say what lies ahead -- say, at the end of this
millennium --- Silent meetings in the Quaker tradition? A return to t Latin Tridentine
Mass? The Anglican Missal? Some pattern of worship we at this point cannot even
imagine?
The Spirit bloweth where it listeth.
John
B. Harcourt
