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Anglican / Episcopal
Worship |
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1549
BCP |
Today |
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Uniformity
Instead of
a series of local variations of the mediaeval Roman rite,
there is now to be a
single ‘use’ for the whole country.
Furthermore, the ceremonies connected
with it are essential
to the rite and conducive
to order, reverence and
intelligibility.
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Strict
uniformity is no longer recognized as tenable: a church as
comprehensive as the Church of England must make provision
for differing attitudes – the sacramental and the prophetic,
the corporate and the individual, simple austerity and rich
splendor, the other-worldly and the this-worldly. It now
attempts to have ‘a tendency to conservatism in respect of
the past; a passion for freedom in respect of the present; a
reverence for the institution which incorporates its life;
and an inveterate individualism in living that life.’
Anglican worship has therefore moved away from a rigid and
universal adherence to a single ‘use’ towards conformity to
a general pattern within fairly wide but nevertheless
prescribed limits.
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All
services are to be in English instead of
Latin, in the
interests of intelligibility and lay participation. |
Although
English is still the language of liturgy, it remained
unchanged from 1662 until the present day. Consequently it
is now increasingly thought to be irrelevant and
unintelligible. Only in recent decades has the task of
creating a truly contemporary liturgical language been
undertaken, and this task is far from completion.
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Edification
There is
an emphasis on edification, particularly through scripture,
where by all might profit
in the knowledge of God and ‘be
the more inflamed with the love of his true religion.’
To
this end there is a daily office of morning
and evening
prayer – a unique Anglican
feature among the worship of the
Reformed Churches – involving the systematic recitation
of
the Psalter and the reading of the Bible in accordance
with
a drastically simplified calendar. |
The system
of public daily worship shared by both clergy and laity has
never really worked, because the practicing Christian lay
person has never been more than a Sunday worshipper. Broadly
speaking, corporate worship of the entire community of
clergy and laity is now a weekly event, while the daily
round of worship is largely maintained by clergy and the
members of certain institutions – religious communities,
theological colleges, cathedrals and seminaries. But this in
itself has produced another element in worship which is
unique in the Church of England, the choral daily office,
and around this has developed a corpus of church music such
as not other church possesses.
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Holy
Eucharist
The
central act of public worship is to be the Eucharist, to be
celebrated at least on Sundays and holy days, and possibly
even daily.
Scripture
The
liturgy is to be loyal to scripture and loyal
to tradition –
it is to contain nothing repugnant
to the word of God and is
to be expressive of
the mind and purpose of the early
Fathers. |
It is now
recognized that worship cannot be static; it is affected not
only by developments in theology but also by the changing
pattern of life in the world. The church today cannot be
committed to the precise doctrinal positions of Anglican
reformers and revisers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. It can only be committed to their general appeal
to scripture and the early church, and it must take into
account fresh and contemporary understanding of the gospel.
It is true that the ideal of the Eucharist as the basic act
of public worship has become generally accepted, but the way
in which that rite is celebrated and the circumstances in
which it is celebrated are beginning to change. Anglican
worship has begun to combine with the sense of order and
tradition a greater degree of freedom and spontaneity,
largely under the influence of the Ecumenical and Liturgical
Movements. This is particularly evident in those acts of
worship which now take place outside the traditional church
building. There is a growing recognition of the connection
between worship and the mission of the church, and of the
need to relate worship to a variety of situation.
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