RELIGION
Holy supercommunion
Edward Norman
Shortly after the middle of 1967 a substantial majority of the parish churches in the country adopted a new form of the Holy Communion. It was known as 'Series 2'. Parliament had allowed the Church of England to experiment with its Liturgy, and a period of fourteen years was allocated in the hope that during that time experience and trial would indicate which innovations revealed signs of passing from novelty to normality. 'Series 2' was itself quite a bold venture: it looks rather conservative in retrospect merely because it retained the use of Cranmer's English. New material inserted into rearranged slabs from the 1662 version of the Prayer Book was carefully rendered into matching language. But scarcely had the altars of the land begun to ring with the new diversities—after only four years—than the Commission produced yet another experimental service of Holy Communion: ' Series 3 The new rite has just been published and will go into general use in April; at which time also the preceding enterprise will lapse into illegality. The appearance of 'Series 3' has been accompanied by an explanatory pamphlet, clearly intended to allay• the fears of conservatives, in which tract a new revelation is made about the manufacture of 'Series 2'. "The provisional nature" of that service, we now , learn, "was further emphasised by the speed with which it had to be completed ". No one had mentioned undue speed at the time of its introduction, but the Commission is now anxious to preach up the deficiencies of 'Series 2'. Its users, we are told, "have not always been aware of the larger adjustment required to living with change" (their italics). And the Commissioners point out that Series 2' was only too readily adjusted to suit conservative positions; that congregations did not experiment enough (my italics) with it. Indeed, to the declared sorrow of the Commissioners, "it has been the delight of some critics to mock at the astronomical number of variations of the service which could be devised." These unfortunates, it seems, had been so old-fashioned as to suppose that there was a timelessness which it was the purpose of liturgical practice to evoke.
'Series 3' is presented by the Comissioners as a more finished article. If all goes well, it is this service which will become permanently established in a new Prayer Book by 1976. Series 3' has been composed in modern English. It is this aspect which the Commissioners correctly suppose will inspire the greatest misgivings.
But even so, they had done their work quite well. Few objections to the use of revised English are likely to be soundly based: all liturgies at some time or other have to be expressed in living language, and this will initially grate upon the sensibilities of those accustomed to the use of centuries.
There are, of course, lapses: a committee is speaking and not a Cranmer. But objections can usually only be sustained over the composition of phrases rather• than over the selection of vocabulary. "It is true: the Lord has risen " is not something that can be said out loud in company without suffusing the cheeks with embarrassment. Nor are some other similar expressions: "We thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son "; and "Our Lord says, Surely I come quickly." Most extraordinary, however, is that the celebrant of the Holy Communion is now called " the president ". If this title is allowed a wider ecclesiastical use, some very bizarre results can be awaited.
These objections are in some senses marginal, however. The Commissioners' labours to arrive at a decent liturgical language have on the whole been very worthwhile. It is therefore extremely unhappy to have to record the opinion that
Series 3' is, for quite other considerations, unsuitable for general public use in a national church. The cardinal fault resides in an attempt by the reformers to elicit participation from the worshippers through a series of ejaculations and salutations inserted into the rite at suitably spaced intervals. The effect is contrived; the intention mildly histrionic. The worshippers are being engineered into the public, and stylised, enunciation of sentiments which ought properly to be veiled beneath the mystery of faith. Here is an example. The ' president' has just recited the words of institution and the elements have been consecrated; the congregation then declare:
All Christ has died: Christ is risen: In Christ shall all be made alive.
There is no way in which these words — which would seem to be an invention of the Commissioners — can be recited which does not sound like an emotional contrivance. If chanted they would have a Beyond the Fringe effect; if sung they would lose that quality which the authors, In their tract of explanation, call "congregational acclamation ". The Commission does in one particular commend a piece of overt dramatic action. The ' president ' gives The Peace' — a salutation — at which point everybody shakes hands throughout the church. In those places where this is thought inappropriate, according to the Commissioners, "the very least the congregation should do for this part of the rite is to stand ".
Yet these tendencies to dramatic action, however much they may have been the overall genius of the authors' intention, can be quite easily eliminated from the new service. Ejaculation can simply be left unejaculated. Parishes are, after all, invited to experiment with the new rite. The trouble is that in so many places, through the leadership of excited priests, it is the histrionic gestures which will be greeted as the most moving, the most human parts of the service -by those who find themselves moved and human. In practice most lay people will find themselves feeling foolish and embarrassed; and many will unhappily reject the new rite in its entirety by accidentally confusing the sound of modern language with the ridiculous paraphernalia of participation.
There is one other related feature of 'Series 3'. It moves the Church of England a little further from its office as the church of the nation. The new rite faintly suggests the inspiration of those who see the churches as cells of faith in a secular world; as companies of believers whose inspiring life of fellowship will compel the adhesion of the ungodly through sheer desire to join in; as a society within society, withdrawn yet ' concerned '. Splendid though the lives of those who espouse these concepts are, the national Church was not intended to correspond to such a vision. It is still charged with the high duty of representing the nation at prayer. Only those forms of public worship are appropriate which are the most formal and the most familiar. A liturgy in a state church should be designed to be as comprehensive as possible; it ought not to express only the most refined susceptibilities of those who happen to attend its services or organise its forms at some particular moment of history. The most suitable modern revision of the Holy Communion would have been a rendition of the Prayer Book rite, or even of 'Series 2', into modern English; not an attempt to create a rite suited to a contracted gathering of enthusiasts. The Church of England, in this small particular, is sliding once again into a sectarian self-identification. 'President' Cranmer would not have approved.
Dr Norman is Dean of Peterho use
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