From The Living Church-
Making Holy Eucharist the central act of Sunday worship has also made that sacrament the central worship at most other gatherings of Episcopalians, said the Rev. Sister Jean Campbell, OSH.
“Every time we get together, we want to celebrate the Eucharist,” she said. “Why?”
Sr. Campbell, a member of the Order of St. Helena since 1974, is the rector of Trinity Church, Fishkill, N.Y., and a former member of the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music. She spoke at Virginia Theological Seminary on Dec. 10 on “Non-Eucharistic Worship Since 1979.” Her lecture was part of the seminary’s year-long series on “The Prayer Book at 30,” which examines the legacy of The Book of Common Prayer (1979).
“Recover[ing] the reality that prayer is not a Sunday-only event” is of prime importance for Christians’ spiritual lives, Sr. Campbell said. “Daily prayer is…not optional,” but a part of “the normative life to which we are called.”
As a way of making prayer more normative, Sr. Campbell advocated using Scripture in doxological as well as didactic ways. Didactically, we read Scripture because it is Scripture, rather than using it as the prayer of the Church. Doxologically, we ask God to act within us as we use Scripture as prayer. The two often work together, but the doxological needs to be recovered in our day “if we’re truly going to be a biblical people,” Sr. Campbell said.
One way to recover the doxological is to sing Scripture in communal settings. Sr. Campbell lamented the lack of communal, sung liturgical prayer as a “great void.” She noted the challenges this would prove to small parishes in particular.
“Can we develop ways of singing Scripture that are easily accessible for a small parish?” she said. “The task these days is to learn how to ritualize,” which requires a priest to determine how a particular community prays and to help it grow in prayer. She commended simple music and training in prayer to help meet this goal.
More here-
http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/12/17/liturgist-recover-the-daily-office
1 comment:
Thanks, Jim. Obviously I agree with her. In the rest of the article she speaks of inviting people "into sacred space" at an evening service of Compline. That's what I hope to do here. I don't necessarily agree about singing the scripture, especially the Psalms, but that is because I don't sing well and have never learned to chant, so I find myself paying more attention to my voice than to the words. I think that an awful lot of people would find themselves in the same place.
Elizabeth
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