Here is this week’s newsletter: St Stephens News XXVII No 41
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1 comment to This Week’s Newsletter |
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Concerning the service of the church, “And whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm; some following Salisbury Use, some Hereford Use, and some the use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln; now from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but one Use.”Book of Common Prayer 1549, based on the preface to the reformed Roman Breviary of Cardinal F. Quignon. At that time what was done in church was in a language most did not understand and there was considerable variety. The English government wished to unify the kingdom and promote the use of a form of the English language.
The article published about the reforms in the Liturgy in the United States of America describes a situation where there is much variety and also a desire to be “traditional” and into that form is pushed what is purported to be the “Anglican use” of Book of Common Prayer 1662 and the Authorised Version of the Bible. For an outsider this is all very exotic and sad.
The other Sunday I was at the parish Church with my friend Pfarrer Klaus TEMME of Dusseldorf of the United Church of the Rheinland, and so marked up the New English Bible for the Psalm and Lessons set, and the Common Worship Order One of the Holy Communion. He does not speak French, and the service was the one set mainly in French following Vatican II, which is common with the Anglican, Calvinist and Lutheran Churches. Afterwards he said how easy it was to follow, and that it accorded well with what he was accustomed to in Dusseldorf. Imagine his confusion if I had provided him with the Authorised Version so marked, along with the Book of Common Prayer, 1662. The aim of those Common Prayer Books of 1549, 1552, the Elizabethan, and that of 1662 was to promote one use in a languaga that many could understand.That is now being achieved in the present Liturgical reforms, so it is sad and confusing that the Congregation of Saint Stephen does not have this advantage.