Abstract
This present volume is the latest to appear in the prestigious collection of the Alcuin Club Collections. Unlike many volumes in the series, this is an edited volume with contributors coming from different Christian traditions and indeed places around the world to reflect on the relationship between the Bible and liturgy.
The collection opens with a very brief foreword by Paul Bradshaw, which in a succinct way poses the questions that will be a feature of many of the following essays. The rise of biblical illiteracy; do lectionaries, in the desire to proclaim more Scripture over a number of years, do so at the cost of the role scripture plays in worship? Bradshaw rightly emphasizes the importance of the nature of the specific rite where Scripture is proclaimed; it is a new context of rite, a given occasion and made up of this congregation, which may be a group of strangers or a close knit community who worship frequently together. Thus, they share what he calls a liturgical ‘language’ or ‘script’, though he rightly observes that how each participant understands the rite will vary, from those who compiled it, to those who led it, to those who participated in it (p. x). The editors continue this reflection in their preface, which recalls that the Bible is a book as much prayed and sung, as read. Readings from Scripture form part of every act of worship even when they may be paraphrased. ‘It would be more accurate to say that the liturgy is the primary means by which the Bible lives in the life of the Church’ (p. xi). But how that happens and how it happened in the past of the Church and how it might occur today is one of the major tasks of the volume. There is no doubt that scholarship today would tend to respond to these questions differently than past generations. The editors recall some of the important contributions to this debate over the last 70 years. How does Scripture encounter those who gather to worship and what does it do to them, the perennial and difficult question of liturgical formation, underpin these works. It is a 1992 article of Paul Bradshaw that gives shape to the first part of the volume, and is foundational to the articles that follow. How is Scripture presented to worshippers and how do they hear it? What does it provoke in them, especially those who have little experience of Scripture and the life of the Church?
Cally Hammond is the first to treat this question by arguing that: ‘The most habitual aspects of liturgical performance often deserve the closest attention yet receive comparatively little. The performance of Scripture in public worship is a case in point’ (p. 1). In her essay she shows how communities express ritually the supremacy of the gospel books and how a hierarchy of books is established by the liturgy itself. The central truth of the Scriptures in the Christian revelation is the person of Jesus Christ himself, proclaimed as Messiah, Servant, and Son of God. It is his life, ministry, death, and resurrection that his followers had to make sense of in their following of him, and they searched the Hebrew Scriptures for understanding all that had occurred.
John Baldovin begins his chapter by wondering about contemporary biblical literacy, and concludes ‘that most people in advanced industrial societies are biblically illiterate’ (p. 15). And while he cautions about idealizing the past—one of the tasks of the Reformations was to address this situation—we now have to presume that in the liturgical experience of most congregations there is little knowledge of the Scriptures. Is part of the problem that the liturgy, with its use of lectionaries and the liturgical year, presumes some familiarity that no longer exists? This is the argument of his article. As often pointed out by liturgists, the celebration is one that is founded on anamnesis where perhaps today liturgy is called to kergymatic, though a fine quote from Paul Bradshaw notes how the two are inevitably blurred. This leads Baldovin to consider four questions: how can people be prepared to hear the Bible and how can it be proclaimed more effectively? Are the current lectionaries used by the Christian communities adequate for preaching the Gospel message and how might liturgical preaching contribute to people’s understanding of the Bible? Of course, biblical illiteracy is linked to the wider issue of cultural illiteracy. One could wonder about whether Roman Catholics were ever biblically literate. Baldovin rightly asserts that ‘it is unlikely that people will be able to appreciate the Bible as it is read and proclaimed in the church unless they have had some familiarity with it outside of the church’ (p. 21). How that is going to happen of course is one of the most vexed questions in contemporary pastoral practice, as Baldovin again affirms that the liturgy itself cannot do everything. Should assemblies return to a practice used earlier in the liturgical reform and provided for by the General Introduction to the Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass, of providing brief introductions to the readings? Might dramatizations have a role to play? Baldovin recalls that the liturgy is an embodied experience and how and where the readings are proclaimed is crucial in hearing the Word of God. The last part of this chapter turns to the issue of lectionaries: what are they, are they needed and the various kinds. Crucial here is Baldovin’s reminder that different Christian communities use them in very different ways.
The most interesting and indeed the most controversial chapter in this volume is chapter three from Thomas O’Loughlin. It is one that calls for several readings and a great deal of reflection from those called to have responsibility for worship in different communities. He begins by noting that while the Eucharist is a contested area between various Christians, the place of Scripture within it is not. O’Loughlin offers a detailed reading of the development of the reading of the scriptures at the Eucharist, beginning with a detailed examination of the familiar text of Justine Martyr. This leads him to conclude that: And from these facts flow two corollaries: first, one cannot argue from the nature of the Bible to justify its necessary presence at a Eucharistic gathering nor that only the Scriptures should supply the readings. Second, one cannot argue that there is an essential ordo within the eucharistic liturgy which demands the presence of the Scripture or only the Scriptures. (p. 47)
For O’Loughlin what is there is what is there; it is now up to the Church to discern how to move forward as it strives to fulfil its mission. How to move forward as we value and celebrate a common book and a common table is considered under a series of challenges and tensions. For any movement however we ‘might begin by acknowledging the “shoved together” nature of our ritual of two parts that are found in every celebration of this Christian ritual’ (p. 47). Readers of this journal may be particularly interested in tension 4: Liturgy and Scholarship where O’Loughlin wonders how we might integrate ministry and liturgical training with contemporary biblical studies. This section merits careful thought: ‘How does one proclaim the presence of the Christ in the assembly and in the meal while avoiding the physicalism that dominates so much popular Roman Catholic piety?’ (p. 51). While one may not agree with everything that O’Loughlin writes, it deserves careful consideration.
Chapters four and five consider elements of the Liturgical Year. Anne McGowan in chapter four offers a model consideration of Lent and Easter, and reflects on the neglected Easter season. David Kennedy in chapter five moves from Advent to Candlemas—this chapter will be of interest to those not familiar with Common Worship of the Church of England, as it offers an excellent insight into its structure.
Normand Bonneau, an expert on the Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass, considers the Sundays in Ordinary Time, in chapter six. This is a fascinating consideration on how this section of the Lectionary was put together and how there was care not have a thematic approach to the readings in this time of the year. I am not sure all liturgists would agree with his assertion that ‘Sunday as a Christian feast most probably arose at the outset, even before Paul’s apostolic career’ (p. 104). In the conclusion he notes that ‘The first reading from the Old Testament evokes the wider story of salvation, of which Jesus proclaimed in the gospel, is the climax and fulfilment, interpreted and appropriated for Christian life as modelled in the second reading from the apostolic writings’ (p. 113). A statement like this does need qualification or could possibly be interpreted in a supersessionist key.
The role and use of Scripture in two key rites of passage—Marriage and Funerals—are examined in chapters seven and eight by Catherine Reid and Lisette Larson-Miller. Both wonder about the impact of contemporary culture on the ability of the liturgy to fully proclaim the Christian understanding of these two key moments in the human lifecycle.
Chapter nine explores the interaction of Bible, Liturgy, and Doxology and is in the capable hands of Bridget Nichols. Using the analysis of Bradshaw, which is used to structure the book, this chapter is a study of the doxological use of Scripture. How do liturgical texts write and rewrite Scripture is a crucial and complex issue and one that does not offer any easy answers.
The last four chapters deal with particular issues in liturgical celebrations today and how Scripture might affect, help understand or indeed challenge the prevailing worldview on marginalization, climate justice and the environment, gender and identity. One that is particularly fine is the article by Ann Loades on children and church. The volume closes with some concluding reflections by one of the editors, Gordon Jeanes. He offers a succinct conclusion and poses some challenges for the future. However, I was struck by the misprint in footnote 17 on p. 259, which made Aidan Kavanagh a Jesuit!
The first essay in this collection notes that ‘the most habitual aspects of liturgical performance often deserve the closest attention yet receive comparatively little. The performance of the Scripture in public worship is a case in point’ (p. 1). Yet at the end of this collection, which has considered the relationship of Scripture and the Liturgy in great depth, one is aware of the areas that have not been examined. While celebration has been a feature, actual celebration events have not featured; one could argue that the study has remained text bound in the main. The objects of study remain the worship texts and the ideal congregations that are imagined to celebrate them. However, as liturgists know, there are no ideal congregations or indeed ideal celebrations; participants are distracted, noise comes from the assembly, the music is poor, and the readers cannot be heard. The list can go on. There is a presumption in the book that is rooted in the first world and the Northern hemisphere. How does the actual worship space of any given building shape the celebration, what are the varying perspectives of those who take part in different roles and with different competences? What kind of books are used and how are they decorated; the Gospel Book for the Churches of Italy remains a model but seems to be unknown in the English-speaking world. Our ability to read and understand actual worship experiences is still as difficult as ever; the issue of method in liturgical studies remains the crucial question. While much is made in this volume and others about performance, the use of performance studies in thinking about liturgical celebrations remains in its initial phases, especially in the English-speaking world. It is certainly hinted at in Hammond’s essay when she asks questions about posture: ‘what do worshippers do with their bodies during the public reading of Scripture?’ (p. 6). The basic co-ordinates of liturgical celebrations: bodies moving in time and space remain opaque to analysis beyond what is textual and historical.