I know something about liturgical authenticity. It doesn’t exist.

Lawrence Hoffman is a rabbi, academic, popular writer and blogger. He is Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York; he was formerly director of the College’s School of Sacred Music. He writes an interesting blog called ‘Life and a Little Liturgy’. Liturgy, he says, ‘is the place where text meets life. Everyone has a liturgy, usually more than one, in fact.’

About a year ago, Rabbi Hoffman commented on the new translation of the Mass in a blog post called post called The Catholic Liturgical Controversy and Why We All Have A Stake In It. For some reason, his post didn’t surface in the usual Catholic blogs — including this one, as far as I can tell.

It is nonetheless well worth reading. Here are some excerpts.

Advocates of change think the liturgy of the past forty or so years has twisted church doctrine and liberalized Catholic thinking to the point of encouraging moral laxity. The new texts are supposed to produce what the Vatican has labelled liturgiam authenticam, a liturgy that is “authentic.”

As an outsider, I have no legitimate standing in this internal debate. But as a liturgist, I know something about liturgical authenticity. It doesn’t exist.

We legitimately call a suspected Rembrandt or Ming vase “authentic” because we can compare them to a set of unarguably authentic specimens (the corpus of Rembrandt paintings or collections of undisputed Ming vases). When it comes to liturgical translations, however, there are no originals to point to. Nor can you point to the Latin, since it is precisely the meaning of the Latin that is at issue. The same is true of theology: what counts as authentic belief is what the argument is all about to start with.

Conservatives frequently use the word “authentic” to chide liberals for playing fast and free with “the real thing.” Using “authentic” that way is not, well, not “authentic.” It’s not the way “authentic” is authentically used. By all means, let the Church do due diligence in debating what it wishes to pray, but not under the misleading rubric of authenticity.

The real issues are much deeper than a pseudo-debate on authenticity. What should Catholics believe about God, human nature, and the promise of salvation? What is the proper relationship between the laity and the clergy? Should Catholics be in communion with Protestants? What do Catholics believe about Jews?

How the church goes about deciding these deeper liturgical questions says a lot about who has power and who doesn’t. How hierarchical should the twenty-first century Church be? Who gets to weigh in on liturgical matters? Whose opinion counts and whose does not?

As a Jew, I have no say on Catholic doctrine, but I do have an interest in it. … I don’t have to be Catholic to pray that the new translation does not further divide Catholics from others, or return the Catholic Church to the day when it thought Jews were damned, men counted more than women, and no one else had God’s truths. I hope the Church does not decide that “authenticity” to the Catholic past trumps possibility for the human future.

I agree with the rabbi’s basic point: ‘authenticity’, like ‘continuity’, is not in itself useful as a principle of interpretation. Of course we want ‘authentic liturgy’; what other kind would we want? The question is, what makes liturgy more or less ‘authentic’?

Jonathan Day

I am a writer and consultant. My church home is the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception (Farm Street Church) in central London, where I serve at the altar and help with adult education at the Mount Street Jesuit Centre. I recently became the chair of Council at Newman University, a small Catholic university in Birmingham. I write here in a purely personal capacity.

Please leave a reply.

Comments

27 responses to “I know something about liturgical authenticity. It doesn’t exist.”

  1. Jack Feehily

    Thank you, Rabbi for reflecting what has been on my mind for a long time. The idea that authentic prayer has to line up with a so called typical text in Latin borders on idolatry. Those poor folks who lived prior to the development of liturgical prayers in Latin. How did they manage to pray authentically? The reform of the reform crew is determined to find a way to get the tooth paste back into the tube as if doing so will restore the church to what they regard as her glory days. Jesus said “do this in memory of me”, not “say these words and only these words in memory of me.”

    Reply
    1. Jack Rakosky

      Rabbi Heschel had just concluded a lecture on the Old Testament prophets in which he has spoken of true prophets and false prophets.

      A questioner asked him how one tells the difference… The answer was succinct and to the point. “There is no way!” he said.

      Then he elaborated “If there was a way, if one had a gauge to slip over the head of the prophet and establish without question that he is and he is not a true prophet, there would be no human dilemma and life would have no meaning.”

      From Robert K Greenleaf Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. Essentially his book is a discussion of authority and leadership..

      Greenleaf affirmed that “prophetic voices of greater clarity, and with a quality of insight equal to that of any age, are speaking cogently all the time.” Greenleaf thought that vision, conceptualization, and foresight were essential to leadership. The ability not just to see ahead of others but

      the prudent man is one who constantly thinks of “now” as a moving concept in which the past, present moment, and future are one organic unity. This requires living by a sort of rhythm that encourages a high level of intuitive insight about the whole gamut of events from the indefinite past through the present moment to the indefinite future. One is at once, in every moment of time, historian, contemporary analyst, and prophet –not three separate roles.. This is what the practicing leader is, every day of his life.

      Greenleaf saw “following” and serving as the flip side of leading. The key problems were 1) people are attracted to leadership for reasons other than serving, and even more importantly 2) people follow leaders who are not servant leaders.

      The test of a servant leader is do those served grow as persons, becoming healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servants. And, the effect on the least privileged in society.

      Reply
  2. Jordan Zarembo

    It should be noted that Lawrence Hoffman has co-authored a number of books with Paul Bradshaw (an Anglican priest) on the intersection of Christianity and Judaism in the late antique period. Dr. Hoffman is certainly an expert not only in early rabbinical Jewish liturgy and theology but also the early development of Christian liturgy and theology. I’d say that Hoffman is a expert arbiter of “authenticity” with respect to antiquity.

    After looking back on my Catholic traditionalist days, I can say that the movement’s reliance on a reified notion of authenticity has only weakened its credibility. While I agree with Hoffman that a reactionary understanding of “authenticity” can result in the resurfacing of prejudices, “authenticity” can also result in the objectification of liturgy as an extrinsic symbol rather than an lived event.

    Once I suggested to a lay “Latin Mass organizer” that I start informal classes in “missal Latin”, or just enough Latin to understand the ordinary of the extraordinary form Mass. I am still convinced that active participation does not only encompass rote responses but also an intellectual knowledge of the prayers. I was told in no uncertain terms that most in attendance would not want to attend such a class. For many, the “mysterious” Latin of the Tridentine liturgy elevated the sanctity of the ritual. I countered, and still contend, that this attitude in fact demeans the sanctity of the Mass. Latin is no more holy than a contemporary vernacular. We are elevated by the Mass when we consciously engage it, and not regard it as a mystery magic show.

    I consider this event to be the beginning of my departure from traditionalism. Liturgical fundamentalism is not “authenticity” but rather a rejection of the responsibility to cultivate living heritage.

    Reply
    1. Jeffrey Herbert

      Jordan;

      I have found that there was (is?) also the tendency for Latin Mass events (thinking back to the late 80’s and 90’s here) to attract a wide variety of persons who cannot all be neatly categorized into one group. There were those who I would call traditionalists with a small “t” – looking for peaceful and reverent liturgy that draws on traditional modes of worship – there were Traditionalists (big “T”) who additionally reject all that isn’t drawn from traditional practice as somehow heretical, and there were those whom I might call Fundamentalists – insisting on a strict following of all rubrics, laws and teachings (usually those from before the council) in order for their worship to be “valid” or “licit”. These are all very different points of view, however they are oft all lumped together as “Traditionalism” or “Conservatism”.

      Agreed, the same mistake is made with terms like “Liberal” or “Progressive”. Even though there are those to whom such terms might apply, they are too often used to desxcribe groups with a very wide range of beliefs.

      Reply
    2. Dunstan Harding

      For many, the “mysterious” Latin of the Tridentine liturgy elevated the sanctity of the ritual. I countered, and still contend, that this attitude in fact demeans the sanctity of the Mass. Latin is no more holy than a contemporary vernacular. We are elevated by the Mass when we consciously engage it, and not regard it as a mystery magic show.
      ————————————————–
      So true. Equally absurd is the view advanced by some contributors to more conservative Catholic liturgy blogs that the Old Testament reading in the Mass is just an archaeologism brought back by Vatican II to fix our attention to a Jewish covenant to which Catholics are no longer bound. No surprise to find these same folks long to see the retention of the Good Friday petition for the Jewish people using the wording of the pre-1955 rite.

      The reading of the Epistle and Gospel in “mysterious” Latin serve as little more than decorous “add-ons”. God forbid anyone should ever want to comprehend what’s being read.

      The Latin reading and chanted Gospel become mere introductory rites enshrined in fanfare with a procession amidst billowing clouds of incense. The old Mass of the Catechumens turns into a ceremonial concourse leading to still more “mystery’, the silent canon, a perfect inaudible setting for “the sacred action”, the rite of transubstantiation.

      Reply
    3. Jordan Zarembo

      re: Jeffrey Herbert on April 11, 2012 – 5:41 am

      Thank you Jeffrey for reminding me not to stereotype EF adherents. One church is not indicative of an entire movement. Even so, I do hope that EF adherents who favor a more passive participation in the Mass might reconsider the many ways in which persons participate in liturgy.

      Reply
    4. Jack Wayne

      In my experience there is a lot of effort put into providing means by which the congregation can participate in the Mass. The little red missals and copies of the propers are printed and distributed by ushers who greet people as they come in at my parish. I’ve often overheard them talk to people and answer questions as well. The larger Latin Mass churches even have Latin and Greek classes that people may attend (our group isn’t really large or developed enough for that yet). I don’t doubt Jordan’s experience, but I find all too often here at PrayTell people latch onto any awful thing they hear about those who attend the Latin Mass.

      Also, I agree with Fr Allan’s comment below that the EF is actually easier to participate in than a Latin Novus Ordo. I once attended a series of Latin OF Masses offered by a priest on weekdays. By the third day or so, the priest had to alert the congregation of which penetential rite, greeting, and EP he was going to use because people had complained that they couldn’t follow along. The EF, with its lack of options and careful choreography, is easier to figure out when one does not understand the language.

      Reply
  3. Jonathan Day Avatar
    Jonathan Day

    Jordan, I have offerred the following quote before, and I’m sure I will use it again, simply because it makes the point so effectively in so few words. It is from Jaroslav Pelikan, the great historian of Christianity.

    Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.

    Reply
  4. Jeffrey Herbert

    It would seem that part of the problem with attaching the word “authentic” to a concept like liturgy is that the word itself is rather vague in it’s meaning. It’s applicable in instances where there is a clear and identifiable distinction between one example of a thing that is the “original” and one that is a facsimile or knock-off. In such cases the original is “authentic”. However, no such original exists in the realm of liturgical celebrations, save for the foundational rubrics and proscriptions which govern the actions in question. As such, it’s an adjective that doesn’t neatly describe the noun it’s being applied to.

    Pope Benedict also famously used it in his call for “an authentic update of liturgical music”, as opposed to supposed “reforms” in liturgical music which have no basis in the church’s historic traditions. Whether that is true or not can be argued (and has been ad nauseam), but at the very least, it’s clear what he means by “authentic”, as he contrasts it with something (reforms) that he posits as “non-authentic”.

    It’s also the case that the term Authentic Liturgy, translated from the Latin liturgiam authenticam, has to carry the baggage of an English term that is something of a faux amis. This issue arises frequently in liturgical legislation (participatio actuoso, alius cantus aptus) where the word in question becomes the focus of various internecine battles over it’s meaning, each side assuming the veracity of their use of the term in order to make their point.

    Sadly, that may well be what’s happening in this instance. Their either is or isn’t such a thing as “authentic liturgy” depending on what you posit “authentic” to mean when applied to the term “liturgy”.

    Reply
  5. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    In terms of Jordan’s comment above, the EF Mass is easier to learn how to participate than an OF Mass in all Latin or a language that is unknown to the person attending, for example a Spanish Mass that an English speaking Catholic happens to attend.
    For those of us who only now are reflecting on how we were taught in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s prior to and during the Council how to participate in the Ordinary Form of the Mass which then was the Tridentine Mass, we would have known for the most part what the “unchanging” parts of the Mass were for both the priest and congregation. So, we could in our own minds use “dynamic equivalence” to interpret the Latin prayers that do not change of the priest as he prayed them, especially the silent ones and even the silent Roman Canon as there were no other options. All that was needed was a basic knowledge of the content and structure of these prayers. What we needed was a translation of the changing parts, such as the introit, collect, antiphons, secret, prefaces, Post Communion Prayer, etc. The readings on Sunday were normally repeated by the priest in English at the ambo, but not so at daily Mass, so a translation of the readings would be necessary. By the late 1950’s and early 60’s we were being encouraged to speak our parts too with the Dialogue Mass.
    However, today we need to understand the Mass, not only from the “home Mass and catacomb Mass period of the pre-Constantine period” but the organic development that occurred when the Mass moved from small venues such as homes and catacombs to large basilica like structures. That development is shared in different ways by both the east and west and the east has been better at respecting organic development than the west since Vatican II. Progressiveness, if I might add, thinks that liturgy was perfect in the pre-Constantine period of the Church and that all organic development since then were “accidents of history” and that nothing should have changed. I would say that progressive, liberal liturgists live in the past (the first few centuries of the Church) and it is their type of conservative traditionalism that is dead.

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      That’s a nice straw man you got there, Father.

      Reply
  6. Jonathan Day Avatar
    Jonathan Day

    Fr Allan wrote: Progressiveness … thinks that liturgy was perfect in the pre-Constantine period of the Church and that all organic development since then were “accidents of history” and that nothing should have changed. I would say that progressive, liberal liturgists live in the past (the first few centuries of the Church) and it is their type of conservative traditionalism that is dead.

    Fr Allan, can you give an example of any “progressive, liberal liturgist making this claim (“that nothing should have changed”) in writing? Article? Book? Blog post? I haven’t ever seen one. I have seen plenty of references to the Tridentine Mass as “the Mass of all time”, which — on the face of it — sounds like the sort of ahistoricism you are condemning.

    But I am, without irony, keen to see a citation claiming that liturgy was perfect in the pre-Constantine period.

    Reply
  7. Bill deHaas

    Thank you, Jonathan. Was going to respond but Fr. Allan’s made up histories are just not worth responding to. Back to his “meme” about how his education was just “too liberal” and thus “inauthentic” and non-orthodox.

    Reply
  8. Dale Rodriguez

    I agree, authentic is a nebulous notion.

    Studying the history of Western Christianity one will find that the liturgy changed every several hundred years and there were many styles of Mass.

    Reminds me of a traditionalist commenter who lambasted another who commented against the Tridentine Mass. The commenter stated in exasperation, Don’t you know the great English martyrs, Fisher et al died rather than give up the Tridentine Mass!
    However, the Tridentine Mass didn’t come into being almost 100 yrs later after the council of Trent. They actually were using the “Sarum” Mass or one of it’s variations.

    Btw, Alan, you’re just too funny, that last paragraph was a winner. So much for “restoring” the Mass as stated in the SC. I think you should really stay away from Fr Z, you are sounding like one of his brainwashed disciples.

    Reply
  9. Jonathan Day Avatar
    Jonathan Day

    Jeffrey wrote: ‘the term Authentic Liturgy, translated from the Latin liturgiam authenticam, has to carry the baggage of an English term that is something of a faux amis.’

    Actually, Jeffrey, I think it is the other way round. The Latin word seems to have been chosen based on the English use, which is broader. Authentic can mean ‘entitled to obedience and respect’ – the first examples go back to the 1300s (OED).

    But authenticus in classical and patristic Latin has a narrower meaning: ‘same as an original’, as of a will or a legal document – identical, a stronger claim than ‘related’ (germanus), perhaps ‘warranted’.

    Its use in the first line of Liturgiam Authenticam is therefore odd – ‘The Second Vatican Council strongly desired to preserve with care the authentic [authenticam] Liturgy, which flows forth from the Church’s living and most ancient spiritual tradition…’

    Liturgy is capitalised in the Latin, probably because it was the first word of the paragraph. It is also capitalised in the English translation, perhaps because the Vatican translators were following LA §33, ‘The use of capitalization … is to be retained in the vernacular language at least insofar as the structure of a given language permits.’ Or perhaps they are suggesting the existence of the Liturgy; if we could just get back to it, all would be well.

    If I am right (I invite counter-examples) the composers of Liturgiam Authenticam used authenticus in a way no Roman or patristic writer would have recognised. This seems to fly in the face of LA §21, ‘fidelity and exactness with respect to the original texts may themselves sometimes require that words already in current usage be employed in new ways’. An ancient word is being twisted into a modern sense, a sort of faux-ami in reverse.

    Peter Jeffery describes Liturgiam Authenticam as ‘the most ignorant statement on liturgy ever issued by a modern Vatican congregation.’ I agree with him.

    Reply
  10. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    There are two sources for the liturgical changes since Vatican II, one scholarly and the other by rank and file Catholics both clergy and laity. If one lived through the 1970’s and was in the seminary in the 1970’s one would know that on the grassroots level the initiative in many ways was to get back to the simplicity of the Last Supper and as the Eucharist was celebrated in the Patristic Age (or at least a perception of what that celebration was like). For example, there were liturgical theologians in my seminary telling us that more than likely in a few years (this would be from the 1970’s) that priests would ad lib the Mass and the Eucharistic prayer but based upon a structure of the Eucharistic prayer as this is how it was done in the “early Church.” The reason Latin was jettisoned completely was because it was the vernacular and as it became a dead language the Church became intransigent concerning language, etc… Even the development of private priestly prayers were seen as non-organic and that many of them had practical reasons for them, such as the need to wash one’s hand, etc. And yes, there were many in my seminary training who thought in the 1970’s as some in Belgium and other European progressive Catholics believe today that one could call forth from the community anyone, man or woman, to “preside” at Mass as this was how it was done in the early Church.
    In 2012 there isn’t much of a push for this style of liturgy as many of us experienced in the seminary, religious houses and some progressive parishes in the 1970’s. I went to a small group Masses in the seminary, not in chapel, but priests’ apartments where no vestments were worn as in the early church and that at the consecration we consumed immediately the elements consecrated as these were passed about as the words of institution were prayed and for the remainder of the improvised Eucharistic prayer, there were no “consecrated elements” on the blanket on the floor that was the “altar” or “table.”
    But for a more scholarly understanding of authentic liturgical renewal prior to the Council and during it and following it in terms reforming the Mass, that many in the trenches of the 1970’s abandoned for an “early Church” approach to the Mass, this article is relatively good:
    http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=0311-sippo

    Reply
  11. Jonathan Day Avatar
    Jonathan Day

    Fr Allan, thank you for providing that excellent article from Arthur Sippo, well worth reading. Excerpts:

    The liturgy is the daily life of the Church and cannot remain unchanged or unchanging … It is the realistic consequence of a living, dynamic community in worship.

    …the history of liturgical reform that led to the promulgation of the New Mass predated Vatican II by several decades. Improved historical scholarship and the patristic renaissance of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had given birth to a new consciousness of the liturgy as a dynamic participation of the faithful in the prayers and rites of the Church.

    In 1570, [the missal of Pius V] emphasized the solemn aspects of the Mass as a sacred ritual and as a re-presentation of the fruits of Calvary on the altar. The rubrics were from an age when royal courts had highly stylized rules, and it seemed only right that similar pomp and circumstance be used in the most sacred of all religious rituals.

    With the rise of the Baroque over the next century, the rituals became even more solemn and distant from the people, so that the words of the priest and acolytes could no longer even be heard by the congregation. The liturgy effectively became clericalized, with the people practically excluded from active outward participation.

    …Pius XII … understood that the liturgy of the Catholic Church, as beautiful as it was, needed reformation in certain respects to meet the changing needs and lifestyles of the faithful. So radical traditionalists’ portrayal of Pius XII as a defender of the liturgical status quo is inaccurate.

    Antonelli … shows that true liturgical reform was not an innovation proposed by Vatican II but an ongoing project that preceded the Council and was moved forward more rapidly thanks to the impetus of the Council.

    Sippo refers to ‘a living, dynamic community in worship’. Exactly. That is why ‘authentic’ (unchanging) Liturgy doesn’t work. It is not a matter of liturgical archaeology but of adapting the liturgy to the needs of the faithful. And that task goes on.

    I have no doubt that some of your seminary professors conducted some odd experiments. But you wrote that ‘progressiveness … rejects all organic development of the liturgy’. We still have no written evidence for that. Could your claim have been just a bit too strong and sweeping?

    Reply
    1. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

      Certain claims by me and others are hyperbole to make a point just as it would be hyperbolic to write: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

      Reply
    2. Dunstan Harding

      I too enjoyed the article and agree with the points made. It took me back to my early days as an altar boy (before 1955). I believe some of the Holy Week changes were already implemented in Europe as early as 1951. Several years before they went into effect in the United States.

      I come away sympathetic to what both cardinal Antonelli AND archbishop Bugnini had to go through in that period.

      Thanks Fr. McDonald for this article .

      Reply
  12. Jonathan Day Avatar
    Jonathan Day

    Thanks for confirming that you were using rhetorical hyperbole rather than making a statement of fact, Father. I’m happy to leave it at that.

    Reply
    1. Bill deHaas

      “rhetorical hyperbole” – excellent description of Fr. Z and SO.

      Reply
      1. Bill deHaas

        Was also in the seminary in the 1970’s – yes, remember one Notre Dame liturgy class in which we saw a re-actment of a 1st century liturgy but do not remember ever “jumping” to the conclusion that we could expect the post VII liturgy to continue to recapture that 1st century format. Do remember that liturgical principles and ideas were drawn from this experience to be used in our current culture and church.

        Also, to automatically and forever paint the whole US church by Fr. allan’s knee jerk conclusions from one (or two) professors makes little sense. In fact, given what he has consistently described, it sounds more like his pre-chosen mindset with which he approached his educational experience. How sad.

  13. Brendan McInerny

    I agree with the general thrust of the rabbi’s argument. I would only add that “authentic” can be a loose criterion for those apparently on the other side of the fence, referring not to “continuity” or “organic development” but to syncing somehow with “contemporary life” or a similar notion. The impression is given that liturgy is authentic when it ‘meets us where we’re at’ and does not slavishly follow the rituals, words, and styles of another epoch. Granted, these folk didn’t write a magisterial document using the term in the title. Nevertheless, I find both “authenticities” to refer to two overly simplistic standards that in the concrete probably aren’t used consistently anyway.

    Reply
  14. Jack Feehily

    I recall the introduction of some pretty awful folk music in those late 60’s and 70’s liturgies. But I also remember Masses which employed beautiful contemporary compositions that were accompanied by organ, piano, flutes, guitars, and other instruments. I remember cheering the morphing of guitar masses into masses with lush instrumentation. I never saw a mass in which communion was distributed after the consecration. I see this as part of a genuine inculturation that flowed from the transformation of congregants into an assembly of priestly people doing their best to worship in spirit and truth. When I look in on an EF mass I see a beautiful but totally clericalized theater piece. That tells me that valid and licit are important but limited categories.

    Reply
  15. Riona Nally

    As a simple Mass attendee I truly appreciate the New Roman Missal. It is an authentic experience to witness the pendulum swing back in a reasonable manner to a more traditional expression at this point in history. The English words used now are more descriptive of the Heavenly Reality that is being entered into during the Mass and also describes the Priesthood more authentically. The meaning and imagery of the Latin root words being expressed more clearly now, better enables a beautiful and almost tearfully poetic rendering of the Holy Mass. I am so happy this happened. I think most will be even more inclined to recognize the majesty and the dignity of what is truly happening during the entire Mass especially during the Consecration. And to worship the Person who comes down upon that Altar during the Mass it is more formal which I think is “right and just” ! I think it is stunning, I love it and am very happy ! I donnot agree with the author of the article however because I donnot think the issues that he states as being most important really are. The most important thing to the Catholic Church is the Liturgy. The Church exists primarily to protect and celebrate Liturgies and Sacraments, and to pass on the 2000 year old Lineage. The social issues are secondary.

    Reply
    1. Lynn Thomas

      Riona,

      Please share how you are defining ‘authentic’ here, as that’s on point to the discussion.

      As to your taste for the current Missal, I am one of a great many who disagree with your point of view. The English, as English, is often just plain terrible. Grammar, syntax, word choice, take your pick. For me, it has well and thoroughly disrupted my worship. And, how can any of us know whether this or that wording better conveys the heavenly reality? I would suggest that any human language attempt to do so falls so far short as to not be worth the effort of ranking them, at least not on that basis.

      The musical issues attendant on the new translation have been well discussed elsewhere, so I won’t dig into them very much here. Enough to say that many of the Missal’s chant tones are most emphatically NOT an improvement over what we had. In this, I speak from experience as a choir member of a good many years. More than a few are just unsingable; our two priests are being tortured. Again, this doesn’t foster worship, at least not for me.

      Reply
  16. Chuck Chapman

    As an Episcopalian looking over the shoulders of this discussion, I should like to make some comments toward answering the question, “What makes a liturgy authentic?”.

    The authentic/counterfeit duality is but one manifestation of the more general true/false one. To ask whether a liturgy is “authentic” is to ask whether it is true. But true to what?

    Authentic liturgy is true to the group’s story and teachings as expressed in Scripture and Sacred tradition.

    Authentic liturgy is true to the thought patterns and modes of expression of those using it. A Latin eucharist would not be an authentic liturgy for a class of 8th graders with no background or preparation for it. (For that matter, is the Elizabethan English of Rite I in the Book of Common Prayer all that authentic for contemporary Americans who were not reared in that tradition?) This is not to say that such a liturgy would be illicit or invalid, but it would not be an authentic way of worshipping for that group. For that matter, does “And with your spirit” communicate the meaning of “Et cum spiritu tuo” to contemporary Americans better than “And also with you”?

    So, I contend that there is such a thing as an authentic liturgy, and it is to be found at the (continually shifting) balancing point between the meaning being expressed in ancient story, doctrine and liturgy and the modes of expression and understanding of contemporary worshippers. Hence the first paragraph of the American Book of Common Prayer: ‘It is a most invaluable part of that blessed “liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” that in his worship different forms and usages may without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire; …and therefore, by common consent and authority, may be altered, abridged, enlarged,
    amended, or otherwise disposed of, as may seem most convenient for the
    edification of the people, “according to the various exigency of times and
    occasions.” ‘

    Reply

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