Summary of the January 2023 issue of Worship
Worship is a peer-reviewed, international ecumenical journal for the study of liturgy and liturgical renewal. Founded in 1926 by Virgil Michel, OSB, and the monks of Saint John’s Abbey, Worship is published quarterly in Collegeville, Minnesota. Subscribe to Worship here.
THE AMEN CORNER
A Different Checklist
Genevieve Glen, OSB
ESSAYS
The Seven Hebrew Words for Praise: Pentecostal Interpretation of Scripture in Liturgical Theology
Jonathan Ottaway
The Seven Hebrew Words for Praise (SHWP) is a Pentecostal liturgical theology that seeks to define the scope of effective, correct, and God-pleasing worship for the church. The approach of this theology is to explore the Hebrew words underlying the English use of the word ‘praise’ in Scripture. By uncovering these hidden terms, its proponents argue that they are uncovering a fuller understanding of Christian praise which should form the normative liturgical practice of the church. The aim of the paper is to situate this liturgical theology in its wider theological and hermeneutical context. The SHWP paradigm is more than a simple biblicist theology for Pentecostal worship. Instead, it is a complex and historically-contextual theology formed out of a matrix of theological influences. The paper will first detail the historical development of the SHWP, situating it in a wider development of Pentecostal praise theologies in the latter 20th century and describing its dissemination and replication among many Praise and Worship practitioners in Pentecostal and evangelical traditions. The reproduction of the SHWP points to a wider hermeneutical agreement that exists between Praise and Worship practitioners. Hence, in the following section, the paper uncovers the broader hermeneutical tradition that the SHWP stems from rooted in traditional Pentecostal and Fundamentalist interpretive approaches to scripture. I will show the particular reliance of the SHWP on the early Pentecostal methodology of the Bible Reading Method.
Re-imagining Gender Justice: Remnants from the Roman Missal
Gerard Moore
The Roman Missal has been a locus of exclusion for women, particularly around the gender of ministers, or at very least a site of indifference to their participation. The attempt here is to recover within prayers and rites the remnants of women’s experience and contribution. As well, it uncovers theological readings of the liturgical texts that support the exclusion of women—traces within the areas of prayers, genres, authorship, piety and performance. With this, the intention is not to make a claims about balance: the Roman Missal is overwhelmingly the product of male clerics, and its features reflect this. Rather, the hidden presence of a different experiential basis signals a possible reimagination of the ritual book itself. The missal has within it the seeds of something other! This recognition is a first step towards a missal that allows for diversity, inclusion beyond the female/male binary, and cultural consciousness.
The Embolism: Its Origins and Development
Radek Tichy
The article deals with the origins, historical development, and meaning of the embolism in the Rites of Communion in the Roman order of Mass. Using the method of la liturgie comparée, the author traces the historical development from the original oration of fractio panis, into prayer before communion, and finally into embolism. This final transformation involved inserting the Lord’s Prayer into the rites before communion.
Loving and Reforming a Holy Yet Broken Church
Richard Gaillardetz
This essay has its origins in a “last lecture” the author delivered at an academic conference hosted by Boston College in September, 2022 to acknowledge his contributions to ecclesiology. The lecture is framed autobiographically and identifies three challenges which must be addressed if church reform is to be effective. First, reformist agendas must take seriously the institutional dimension of the church and draw on social scientific analysis of ecclesial structures. Second, successful reform must seek a reflective equilibrium between honoring the contributions of tradition and prophetic critique. Third, effective ecclesial reform must attend fully to the contributions of the sensus fidelium.
REVIEWS
Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, reviews Michael Leyden, Faithful Living: discipleship, creed & ethics (London: SCM Press, 2019).
Maxwell E. Johnson reviews Ramez Mikhail, The Presentation of the Lamb: The Prothesis and the Preparatory Rites of the Coptic Liturgy, Studies in Eastern Christian Liturgy 2 (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2020).
Kimberly Hope Belcher reviews The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies, edited by Geoffrey Wainwright and Paul McPartlan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
John F. Baldovin, SJ, reviews Andrea Grillo, Eucaristia: Azione Rituale, Forma Storica, Essenza Sistematica, Nuovo Corso di Teologia Sistematica 8 (Brescia: Queriniana, 2019.)
David Batchelder reviews Bryan D. Spinks, Scottish Presbyterian Worship: Proposals for Organic Change, 1843 to the Present Day (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2020).
Brian Dunkle, SJ, reviews Johannes Zachhuber, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).