It was a privilege to be present at the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IALC) which met in Seoul, Korea, February 19-23, 2024. IALC is the official network for liturgy in the Anglican Communion, reporting to the Anglican Consultative Council. It brings together liturgists and diocesan officials from around the Communion to consult, study and pray together, and to create resources for the national churches. Consultations are held at least every three years. Forty-two members were present from 17 churches of the Communion.
In our work during the consultation we reconsidered the document produced by the 5th IALC in 1995, Renewing the Anglican Eucharist. However the world is now very different, so we spent the week discussing the significant cultural, social and technological changes that have happened in the past 30 years. Working Group 4, of which I was part, focused on the topic of Eucharistic Renewal and Liturgical Formation. Eventually the output of the Working Groups will form a collection of resources from the Consultation that will be published throughout the Anglican Communion. The materials will consider how member churches might renew the celebration of the Eucharist in response to the ongoing social changes shaping our pastoral contexts.
During the Consultation the various provinces present reported on work being carried out in the local churches. One highlight was the presentation of an ‘indigenous’ (free from an English base text and non-Western in character) shared Eucharistic Prayer being developed by the East-Asian churches that will eventually be adopted by the involved provinces for official use. The prayer contains a strong theme of cultural reconciliation between Asian identities and a decisively East-Asian sense of creation and redemption. The Consultation’s closing communique can be found here.
Other updates presented involved the development of a universal sanctoral calendar by the Anglican Communion, aimed at sharing the lives of local holy persons across the Communion; and a project to establish an ecumenical Feast of the Mystery of Creation, supported by the the Laudato Si’ Research Institute (Oxford), the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development, the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, and the World Methodist Council. Representatives will be meeting in Assisi, Italy 15-16 March to work on the recommendation.