Minding the Language

Looking up what was meant by an ‘external solemnity’ –  in case you wonder, it’s when, for pastoral reasons, you celebrate a liturgical feast day on a different occasion from the usual set day – I came across a post over on the New Liturgical Movement blog setting out a spiritual/aesthetic argument for the use of archaic language in worship. This shouldn’t be a surprise coming from the NLM: although I haven’t yet noticed anyone there pleading for the restoration of the Julian calendar or the moral superiority of Ptolemaic cosmology, it is surely only a matter of time. But whereas it’s tempting to dismiss all this stuff as conservative waffle, I am more sympathetic to it than I might once have been. Of course NLM’s writers come to it from a Roman Catholic standpoint, and our brethren of the Roman observance do labour under some awful liturgical language and scriptural translation which seem designed to be vapid and banal, while I find the Anglican Common Worship material has a sober resonance which neither waters down any depth and meaning, nor strains to be poetic (something which is bound to produce embarrassment). So we must be understanding.

For the first time, over the last couple of years, I’ve had occasions for using the Authorised Version of the Bible liturgically, for small celebrations of Evensong at Corpus Christi, for instance. It seemed odd to be using the Prayer Book language for the liturgy alongside a modern Bible translation for the readings, so I brought the two into line. In the past I’ve recognised the greater ‘creative ambiguity’ of some passages in the old text as opposed to modern translations, but reading the AV text aloud in the context of a liturgy that fits it was a different experience. Being forced to try to read it in a way which made it make sense, with the natural rhythms of speech, intensified my relationship with the text, which is of course the Word of God (however we understand that phrase). I can see the point, then, for using this heightened language – especially for the Gospel, though it may make the already-complex formulations of some of St Paul’s letters positively clotted.

The argument that comprehension doesn’t matter, though, takes the case too far. The theory is that worshippers don’t really need anything more than the overall sense of what is happening in the liturgy, which becomes the backdrop for their separate devotions, built into their spiritual reflections. But what shapes those reflections?

My first regular place of worship was a ‘Prayer Book Catholic’ church where, although a little red copy of the BCP was thrust into your hand when you arrived, the liturgy bore little relation to anything in it. That didn’t matter too much, because I knew what was supposed to be happening. But, to work, that approach has to rest on a bedrock of serious catechesis, and on people reading their Bibles, studying their mass books, and saying their prayers at home. We know that worship comes from the Holy Spirit, almost regardless of words and languages, but the Holy Spirit still needs something to work with. Otherwise, other considerations and thoughts will fill the void: self-congratulation at being a reactionary Catholic, perhaps.

I suppose the real question is over what shapes the mind of the Church. How far can a society far removed from the kind of basic familiarity with Christian culture that can decode liturgy manage when faced with archaic language; when – for instance – confronted with a chanted AV reading of John 2, can it bring readily to mind the imagery of a wedding, water jars, and a startled bridegroom? I can, but can a single mum straight from the bus stop of Swanvale Halt?