PS I have just remembered a highly Ecumenical liturgical suggestion made in 1955 by an Anglo-Catholic priest called Fr Hugh Ross Williamson in a book called The Great Prayer. This book was reissued, by the way, in 2009 by Gracewing, accompanied by a warm commendation from Bishop Alan Hopes, now the Roman Catholic Bishop of East Anglia, and a member of your Lordship's Congregation for Divine Worship.
Fr Hugh wrote about the Canon of the Mass, "the first Eucharistic Prayer" as some people call it nowadays, in the following words:
" [T]he Canon today is not only the prayer for unity within the Church itself. The sects which have sprung up since the Reformation could all unite in saying the Canon. There can be nothing in the doctrine implied there from which any presbyterian or congregationalist or methodist could dissent, for no dissenter disagrees with the Catholic Church on the question of the original Christianity St Augustine brought to England. There is in the Canon only the teaching of the primitive Church (for, of course, Gregory the Great only put the finishing touches to prayers which had slowly developed or hardened into particular forms from apostolic times) and nothing whatever of 'late medieval accretions' against which the reformers inveighed. The Canon had already been in use, in its present form, for six hundred years before 'transubstantiation' was defined in 1215. ... in knowing the Canon, we become grounded in the teaching of the primitive Church which Protestants no less than Catholics accept, and so we may find that the Lord's table, despite all the controversies which have disgraced his followers, is indeed the centre of unity."
Isn't this exactly what your Lordship's committee is commissioned to search for? At least one member of your committee, Mr Andrea Grillo, is certain to go along enthusiastically with this proposal!
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It is to be hoped that Archbishop Roche takes note of this and does not just skate over the matter. He used to do quite a lot of skating in the past!
In The Times on Saturday 28October the Dean of Westminster writes: "There is no call for us to change so that our styles of worship are the same, our religious practices identical, the nuances of our difference ironed out. That would be to impoverish rather than to enrich the church universal. What surely we seek is unity in diversity."
What is the purpose of Bishop Roche's task?
Perhaps the innovators should look to the ever-maturing world for inspiration. With that in mind, ABS suggest the innovators take a look at the services of America's Sunday Civic Religion, The NFL football games, where unity is expressed by the players kneeling before the Flag and The National Anthem.
O, do not be alarmed, the NFL players are not kneeling in worship to the flag or the National Anthem but they are kneeling in protest because the poor millionaires are slaves working on their owners plantations..or something
In any event, the players are kneeling even though Tertullian (The Crown) taught that it is unlawful to fast or kneel on the Lord's Day (See also Nicaea 1, which forbade kneeling on Sunday and the days of Pentecost).
I have a copy of the book ,it is certainly worth reading for itself.
Andrea Grillo is on this commission?!! That is called an up-hill playing field. Aiutaci o Signore... As was once charmingly said of Papa Benedetto, "he is not even a trained liturgist".
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