In the Sixties, there were liturgical fashions, anticipations of what was expected to become the norm in "the Western Rite", which did in fact not succeed in doing so. I attended Mags in Oxford from October 1960 until June 1964; although Mags was firmly "Western Rite" (i.e. the Tridentine Rite found in the old English Missal), a Curate, Fr Michael Watts ... I think it was he ... had some bright ideas which were thought to be the Way Things Were Going. One such was the wearing of a cope at Sunday High Mass during the "Mass of the Catechumens", after which the Chasuble was used. (Perhaps ... I can't remember ... this meant keeping the cope on after the Asperges.)
All this was based, I presume, upon the incorrect assumption that the chasuble was distinctively sacerdotal and sacrificial ... a mistake from which the older custom of 'folded chasubles' and 'broad stoles' might have preserved us.
Does anybody else recall this passion for Copes at the Liturgy of the Word? Particularly at Western Rite churches like Mags?
About the time I served my first curacy as a Deacon (1967, Beaconsfield), 'experimental' Anglican rites were making the Blessing at the end of Mass optional. With the pomposity of the young, I remember explaining that, after they have received the inestimable gift of Himself in the Blessed Sacrament, to give the laity a sacerdotal Blessing is both unnecessary and the purest 'clericalism'. In fact, I was assuming the 'Enlightenment' superstition of a linear Liturgy free from repetitions or stumbling restarts. Instinctively, the Laity knew better than their "clever" new curate. (Additionally, I learned from this the humbling fact that clergy and laity speak different languages, and that I might just as well have been addressing them in Aramaic.)
Because Rome retained the Blessing, so did most subsequent Anglican usage. Does the fashionable 1960s hostility to the Blessing still survive anywhere?
At Charlestown in Cornwall, and in quite a few places, each communicant placed a host in a ciborium as they entered the church.
I once did Sunday duty in a church at Cowes, where a bun of white leavened bread was used ... one can understand the motivation, but the sheer practicality of long-lasting crumb-free unleavened 'wafers' has saved even the trendy, I suspect, from going down that path.
Trendy ideas did generally involve more liturgical fuss and bother.
That sort of thing ...
There must have been many other little whimsies which were once all the rage, but which failed to stand the test of time.
9 comments:
One of the canons at Durham in the early 2000s used to omit the blessing at the end of Low Mass, for the reason you gave the parishioners in your title parish. He was ordained in the mid-70s.
One remembers the “ Intinction Cups” that were a bit of a “ thing” at least here in the US : a single vessel composed of a “ bowl “ ciborium with a small cup in the center that could be held in one hand by the priest. But then came “ EM”’s holding “ The Cup” and Communion in the hand and that was that.
When I was in the Episcopal Church in the 1990's pre-Tiber-swim it was not unusual to see Holy Communion services conducted with the priest wearing only alb and stole for the liturgy of the word then donning the chasuble (conveniently hanging on the altar rail) at the Offertory. Fortunately my usual Anglo Catholic parish never went in for this kind of nonsense. However one sometimes had to travel and was subjected to varying degrees of nonsense up to and including women priestesses.
On one occasion in the mid sixties I attended the Catholic Chaplaincy where Fr Michael Hollings celebrated a Mass of the future ( quite illicitly): at a table, versus pop, in English. I was both shocked and repulsed and became what he called a Blackfriars breakaway! Actually much more convenient for Col.Jesu.!
Oh yes, unleavened bread was quite a thing at Allan Hall’s Friday Mass in the 90s. The baking of which was presided over by our resident Sister, who took the process very seriously and with much love. That said the crumbs pained me…
I once saw a catalogue from a religious supply house which featured, in its section of vestments for funerals: 'The European answer to the purple versus white debate - Grey Vestments!'
I may be mistaken, but I think that the practice of donning the chasuble at the start of the Offertory is both traditional and richly symbolic rather than "nonsense." The chasuble, I believe, is specifically symbolic of the priest's sacrificial action while the stole is indicative of his preaching duties. The clear demarcation between the liturgy of the word and that of sacrifice seems to me both richly expressive and elegant, giving those vestments a strong expressiveness and connection to their traditional signification in Catholic worship.
Evidence?
As I said at the beginning of my comment above, Father, "I may be mistaken." However, while I am not a liturgical scholar and do not have at hand the textual evidence (although being a literary researcher, I could possibly devote time to obtain such---alas, a time I do not have currently), I do have the trusted anecdotal and direct experience basis for my assertion about the symbolic donning of the chasuble at the start of the Offertory of Mass. Many years ago I was privileged (and blessed) to have been for a few, too-short years a parishoner of the late, venerable Father Roy Randolph---former dean of the Anglican cathedral of Johannesburg (South Africa), convert to Catholicism in the early 60s, and a fervent, uncompromising traditionalist (ordained Catholic priest by His Lordship the Cardinal of Seville) after the debacle that followed Vatican Council II. If you knew him, you would know Father Randolph was a man of great intelligence and learning, of varied and rich experiences in both the Anglican and the Catholic churches, a preacher of the first order, and a kind Christian gentleman. It was from him, while attending his traditional Latin Mass, that I first saw this charming but by-no-means widespread practice. Upon asking him, he gladly (as was his wont) taught me the symbolism of this liturgical practice which I had never witnessed but which I found expressive and logical, given the symbolic functions commonly associated with liturgical vestments. That is, therefore, my informal evidence.
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