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St Gregory of Nyssa

Participation

St Gregory of Nyssa

In the fray of the internet debate about the Church of England diluting baptism by removing “sin” and “the devil” in alternatives, one blog post pointed to a much deeper issue.

Rev. Doug Chaplin, a mission development officer in the Church of England Diocese of Worcester, wrote about the devil being somewhere else than in the details.

He compared Roman Catholic rites with Anglican ones, and concludes that Anglicans

confuse participation by understanding with that of join-in-ability. The Roman Catholic pattern… essentially has one core response that parents and godparents join in. To nearly all the questions the priest asks them, they reply “I do”. (There’s an “it is” and one or two other variations thrown in during other parts of the rite.) … I’m…just noting the simplicity of joining in what’s going on. One main response, two words; repeated.

…I am quite strongly of the opinion that participation is about a lot more than understanding.

Doug is not commending the Roman Catholic rites wholesale, but I absolutely agree with him that we confuse heads in books (or staring at screens) reciting together long and complex theological poetry as being lay participation. [We also confuse dressing lay people up priest-like and putting them up the front to usurp priestly leadership of the service with lay participation – but that is probably better left for another thread].

Here (in NZ) the liturgists have conspired to almost make it impossible to remove our heads from books (or screens). There are different responses to the same, or similar, cues depending on which page (read: screen) you are on.

Just a few examples. The greeting of peace, surely supposed to be addressed to one another, not to a book, pew sheet, or screen:

The peace of Christ be always with you.
And also with you. (page 419)

Or

The peace of God be with you all.
In God’s justice is our peace. (page 466)

Or

The peace of God be always with you.
Praise to Christ who unites us in peace. (page 485)

And so on and on it goes… And just when you think you’ve memorised something, along will come some “creative” worship leader who will creatively provide a new response to your memorised cue because humans never use the same response to the same cue in normal situations do we?!

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21 thoughts on “Participation”

  1. I’ve read the whole post you linked to, Bosco, and I think it makes a very helpful contribution. The remark about the remnants of Christendom culture (people seeking baptism for no particular reason other than a sense of propriety or folk religion) is helpful. We are always talking about how the Church needs to adapt to a post-Christendom world; but in many cases the world is actually having trouble adapting to a post-Christendom Church!

    And then in the final paragraph, he is right on the money: “I am of the view that whatever we do in church is strange, however hard we try to be contemporary.” The way forward isn’t to make the Church’s rites “unstrange”, but to draw people into the experience of differentiation from business-as-usual. The whole point of ritual is differentiation, a profound sense that things have changed as a result of what has been enacted. Think hooding at graduations, banging the gavel in court, even cutting the ribbon at a new building: you don’t have to be a scholar, a lawyer, or an architect to “participate” in the meaning of those strange rituals.

    And of course, your point about variety in verbal responses is dead on. You and I have corresponded before about how my eldest child, when she was two years old, could sing the Agnus Dei on regular Sundays but couldn’t read the PowerPoints on “Family Service” Sundays!

    We have the same misery during the “Prayers of the People” in our local parish: every week, a new response that isn’t even introduced by the intercessor, but must be located and read from the bulletin in advance (with no warning). I confess, I never bother. I either retreat into private serenity or sit there and stew. (Yes, we’re all sitting, since we’re invited to “Sit, Stand, or Kneel, as you feel comfortable”: the pews are too tight together for a tall man to kneel, and who wants to be the one weirdo standing?)

    1. You are lucky, Jesse, to have the response for the Prayers of the People written down! 😉 My regular experience in a variety of places is either a completely different response to the memorised one for a well-known cue, or a response announced by the prayer leader which takes all one’s concentration to remember even part of:

      To the cue, “God our creator interested in each one of us, we bring our prayers to your loving care” your response is, “We your servants gather to share in the renewal that we ask you to bring through our prayers.”

      Good luck to anyone trying to actually focus on the biddings presented and remember the response at one hearing!

      Blessings.

  2. Not knoiwing what precedes the versicle on pages 466 and 485, I must say that the response sounds as though it should be to a previous versicle, so that “the peace…” is a response to the statement.

  3. I’m curious to know what you mean by this, “We also confuse dressing lay people up priest-like and putting them up the front to usurp priestly leadership of the service with lay participation.” And I think you’d better write that proposed new post.

    1. I have written and spoken about this before, Josh. A quick reference: the video talk, see the text, “Some places have a lay person assist the priest in leading worship. This
      has to be very, very carefully thought through. It can make the priest
      appear a bit like a magician who just comes out for the absolution and to
      consecrate…”

      Blessings.

  4. Good points, Bosco. But even when the responses or the texts are the same week after week, occasion after occasion, I’ve noticed many people still keep their heads buried in books or the worship leaflet, as though “reading along” is participation while “listening” isn’t. One of the “down sides” of widespread literacy (a good thing) is that it seems to have cut into our ability to listen deeply, as in more oral cultures. I’ve noticed it in myself — and thus have started to make a point of putting down the book or leaflet during the gospel reading and the eucharistic prayer, to look at the presider and listen to her or him, rather than a book or piece of paper in her or his place.

    1. I’m disappointed at how many people at the church I worship with read the book for the prayers that are repeated (almost) every Sunday; there are many that I hadn’t heard before I started going there, but within a month them from memory.

      On the other hand, last year I did a bit of an acting course, and after one, another person in the course said she didn’t think she’d ever memorised anything in her life. In fact, she had most of it down pat (I asked her what her lines were; I fed her one whenever she needed it from my copy). It’s just that in our culture, most people have no idea how easy it is to memorise something, and yet that it does take effort—and most especially they forget that it’s perfectly okay to make mistakes.

      Nevertheless, for most of the readings, I’d definitely prefer to read it from a text. The people who read them so often do it with a certain intonation and style that sends me to sleep more than it helps me understand. I try to repeat it in my head half a word later with intonation and style that are more natural to the text, but as soon as I miss something, I can’t understand the rest of the reading; it’s gone.

      1. Thanks, Felix.

        Your last paragraph is an argument for training and rehearsing of readers, not for providing the text of the readings. You mention going on an acting course – imagine if everyone came to the play you put on with the script saying, “the actors so often proclaim their lines with a certain intonation and style that sends me to sleep more than it helps me understand. I try to repeat it in my head half a word later with intonation and style that are more natural to the text, but as soon as I miss something, I can’t understand the rest of the play; it’s gone.”

        Blessings.

        1. I know, but it’s much easier to print it in the bulletin; and I’m pretty sure only one of the two options is ever going to common especially in a church worried about participation. Can you imagine the cries of “clericalism!” that would ensue if we said you needed to be trained to be a reader?

          1. Sorry to disagree, Felix. I have always trained and rehearsed readers and/or had lay people train and rehearse others. I had years of speech and reading training as part of my formation for priesthood. In my experience, those who read appreciate and ask for the training, it enhances their confidence and reinforces that this is a very important ministry. I think this is worth a future blog post.

            Blessings.

          2. Don’t apologise in the least for disagreeing; I would prefer it if you were right, and I hope you’re right, but to my ears it’s not a widespread practice.

            I look forward to the post if you can make it.

  5. You’re welcome, Bosco. I guess what I’m trying to get at (and relearn myself) is that listening isn’t “passive” — it’s actually quite “active”! (And interacting with a person, even just visually, beats staring into a book.)

  6. Hmm. Funny you should mention this- someone asked me recently about what people dislike most about church…I said intense provocation.

    Supposing I turn up at your church, the music not necessarily perfect nevertheless moves me, the sermon is mildly thought-provoking. I’m relaxing and ‘feeling it’, some kind of touch of the divine, of peace.

    Then suddenly someone grabs a sharpened stick, metaphorically prodding me in the side. ‘Sing you, Goddammit’. ‘Chant’. ‘Pray.’ ‘Fill out this card so we can follow you home and harass you further.’

    Alright I exaggerate. Slightly.

    My 90 year old aunt wrote me from England last week. She told me she’s the oldest in her church now so she gets to read whatever she likes. She’s read some of my poetry and last week she read Rudyard Kipling ‘The Glory of the Garden’:

    THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

    Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
    Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
    With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
    But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

    For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
    You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
    The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
    The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

    And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and ‘prentice boys
    Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
    For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
    The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

    And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
    And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
    But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
    For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

    Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
    By singing:–“Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade,
    While better men than we go out and start their working lives
    At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

    There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick,
    There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
    But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done,
    For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

    Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
    If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
    And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
    You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

    Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
    That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
    So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
    For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
    And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

    Rudyard Kipling

    *

    ‘just when you think you’ve memorised something, along will come some “creative” worship leader who will creatively provide a new response to your memorised cue because humans never use the same response to the same cue in normal situations do we?!’

    -Yes and no Bosco. Sometimes we need to stray out of established Sunday School to re-establish our creative response. I don’t want to join a cult.

    And that church is a failing church by all modern standards.

    I’d still rather be there than most places though…they seem fresh in their determination to embrace the older metaphor.

    I’m tired of being told to sing a new song…when it’s not the old song at all…

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