Resolutions on New Prayer Book, Rites for Sick and Dying, and Sexuality Offered by Liturgy Commission
Episcopal News Service. May 25, 2000 [2000-104]
Sharon Sheridan, Interim Editor of The Voice in the Diocese of Newark and is a frequent contributor to Episcopal Life. She is on the Convention Daily.
(ENS) A proposal to revise the 1979 prayer book and new rites for ministry to the sick and dying are among the recommendations from the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music.
In a closely watched report in the Blue Book, the commission also recommended that the decision on whether to ordain non-celibate homosexuals or bless their relationships should be made at the diocesan level since there is no consensus as a church on these issues.
The commission asks convention to authorize it to develop a plan for revising and renewing worship "based on a thoroughgoing process of data collection involving parishes, dioceses, provinces, and the organizations of this church."
Under a proposed timeline, this would lead to a revision of the Book of Common Prayer in 2012. But it involves much more than simply producing a new book, including using multimedia technologies, incorporating music in the revision process and simultaneously developing liturgies in different languages.
"A book is part of it, but it envisions a broader concept of liturgical renewal," said Sister Jean Campbell, OSH, commission vice chair from the Diocese of New York. "What we have learned is that text is only one aspect of the worship experience, that it has to do with how the texts assist a congregation in praying together as a community of faith," said Campbell, who is also a priest. "And so, what this proposal outlined is not just the production of a book in English but assisting communities of people to enter into a process of liturgical renewal and revision that takes into consideration multiple languages and cultures.
"A lot of the renewal of liturgy is going to be a recovery of senses in liturgy. We've tended to pray with our heads," she said. Campbell expects the process to explore how elements such as movement, gesture, vestments, space and the incorporation of visual images can enrich worship.
The commission requests $750,000 in funding. "That's the crucial piece," Campbell said, noting the process can't begin without it.
The commission also has submitted to General Convention a new set of rites, including suggested hymns, for ministry with the sick and dying. The expanded rites include public healing services, incorporating sacramental healing in the Eucharist and individual ministration in a home or health-care facility.
There is a new "form of prayer when life-sustaining treatment is withheld or discontinued" and additional prayers for use with or by the sick that cover circumstances such as confinement, loss of a pregnancy and loss of memory as well as prayers for caregivers and emergency workers. The commission also adds a separate service for the burial of a child, a rite that was eliminated in the 1979 prayer book.
"We felt that there was a need for some services that corresponded more to current practice of healing services," said Phoebe Pettingell of the Diocese of Fond du Lac (Wisconsin), chair of the expansive language committee that developed the liturgies. "We felt that the church really needed to start addressing the issue of pastoral rites for the removal of life-sustaining treatment." She added that "one of the things that I hear most is the lack of rites for crisis pregnancies, infertility, stillbirths, miscarriage."
The committee consulted with a broad cross-section of Episcopalians and with ecumenical partners, Pettingell said. It did not change the language in old prayers "unless a word has either become so obscure that people don't understand the original meaning or unless it's taken on some sort of offensive connotations," she noted. "People who would rather have a different kind of language can use another prayer. That's why we have so many possibilities in it, because this is a time where people should really have what will most speak to them in sickness and crisis."
- Adding commemorations for nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale, priest and Native American missionary Enmegahbowh and Philip the Deacon to the church calendar.
- Replacing the lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer with the Revised Common Lectionary, which is becoming the common lectionary among Christian denominations.
- Continuing the Leadership Program for Musicians Serving Small Congregations.