Further Steps Toward the Completion of a Revised BCP
Diocesan Press Service. March 1, 1973 [73061]
DALLAS, Tex. -- Listening to reactions of Church members to the trial liturgies, and revising the trial texts in the light of their suggestions, occupied a large part of the three-day session of the Standing Liturgical Commission, from 19 to 22 February in Dallas, Texas. Two further sessions of the Commission are scheduled before the General Convention -- one at the end of March and one early in May.
Some 60 Dioceses have sent in their reports on the trial use of the rites authorized in 1970. Forty-five of these reports have been analysed and summarized. The remaining reports and others expected within the next few weeks will be studied at subsequent meetings, but already the Commission has reached tentative agreement on a list of changes for submission to the General Convention in Louisville, Ky., in September, 1973.
This procedure is in line with the Commission's policy of listening attentively to the experience and views of the man and woman in the pew who have used the trial rites in actual worship. Experience of use is conveyed to the Commission through questionnaires and reports prepared and summarized by diocesan liturgical committees, and through direct correspondence from individual worshipers. The Drafting Committee on the Eucharist devoted its entire meeting early in February to the detailed consideration of these ideas and suggestions, and on this basis made recommendations to the Standing Liturgical Commission.
The Commission also reviewed the draft text of the rites of Christian Initiation -- Holy Baptism with the Affirmation of Baptismal Vows and Dedication to Mission (Confirmation) -- prepared after consultation with the Theological and Prayer Book Committees of the House of Bishops. It is now expected that this draft -- the third produced by the Commission -- will be circulated first to the two Committees of the House of Bishops and then to all the Bishops and to the Deputies to the General Convention. It will be published as a Prayer Book Study by the Church Hymnal Corporation.
The Commission also considered and approved a more convenient arrangement of the Daily Office -- Morning and Evening Prayer -- in response to the frequently voiced complaint by those who have actually used the Office that the order of the trial rite was somewhat confusing to follow. It approved a Daily Lectionary for Morning and Evening Prayer, and at its next two meetings the Commission will consider a lectionary for Sundays and Holy Days and a table for the daily recitation of Psalms.
Both the Holy Eucharist and the Daily Office will be proposed in two forms -- a First Service using the traditional language of the Prayer Book, and a Second Service using a more contemporary style of speech. It is the declared policy of the Commission to propose that both the contemporary and the traditional forms be included in a future Book of Common Prayer.
The Commission also read and approved a new translation of 21 Psalms, thus bringing to 139 the number of Psalms specially translated for the future Prayer Book. Seventy-one Psalms which had been translated before 1970 have already been published in Services for Trial Use. It is expected that the remaining 11 Psalms will be completed and published well before the meeting of the General Convention.
Among its other actions, the Commission:
o Approved a draft rite for the Inauguration of a New Ministry (a revision of the present order for the Institution of Ministers);
o Approved a new form for the Blessing of a Church (a revision of the present rite for the Consecration of Churches);
o Agreed on a timetable for the publication of a Prayer Book Study containing Theological Statements on the various rites and services of the Church. This is to be issued as soon as possible after the General Convention of 1973, as an aid in understanding the meaning of the Church's worship and of such of the rites as the Convention approve for trial use;
o Decided to request all Church publications and other media of information within the Church to make it as widely known as possible that the Liturgical Commission will continue to welcome comments and suggestions on all trial rites, and in particular on the Eucharistic Collects and the three-year cycle of Scriptural readings for the Church Year. All such comments will be carefully collated and considered, and where possible used, in preparing a "Proposed Revised Book of Common Prayer " which is now scheduled for completion one year before the opening of the General Convention of 1976 (or 1977 if a system of biennial conventions is adopted).
The Commission's timetable for completing the work of Prayer Book revision assigned to it by the General Convention of 1967 and 1970 is as follows:
1975 Completion of all work on a Proposed Revised Book of Common Prayer;
1976 Publication of the Proposed Book six months before the General Convention.
(If a two-year plan of convention meetings is adopted, the work is to be published in 1977);
1976 or 1977 The General Convention will be requested to devote two full days to a thorough consideration of the Proposed Book. It will then take a first vote on the Proposed Book as amended in the course of discussion;
1979 Final action on the Proposed Book of Common Prayer.
Under the Constitution of the Church, a revision of the Book of Common Prayer requires the approval of two consecutive General Conventions.
This timetable was approved by the House of Bishops at their last meeting in New Orleans, in November, 1972.
The Rt. Rev. Chilton Powell, Bishop of Oklahoma is Chairman of the Standing Liturgical Commission. It includes five bishops, 11 priests, four lay persons, and the Custodian of the Book of Common Prayer member ex-officio. Two representatives of the Joint Commission on Church Music normally attend its meetings, and two representatives of the Synod Committee on Doctrine and Worship of the Anglican Church of Canada attended as observers.