What is in Kelvin's Head?

Liturgy should say what it means, and …

The chiasmus that is so often quoted about liturgy these days is that liturgical writing should say what it means and mean what it says. By and large, I agree with that, though we do have to allow space for the times when we cannot grasp or explain all that God is.

However, I have a wee problem brewing at the moment. The truth is, I don’t understand all the collects that I get presented with for Evensong. Take the one for this Sunday:

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now, what exactly does that mean? And even supposing that we understand what it means, do we believe what it says? I know the members of the Prayer Book Society will be hopping up and down on one leg by this time. Brothers and sisters of the PBS, now is your moment. Tell me, should we really keep saying and singing things that we don’t understand? Was that really what Cranmer would have wanted?

You see, I have to sing this stuff. How can you sing a text you just can’t understand the meaning of? I’m baffled.

I’m baffled and I’m going to sing a different collect on Sunday night.

So bite me.

[Talking of chiasmi, I saw a good one today when I was out shopping in Frasers – “better to be looked over than to be overlooked.” Excellent. The stuff that good preaching is made on. It was Mae West, of course].

Comments

21 responses to “Liturgy should say what it means, and …”

  1. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    I understand ‘merciful God’, the rest confuses.

    And what’s all this about pure English? I thought the English language was anything but pure, hence its greatness.

    I feel that WWCD has great potential.

    Reply
  2. chris Avatar
    chris

    ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service:
    I have a feeling that “only” may belong to “it cometh” rather than “gift” – in which case:
    “A & m God, whose people are only able to serve you adequately because you enable them so to do”

    If I’m wrong about “only” – and it’d be a matter of the way the sentence sounded rather than anything else – then I’d start asking you if the “only gift” could be the Incarnation, ‘cos that’s your comfort zone, not mine. 😉

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    “A & m God, whose people are only able to serve you adequately because you enable them so to do”

    Well, call me a Pelagian if you must, but I ask again, do we really believe this?

    Reply
  5. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Collects should be poetic.

    Collects are not poems.

    What about lex orandi, lex credendi?

    Reply
  6. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    I think I feel an urge to return to the Quakers…

    Reply
  7. chris Avatar
    chris

    I’ll stick to listening for a bit, I think. And sing in Latin when necessary (a language I understand, BTW, but which doesn’t rub my nose in doctrine). And really, God doesn’t need told what God is like.

    Reply
  8. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    I see what chris means with the interpretation – but it’s also possible that the “only” *may* instead go with “whose”: “only God invokes in us a response of service”, perhaps.

    Someone must have had a lot of time on their paws to convolute the poor language thus.

    Clarifying the second half by introducing a dreaded split infinitive would be the least of improvements, too. Serving here&now to not-avoid heaven? Er…

    Reply
  9. Helen Avatar
    Helen

    I found this blog by a circuitous chain of links of Scottish Episcopalian bloggers (I’m at St Mark’s Portobello) and being a fan of Cranmer have to leap in belatedly to defend him. What he wrote was:

    ALMYGHTIE and mercyfull God, of whose onely gifte it cometh that thy faythfull people doe unto thee true and laudable service; graunte we beseche thee, that we may so runne to thy heavenly promises, that we faile not finally to attayne the same; through Jesus Christe our Lorde.

    The bit about ‘running to thy heavenly promises’ must have been smoothed out by someone a bit embarrassed at such enthusiasm in 1662 which is when your version first appears. This collect is a response to the Epistle designated in the 1549 Prayerbook, from Galatians 3 (“But the scripture concludeth all things under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ should be given unto them that believe.”), the Gospel which is the parable of the Good Samaritan (which I presume inspired the bit about true and laudable service), and the Psalm which I think gives the running-towards-God attitude (109: ‘Lord, what love have I unto
    thy law : all the day long is my study in it. ‘).

    Further digging online reveals that most of this collect corresponds to the traditional Catholic liturgy: “Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cujus munere venit, it tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur: tribue. quaesumus, nobis, it ad promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus.” Cranmer gives a literal translation of this, down to the last clause where he substitutes ‘that we faile not finally to attayne the same’ for ‘without offence’. The other change he introduces is the ‘only’ which has provoked comment above: I think that given C16th English grammar this could equally mean ‘from whom alone’ or ‘only by one particular gift’. Probably the ‘modern translation’ would be ‘it is only through your gift that…’

    I think both his changes make the collect more ‘protestant’ (by mid-C16th standards) than the original in theological terms, especially the second one.

    One thing I love about Cranmer’s collects is that they keep the principle of tying up with multiple elements of the readings/psalms for the day: if you change the lectionary, you get a bit lost sometimes.

    (I found the Latin collect here http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/ and this is a great website for finding Anglican service books through the ages http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/)

    As for What Would Cramner Do: conduct services “in suche a language and ordre, as is moste easy and plain for the understandyng, bothe of the readers and hearers.” (He’s also a big fan of doing away with the multitude of confusing books that people can’t find their way around as well.)

    Reply
  10. Kimberly Avatar
    Kimberly

    Helen, what a splendid comment. You’ve managed to justify Cranmer, support modern language liturgies, and encourage a need to simple booklets all in one. A rare feat.

    Reply

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