Читать книгу Planning the Church Year - Leonel L. Mitchell - Страница 7

What is necessary is to consider the various options available in the services of The Book of Common Prayer as a part of a total program in which the individual elements are seen primarily as parts of an integrated whole, including readings, prayers, hymns, service music, and sermon. This process is called liturgical planning. If we do not plan, we soon fall short of even the minimum requirements of the Prayer Book. We sink into “We always do Rite One,” or a mindless mix-and-match of incomprehensible alternatives. The individual elements may be excellent, but the service itself appears to have been assembled from the menu of a Chinese restaurant, taking two items from column A, one from column B, etc. The liturgical year is neglected, and the Christmas midnight eucharist becomes distinguishable from Ash Wednesday only by the hymns and the color of the vestments. There is no continuity or integrity in the services from Sunday to Sunday, and we come to the end of a liturgical season with the feeling that there has been no overall theme or plan to what we have experienced, although some of the individual moments may have been excellent. I say these things, not from any lofty vantage point of omnicompetence from which to look down on others, but as a fellow offender and one who is twice guilty because he teaches others how to do what he so often fails to do.