The Study of Liturgy

Extract

There has been a ‘marked change in liturgical writing in the last few years. It can hardly be called a change for the better, for that would imply disrespect for the great liturgical work of the beginning of the century. A great deal of the work immediately connected with the liturgical movement has not in- ‘ deed merited deep respect in so far as it has indulged in a facile andover-naturalistic philosophising which ill becomes the humble worshipper. But the great historians of the liturgy, men like Neale, Brightman, Bishop or Fortescue, performed the scholarly task of research without which our modern writers would have nothing to say. The previous work still continues in such important studies as Mr. Dugmore’s researches into the Jewish ancestry of the Divine Office). In this book the author has done for the Divine Office what Oesterley, in his study of Jewish origins, did for theEucharistic worship. He has moreover opened a new way of approach in the more neglected study of the non-eucharistic parts of Christian worship. He shows not only that the Pro-Anaphora or Mass of the Catechumens was often celebrated in the early church apart from the Eucharist and so formed a service like that of the synagogue of prayers, lessons and psalms distinct from the central liturgical act, but also that the three daily prayers of Jewish worship begot three or at least two Christian assemblies a day of like nature. This means that the Divine Office is not simply an expansion of the first part of the Mass, which all agree is itself of Jewish origin, but that the day was sanctified by more than one assembly for prayer even before the Mass was celebrated daily, and that this early form of Divine Office was directly inherited from the synagogue. This work on the early shape and ancestry of our official prayer is in the best tradition of liturgical study.