There is no going back

Henry Breul was a leader of liturgical renewal in The Episcopal Church for forty years, and served as a longtime editor of its publication, Open. In 1991, he and his wife, Sally, retired to a small community in Maryland where the parish church was not reformed in its worship. But he felt strongly that one attends one's parish church and so they remained. Here is a reflection he wrote for the Fall 1991 issue of Open on going back to an earlier piety:

I think it is difficult for those of us immersed in the liturgical reforms of the past twenty years to understand the profound changes that have taken place. We have become used to many things that have, as a result, disappeared from our consciousness and become part of the furniture, as it were. When one of these young people moves into a "time warp" there is culture shock lurking in the pews. Imagine, if you will, a lovely, riverside community with colonial houses and a slow living pace. A place where all the store clerks are genuinely helpful and where people stop to "chin" on the streets. A place where blacks avert their eyes from white gaze and the supermarkets are filled with farm folk on weekends, folk who speak a special patois related to the watermen and the colonial past. Put all this together and then place yourself at the 8 a.m. eucharist in the parish church—liturgically it is 1938. The priest faces that wall, he wears brocaded Barclay Street vestments, he reads all the lessons, moving from lectern to pulpit, he says all the "Amens," and nobody passes the peace.

Now what? Does one simply leave? Look for another church in the next county? Surreptitiously read Rite Two as he reads Rite One? Or hunker down and let it all flow over one? There are more options, but let's not get into Rome or Presbyterianism. If one stays and participates it is necessary to rediscover the piety that served well in seminary. In other words, if you accept the time warp of the streets and the market place, the concomitant liturgical time warp is part of the deal, and it is surprising how easy it is to slip back and worship in a past mode, even secretly rejoicing in the forgotten richness of an outmoded piety.

All this triggers questions. Is it possible that the ethos of the 1930s remains in worship because it still speaks to a cultural backwater? Do people who meet almost daily in a small town find the Peace a very exciting option? People who have a strong sense of community are hard to persuade that the eucharist is community building. It is for them, rather the celebration of individualism with everybody, including the priest, doing their own thing.

The late medieval problems of Rite One become clear when one returns to it after a long absence. Indeed, Cranmer's doctrines of the atonement become offensive to the alert theological ear. The one thing that comes back loudly in all this is that there is no going back. Even a backward, charming community deserves better of its worship that Rite One offers. Cable TV has arrived, drugs have appeared, four people were shot in the public park last Friday, and the signs of the late twentieth century are everywhere. It is time for the local parish to move toward reform.

Those battles that many of us fought years ago are about to break out here in the midst of elms, formal gardens, and boutiques. Retirement seems to be getting more interesting.