Learning in the Wilderness - Living the Liturgy
THE RANGE of skills a person needs to learn in the years between becoming an ordinand and running a parish is extensive, and there can be few members of the clergy who, new to the ministry, have not asked themselves why they never learned this or that in college.
This is even more of a challenge now that the period of learning under supervision is typically shorter than in previous generations. Gone are the days when years at theological college would be followed by a first and a second curacy, working alongside more experienced priests for as much as a whole decade before taking charge of a parish. Now in many Provinces, as the number of those ordained has dropped, and resources are more challenged, new priests generally serve only one curacy before ‘going solo’ and, as a result, learn much of what was once called ‘priestcraft’ in a largely self-taught environment.
It is not my purpose here to assess the net overall result of shorter periods of training and formation; rather, it is to look specifically at its consequences on liturgical fluency. For whatever else is required of a priest, from matters pastoral to theological to managerial, the charge to lead a community in worship is central to their calling, and developing the skills to do it well is one of the greatest services a priest can off er to God, and to the worshiping community.
From whatever form of training (residential or course), and whatever strand of the tradition (‘broad church’, Anglo-Catholic, or evangelical) a priest emerges, their liturgical fl uency vastly aff ects the experience of worship for congregations. My own observation is that, within liturgical teaching, a specific detail that is most neglected, yet most worthy of attention, is the recognition that liturgy is framed and enacted in the language of speech and dialogue, and that the delivery of this kind of language is quite a different matter from the recitation of written language. This is, arguably, the least well taught aspect of liturgical formation, and one of the hardest to master on one’s own.
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Maggi Dawn
An Anglican priest, academic, author and fellow of Cambridge university, is currently Diocesan Theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island. She is also a singer and composer with a strong interest in sacred music.