Has the time arrived for variety to give way to uniformity? Please read on.
For eighteen or nineteen centuries the local congregations of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church worshipped the Father through the Son and with the Holy Ghost using basically One Rite, one basic form of the Eucharist. Of course, this Rite was regional and there were differences from one region to another and between jurisdictions (East and West, for example). However, each region or jurisdiction had its own basic Rite.
That is, the local priest did not have to decide before, or on each, Sunday which of several available Rites he would use. The shape and content of the Service were fixed for him as also were the Lectionary, Collects, Psalms and Canticles.
Let us ask the question. Was great harm done to the people of God in East and West, in North and South, because in the Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Churches there was (until the 1970s) only one basic service, one form of the Eucharist, available in each region/nation/jurisdiction? They had no variety (except that the Collect and Lessons and Psalter changed each week). Were they spiritually starved without the opportunity to have a different Rite every week or month?
Anyone who argues that they were starved spiritually will have a hard time convincing anyone, for, it appears that the use of one excellent Rite certainly helped to form genuine piety with a Christian mind in millions of baptized believers. And what great examples of Christian writing, music and art were produced within this uniformity of excellence?
In the 1970s, after the Vatican Council of 1962-1965 and the tremendous social and cultural effects of the era of the 1960s, church leaders within the R C Church and the Anglican Churches (not to mention Lutheran & Methodist!) decided that variety is not only the spice of fleshly life in this evil age and sinful world, but is also necessary as preparation for eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. They decided that not only did the people of God need new forms, shapes and types of Liturgy but that within the new provisions there should be variety in terms of Rite. Thus in the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. there are now multiple Rites approved (via 1979 prayer book and publications since) for the Eucharist, and in the RC Church its modern Sacramentary contains a dozen Rites for the Mass.
In 2005, despite the available variety of Rites, in practice most Episcopal congregations choose one or two, print them, and then use only these – simply because it is too much work and bother to keep on changing (as liturgists would like them to do). In practice also, most Roman Catholic priests generally use only two of the possibilities, the traditional Rite on formal occasions and a shorter one when they have limited time available to say Mass before hurrying off to another parish or engagement.
Perhaps it is politically incorrect to ask the question: Does the availability of multiple Rites with the accompanying lack of any basic uniformity actually militate against the formation of genuine piety, devotion, Christian mindset and sense of the unity of the Body of Christ? Nevertheless a case can be made for an affirmative answer to this question. Certainly there is little evidence in the West that the availability of New and Varied Rites has actually helped in the evangelization of the populace and the edification of baptized believers.
Perhaps, after nearly 40 years of experiment and confusion, it may be suggested that it is time to do a major U-turn. That is to return to the One Rite, the traditional Rite, of both the Roman and Anglican Churches, with its availability for Rome in Latin and English and for Anglicans in traditional and contemporary English.
Variety has not been the spice of congregational or eternal life; the time has arrived for uniformity of a comprehensive kind to be restored!
Let us dig again the wells of Abraham and be refreshed by the water of life.
Peter Toon September 21 2005
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