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            In two months time I shall be starting a course at St. Michael’s College on “Traditional Liturgies: The Tridentine Mass and The Book of Common Prayer.”  So when I saw a notice in the Kelly Library of a lecture on the rites of Vatican II, to be held at the conservative Catholic Oratory, I thought I ought to hear it.  I am very glad I did.  The importance of the lecture was indicated both by the size of the audience and by the presence of the Archbishop of Toronto. 
            The lecturer, Dr. Alcuin Reid, put the question very bluntly: do the rites of Vatican II stand in continuity with the church’s liturgical tradition, or are they are a rupture?  He distinguished between what the Council had to say about liturgy, insisting that its pronouncements were theological, not doctrinal, and the liturgical rites promulgated by Paul VI.  He questioned whether even an ecumenical council has the authority to change substantially the traditional worship of the church. 
            But what made the evening worthwhile for me as an Anglican was a quotation from the present pope, Benedict XVI:

“What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.  It behooves all of us to preserve the the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer and give them their proper place.”

            I don’t know whether the authors of the BAS would accept the word “rupture.”  However, in giving the new book the title The Book of Alternative Services they acknowledged that it was not a revision of Cranmer’s Prayer Book but a departure from it.  I am not opposed to the BAS—we use it here one Sunday in the month, and I am grateful that here in Canada Anglicans have a choice, at least in theory, between the two books.  I say “in theory,” because, as we all know, most rectors have assumed that the choice was to be made by them, and not by their congregations.
            Nevertheless, our situation here, which Professor Alan Hayes has aptly described as “Praying in Two Tongues,” is preferable to that south of the border, where the new service book, which came out in 1978, was called The Book of Common Prayer.  This made illegal the use of the 1928 American Prayer Book which I had used all my years as an Episcopalian.  Similarly, the rites promulgated by Pope Paul VI made illegal the missal of Pius V, which I had used from the time of my conversion to Catholicism in 1944 until it was replaced by the new rites. 
            I make no secret of my personal preference for The Book of Common Prayer, but even more passionate is my belief in the right of the worshiper to choose between the available options.  We are in an enviable position here in Canada, since Cranmer’s Prayer Book is still the official service book of our church, however little it may actually be used. 
            Perhaps we would use it more often if we reflected on the advice of C.G. Jung:

“At the time when our most valuable spiritual possessions are being squandered, we would do well to consider very carefully the meaning and purpose of the things we so heedlessly seek to cast overboard.”

March 1, 2009

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