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SUPER-SIZE ME!
Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music
Offers Bloated Ceremonies for GC Approval
Episcopal Church to Act on Adoption
Of Post-Abortion Rites, “Holy” Women and Men
“SUPER-SIZE ME!” should be the motto of the Episcopal Church’s (TEC) Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM). This group of revisionists has inflated our already distorted liturgy with so much fetid hot air that it would bob up heavenward if it weren’t tethered firmly to this world by the leaden language in which it’s written.
Turn to page 185 of The Blue Book, the reference text of TEC’s 76th General Convention (GC), scheduled for launch on July 8 in Anaheim, California.
First the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, then the revised 1979 Rite I and Rite II, then further departures from scripture, apparently now are giving way to something called “Enriching Our Worship,” a series of rites seemingly inspired not by love of God and our neighbor but by love of ourselves in all our unrepentant self-indulgence.
To see proposed revisions to the liturgy, which no longer accurately can be called a Prayer Book, go to pages 185-583 in the 800-page Blue Book and behold what your pledges and offerings have bought.
Of the 400 pages given over to SCLM’s super-sizing, 60 are awash with “Rachel’s Tears, Hannah’s Hopes: Liturgies and Prayers for Healing from Loss Related to Childbearing and Childbirth,” wherein abortion is downgraded to “a difficult decision.”
SCLM has been busy indeed, carrying out the mandate given them by the 74th GC to come up with a post-abortion healing rite. Read the result. To see how SCLM has been burning through your money at posh resorts and in well-appointed offices paid for by your pledges, wade through page after page after page of “Rachel’s Tears, Hannah’s Hopes,” most of it morbidly obsessed with all the specific ills, pains, regrets, and abominations that feminine flesh is heir to, with emphasis on abortion.
After you’ve read this offensive wallow in self-indulgence, please advise your delegates to GC to vote against Resolution A088 (Post-Abortion Healing Service).
The victim for whom we pray in all this is not the innocent baby, but the woman who has snuffed out her child’s life. Should the Church, heretofore concerned with Life Everlasting, be leading the ranks of the Culture of Death? Should it not be encouraging marriage, self-mastery, abstinence, and adoption, rather than selfishness, mutilation, and murder?
Sometimes pregnancy actually results in a live birth. In a “Rachel’s Tears” prayer that applies to this blessed event, a woman’s labor pains are compared with Christ’s suffering on the cross. Today’s revisionists miss no opportunity to downplay Christ’s incomparable sacrifice. Is this blasphemy? Never mind. That’s a topic for another article. It’s bad enough that in a list of songs to accompany these rites, SCLM has included – are you ready? The feel-good anthem of the ‘60s, “Kum Ba Yah!”
1928 Book of Common Prayer Says It All
Compare all this verbose, self-indulgent wailing and wallowing with the concise, reverent, dignified prayers of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that address reproductive events, the death of a child, illness, confession, and absolution.
Here, as in so many things, less is indeed more; it’s certainly more to the point. The entire 1928 BCP, which addresses our every passage through this life and beyond, totals only 611 pages. That’s enough to encompass any evil that befalls us and any joy that elevates us.
“And I Want to Be One, Too!”
To add to the appalling paean to women’s reproductive “choice,” SCLM is promoting a list of “Holy Women, Holy Men” who are candidates for a new Church Calendar. As you scroll down the seemingly interminable list of names, some worthy, some not-so, you’ll be tempted to ask yourself, “Who are these people? Hey, what about me? Shouldn’t my name be in there somewhere?”
Take a look. You won’t believe it. While you’re at it, check how much of your hard-earned cash has been siphoned into these SCLM projects — and how much SCLM is asking TEC to authorize for yet more liturgical super-sizing. It’s all right there for you to read, in the Episcopal Church General Convention website.
ETF is opposed to both the post-abortion ceremonies and the long list of “holy” folk who would be added to more than 200 individuals listed in the super-sized Lesser Feasts and Fasts, a recent addition to the growing pile of books with which we worship.
After church this Sunday, please tell your delegates to GC what you think of such bloated excess. After all, baptized persons are all considered saints of God. Why not just declare this in one sentence and be done with it?
Let’s hope the delegates to GC don’t continue to throw our money at SCLM to continue their super-sized attack on our sensibilities and the liturgy and then claim: “The Holy Spirit made me do it!” –jm
THE PEACE: A HAZARD TO YOUR HEALTH
“The Peace” is a hazard not only to your spiritual health, but also to your physical wellbeing.
The last straw for many Episcopalians who have left the Episcopal Church (TEC) has been “The Peace,” that annoying distraction that has everyone jumping to their feet in the midst of Holy Communion, destroying the solemnity of the occasion, gripping hands, hugging, gossiping, saying “Peace be with you,” and looking abashed if you simply say, “Good morning,” or “Merry Christmas,” or, better yet, ignore the silliness altogether.
Whose idea was this, anyway?
A friend who attends an Episcopal church in New York City told me that last Sunday he heard the women behind him say to her husband during The Peace, “This whole thing is really getting out of hand.”
Churchgoers concerned about their spiritual health prefer to fall to their knees and concentrate on their own prayers or the words of the 1928 Prayer Books they’ve brought to church with them.
Those concerned about their physical as well as their spiritual health choose to kneel in silent prayer and let the ruckus of The Peace pass over them. Why invite infection by the viruses and bacteria that pass from hand to hand during this lovefest? “Breathe on me, breath of God” is an inspirational thought; on the other hand, most of us would prefer not to be breathed upon by a pewmate advancing on us with good intentions on his mind and virus on his breath. Episcopalians are traditionally a well-mannered group, and we’re put in the awkward position of risking our health rather than offending someone by ducking a sneeze.
On its website, TEC addresses the health issue, saying it’s perfectly OK to attend church. After all, you wouldn’t stay away from work just because of a health scare, would you? Next, they’ll be blaming swine flu, rather than the dumbing-down of the Prayer Book, for the decline in church attendance.
Written on TEC home page is, “For some it may be more comfortable at this time to share the Peace simply with a smile.” What a good idea. Better, how about minimizing the health hazard by moving “fellowship” time to the coffee hour after church? In the parish hall, churchgoers have more room to maneuver away from waving hands and handkerchiefs.
Health tip: Grip a coffee cup in one hand and a brownie in the other. This will help you avoid direct physical contact.
Why not avoid The Peace entirely by worshipping with the dignified, reverent, beautifully written, scripture-based 1928 BCP instead of the sadly inadequate substitutes? The Peace, which cropped up along with other revisions in the 1960s and 1970s, never once appeared in the Book of Common Prayer from 1549 to 1928, but made its debut in the 1970s revisions.
The Peace is anything but peaceful. It’s a distraction, an intrusion, and a health hazard. Who would miss it – especially when our priest leaves us with a genuine Peace at the conclusion of the service, from the 1928 BCP:
“The Peace of God, which passeth all understanding . . .” -- jm
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