On liturgical fluency
the strained relationship between speech and the written word in liturgy
I published an article a year or two ago in the Church of Ireland’s SEARCH Journal, on the difficulties faced by priests who are instructed to lead worship using the words in the book, and the fact that written language and spoken language are quite different in function.
“Although the words authorised for use in worship are written down in a book, they are designed to be spoken aloud, and – in the context of worship, which is a dialogue with God, and between God’s people their utterance in word and song should affirm and establish faith. For the liturgy to do its work, this speech quality needs to be grasped. Merely reading the book aloud in a mechanical or interior fashion, as if it is a set of ideas, effectively silences its ‘voice’. Consequently, the person leading needs to learn the skills to transpose reading to speech, much as a musician will make the journey from sight-reading notes from a manuscript to playing music.”
What does a presider/celebrant/worship leader need to learn in order to bring the words to life, without turning it into a hammy performance?
. . . if language takes you only to theory, not to encounter, it is hollow. Feeling, then, is not added by emoting in the delivery of language, but by entering into the poetics of the liturgy. Reading prayers and scriptures aloud, the need is not to attempt some amateur dramatics, but to rehearse the language aloud, understanding its cadences, attending to the emotional register of each section, and noting the direction of address – that is, at what points the address is direct to God, or some exhortation or encouragement addressed to the people, or where statements of faith made as a body (hymns and creeds fall into this category) themselves become ‘performative utterances’ in the instauration of faith, and the complexity of the Eucharistic prayer – a narrative that mixes an address to God with moments that call the congregation into the divine presence. This aspect of liturgical fluency is, arguably, the least well understood aspect of liturgical formation, and one of the hardest to master as a self-taught skill. Once the idea is grasped that liturgical language is, in essence, both spoken and dialogic, the process of developing fluency is similar to that of musicians learning a piece of music. Learning the notes is preliminary, but to get from technical mastery to making music requires the musician to feel their way into the sound and fl ow of the work, which often includes some memorisation. Similarly, liturgically fluency begins by studying the words in the book, and the order of play in the ritual. Simply reading from the book can make the liturgy what Bakhtin deemed a de-personalised, ‘secondary speech genre’; but a fuller grasp of the poetics, the rise and fall of the emotional fl ow, the direction of address, the dialogue between each individual, the congregation as a body, and God, breathes life into the words.
