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Praise him with symbols
by Jeremy Fletcher
The Use of Symbols in Worship COMMON Worship has generated many texts. It would be disastrous if all we did was to admire them: liturgy should be a verb, not a noun. This book encourages us to consider the symbolic and the ceremonial in worship. It is an Alcuin Club publication, and most of the writers have a Mirfield connection; so the treat-ment of incense or oil is not neces-sarily going to thrill that part of the Church of England for whom even a cassock is going a bit far. It is a slim volume that promises much, and delivers a reasonable amount. It will be the salvation of many a student of liturgy who needs a reliable survey of the use of incense, oil, light, and water in wor-ship; and it provides an admirable snapshot of where such things are to be found in Common Worship. There is sensible advice on how they might be used in an actual church setting. The opening chapter on sign-and-symbol theory will also be the salvation of hard-pressed liturgy teachers. There is a very full bibliography. It left me with some regrets, and wishing for more. Bread and wine hardly appear, probably because the eucharist was the subject of a previous volume. That is not the best excuse: any treatment of the symbolic needs to be clear about what it means by the sacramental. After a good theoretical section about image, sign, and symbol, the focus narrows too much to Common Worship. Symbols cannot be completely regimented; and new worshippers might not know their history. Sarah Farrimond’s chapter on weddings and funerals shows the way here: time and again she won-ders whether people will receive what we think we are communicating. So: in an age of aromatherapy massage, do incense and anointing symbolise what we think they do? Jeremy Fletcher is Precentor of York Minster.To order this book, email the details to Church Times Bookshop (please mention "Church Times Bookshop price") |
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