Participation

 Musing on a post at NLM https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2024/08/two-english-converts-writing-on-active.html . Evelyn Waugh's views on active participation are well know. But I had not previously seen this by Caswall writing before he converted.

The dangers of this confusion were identified well over a century earlier by an Anglican cleric named Edward Caswall, as he observed the comparative degree of participation in the Anglican and Catholic services. (Thanks to the Rev. Robin Ward, principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford, in foro privato.)

“The Anglican view of common prayer is that the clergyman is to go through a certain order of prayers aloud, and that every person present must simultaneously go through the same mentally, completing the prayer with an Amen. Thus all intellects are expected in attending our church service to go through the same process and the same mental transitions and course of ideas. No room is left for ex tempore prayer, nor for an adaptation on the part of the individual, and if his thoughts wander for a moment he cannot recover since the prayers have been going on with the regularity of a railroad or of some engine. This often causes persons… to feel disheartened…

now I have observed that the Roman Catholic view of common prayer is quite different. They lay down certain broad demarcations for public service distinguished by ringing of little bells and the actions of the priest, then it is left to everyone according to his capacity and earnestness, and according as he chooses to supply himself with little books learn a few prayers of his own, to join in what is going on. Hence … the use of Latin really does in many respects tend to give the great majority of the congregation comfort, freedom, ease and spontaneousness in public prayer. And it is most certain that a Roman Catholic congregation does enter into the public service with a more complete identification and then English one does, certain I mean to say so far as I can possibly judge from what I see. Wonderful to say, we with an English service are listless and disheartened. They with a Latin service show every token of understanding what each is doing so far as he goes, and betray no listlessness.”

Now there is scope here for a long series of posts, so I shall break off and return tomorrow. But I leave the question of whether Caswall was comparing like with like - most Anglican services are, or were, parts of the daily Office, while the majority of Catholic services are now Mass, and I would think that was already true in the mid 19th century.