Edit: 2/xii/12
If you’re interesting in doing this, now is the time as the liturgical year has just begun, this being First Advent. At Advent, the celebration is one of anticipation — today is not the day to sing or read about the Nativity but to consider the depth of Israel’s gloom and the hope of a Messiah. The hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel is a good place to start. In our home we dressed one of the garden trees today, put up our Christmas tree, and went to the evening Advent service at our local Anglican church. Some BCC reading here.
I understand why Mormonism does not follow the Christian liturgy. The low church of Yankee America from which Mormonism sprang was rightly suspicious of the cadences and rituals of old Christianity, associated as it was with so many ecclesiastical abuses and the poisonous elitism of medieval European religion. Mormonism has a rich tradition of worship on which to draw, and many Saints are satisfied with their own cycle of worship, from the Sunday block and Firesides to Family Home Evening and daily study.
However, believing that we can learn from other traditions and recognising that some people are interested in a more formal cycle of worship, I am working on a Mormon liturgical year of sorts, inspired by Common Prayer: A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals. You can find this work in progress here. I will update it through the year and welcome your feedback. I will try to Mormonise things somewhat (for example, by including Restoration scripture and celebrating certain unique Mormon holidays) but it will unashamedly remain a kind of stripped-down ecumenical work inspired by the Anglican tradition.
Two quick points:
1. Mormons have an aversion to so-called “vain repetitions” widely understood to refer to set prayers. I have tried to accommodate this by simplifying the prayers and making room for one’s own extemporaneous meditations in the Mormon style. It has to be said, however, that Mormonism does indeed have set prayers of its own and even our informal prayers often fall into “vain repetition” (cf. “nourish and strengthen our bodies”, etc). So the reluctance to say things like the Lord’s Prayer is both somewhat illogical and a fairly new tradition in Mormonism. Written prayers can often provide a source for meditation and can easily flow into something more personal.
2. It strikes me as somewhat unfortunate that in abandoning, for the most part, the Christian calendar, Mormonism loses a link with an ancient cycle of worship that goes all the way back to the temples of Israel. We of course do follow a calendar — a secular one — and are happy to both commercialise what could otherwise be important feasts, e.g. Halloween, and mark the seasons laid down by the Caesars rather than the Bible. Our year is thus more pagan than Christian. I believe that the Christian calendar can help us enter a new time in which God’s work in the world is remembered both weekly — from the Lord’s Day along the daily path of creation and atonement — and annually from Advent to Easter.
I am moved by liturgy and think it need not dishonour the Mormon tradition. Feel free to follow along with me.
This sounds like an exciting project. Having grown up in a military background, much of the year was governed by significant Christian festivals and services. I miss those celebratory event. I felt it gave more of a contextual meaning to Easter, Lent so on and so forth. I look forward to it.
We have incorporated Santa Lucia day into our own family liturgy. We love it. (We are mostly Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas people but want maybe 3 more feast days in our year)
I don’t know whether your liturgical calendar will be hagiolatrous. If it is, I would like more female Saints for the calendar. The trick of course is avoiding looking down the nose at the low church LDS, but I think with a modest liturgical calendar you could pull that off. I love the idea.
I love this idea, RJH. I am woefully ignorant of the Anglican calendar, but have felt the lack of liturgy enough to want to visit other church on holidays. I’m looking forward to following this project.
I also enjoy St Lucia – though more as a self-selected nod to my Scandenavian heritage and to the coming Solstice than as a religious observance.
RJH, I like your take on a liturgical calendar and I’m happy to find something like this to follow.
I recently created my own liturgical calendar, but it’s uniquely mine since a large number of my “saints” are my female ancestors, along with many women from the scriptures. It also incorporates many Christian and non-Christian religious observances.
Love it! I dip into Bach’s Liturgical Year pretty frequently for organ preludes and postludes in sacrament meeting. I doubt that anyone else notices, but it makes me happy.
I grew up in mostly Catholic countries and even went to a couple of religious schools, so growing up we sort of following the liturgical calendar just to keep up with the neighbors. We celebrated several holidays as well. I loved it and plan on continuing it with my family.
Whatever you do, PLEASE include something big for Holy Saturday/the Harrowing of Hell. There’s no tradition that has more scripture and practice (i.e., all of proxy temple ordinances and family history) organized around Christ’s liberation of the spirit captives. (The Orthodox celebrate it very uniquely: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/04/harrowing-of-hell-holy-saturday.html )
I am so excited about this. I’ve wanted to do something similar myself – this might solve my quest. Under Major Holidays for other religions, can I put in a plug for Obon? It nestles nicely between what Pioneer Day ought to be (ie more than just bonnets and fireworks) and what the Halloween season used to be.
sba, I love that idea. Passing that along to my accompanist-inclined siblings.
Oh, Ronan, I am so excited that you are doing this!! I have just this year begun reading about the ecumenical calendar and also the daily offices of prayer (I even downloaded an app LOL). (i have even going so far as to pick up some side-by-side English-Latin, which I adore, and also some Latin primers to try to get my Latin up to usable speed). I love the concept of daily prayer as poetry, being directed and according to seasons and history (many of the offices, at least the Catholic, use the Psalms as their base). One particular author that piqued my interest described them as a “woven tapestry that has continued through many people,places, and hundreds of years”. I just feel like we miss out on so much of the beauty and richness of our Christian tradition. Thank you, THANK YOU for doing this!!
I read a book some years ago by a woman who said she liked to celebrate all religious holidays in some way, of all religions, not just Christian. She said if a day was considered sacred by some people, there was a reason for that, so she kept it sacred as well. The book was Fire in the Soul by Joan Borysenko. So maybe you could include some holidays celebrated by Muslims, Buddhists, etc,
I assume Smithmas will make an appearance on your calendar… Seriously, though, great idea!
Don’t forget all the Mormon stuff happening on Sept. 22.
Such a good post, Ronan. You know that I endorse this wholeheartedly and I look forward to seeing what comes of this fun project.
Huzzah! I love the liturgical year!
Cool idea, Ronan
Awesome! I love the idea of a somewhat ‘mormonised’ liturgical year. I love the concept of liturgy. I’ve even recently begun incorporating prayers from the Book of Common Prayer into my spiritual practice. I don’t see anything wrong with it – indeed, I think that Moroni 7:16 would even endorse and prescribe spiritual practices from other religious traditions for Latter-day Saints if they feel it brings them closer to God and persuades them to do good and become more Christ-like.
I have zero experience with liturgy, but I like the idea of “a more formal cycle of worship”. Can you help me understand how I might implement your liturgy? Can you explain in a little more depth what is meant, for example, by the line “Silence, Hymn, New Testament, Prayers, Our Father” in the Evening Prayer section of your document?
I don’t know exactly how this would work, but I love the idea. I grew up with Catholic friends and envied the preparation they had each year for Easter. What passes as a celebration of Easter in our ward is inexcusable most years and hardly anyone can tell you more than one paragraph’s worth of the story.
I don’t know how to remove my own post, so at this point I can only say, Sorry, that was too negative.
Buendia,
I’m working on a rubric. In the meantime, the idea is to:
1. Say the written prayer.
2. Spend a moment in silence reflecting on the prayer.
3. Sing or listen to the hymn.
4. Read the scripture passage.
5. Say a personal prayer.
6. Say or read the Lord’s prayer.
The best way to get a feel for liturgy is to see it done. You local Anglican Evensong would be a good place to start as it’s likely to be properly liturgical without some of the “smells and bells” you might find strange. This is basically a simplified, lower church version of that.
Generally I agree with the direction and tenor of this discussion. Perhaps this is mere quibbling but…
“many Saints are satisfied with their own cycle of worship, from the Sunday block and Firesides to Family Home Evening and daily study.”
Call for reference? How many?
I know that most members of the church are inactive. Perhaps satisfied but not with our cycle of worship any more.
I know that most of the active people in my ward go more out of a sense of duty than any sense of deep satisfaction. They look for just about any credible excuse to miss a few meetings.Even the Bishopric perpetually absent themselves from Sunday School. If it was that good they would find a way to attend.
Home teaching? Temple attendance? Conversions that stick? Vibrant youth programs? Not commonly happening.
i estimate (WAG) less than 10% are satisfied with the “cycle of worship.” More like a grind stone.
I’m for trying anything to improve the status quo. I think our problems are deeper than liturgical though.We do need to do something.
It might be too much extra work, but could I put in a request for a public Google calendar version of this? That would be amazingly lovely. Either way, great idea!
Once a year is done, I may convert it into a calendar.
I really like the idea, and my suggestions for Mormon feast days are pretty much the same ones you chose. (One exception is Epiphany. Is there a Mormon connection I’m not aware of?)
My additions would be:
1) Restoration of the priesthood (May 15th) traditionally celebrated with a father/son camping trip
2) The current prophet’s birthday. (Aug. 21) This is a recent invention, I think, but has become regularly noted in Utah http://www.deseretnews.com/article/print/765597772/Gala-celebrates-LDS-Church-President-Monsons-birthday-in-song-and-story.html.
3) Something more to commemorate the publishing of the Book of Mormon (March 26 is what the Church News suggests)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CD8QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ldschurchnews.com%2Farticles%2F47009%2FFirst-printing-of-Book-of-Mormon-175-years-ago.html&ei=RhhzUK3uE6S2iwKj4IDIDg&usg=AFQjCNG_cfx4By2QoOvbM_9HMll_Z0Kgqw
My favorite non-mormon religious holiday is Passover, but with the more important holiday of Easter scheduled on the same dates, I can see why it might not fit.
Fanny Alger day?
(Sound of iron frying pan crashing against thick Meldrum skull)
Some really good suggestions here. I’ve now moved it to Google.
The Google calendar is:
7267plureqeovv0eq7vdc8tja0@group.calendar.google.com
ICAL:
https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/7267plureqeovv0eq7vdc8tja0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Wonderful, thank you!
Longtime lurker here… I love this idea. Just wanted to let you know that the Google Calendar link is coming up as an email address rather than as a link to a public Google Calendar. Unless I’m doing something wrong?
BlueJay, that had me confused for a while too. GCal allows you to add calendars by inputting a contact’s email address; very weird. Anyways, to do that, click on the down arrow next to “Other calendars” in GCal and select “Add a friend’s calendar” and enter the email address given. Alternatively, you can select “Add by URL” and enter the ICAL address. Either one should work. Good luck!
Ah, got it! Thank you! (and now going back to lurking)
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Could you repost the links? I get an error from google every time I try to add it.
Love this Ronan. Want to put it on my iphone. How?
There’s an iPhone app at commonprayer.net.
RJH, this is slightly parenthetical to the post, but have you read anything else by Shane Claiborne. A friend of mine lent me the Irresistable Revolution some time ago and its attempt to grounded Christian ethics in an immediate response to poverty and alienation has influenced some of my thinking since then.
No, but it looks good.
We celebrated first advent by attending BYU’s yearly Adventsingen, which was nice. It used to be held in the Provo Tabernacle until it burned down and so this year it was held in the DeJong concert hall. Though it was a nice selection of German Christmas readings and hymns, it of course did not conform liturgically to first Advent material. Still really enjoyed it.
We also read Isaiah 7:14 and sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel for our little family advent celebration at home before heading out so it looks like we were on the same wavelength.
Love this project of yours and look forward to its continued development.