In the CofE we now seem to have Eucharist as the main service. Personally I'm happy with that, but in my youth, before my long period away, the tradition was different. It was Matins every Sunday morning and Evensong every evening. Holy Communion was either before breakfast (often monthly) or sometimes tagged on after Matins. Evensong seems to have continued, and a very fine service it is. But what's happened to Matins? We do have one BCP-type church round here where they use it on alternate Sundays, but apart from that it's very hard to find. Instead churches often have family services once a month where they try to involve children, and embarrassed adults (the majority of the congregation) join in the nursery-style hymns, girating as appropriate. I find it a bit awkward and embarrassing. Or am I being reactionary?
The demise of Sung/Choral Mattins is probably due to the Parish Communion Movement. In my area, Sung Mattins is making a bit of a comeback. My parish church has a BCP Sung Mattins monthly on second Sundays. We have very traditional hymns and the Canticles are sung to Anglican Chant. In rural areas, smaller parishes are increasingly being lumped together into united benefices because of financial constraints and fewer clergy. It's not always possible for the Incumbent to lead worship at every church in the benefice on Sunday so Lay Readers and Lay Worship Leaders are being increasingly utilised in these benefices. In traditional parishes, BCP Mattins is a good choice as it can be entirely lay led. My parish church became united benefice about 30 years ago. At that time our pattern of Sunday Worship was 8am: BCP HC said in surplice and scarf; 9.30: ASB rite B Sung Parish Eucharist in vestments with Lay Reader and Acolyte assisting (moderately Anglo-Catholic): 6pm: BCP Sung Evensong. The other church (about 3 miles away) which was incorporated into the new united benefice had until then a pattern of 11am BCP sung Mattins with BCP HC only once per month instead of Mattins. Our Rector at the time had some difficulty getting them to have more frequent HC's. They were very reluctant to change their pattern of worship. For a while, the Rector did a hybrid Mattins with HC. (The Rector wore surplice and scarf and donned a cope for the HC part. Some of the congregation found this very distasteful and saw it as Romanizing!) In my area, Evensong is not so common in the villages these days. Most people now don't want to attend church twice on Sunday but many of the town churches still have an evening service which is sometimes HC rather than EP. I think a monthly family service can be good thing if it's well planned. There seems to be a trend to try and make worship suitable for all ages and different kinds of people particularly in churches where there's just one Sunday service. However, it takes a lot of thought and careful planning to pull it off - some clergy consider it virtually impossible. A neighbouring church does this quite well and regularly has several young people attending. My church prefers to do occasional services aimed at children of primary school age and these are well attended.
Many thanks, and as I suspected Mat(t)ins can be spelt with one 't' or two! At least we have a choice. This Sunday I'll be at the 09:00 HC service. At ten there's a family service and in the evening a "Celtic Eucharist". Neither of the two latter are really my scene, but a lot of people like them.
Restoring the Eucharist to the foremost place in the church's worship on the Lord's Day was a long-sought reform that took centuries to accomplish. Recovering a place for Morning Prayer in the experience of most believers, without losing the ground we have gained on the Eucharist, will perhaps be the great reform project of the next 500 years or so.
Some things don't always come back. I don't see many Christians looking for the return of the eight offices through the day. Do you think people thought 'Having achieved something with BCP Matins, the real challenge will be to see the proper return of Sext and None into the day as a normative exeprience for believers'?
I'm down. I started praying the hours during lent year and that has been my primary lenten devotion ever since. If anyone's interested commonprayer.org offers the hourly offices online. I usually pull it up on my phone and pray away. Granted, i dont do it all the time. But then, im not a monk.
Some cathedrals and university chapels already have daily, or at least Monday-through-Friday, Morning and / or Evening Prayer. The return of Morning Prayer to a more central place in lay-folks' experience could start with more such places adopting this practice. In parish churches, since the main Sunday service is normally the Eucharist, "early church" could be converted to Morning Prayer, or the parishes where resources allowed could adopt the practice of "earlier church", a Morning Prayer service prior to the morrow-mass or early Eucharist.
There was recently a programme from the BBC documenting the life of Cathedrals, I have to say, there weren't more than a handful of people at Morning prayer. I remember at University distinctly the Chaplain mentioning that between zero and two others was the usual attendance outside of a Sunday. The anglo-catholic church down the road from me has prayers every morning and evening, but I'm pretty sure it's usually just the clergy in attendance. I'm not saying it isn't possible- but I'm certainly rather more pessimistic (quite clearly!) about how much time *most* people are willing to give up for church, and I mean church, rather than God. I imagine most people largely assume prayer to a be a personal and (by unexamined extension) individual matter between themselves and the deity. Prayer in Common, formation, a communal vision of salvation- are these stock-and-trade ideas held by Percy the the generic person in the pew? Shrinkage and wastage of members might encourage a corresponding rise in the devotional bar though?