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A Contemporary Liturgical Problem: The Divine Office and Public Worship

The title of this article presupposes, evidently, that some form of the divine office is at least a desirable, if not indeed a necessary, element in the communal public worship of ordinary congregations. But the validity of this presupposition is by no means self-evident. Is not the liturgy of the word and the eucharist all that is needed in the way of a regular assembly for worship? The great majority of Roman Catholics do not regularly attend any other service, and have not done so for some centuries; and indeed in an increasing number of Roman Catholic churches there is no other regular service for them to attend, even did they wish to do so. The increasing restoration of the eucharist to its primacy and centrality in public worship in the Church of England over the last century has by this time produced a parallel phenomenon: the great majority of those Anglicans who make the eucharist their principal act of worship do not regularly attend any other service, and a church which has a large congregation at the eucharist on Sunday morning may well have only a handful at evensong on Sunday evening. And I for one shall be surprised if the restoration of the eucharist to its proper place in the worship of the Free Churches in England, and in Evangelical and Reformed Churches on the continent of Europe, which is as yet only in its infancy, does not ultimately lead to a similar situation. The conclusion is inescapable: the majority of contemporary worshipping Christians (including many of the most committed and most devout) for whom the eucharist is the central regular act of public worship do not apparently feel the need or desirability of anything more. (There are, of course, social and similar reasons which may contribute,