Liturgical

The Nature of Language for Worship

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The language of worship is responsive both to the scriptural tradition in which Christians worship and to the cultural context in which the worship event takes place. The interplay between these forces is dynamic and formative, challenging the church to examine the language it uses in worship.

Someday church historians will sift the ashes of the 1960s and 70s and happen on the fact of liturgical renewal. During a twenty-year time span, almost every branch of the Christian community rewrote liturgy. Prayer books were published, draft services through to finished volumes. In addition, collections of prayers were put out (e.g., Huub Oosterhuis, Your Word Is Near: Contemporary Christian Prayers [Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1968]; Michael Quoist, Prayers [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963]; Omer Tanghe, Prayers from Life [New York: P. J. Kennedy, 1968], and others) not to mention reams of experimental material. Not since the sixteenth century has there been such a dramatic recasting of forms for worship. Looking back, what can we say about the “new” language of worship?

Let us begin by bowing to the fact of inevitable change: a new liturgical language was necessary. Suddenly in the mid-twentieth century the English language, along with the other world linguistic systems, changed. In 1934, the fat Webster’s Dictionary contained about 450,000 words. By 1978, lexicographers guessed that perhaps 150,000 of the original 450,000 words were still in use. Meanwhile, particularly in the 1960s, more than 200,000 new words invaded the language (see David Buttrick, “Renewal of Worship—A Source of Unity?” Ecumenism, The Spirit, and Worship, ed. L. Swindler [Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1967], 215-236). Not since the collapse of the Greco-Roman world or the dissolution of the medieval synthesis has there been such awesome reconstruction of the language. For three hundred years school children have plowed through Shakespeare with some understanding, now they reach for a “pony”: the world of words has radically altered.

Von Humboldt understood that people do not have a language, they live in a language. Language constitutes the world we live in and may also shape our identity in the world. So, when language suddenly alters, human consciousness is, in a sense, being reconstructed. All of which poses special problems for those who would scribble liturgy. Not only must prayers and forms of worship be translated into a new language, but they must also be reformed: the metaphors and images that speak faith to faith must be searched, weighed, and chosen anew. If, at present, theologians are mute, struggling to find referential language for “God-talk,” those who write liturgy are equally confounded. Is it any wonder that liturgical texts penned in the 1960s and 1970s are necessarily transient, fabricated in between-the-ages language that will in time beg revision? Language of transcendence is usually the product of an interrelation between faith and cultural “models” (often cosmological). We live now in what must be described as the death of the Protestant Era (A Catholic Era having ebbed some four hundred years earlier!), and we do not yet know what shape the Christian community will have in the future toward which God beckons us. So any liturgical language we attempt will require future revision. The worst mistake a committee constructing liturgy today could make would be to aim at “imperishable prose.” When language changes we have to rewrite words for worship—we have no choice, but our liturgical language as all language is currently in transition. So our liturgical writing is at best makeshift: unstable words stammering in the face of Mystery.

Liturgical language relates to Scripture on the one hand and a community of faith on the other: it is a people’s language responding to their constitutive revelation which is crystallized in Scripture. It was no accident then that liturgical renewal came hand in hand with the publication of new Bible translations. For centuries, Christian worshipers have sung Psalms, heard lections, and prayed remembering stories of God-with-us. Trace your way through twenty centuries of Christian liturgy and you will find in the forms of worship not only scriptural quotation but an astonishing wealth of scriptural allusion. So, quite obviously, contemporary texts for worship have been influenced in style and substance by new versions of Scripture—RSV, Jerusalem, NEB, NAB, Phillips, and the like. Those who complain that worship has lost loveliness or who long for elegant Elizabethan English usually bemoan recent translations of Scripture as well (although how anyone can translate crass koine Greek into soaring prose is a mystery!).

While liturgical language works off Scripture, it also relates to human language, to the speaking of a people. Therefore, historically, liturgical language has employed a minimal common vocabulary with theological precision. By speaking of a people’s language and mentioning a minimal vocabulary, we are underlining the fact that liturgy uses public language. Liturgies created by individuals, charmed into poetic expression, have seldom worked well: liturgical language is for a people to use, not admire. While liturgy is in the language of people, it must express a confession of faith: thus the primary criterion for liturgical language is theology. While liturgy moves from Scripture and employs the ordinary language of a people, historic confessions of faith govern liturgical expression. Like it or not, liturgies are theological documents, so that style, structure, image, and the like must be weighed theologically. Because communities of faith are in time and culture, ongoing theological controversies are bound to emerge in the production of liturgy and are usually resolved by means of political compromise (The committee that labored long over The Worshipbook argued over features of the Eucharistic Prayer for years!). All we are saying is that liturgical writing is a delicate theological pastime involving interaction of Scripture and public language, not to mention technical matters such as rhyme, syntax, metaphor, and the like.

Of course, underlying all liturgical language are what might be termed “models,” which in turn delineate fields from which metaphors may be drawn. For example, Daniel Stevick notes that the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, dating from the sixteenth century, draws heavily on the model of Sovereignty: God is King, his people are subjects; God is throned on high, his people bow in dependence (Daniel B. Stevick, Language in Worship [New York: Seabury Press, 1970], 41-52). Now, obviously, a quick tour of the book of the prophet Isaiah will convince anyone that the sovereignty model is biblical. But, just as obviously, the model was also cultural, for the prayer book was penned in a land unified by the majesty of a crowned head. (No wonder Anglophiles still trill Cranmer’s cadences with glee!) There are many, many other biblical “models” and metaphors in Scripture that may be more useful, indeed meaningful, to our current cultural setting. The problem nowadays is that some biblical models, cosmological (e.g., a four-cornered earth with umbrella-like heavens above) and social (e.g., a patriarchal society) may no longer speak for faith or to faith in our world. “Models” of transcendence are a peculiarly difficult problem for even though the seventies moved from nihil implicit in the fifties toward a sense of undefined Mystery, our sky (Henny Penny!) is still somewhat fallen. All we are noting is that liturgical metaphor will imply “models” and that such models will have to be carefully chosen.

Lately, we have heard a number of complaints to the effect that liturgical writings in the 1960s and 1970s failed to evoke a sense of transcendent wonder; like poetry, they failed to convey any feeling for “otherness”; a criticism which is no doubt true. Nevertheless, the complaint is worth analyzing more deeply. Obviously, liturgical writers are stuck with a language at hand. Twentieth-century English may well mirror our age: it is startlingly secular. A trip through Kucera and Francis’s Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English [Providence: Brown University Press, 1967] will confirm the suspicion that traditional sacral language has slipped out of use, and a study of metaphor may indicate what literary critics have idly noticed, namely that about the time of Proust, holy metaphor reversed and became a device to enhance the secular. Just as gender has largely dropped from the language so that the world is no longer richly sexual, leaving us to contend with personal pronouns and plumbing alone, so a sense of the sacred is no longer alive in our language and we are left bereft—“then the angels went away.”

Let us probe the matter more deeply still. Romantic hopes to the contrary, liturgical language is public language and therefore is less open to poetic systems than is supposed. Poetry is a metaphor, but a metaphor to function in public language must be in the public mind. A recent work by Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, confirms the notion that metaphors relate to “models” and that public metaphor is determined by models in the public mind: no models, no public metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). For liturgy to regain a sense of transcendent wonder we may have to wait for the re-forming of models in the cultural mind. What liturgy written between-the-ages can do is to go for what Paul Tillich termed “natural” symbols, namely basic metaphors associated with universal human experience—e.g., light, darkness, birth, death, height, depth, etc. while looking toward a rebirth of common faith and common “models” for faith. However, it is worth noting that great liturgies of the Western church have never been metaphorically elaborate or given to poetic flights; they have been remarkably matter-of-fact, terse, and governed by poetic restraint. No doubt, when framed, they were regarded as bland.

A more difficult problem for liturgical writing has to do with form. Attempts at developing new forms have been less than successful, particularly in the deluge of experimental material that was hustled off presses in the late 1960s. Liturgical writing has always worked in forms or from forms, most notably the collect, and the litany. Because forms are social products and are seldom the result of individual creativity, most successful attempts at liturgical revision are likewise seldom the result of individual creativity. Instead, such attempts have worked with inherited forms, modifying a given rather than fabricating something new. When in the 1930s poetry found a new voice, it did so by recovering patterns that were already lying about in ordinary language. Liturgy can adopt much the same tactic: traditional forms may be modified by the vitalities in ordinary public language. What liturgy cannot do is to be formless.

The collect form, brilliantly studied in J. W. Sutter, Jr.’s famous essay, is probably indispensable because it is good theology and may be native to the movement of religious consciousness (The Book of English Collects [New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940], xv–liii). The theo-logic of the form is worth attention. While Sutter distinguishes three kinds of collects, we can examine what he labels “Type A,” which is composed of: (1) an address, (2) descriptive clause(s), (3) petition(s) or thanksgiving(s), and (4) an ending. The address usually features an attribute of God (e.g., “Mighty God” or “God of Compassion”) which is not only a confession of faith but may well be raison d’etre for praying. The descriptive clause which follows points to a basis for faith in revelation or in the community’s system of belief. So, for example, Israel might pray, “Mighty God, you drew back waves of the sea and let your people go through the waters … ,” remembering deliverance from Egypt through the Reed Sea. Usually, the address and the descriptive clause relate: would Israel call God “mighty” if the marvels of deliverance were not remembered? The petition (or thanksgiving) in turn depends on the memory found in the descriptive clause. Remembering how YHWH liberated the people of Israel from Egypt, we dare presume a promise of liberation now, “Set us free from every bondage,” and even guess God’s purpose in liberation, “So we may ever praise you.” The conclusion of a collect, in its simplest form, is “through Jesus Christ.” The conclusion not only recalls the impulse for all Christian praying, namely confidence in God’s love founded on revelation in Christ but also affirms faith that our praying is mediated through the high priestly intercession of a Risen Lord. Though some collects keep the form with greater care than others, every collect is a theological pattern with immense usefulness for public worship.

The collect has been with us for centuries, from the Shmone ’Esreh of Jewish worship to the present day, and has survived surely because it is theologically precise and does match the natural movements of faith-consciousness. The problem for writers of contemporary liturgy is how to retain the form while avoiding infelicities such as “you who” at the beginning of the descriptive clause. The Worshipbook embraces collect form and contains numerous collects, some of which may work:

Merciful God, who sent Jesus to eat and drink with sinners: lead us to your table and be present with us, weak and sinful people, that, fed by your love, we may live to praise you, remembering Jesus Christ our Savior. (The Worshipbook, [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970], 15)

The collect form can, of course, be expanded or written loosely as a substructure within longer prayers, as in the following: Almighty God: by your power Jesus Christ was raised from death. Watch over dying men and women. Fill eyes with light to see beyond human sight a home within your love, where pain is gone and frail flesh turns to glory. Banish fear. Brush tears away. Let death be gentle as nightfall, promising a day when songs of joy shall make us glad to be together with Jesus Christ, who lives in triumph, the Lord of life eternal. (ibid., 185)

The astonishing thing about a collect form is that while it disciplines word with theological tough-mindedness, it also permits vitalities of ordinary language to function. Though the form is ancient it is open to contemporary usage. Here is a modified collect filled with the colloquial expression: Eternal God: your Son Jesus had no place to lay his head, and no home to call his own. We pray for men and women who follow seasons and go where the work is, who harvest crops or do part-time jobs. Follow them around with love, so they may believe in you and be pilgrim people, trusting Jesus Christ the Lord. (ibid. p. 190)

Notice, whether loosely built or tightly woven, the collect tends to produce disciplined terseness in prayer, poetic compression, and intensity, as well as a framework that is theologically appropriate.

The other major liturgical form is litany, a responsive system that has pre-Christian roots and has been employed century after century in worship. “The Grey Book,” a proposed revision of the English Book of Common Prayer printed in 1933, contains examples of the litany in its many stock forms, e.g., depreciations (“from … ”); obsecrations (“by … ”); suffrages (“that … ”), etc. (This revision was published in America as The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory [New York: Oxford University Press, 1933. For a useful discussion of different litany systems, see W. Maxwell, Concerning Worship [New York: Oxford University Press, 1948].) Now, clearly, many of the stock systems contain archaic responses and sometimes cumbersome grammar, but nevertheless, they may imitate natural modes of speaking before God.

Writers who employ litany form ought to become familiar with problems of internal sequence, as well as with a variety of possible constructions. If we adapt a form, or even break a form, we must first master the form itself in classical expressions. The Worshipbook contains a number of litanies, some of which are worth studying, such as the Litany for the Church, pp. 116–118 (by David Romig); the Litany of Thanksgiving, pp. 114–115, or perhaps the Litany for the Nation, pp. 127–129. These litanies work from classical patterns but modify form in various ways. Some of The Worshipbook litanies depart from traditional form experimentally, such as the less than successful Litany of the Names of the Church (pp. 121–123).

Before addressing matters of style, it may be well to rehearse an ancient controversy. The matter comes to a head in a little work by Luther entitled “A Short and Good Exposition of the ‘Our Father’ Backwards and Forwards” (Luther’s Works, Weimarer Ausgabe, VI, 21–22). Luther remarks that the Lord’s Prayer begins with a hallowing of God’s Name before it turns to our needs. Should the pattern be reversed by putting our needs first, then by the time we turn to God we may desire him not for his own sake but as answer to our clamorous needs. What is the content of worship, our needs, our religious affections, or God’s glory? The Reformed tradition has always opted for objective worship (e.g., Westminster Shorter Catechism, question #1—Q. “What is the chief end of Man?” A. “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever”). Of late, much liturgical writing seems to have plunged into subjective affect: “We are here, Lord, with our guilts and hang-ups, aware of our … ” While we may well wish to investigate religious affections, reading them in mirrored reflections of God’s presence to faith as some phenomenologially oriented theologians have recently done, the task is meditative and better suited to private devotion than to public acts of worship (see, for instance, R. R. Niebuhr, Experiential Religion [New York: Harper and Row, 1972], and Donald Evans, Struggle and Fulfillment [New York: Collins, 1979]). Our age seems to have been co-opted by the triumph of the therapeutic, so that worship may well be viewed by some as a psychoanalytic, on-the-couch speaking, but we may well be suspicious of liturgical language overloaded with “we” and “our” and “us.” Before God’s glory we may become aware of our human nature in a new way: the Lord’s Prayer does move from God’s will to human need, but the order of movement, as Luther observed, may be crucial. The object of our concern in worship is God remembered and anticipated, not a wallow of affections.

What is liturgical language? Earlier we noticed that liturgy is influenced by Scripture but made out of ordinary public language. Now we must distinguish liturgical language with greater care. Though liturgy employs ordinary language, it does so in an extraordinary way, by speaking to God. Some churches of late have begun worship cheerfully with:

Leader: Good morning.
PEOPLE: GOOD MORNING!

They use ordinary language in an ordinary way, forgetting its extraordinary function. The usage is a come-down from:

Leader: The Lord be with you.
PEOPLE: AND WITH YOU.

So liturgy uses ordinary language in an extraordinary way and, in doing so, stretches language, elevates language, producing a certain oddness. Now the alteration of ordinary language in worship is not necessarily in the direction of poetic diction. Yes, any speaking of God moves toward metaphor, the stuff of poetry, because our only recourse in making God talk is either analogy or mystic silence (never a serious Reformed Church option). But analogy once ventured begs correction. To say, for example, “God loves us with a Mother’s love,” immediately prompts recognition of categorical differences, for surely God-love is of a different order than any pale human imitation. The tension between analogy and counter analogy has always filled liturgical texts. Insofar as liturgy must use metaphor (analogy), the stuff of poetry, it will be poetic; but in recognizing the danger of analogy it must break toward prose, or tumble into silence when speech fails. Likewise, because liturgy must confess our states of being before God, it will use metaphor (“objective correlatives”), but again move toward prose acknowledging that states of being before God may be unique. (The phrase “objective correlative” was coined by T. S. Eliot. Eliot argued that inner states of being could only be expressed by making metaphor. For discussion, see William Wimsatt, Jr., and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965], 667-669.) So, though liturgical language employs poetic devices it is ultimately too public and too practical to sustain poetic diction. Liturgical writers, slightly in love with the poetry of affect, tend to produce liturgies that sound something like second-rate T. S. Eliot: their language is seldom sayable by congregations (except with inward guffaws). (See for example material in The Chicago Theological Seminary Register LVII [May–July 1968]: 4-5.)

So liturgical language is woven out of ordinary public language used in an extraordinary way. Obviously liturgical texts must be said by a congregational “voice,” and therefore will tend toward a manageable minimal vocabulary and a short phrasing to permit breathing. Difficult polysyllabic words (such as “polysyllabic”) will of course be avoided, particularly words drawn from less-than-public spheres. Sociological terms and psychological jargon can be avoided, along with the lingo of management. Arthur Herzog’s little book The B. S. Factor will provide countless examples of language to be avoided in the writing of liturgy, from “input” to “organization” to “share” (as a verb) to “dialogue” (as a verb) to “church-wise” or any other -ize or -wise word (Arthur Herzog, The B. S. Factor [Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974]). In worship we dare stand before God, but not with cant! Child-talk is closer to the language of worship.

Liturgical languages uses depiction: it is filled with imagery: we must see before we can pray. If we are going to pray for the elderly sick then, we will avoid general terms such as “afflicted” as well as clichés like “beds of pain.” We must imagine actual scenes. Recently we heard a young preacher pray for “people who are sick, who turn from side to side in pain, or stare at ceilings.” His images, perhaps cumbersome, were at least better than usual clichés.

Now, the difficulty in choosing images is that pictures we select may not match with common experience, they may be occasional or idiosyncratic. Nevertheless, liturgical writers can call to mind a range of images, assess them, and select those most likely to have a kind of “universal” validity. Dangers are many. One of the problems has to do with style, namely, adjectives. Adjectives in language designed for oral use are weak. While adding little, they increase words per line and therefore rhythmics. Too many “beats” per line will tend to obscure meaning or create a heaviness, a cloyed sound. So the problem for writers is to go for phenomenal precision for images, while at the same time avoiding the adjectival—no easy task. Another danger has to do with time and change. Images quite compelling, even “universal” in one moment, may no longer function as time passes. With social custom rapidly changing, we may have to acknowledge that all liturgical writing is transient, as transient as preaching. Though the Book of Common Prayer held up remarkably well for generations, perhaps such longevity is no longer possible. Opting for general, somewhat abstracted, language will not do, for instead of serving more people, it always serves fewer. Perhaps if cultural custom settles someday we may image with surety—fortunately, such a day is not near (Are all eras of cultural stability idolatrous?). All we are saying is that good liturgy will image, will depict the concerns of prayer.

Liturgy uses cadence. In all fine liturgy, there is rhythmic subtlety. Ideally, metrics in liturgy ought to be imitative, matching content, mood, or images employed. Because ordinary public language employs all kinds of rhythms in speaking, so will liturgy. Rhythms in liturgy are achieved by rhetorical and poetic devices; rhetorically, by double and triple phrasing; poetically, by internal vowel rhymes, occasional subtle end rhymes, by alliteration (sparingly), various tropes, etc. Virtually all of the collects in The Worshipbook are marked by cadenced language: some work nicely while others do not. Look at a prayer chosen at random, not as excellent (actually, it is a rather poor prayer), but as typical: Almighty God: in the beginning you made men and women to join in shared affection. May those who marry be filled with joy. Let them be so sure of each other that no fear or disrespect may shake their vows. Though their eyes be bright with love, keep in sight a wider world where neighbors want and strangers beg, and where service is a joyful duty; through Jesus Christ the Lord. (p. 184, adapted)

In addition to the variable length of the sentence, the prayer picks up “j” sounds in the first two sentences with “join” and “joy,” thus indicating, at least by sound, that joyful marriage is a fulfillment of God’s planned “joining.” “Fear,” a short word, is balanced by a three-syllable “disrespect.” The internal rhyme of “bright” and “sight” speeds the last sentence in which staccato words “want” and “beg” follow on complex words “neighbors” and “strangers.” The last phrase though started out in parallel construction with a previous “where” clause, returns to pick up the earlier “j” sound with “joyful.” The example was chosen, a weak prayer, does at least indicate the sophisticated patterns employed by The Worshipbook combining rhetorical phrasing and poetic devices. Now prayers can be overcadanced; they may overdo rhetorical phrasing—triads and doublets ad nausaeum—and may repeat poetic devices so that they become obvious, arty, and even “cute.” Nevertheless, a kind of studied ease of speech (rhetorical patterns) and beauty (poetic diction) are found in Christian tradition.

Language of worship, we have argued, works off of ordinary public language. As such it turns from the archaic that is no longer useful and, at the same time, fears the colloquial that is either transient or decidedly subcultural. Because public prayer has become a tradition through the centuries (collections have gathered “great” prayers of the ages), the tug of the previous form is strong. Have we not all heard contemporary prayers (using “you”) slip back into painful anachronisms such as “beseech” and even “vouchsafe,” or more subtly into what may be termed the prayer subjunctive (“O Lord that we might … ”). On the other hand, who has not been jarred by kitsch slanginess in “Give it to us good, Lord … ” and other unfortunate phrases. The Worshipbook has leaped into contemporary phrases more than other “official” prayer books. Most of these colloquial phrases may be found in the collection of prayers that concludes the book. Here you will find such contemporary expressions as “settle claims” (p. 179), “put down by” (p. 179), “hooked on” (p. 182), “grown up” (p. 184), “break up” (p. 186), “wide open to” (p. 187), “in touch with” (p. 187), “name-calling” (p. 187), “scorekeeping” (p. 187), “good times” (p. 188), “follow up” (p. 188), “go where the work is” (p. 190), “cover territories” (p. 190), “think things out” (p. 191), “lose track of ourselves” (p. 192), “no strings attached” (p. 194), “Weigh us down,” “cash on hand,” “travelling light” (all in one prayer on p. 199), “Go about your business” (p. 200), “fall in love with” (p. 200), as well as many others. The Worshipbook chooses such phrasing not to be “trendy” but to take hold of conventions that have developed in ordinary language and use them in extraordinary work of prayer.

Of course, the trick is to use ordinary expressions in a heightened, all but poetic diction, that brings out the true meaning and, at the same time relates to levels of experience common and profound. Clearly, The Worshipbook is attempting to relate to deep levels of human experiences when it describes grieving, “We pray for those whose tears are not yet dry, who listen for familiar voices and look for still familiar faces.… ” (p. 113. The repetition of “familiar,” and the ambiguity of “still” is, of course, deliberate) or in the odd participle ending of, “For growing up and growing old; for wisdom deepened by experience; for rest in leisure, and for a time made precious by its passing.… ” (p. 115)

Devices, systems, tropes—the words sound calculated, even manipulative. Nevertheless, liturgical writing is neither a calculated condition of other human minds nor a form of spiritual outpouring, the self-expression of a warmed heart: it is technical, hopefully, useful language offered to neighbors for the praise of God.

How does one write liturgy? A person who strives for immortality will end up sounding pretentious; one who tries to be “mod” will sound trite. Writing liturgy is a tough act, to say the least. You must be faithful to traditional faith in a language that is often less than serviceable. Our language is secular and, only now at the tag-end of a terrifying century, is coming alive again. For the liturgical writer, however, public language is all there is. The writer can scramble along the edges of language where transcendence finds expression, but it is not easy. Perhaps every liturgy is written before the time (better spelled THE TIME, perhaps). Note that in The Worshipbook the editor’s only signature is found in a final prayer. It reads:

Almighty God: you have no patience with solemn assemblies or heaped up prayers to be heard. Forgive those who have written prayers for congregations. Remind them that their foolish words will pass away, but that your word will last and be fulfilled, in Jesus Christ our Lord. (p. 200)

An Artist’s Perspective on Creating Visual Art for Worship

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The following article examines the process of commissioning and creating visual art for worship from the point of view of an artist, exploring, in particular, the unique concerns of the liturgical artist.

After fourteen years as a professional craftsperson, working in pottery and fiber, I have become increasingly interested in making things for use in worship. The occupation of “dressing the church” uses many of my past experiences and skills, but it brings with it a new set of problems—personal and professional. The following reflections developed as I wove vestments, hangings, and altar cloths. I hope they will strike a chord with others who can develop them more fully and more deeply.

A Question of Design

As I do liturgical design work, one question repeatedly comes to mind: What is the difference between designs for the liturgy and other designs? I don’t feel any different doing liturgical work, and there is no apparent difference in the design processes. I gather information from a client and find out as much as possible about the space in which the object will be used. I show samples, swatches, and sketches to elicit responses; then within the limits of available materials and technical skills, I produce the best design possible. That’s pretty straightforward, though not easy. Any artisan who does commission work or custom orders has a healthy respect for the difficulties involved in communicating with clients and in satisfying them with the resulting product.

Many conflicts and tensions are built into the design process, and picking one’s way through them is a balancing act. The artisan has to balance conflicting responsibilities. Details of planning or producing, for instance, require constant attention, while one’s vision or image of a beautiful creation shimmers in the future. Such a “stereoscopic vision” must be held in focus for the goal to be attained with any success, or the result will lack clarity.

Another conflict or tension exists between the desire to spare no expense to produce the most beautiful object possible and the real limitations placed on the artisan’s time and the client’s pocketbook. Sometimes the design process is unexpectedly prolonged by something as simple as the unavailability of required material. But such stumbling blocks, conflicts, and tensions can become the steppingstones to where one wants to go. This is a matter of making good use of the time at hand to think about and experiment with design possibilities.

The process is almost the same whether the commission is for an altar cloth or a bed quilt, but the completed works will be used in distinctly different ways. Liturgical design work is done for a community rather than an individual, and that community uses the work for a sacred purpose: to enhance worship.

Designing for a Community

Even though the artisan may deal with one individual who represents the worshiping community, that person must convey the needs and desires of the whole group. The artisan needs to ask the right questions and gather as much information as possible before proceeding, but the design is not produced by committee; it is the responsibility of the artisan alone. If the proposed design is not acceptable, it may be modified; another design can be worked out or another artisan hired.

The resulting design should express or reflect the nature of the particular community, but it should also point that community to what it might become. This prophetic quality, or prescience, is an elusive but important element of art that challenges the body of worshipers, encouraging response and growth. If “we become what we behold,” as Psalm 34 suggests, then all the visual elements in a church are vitally important. The community’s response to the completed work can be a powerful dynamic when it gathers to worship and when it goes forth into the larger community.

In addition to considering the community for which work is executed, one must also carefully consider the sacred purpose of the completed work. This purpose is realized when the object is taken out of the artisan’s control and put to use. At that moment this “work of human hands” is made holy. If the artisan is in the congregation, it is a humbling and poignant experience to see the vestment of chalice or altar cloth used in the context of worship.

A designer must understand that the object is made holy, not by human efforts alone, but by being offered and used for a sacred purpose. This fact frees the designer from the worrisome feeling that only saintly or religious people can make sacred objects. No human being is adequate to this task, and if this fact is not fully accepted, some problems are bound to arise. For one thing, if the artisan feels “unworthy,” there will be an almost compulsive temptation to multiply the use of sacred symbols on the work. This multiplication has a “desanctifying” effect, for the harder we try to “make” something holy, the more we are assured of failure. The multiplication of symbols weakens the power of the object. By accepting the fact that the object will be transformed more by use than by symbols, the artisan is free to do what he or she does best. Creative energies can then be focused on making a beautiful form through which the liturgy can come alive and flower in the community.

This topic of the object’s holiness has personal parallels for the artisan. On our own, we might achieve virtuous lives with great effort. But we cannot make ourselves holy; God alone does this. We can offer ourselves to God and cooperate with God’s actions in our lives, or we can choose not to. We can receive the Lord’s blessings joyfully and gratefully, or we can take them for granted. We can share God’s gifts with others or keep them to ourselves. But if we offer ourselves to God, as the work of the artisan is offered, then God can use us for God’s own purposes.

Respecting One’s Craft

God’s work in completing the process of liturgical design does not diminish the importance of the artisan’s effort. We must bring to any work we do for churches a sense of reverence and respect, but not to the point of timidity or immobility. Being self-conscious is as much difficulty as being insensitive to the work’s importance and potential. Fear of doing something that is unintentionally funny, absurd, or even scandalous—something that will be shown as a “bad example” in someone’s slide show at next year’s liturgy conference—must be overcome again and again. Otherwise one will do only what is “safe,” repeating something that succeeded in the past. That course of action results in work that has a deadly, sanitized look. Removing the risk means removing all the things that invigorate a work; it is the death of creativity. “Playing it safe” won’t displease or offend anyone, but neither will it move people to smile with joy, shed a tear, or pray spontaneously.

I have resolved this tension between safety and risk by making the best work I can. Then I show it to someone whose judgment and taste I respect, for comments and criticism. This dialogue helps me to grow and try out new ideas. Looking at other works, traditional and contemporary, also helps.

People who are interested and knowledgeable in liturgical design are difficult to find. When I do find them, I consider them gifts. Various people appear in my path when I need them, and for that I am grateful. Both their encouragement and their critical comments have helped me to continue working in the liturgical field when confidence wavered or when logic could provide no answers. One such resource person I met through a magazine article, and we developed a correspondence. I met another when friends brought someone into our shop. Others came from a design workshop and a visit to a seminary to look at a vestment collection.

I value my dialogue with these people who are vitally interested in a rather specialized field of design work for which good books and periodicals are hard to come by. These people are clergy and lay, women and men, of various ages and backgrounds. What is important is that we share a common vision: we want to create beautiful things to be used for a sacred purpose by the worshiping community, and we each have different abilities to contribute to that end.

Catalog versus Craft

Why order custom-made work when articles can simply be ordered from a catalog? While there is nothing inherently wrong with ready-made vestments or altar cloths, they can never replace objects crafted with the personal skill, inspiration, and creativity of an artisan. Never having the chance to commission original art would be a great loss to the community as well as to local artists and artisans. The presence of something unique and beautiful is a great gift; it calls forth peace and healing—even conversion—at deep, unspoken levels in both the artist and the viewer. Thomas Merton said, “Sacred art is theology in line and color, and it speaks to the whole man.… The material elements of the image become as it were the vehicle of the Holy Spirit, and furnish Him with an occasion to reach souls with His hidden, spiritual power” (Thomas Merton, Disputed Questions [New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1976], 156).

When parishioners make a vestment or an altar cloth, they often think that materials must be ordered from a church goods catalog; yet actually, they could purchase the same fabric locally. In a local store, they can examine the material, or ask for a courtesy discount, or have the owner order just what they need. But some church goods catalogs suggest that their fabric is special, beyond the ordinary; the fact that it costs more than local goods only seems to enhance its desirability. Catalog prices for mass-produced items are often so high that an experienced artisan can produce work at competitive prices. Catalog prices, after all, reflect the cost of employees, accountants, equipment, and 200-page annual color catalogs. Responding to the desire for crafts, some suppliers list handmade or handcrafted items, like carved crosses from Italy, that cost thousands of dollars. Imported crafts are not necessarily better than domestic crafts; artisans working in this country can produce equally authentic and beautiful objects, and at less cost.

Adapting the Ordinary

Why can’t an artisan’s ordinary production items be purchased for use in church? If you buy a handmade iced tea pitcher and goblets to hold and serve the consecrated wine, you are not making use of the artisan’s ability to design something special for liturgical use. The maker of a custom Communion set considers such important aspects of the design as the capacity of the vessels, their size in scale to the altar, the extra stability required, and ease in passing them from hand to hand. Such a design takes time and should be done sensitively. Artisans should pray for the grace to do simple and subtle liturgical design work. Obvious solutions, such as putting a cross on an existing iced tea pitcher or sewing the word Alleluia on a spring hanging to make an Easter banner, do not make good liturgical design.

The obvious does not invite us to go deeper, to reflect, to look, to wonder. Sensitive use of color and symbol in church design work is a natural means to lead us into supernatural realities with all their mystery. The obvious solution (“Alleluia!”) has a bullying quality that brings out our defenses or numbs us; subtle solutions lead us gently, gracefully, into worship. “Where there is revelation, explanation becomes superfluous” (Frederick Frank, The Zen of Seeing [New York: Random House, 1973], 28).

For an artisan, the completed work becomes a prayer to which the community can say “Amen.” Freedom, however brief or fleeting, can be found by losing oneself in such a work. Though questions linger, their importance fades. What matters to me at the creative moment is that both the artisan and work serve a sacred purpose and become incarnations in which God’s spirit can live.

A Glossary of Terms for Liturgical Vestments

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Many technical terms are used to describe the variety of vestments and textile arts used in worship. These terms are defined here.

The vestments worn at the Eucharist are derived from the dress-up clothing of the late Roman Empire, the dominant culture of the world in which Christianity first took root. The only exception is the stole, which is a sign of office.

The basic garment is the alb, which is properly worn by all ministering at the service. Some albs are intended to be worn under other vestments, are put on over an amice (which is simply a neckcloth), and girded about the waist with a rope cincture. Other albs are designed to be seen, are more tailored in appearance, and frequently require neither an amice nor a cincture.

The surplice is a medieval variant of the alb. It is appropriately used as a substitute for it by all except the priest-celebrant, the concelebrating presbyters, and the ministering deacons.

The cotta is a shortened surplice. It is also far less attractive. Its use is not recommended, even for choristers and young servers.

Priests’ stoles are worn over both shoulders, and hand straight down in front.

Deacons’ stoles may be worn in three different ways:

  1. Over the alb (and under the dalmatic), over the left shoulder, drawn across the chest and back, and fastened on the right side.
  2. Over the alb (and dalmatic), with the center under the right arm, and the ends drawn across the chest and back and over the left shoulder to fall front and back.
  3. Over the alb (and dalmatic), with the center on the left shoulder, and the ends hanging straight down front and back.

The chasuble is the distinctive vestment of bishops and priests at the Eucharist. (It is also worn at the Good Friday and Holy Saturday liturgies.) Some modern chasubles are designed to have the stole worn over them. Most chasubles are not, however, and look best when worn over the stole. Chasubles worn at celebrations facing the people should be as attractive when seen from the front as from the back.

The dalmatic is the distinctive vestment of deacons, and its use is not confined to the Eucharist. It may be worn at all celebrations or only at the more festive times and occasions.

Chasubles and dalmatics, as pointed out above, began as articles of clothing, and it is desirable that they appear to be such. Their essential beauty should derive from their cut and choice of fabric, rather than from embroidery or other ornamentation. It is not necessary that the fabrics chosen should be “ecclesiastical”; decoration that suggests “slogans” should be avoided.

A cape may be worn by bishops and presbyters at services that do not include the Eucharist.

The use of frontals to decorate the altar is very ancient. In their classic form they fall to the floor, sometimes on all four sides, sometimes only on the front and back. In the latter case, the “fair linen” that covers the top of the altar falls to the floor at the ends.

The Use of Liturgical Vestments

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Vestments, which have a long and venerable history in liturgical practice, provide many opportunities for artistry and creativity. The following article outlines guidelines for the use of vestments, taking into account both the history of their use and the differences of a variety of worship traditions.

“And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. And you shall speak to all who have the ability, whom I have endowed with an able mind, that they may make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him for my priesthood.” … And of the blue and purple and scarlet stuff they made finely wrought garments, for ministering in the holy place; they made the holy garments for Aaron; as the Lord had commanded Moses. (Exod. 28:2–3; 39:1, RSV)

In Exodus is seen the beginning of a long tradition that is still with the church, that is, the tradition of wearing special garments for worship. The tradition affects the laity as they dress in their “Sunday best” to attend public worship services and the clergy as they wear various types of robes and other garments to lead public worship.

History Within Christianity

As the Christian church grew, special garments were adopted by its leadership in the style common to the upper lay classes of imperial Rome (Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy [London: Dacre Press, 1945], 399). This style was the linea (a long linen robe with long, close sleeves) above which was worn a tunica (a garment that ended at about the knees and had short sleeves), and above that was the chasuble (a round piece of cloth with a hole for the head in the center) worn on formal occasions or when one was outside (Dix, p. 400). This was the common costume of the clergy, civil servants, and senators and remained so even after lay styles had changed to the more military-style invading barbarians had brought to Roman territory in the fourth century.

The first recorded appearance of special liturgical vestments was in A.D. 330 when the emperor Constantine presented such a garment as a gift to the new cathedral in Jerusalem. The vestment was a robe, probably in the style of the common linea, tunica, and chasuble, made of gold tissue to be worn by the bishop when presiding over baptism during the Easter vigil (Dix, p. 399). We see in this development that the style remained that which was common to the upper lay classes, but the material of liturgical garments was becoming quite elegant.

The first move to a special liturgical garment was the adoption of the pallium near the end of the fifth century. The French clergy had sought to adopt the pallium, a scarf of secular-office, as a special badge of ministry, but they were rebuked by Pope Celestine I in a.d. 425. Celestine said that he wanted “ … bishops distinguished by life, not robes, by the purity of heart not by elegance.… ” (Dix, p. 401). Celestine’s opinion did not prevail; by the late fifth century, the pallium was adopted by clergy of all orders as the liturgical vestment of the church.

Soon other developments in liturgical vestments became popular. The maniple, which began in Egypt and reached Rome in the sixth century, was a sort of large handkerchief or napkin worn on the left arm or carried in the left hand. The tradition of it stayed with the church until the twelfth century, when the maniple became embroidered bands on the left sleeve of many vestments (Robert Lesage, Vestments and Church Furniture [New York: Hawthorne Books, 1960], 10). The traditional tunica also developed a slightly longer form with larger sleeves and was renamed dalmatic. The dalmatic was worn without chasuble. The dalmatic was accepted in the late sixth century as the distinctive vestment of deacons in the Western church (Dix, p. 402).

By the seventh century, a special costume had been adopted as the official clerical vestment of the church. In a.d. 633, the Council of Toledo ordered the restoration of alb (another form of the ancient linea), stole, and chasuble to a priest who had been unfrocked and was being restored to orders (Dix, p. 403). This account witnesses to the official acceptance of these garments as vestments strictly for the clergy.

During the fourth and fifth centuries, the unwritten policy of the church was to celebrate the liturgy in the garments of everyday life. These garments were perhaps made of finer material and were more colorful than much of the common lay clothing but in style and manner of wearing they were essentially the same. The use of symbolical liturgical vestments, like those of the Old Testament, was strictly avoided.

By the end of the eighth-century special vestments were developed largely due to the conservatism of the clergy. While much of lay society had turned to barbarian and military fashions during the sixth and seventh centuries, the clergy retained the old “civilized” fashions of imperial Rome. These fashions were later adopted and developed into official garments of the clergy. Three points may be made concerning the early history of Christian liturgical vestments:

  1. Prior to the fourth century, the “domestic” character of worship was asserted to prevent the church from adopting special ceremonial robes as was the practice of vestment common in pagan mystery religions.
  2. There was no real intention of creating a distinction of dress between clergy and the laity at liturgy.
  3. By the Middle Ages, such a distinction had appeared accidentally because the clergy kept the old costume long after the laity had discarded it, and eventually, the idea of special clergy dress was accepted as right and desirable in itself (Dix, pp. 404, 409–410).

When the church reached this third point of acceptance, many more elaborate liturgical costumes developed that were used to display clerical rank and distinguish clergy from laity.

With the coming of the Reformation, Calvinist and Lutheran groups reacted against the elaborate vestments of the Roman church and adopted the black Geneva gown. The Geneva gown was the proper garb of the educated men of the Reformation period and became the proper garb of the new Protestant clergy. It was a sign that these were scholarly and educated men. The black gown became a symbol of the importance of a rationalistic approach to Christianity. The only ecclesiastical garment borrowed from Catholicism was the stole, as a sign that the person wearing the stole was a minister conducting worship (Joseph A. Culpepper, “Clothed for God’s Glory,” The Disciple 8:3 (Feb.1, 1981): 13–14; Albert W. Palmer, The Art of Conducting Public Worship [New York: Macmillan, 1939], 97).

Current Fashion

In many traditions and congregations, the pastor chooses to wear, or as a congregation’s norms may dictate, a plain dark business suit in which to lead worship. The tradition behind this practice stretches back into the early church tradition of wearing the daily garb of the upper classes. Certainly in the United States, a strong case can be made that the business suit meets the requirement of common, everyday clothing, which does not separate clergy from laity. It points to the fact that the gospel relates to the everyday world and that the clergyperson is one of the priesthood of all believers.

The disadvantage of this style is that there is little celebrative mood conveyed by the business suit and less of a feeling that the pastor is putting on special garments for worship as a visible act of the service of God in the office of the ministry. As more women enter the ministry, some feel we must deal with the question of what they should wear in worship, what is proper, and whether radical differences in dress styles between male and female pastors emphasize sexist tendencies. Clearly, there are better choices for liturgical vestments.

The Geneva gown is still the prevalent style in much of the Reformed tradition. It is serious in appearance and is a symbol of the importance of the acts that occur during worship.

Major objections to the continued use of the Geneva gown are that its dark colors are somber and, thus, do not lend themselves to festivity in worship. For the majority of its history, it has been used more in academia than in the church and, thus, it is more properly an academic garment than a liturgical one. The use of hoods and the addition of doctoral bars place an even stronger emphasis on the academic side of the garment. Furthermore, the Geneva gown developed as a masculine garment. By using this gown as the liturgical vestment of the Reformed tradition, women in ministry are forced to adopt a traditionally male vestment. The Geneva gown is appropriate for worship in some instances, but other styles should also be considered.

The last of the current liturgical fashions to consider is the alb. It has an ancient tradition, which dates back to the linea of the early church in imperial Rome. It is usually a simply cut white robe with a great deal of versatility. In its original form in secular Roman society, it was the garment worn by both men and women. Current styles remain appropriate for either sex. The alb has widespread use today in Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran traditions, and there is growing use of the alb in other traditions (Culpepper, p. 14).

The basic problem with the alb is the fact that it may not be readily accepted by some congregations—but this should not deter its adoption by the church.

The Future

Dressing in special ways can truly be another manner in which we glorify God. Furthermore, the tradition of dressing in some form of liturgical vestment is an ancient one, reaching back to the Exodus stories, and one which was rediscovered and reinterpreted by Christianity.

The alb is perhaps the most appropriate liturgical garment. In style, it is less sexist than other current fashions. The white color lends itself to joy and celebration. The simplicity of the garment allows it to be quite versatile, i.e., stoles and chasubles of various designs and colors may be added designate to the seasons of the church year and various liturgical celebrations.

The alb is used in many traditions and, thus, is a symbol of the oneness of the body of Christ. The Geneva gown, on the other hand, emphasizes the division of the body of Christ by reminding us of the violent reaction during the Reformation against the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Simplicity and modesty should be guiding principles, along with the desire to aid the congregation in celebrative worship.

The Geneva gown is still a useful garment, especially in most Reformed churches, and should be considered as an important liturgical vestment. A pastor may possess a variety of special liturgical garb to be used at various times and places.

A final word must be said about the importance and use of color in liturgical garments. When used with a keen sense of what is right and pleasing to the eye in a given situation color can be one of the greatest liturgical aids. These same basic rules apply to the choice of textured and patterned material for vestments and linings. (See E. A. Roulin, Vestments and Vesture: A Manual of Liturgical Art [Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1930], 41-53.)

We are moving into an age with the most exciting possibilities for liturgical vestments. The changes ahead will lead to more practical, more celebrative, and more versatile garments. The changes, especially in Protestant traditions, will also help ground liturgical garments in the larger history of the entire Judeo-Christian tradition.

The Significance of Liturgical Vestments

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This article discusses both theological and historical perspectives on the use of vestments in worship, referring both to vestments for worship leaders and for important objects used in worship.

In the movie Back to the Future, a young man is transported in a time machine back to the teenage years of his parents (the 1950s). When he is first discovered, his parents’ peers call him Calvin because so much of his clothing bears Calvin Klein labels. Sporting the names of famous designers on seat pockets, sleeves, and shirt pockets is a mark of status in our time. This has rarely, if ever, been so before. Within recorded history, however, clothing has always been more than a mere extension of the skin for purposes of warmth and protection.

Clothing communicated relationships and meanings within a community. Although all the Maori of New Zealand may wear cloaks made of bird feathers, the pattern of the feathers distinguishes one group from another. The contrasting patterns of Chinese and Japanese clothing reveal that the Chinese were predominantly a hunting society, while the Japanese were largely agricultural.

English kings, earls, dukes, and counts can be identified by the shape of their crowns and the number of ermine tails on their ceremonial robes. Denim jeans and flannel shirts are unacceptable attire at board meetings of Merrill Lynch, and the wearing of three-piece pinstripe suits at a gathering of Hell’s Angels could be dangerous.

Vesting the Ministers

So it is with the presence or absence of ritual vesture in communities of Christians. To proscribe all ritual vesture is to communicate a clear theological position and to raise the problem of what suit or dress is appropriate for the leader of this Sunday’s assembly. To prescribe only academic vesture for the preacher and leader of worship is to say something loud and clear about the community’s understanding of the liturgical act. Churches with “high” sacramental traditions are also taking a theological and ritual stance by continuing to use special liturgical vesture for some or all of their liturgical ministers.

Before we begin to focus on the artistic quality of liturgical vesture, we need to look at the liturgical and pastoral judgments to be made about these elements of our sacramental prayer. Music in Catholic Worship (USCC, 1972) reminds us that no artistic criterion is without its pastoral and liturgical implication. The application of words or shopworn religious signs to a chasuble, for instance, reduces this noble garment to a sandwich board and tends to reduce the liturgy itself to a medium of information rather than formation. Not only is a lightweight polyester confirmation “stole” poor art; it also gives rise to ministerial confusion, since the stole is a vestment specific to the ordained minister.

Vesting the Assembly

The use of fabrics in worship goes far beyond the obvious vesting of the presider, since to vest or not to vest an object, person, group, or action indicates the reverence we have for them. Since the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, official liturgical documents have stressed the assembly as the primary symbol in Christian worship. How is this reflected in the use of the textile arts?

How do we vest the entire space where the assembly gathers? Do we still pile hangings around the altar and the presider’s chair and on the front of the pulpit? Does an assembly have any sense that hangings give an added seasonal dimension to the entire space? Is the particular importance of ritual objects underlined by the coverings they bear? The draped cross on Good Friday, the veiled tabernacle, the lectionary covered in precious fabrics—these objects still speak to us of the glory that shines through them. In the same way, the roles of the various ministers can be more clearly symbolized if the ministers are clothed in gracious vesture.

Devotion to the Chasuble

The textile arts, like the other arts that serve the liturgy, have changed over the centuries. The ample vesture of early presiders gradually became shrunken and stiff panels, worn fore and aft. This shift from the classic conical planeta to the less significant “fiddleback” or “Roman” chasuble charts the development of ministerial roles, especially the presider’s, vis-à-vis the entire assembly’s ownership of its liturgy. The conical chasuble is admittedly a garment that does not allow for a wide range of free arm movement. The celebration of the Eucharist, however, in which each ministerial rank (including deacons, acolytes, and lectors) performed only those actions proper to its own ministry, revolved around a vision of the presider as one who did nothing but preside.

The bishop or priest prayed the orations, preached (from a seated position), and raised his arms only at the end of the entrance, offertory, and Communion processions and during the eucharistic prayer. Taking the gifts, setting the Table, and handling the vessels were all done by less encumbered ministers. When some of those ministers, the deacons, did wear chasubles, they did so in a way that changed the shape of that garment (the planeta plicata or folded chasuble). The dalmatic, a full-sleeved tunic, came to be identified with the diaconal role because the deacon could “work” better in that beautiful garment than in the fuller but more confining planeta.

Historians of liturgical vesture are accustomed to presenting charts that show a gradual process of cutting away the long sides of the chasuble in order to free the arms of the presider. As the presider assumed more of the various ministerial roles during the Eucharist, the presider’s distinctive garment, the chasuble, became smaller and smaller. The more the Eucharist was dominated by the priestly office, the smaller, stiffer, and less beautiful the chasubles became. In a sense, one could teach the history of eucharistic development—and therefore, the history of the church—by tracing the evolution of the chasuble.

Fabric Coverings

We can follow a similar route for the vesting of objects. Icons, engravings, and book illuminations abound with illustrations of pious Christians covering their hands with plain linen cloths as they handle the altar vessels. The same simple yet ample cloths often cover these same vessels. Gospel books, pastoral staffs, and vessels for holy oils are covered and carried in the same way. As these objects became minimalized, their coverings became stiff little flaps on which insignificant images were painted or embroidered. Because the objects were reduced as effective signs, and because the actions in which they were employed were no longer open and full, their coverings no longer spoke to the community. Chalices, grapes, and wheat came to be applied to the coverings of bread plates and wine cups to signal that something significant was being covered.

Enter the Banner

The vesting of the great assembly space has evolved more in our own day than in previous centuries. Though we know that magnificent tapestries have occasionally covered the walls of some churches, we have little historical information on significant vesting of worship spaces prior to the modern era.

A banner is of its nature temporary—it identifies particular groups in the entire assembly or procession, or it gives a special but temporary highlight to some person, group, object, or action during a liturgical celebration. A wall hanging, though not permanent, usually has a special place throughout a liturgical season. Banners move into a liturgy and move out; wall hangings are in place before the assembly gathers and remain in place for weeks, months, or even years.

Banners and wall hangings are used more frequently today than at any previous time. Because so many of our first efforts in liturgical renewal treated worship as a communicator of information, banners and wall hangings made their entrance in the great American tradition of the billboard. More and more, however, our assembly spaces are being graced by simple but bold statements of color and abstract design that give greater allowance for the eye’s ability to be caught more powerfully by the imagination than by theological aphorisms or slogans.

Promise for the Future

These remarks may sound like a psalm of lament. They were intended, however, to point out how truly significant vesture is as one of the elements in the ensemble of arts that makes up liturgical prayer. Now, more than ever, visual, graphics, and handicraft artists are being called on to design and execute altar coverings, banners, wall hangings, vesture, and lectionary covers worthy of our growing awareness of the power of the liturgy in which these objects are used. We have moved from the felt-and-burlap stage to hand-woven textiles, finely crafted tapestries, and freeform fiber works. Now we know that the kind of chasuble that sells in gross lots (often to bereaved families who then donate them to the parish) is not fit for any liturgical assembly (and especially not for foreign missions). For the first time, pastors and parish liturgical committees are willing to commission vesture and hangings designed for a particular space with its own unique play of light, wall finishes, and floor textures. The freeing of the Christian imagination in public prayer has opened the door to a significant revival of the textile arts in worship.

No element of life and no art is insignificant to a particular liturgical celebration. In the past two decades, we have learned to recognize music as a central element of worship and not simply as decoration. At first, we spoke of liturgy and music, then of liturgical music, and finally of musical liturgy. In the past decade, we have also taken a particularly critical look at the shape of our assembly spaces, the quality of light and acoustics, and the worthiness of liturgical furnishings. From the beginning of our liturgical reform, we have criticized the quality of translations and new texts. As we become more aware of the crucial role of language, we are beginning to enjoy freshly composed texts that voice our common prayer in a language both evocative and challenging.

We are just beginning to look at vesture and the textile arts. Perhaps we Americans are reluctant to give too much attention to something so clearly decorative as fabric, its shape, color, cut, and flow. But in fact, the nonverbal world—the colors we behold, the textures we feel and touch—beckons us across the threshold of the spirit.