OT (Episcopalian changes) Re: Opinions wanted: person of vocatives

John Leland wrote:

> Incidentally, the US Episcopal Church adopted a new version of the Book of
> Common Prayer in 1979 which caused the same sort of emotional response,
> schism etc. as the end of the Tridentine Mass.
Indeed it did.  Not only the change in language, but also in the order of
things (e.g. in the Eucharist).  However, I have no business complaining,
since I fell away from the church long before they changed the Prayer Book.
(They changed the Hymnal too.  Grrrr.)

> I personally am neutral on the changes; I joined the Episcopal Church
> about the time the new prayer book was adopted, so I do not have the
> fond childhood memories of the old book that most Episcopalians my age do.
Having been quite religious in my teens, I still know most of the old
prayers by heart. (In fact, aside from parental opposition and knowledge
that I was gay--this in the Horrid 50s--  I might have entered the
priesthood.)  I noticed, at recent Old School reunions, during the New Rite
Eucharist, very few of us knew the responses, or when to stand, sit, kneel
etc etc. One gent (older than me) was audibly harumphing throughout the
service.. I never saw how getting rid of the occasional "vouchsafe, beseech"
etc. helped matters. The only word I ever had to look up was "oblation"

One  doesn't (or at least I don't) hear much anymore of the breakaway "Old
Prayer Book" ("Anglican") church-- I went to one for a while in Florida, but
it didn't revive my long-lost religiosity.