International get-togethers for liturgy scholars?

Clay Morris – the Rev Dr Clayton L. Morris, New York-based Liturgical Officer for the Episcopal Church – has been to a few of these.

In fact, he’s just about lost track of the number he’s attended in the past 20 years.

But none, he says, have kicked off with the oomph and the good vibe of the one that he’s at now – the 2009 International Anglican Liturgical Consultation, which is meeting this week in Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral.

And for that you’ve got to thank the tangata whenua (people of the land), Maori who staged a traditional powhiri, or ceremonial Maori welcome, to the 45 visitors who’ve streamed into Auckland from throughout the Anglican world to consider the latest thinking on liturgy.

The powhiri and liturgical welcome were held in the wooden gothic Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the central Auckland home for Tikanga Maori, the Maori cultural stream within the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.

As always, this traditional welcome was accompanied by waiata, or Maori language songs, and waiata-a-ringa, action songs, performed by Holy Sepuchre’s own singing group, Te Wero o te Whakapono (The Challenge of Faith).

And as is also the case in the Maori world, a welcome is sealed by a hakari, or feast. So when the formal liturgies were over, everybody moved into Tatai Hono, the newly renovated marae next door to Holy Sep.

As they ate their meals, the manuhiri (visitors) were serenaded – again, as per tradition – by Maori singers.

And about then, the evening changed gear. The MC for the evening, Bishop Kito Pikaahu (Te Tai Tokerau), invited the Rev Nak-Hyon Joo (from Korea) and the Rev Shintaro Ichiharo (Japan) to the microphone where, to the astonishment of the New Zealanders, they sang – first in Maori, then in Korean – Pokarekare Ana, which is possibly the best-loved waiata in the Maori world, with a chorus known to just about every Kiwi:

E hine e
hoki mai ra.
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

(Oh girl
return to me,
I could die
of love for you.)

Pokarakare Ana had made its way into Korean life, explained Mr Joo, via Maori soldiers who’d fought in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Koreans, he said, had taken that song to heart.

Then, as is also the Maori way, Bishop Kito challenged the other guests – let’s hear your waiata, he said: Your turn! Entertain us!

And the remarkable thing was that people from every corner of the Communion responded. And, as you might expect from a gathering of liturgists, there were some handy singers among them.

Such as the Rev Canon Bruce Jenneker from South Africa, who led a rousing chorus that had lifted South Africans during the darkest years of the struggle against apartheid; and Father Tomas Maddela, from the Philippines, who told how Corazon Aquino had died on the eve of his departure for the conference – and who gave a powerful solo rendition of a chorus from the tense days of People Power.

Then there was the Rev Dr Richard Leggett, one of the main speakers at the consultation, who led a band of Canadians in Many and great (are your wonders, O God), a hymn first sung (so the story goes) to a group of Lakota Sioux Native Americans as they were led to the gallows after a failed uprising against the theft of their lands in the 1860s.

Stirring, yes, but by no means dirgelike: Stephen Platten, the Bishop of Wakefield, for instance, led a hilarious (and hugely competent) rendition of The Hippotamus Song, by Flanders and Swann:

Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me follow, down to the hollow…

Out they continued to come, liturgical scholars from pretty much the four corners: Anglicans from Australia; Ireland; the United States (Clay Morris leading a round developed after 9/11); and India.

And the net effect? Well, as Clay Morris described it, barriers were broken: the 45 or so international guests found they’d hit the ground running, found they were ready and willing to engage with each other and the business in hand.

Background:

International Anglican Liturgical Consultations are held every two years.

They’re a spin-off from the much older and larger Societas Liturgica, which is an international and ecumenical academy of liturgical scholars. The IALC began when Anglicans attending the Societas congress in Vienna in 1983 met as a caucus. They resolved then to meet more regularly, and to time their gatherings so they flow on to that year’s Societas Liturgica.

IALC delegates discuss subjects such as Christian initiation (baptism, children and communion); ordination; and the Eucharist. The previous gathering of the IALC, in Palermo, Sicily, for instance looked at Christian rites around dying and death, and the Auckland gathering is expected to ‘sign off’ on some of the work begun in Sicily and developed since.

This year’s consultation will also consider rites around marriage – and the Rev Canon Dr Charles Sherlock, who is the Executive Secretary of the Anglican Church of Australia’s Liturgical Commission, this morning presented the first keynote address, entitled: The Solemnization of Matrimony: some theological perspectives towards liturgical revision.

In the afternoon, the Rt Rev Dr Winston Halapua, Bishop of the Diocese of Polynesia in Aotearoa New Zealand, approached the topic of marriage from another angle in the second keynote address.

And in the evening, the Bishop of Auckland, the Rt Rev John Paterson, hosted the IALC at a dinner in the historic Selwyn Library, which is directly across the road from the cathedral.

The 2009 IALC meeting continues until midday, Saturday, August 8. Delegates will then fly to Sydney, where this year’s Societas meeting begins on August 10.