From the Archives: "About the Book"

Each month, our blog features articles from the archives of Liturgy. Our goal is to share the wisdom from decades past so that we might celebrate the work and insights of these excellent ministers and scholars.

In this essay, liturgical language scholar Gail Ramshaw muses on the meaning of “the book –– the Bible or the lectionary from which we read in the liturgy.” She emphasizes the visceral nature of a book, the ways in which it is shared across the generations, how reading aloud creates community, the fact that it can hold images and words together to delight the eye and inspire thoughts. In other words: books matter.

Because books matter, Ramshaw calls the worshipping community to make the book that is the Bible as special in the liturgy as it is since the word of God is the source of faith. She recommends how to handle the Bible itself for reading the scripture texts by processing into the sanctuary with the Bible held in an honorable way. She admonishes us to read well from its words. And more.

Selected Quotes from

“About the Book”

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Books matter. And I don’t mean merely the content of the books or the influence of books, their afterlife. I man, rather, books themselves, their bulk, the texture of the paper and how the edges were trimmed, the typeface, the amount of white space, the illustrations, grandpa’s name in gold imprinted on the cover, the ribbons attached. The content of these books, their influence, is like the memory of a banquet or the photograph of one‘s lover. But sometimes we have the actual book itself. We are eating the banquet, we are gazing at the lover. It is reality squared.

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We in the twenty-first century no longer have extant a single page from the hand of a single of the many biblical authors, not a single line. So to compensate we stand at attention before a Gutenberg Bible, or we go to Ireland to see the Lindisfarne Gospels. . . Maybe at the Chester Beatty Library we get to see the papyrus fragments from the third century on which is written the Gospel of John. But these are as far back as we can get.

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In the liturgy we highlight the extraordinary in order that we may better celebrate the ordinary. Orthodox Christians explain that what “this is my body” means is that in the liturgy, in the time of our thanksgiving to God, we recognize that God has become incarnate in the stuff of humanity, in the things of creation. We suddenly see yet again that bread is indeed the body of God.

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We can carry the book in procession as if it mattered. Brides carry their bouquet as if it mattered. The university marshal carries the mace, the stupid mace, as if it mattered. Have you seen the video from Liturgy Training Publications in which the presider carries the book as if it matters? He dances in gentle circles as he processes.

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We can read with clarity and pride, gladly proclaiming the word as if we have been asked by God to so. Indeed, we have.

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Ramshaw, G. “About the Book,” Liturgy 16, no. 3 (2000): 5–9.

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