The Tongue and the Canticle

Recovering Liturgical English in an Age of Casual Worship

Introduction

On a weekday morning, the carpenter from Nazareth spoke in the dust and din of the marketplace. His words were plain, stories of farmers and fishermen, all in the rough-hewn accents of Galilee. But on the Sabbath, Jesus stepped into the synagogue and something changed. He was handed the scroll of Isaiah and He read in the sacred tongue of Sc…