Watch and pray

Liturgists are often accused of focusing on the pointless minutiae of Christian worship; to the accusers, this articles is a gift! I want to discuss the rarely discussed issue of wearing a watch while ministering liturgically.

Bishop Conley wearing a watch.
Bishop Conley wearing a watch.

The photograph to the right shows Bishop James Conley of the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. Everything about him in this picture is dignified and elegant in the context of Mass. All except his wristwatch. At first, it looks like a chunky Casio G-Shock on a rubber strap, but it might be something a bit more sophisticated on a ‘gun metal’ bracelet. It is rather obvious, and that is partly because he has chosen to wear it on his right wrist. Priests always bless with their right hand and perform most liturgical gestures with the right, so a watch on the right is always going to have more presence. The picture of Bishop Conley would probably not have jumped out at me if he had worn his watch on the left.

The wristwatch became popular in the early twentieth century. Earlier wristwatches tended to be for women, an alternative to wearing a watch on a chain or ribbon around the neck and worn on a bracelet. It is odd to think of the wristwatch as feminine: pocket watches were the then masculine style. War changed things; it always does. Officers coordinating manoeuvres of troops advancing under rolling artillery barrages were issued wristwatches as they needed to be able to check the time constantly while keeping their hands free. Wristwatches quickly became popular after the First World War but were still considered rather gauche in certain circumstances. In the early 20th century, it would have been unusual for a priest to wear a wristwatch at the time of divine service. I am not sure that there have any been instructions against priests wearing wristwatches while ministering liturgically, but quite a few retired priests have the habit of removing their wristwatch in the sacristy before celebrating.

Most wristwatches have a crown at 3 o’clock. They are traditionally worn on the left wrist so that one could easily wind and adjust them with the right hand (a watch worn on the right is still awkward to work with the left hand, even for a left-handed person, as the hand will cover the face). With the advent of quartz and digital watches, this became less of an issue, and many now wear their watch on their right wrist as a matter of personal choice. However as was noted above, a priest wearing a watch on the right wrist will be constantly flashing it at every liturgical gesture.

Pius IX (1792–1878) was perhaps the first pope to wear a watch and was gifted with a Patek Philippe pocket watch. Pope John Paul II was known to wear a silver-gold Rolex Datejust, which is fairly mid-range as far as Rolexes go (and the same model as worn by the Dalai Lama). Pope Benedict XVI was given a rather fine Junghans Tempus Automatic. Pope Francis wears a little black plastic Swatch. They all wear or wore their watches on their left wrist, and all are fairly subtle, even John Paul II’s Rolex was fairly discreet. The lesson perhaps is that, if a priest wears a wristwatch, it should be a subtle model worn on the left. Even when worn on the left, certain two-handed liturgical gestures — greeting with arms outstretched, raising the Gospel, the orans position, and the elevation of the Eucharistic gifts — can make the watch visible.


Popes and their watches


Some older patterns of cassock come with a small pocket for a pocket watch. The Wippell version has this pocket high on the left breast, while others have it slightly above the waistline, on the left also, so that it is covered by the cincture. One point is that it is virtually impossible to check a pocket watch whilst vested in a surplice or alb, and perhaps there is a meaning deeper than Houdini-like moves in white linen here.

The time of prayer and praise should be timeless. In liturgy, there is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, and therefore of eternity. I remember one dapper gent at a formal dinner (which are two-a-penny in Oxford) telling me that he thought it incorrect to wear a watch with a dinner jacket, thinking it symbolizes a rather rude indication that one might have other plans. Surely this argument is even more appropriate for divine worship.

In my last parish, the vicar and I would often check our watches at the end of the main Sunday Mass to see how long the service had taken. There is a lot to pack into a big Parish Mass, and it is important to be respectful of the time of congregants. The parish at which I preached last Sunday has a little pocket-watch-shaped indentation on the top edge of the pulpit, sadly sans watch, and, likewise, the good timing of a sermon is important. In the past, a church clock might be the only timekeeper in the parish, so we have a long interest in telling the time (out loud). There is a discipline here of the punctuality needed to honour others and God that leads us to worship, and the timelessness within worship.

My Orient Bambino.

To the right is a picture of my Orient Bambino Automatic. It is really cute and quite reasonably priced. Its classic look makes it suitable for wear with the cassock. Its case is a little on the large size, but it remains subtle. I retain the watch for choir offices but have taken to removing it before celebrating Mass for the reasons cited above. I pray

O God, thou art Lord of all time and eternity : in the slenderness of this time that we give unto thy praise, fill thou thy servants with a foretaste of thy eternal promises, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us pray the collect

The collect (stress on the first syllable: KOL-ekt) is a traditional, formal short prayer of Western Christianity. The Latin missal simply calls it oratio (‘prayer’). However, the Gregorian Sacramentary has oratio ad collectam, and then, in two places, simply collecta. In the earlier Gallican use, the term is first collectio, before becoming collecta. The term remained in popular use among churchgoers while missals chose oratio. Perhaps it is no surprise that the Book of Common Prayer chose the popular vernacular name ‘collect’, but more surprising that the new translation of the Catholic missal has opted for ‘collect’ where its predecessor had a prosaic ‘opening prayer’. The collects of the Church of England and the Catholic Church preserve many old Latin models.

The structure of collects are widely discussed and well known — being

  1. invocation, e.g. Almighty God
  2. divine attribute (quiclause), e.g. unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid
  3. petition, e.g. cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit
  4. consequence (ut-clause), e.g. that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name
  5. doxology, e.g. through Christ our Lord

The major division of the collect is between clauses 1–2 and 3–4, often marked with a semicolon. In collects for saints, the second clause says something about the saint in question rather than describing a divine attribute. Rather wonderfully, this shows the holy life as a glimpse of divine revelation. Most collects address God the Father, and so the doxology (which is often not written out in full) declares that our prayer is made through (per) Christ (or ‘the same’ Christ if he is mentioned in the body of the collect), and may add the unity of the Holy Spirit too.

Some have remarked that the quality of the collect is frame for our petitionary prayer which should flow from an understanding of God’s nature. It is a snapshot of how lex orandi models lex credendi, or, put another way, how doctrine should feed into our spiritual life.

At the eucharist, the praying of the collect concludes the gathering rite, the first part of the liturgy, and thus heralds the Bible readings. The placing of collects for Sundays and holy days together with the epistles and gospels in the Book of Common Prayer (which makes sense, because one reads the collect, epistle and gospel in order) has led to some Anglicans, particularly evangelicals, to desire collects that reflect the readings or themes of the day. I think this is wrong, seeing as the collects are designed succinctly to draw divine qualities into our daily lives, and so belong to our gathering and preparation rather than an introduction to the readings. The gathering rite at its simplest (and ‘tis a joy to be simple) has just a liturgical greeting (The Lord be with you) and a collect, although prayers of penitence usually occur between the two.

The Catholic Church developed a series of other collect-like presidential prayers: the prayer over the gifts and the post-communion prayer. Common Worship has fully embraced post-communion prayers, gathering them with the collects proper, and it suggests some ‘prayers at the preparation of the table’ that cover some elements of the traditional offertory prayers.

In daily prayer, the collect comes at the end of the intercession. In the Book of Common Prayer, three collects (or four during Advent and Lent) follow the preces toward the formal conclusion of matins and evensong. Common Worship has followed the modern practice of retaining just one collect where a series of such had previously been used. However, its structural framework means that an unchanging ‘opening prayer’ is also used.

Let us pray, and its praxis

Modern liturgical sensibility around the collect can be summarised

  1. The bidding ‘Let us pray’ (oremus) is important
  2. The use of silence between bidding and collect is important
  3. The collect should be prayed deliberately: it is important
  4. The congregational ‘Amen’ is important

It has taken fifteen years of ministry for me to begin to internalise and practise this. It is not as simple as it sounds. I might bid ‘Let us pray’, but it was as if I were saying ‘I shall now read a prayer out of the book’. There is still the problem that some hear those words as a direction to get on their knees, but there are some relics of an instruction flectamus genua for the silence with levate for the collect. Knowing that oremus could be expanded into a more fullsome bidding, I would sometimes select a bon mot from the collect and say something like ‘Let us pray that God might cleanse our hearts that we may worship him’. It was a good idea, but it ended up like a liturgical wink: ‘see what I did there? I can read ahead!’

The silence proved a problem too. How long should it be? If it were too long, people would fidget, or think that I had forgotten the book of collects. The fundamental problem with my praxis was that is was superficial, skin-deep. The bidding, even if it be the simple ‘Let us pray’, should convey a call to deep, heartfelt prayer. As Romans 8.26–27 has it

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8.26–27

If the bidding can convey the merest sense of those verses, then the silence just works. The bidding then is not an introduction to the collect, but to the silence. The collect then is a voicing of an aspect of the heartfelt silent prayer. A good trigger that works for me is a simple bidding like ‘Let us pray deeply’ or ‘From the depths of our hearts, let us pray’. Words alone are not enough; as a priest I need to model this deep prayer. I must not be looking at the book or looking around, but I must pray with bowed head. Whether the silence is ten or twenty seconds, or more, does not matter, as quantity of silence is replaced by quality. In a church full of people who want to be led in prayer, this works well. However, at weddings, funerals and baptisms, among those who may not be regular churchgoers, and who may not be focused mainly on spiritual things, the collect becomes transformative. There is a witty saying when people see me in a cassock — ‘Say one for me’ — and this is ‘Say one with me: it’s deep within you, and you want to pray’.

The orans gesture.

The celebrant faces the people squarely during all this in modern rites. Hands are folded for the bidding and silence. The arms are raised to the orans position for praying the collect. At the doxology, the hands are folded once more. The orans position is somewhat Y-shaped. The hands are raised upward, but no higher than the shoulder. The expansion of the gesture should be determined by whatever looks natural (not too tight and Tridentine, not too large and theatrical) and by the space (it can be larger at a high altar, smaller in cosy chapel).