The ecumenical Centre in Wuppertal, Germany, welcomed some fifty delegates from the Churches of Germany, England, France, Switzerland and Italy in recent weeks for a joint reflection on “Mission and Celebration”, with particular reference to the actuality of liturgical practice. According to Kathy Galloway, of the Abbey of Iona (Scotland), the main problem concerns communication. “If language is a powerful means to represent our perception of God she said , we ought, during the celebrations, simply to ‘translate’ the nature of our relation with Him. Too often, however, we speak of God using military metaphors”. “In relation to a constantly changing social context, our celebrations are too static”, said the German theologian Dietrich Werner. “The Churches he stressed must modernise themselves”. Only thus “will the liturgy be able really to take root in people’s lives”.
