ENGLISH LANGUAGE LITURGICAL CONSULTATION (ELLC)

Established in 1985, the English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC) is an international and ecumenical body concerned with English liturgical texts. It is successor to the international consultation on english texts (icet) which had completed its work in 1975 with a revised edition of Prayers We Have in Common. ELLC has a charge going beyond common texts. The new committee was planned to represent, more formally than had ICET, the several existing bodies already established by joint action of the churches in various parts of the English–speaking world.

The first meeting of the ELLC was held in Boston in August 1985, in connection with the biennial congress of Societas Liturgica. The constitutive bodies which agreed to participate were: Australian Consultation on Liturgy (ACOL), consultation on common texts (cct) of North America, international commission on english in the liturgy (icel), Joint Liturgical Commission on English in New Zealand, Joint Liturgical Group (JLG) of Great Britain.

The program of ELLC includes reviewing the ICET texts in the light of more than a decade's experience; producing one or more Eucharistic Prayers in common versions; evaluating ecumenical lectionaries, especially those based on the postconciliar Roman lectionary, including the Consultation on Common Texts' Revised Common Lectionary that use in North America, and the two–year lectionary of the Joint Liturgical Group; and the future possibility of producing biblical translations appropriate for liturgical proclamation.

In the case of common liturgical texts, extensive consultation with the parent churches was undertaken, with the possibility of adding to the limited corpus of ICET prayers. With regard to any revision of the latter, ELLC agreed that only changes that are certainly necessary should be recommended and that there should be sensitivity to inclusive language in relation to women; the proclamatory quality of texts to be said, heard, and sung; and the pastoral significance of the use of contemporary language. ELLC's revision of ICET's texts was published as Praying Together: English Language Liturgical Consultation in 1988.

Bibliography: Praying Together: English Language Liturgical Consultation (Nashville 1988). h. r. allen, jr, "Common texts Revisited," Worship 60 (1986) 172–175. h. t. allen, jr, "Common Lectionary : Origins, Assumptions, and Issues," Studia Liturgica 21 (1991) 14–30.

[f. r. mcmanus/eds.]