The Eucharistic Assembly
Earlier this year I attended a deanery confirmation service. In his address the retired assistant bishop who was presiding posed the congregation a question. He asked us to consider what we should do if we wanted to see the face of God. After considering various possibilities he suggested we turn our heads to left and right — to see the face of God in our neighbours.
Each of us is made in the image of God; each of us is a child of God. We meet together as the people of God — a subset of God’s people who recognize that role and are able to be in that particular place at that particular time. The assembly, the community, is transformed by the act of worship, transformed by recognizing the image of God, not just in our fellow worshippers on that occasion, but by recognizing that the image of God can be found in each human being.
What then does it mean that each is made in the image of God? It means a number of things, among them that each person has value, each person is of worth, as an end in themself, and not as a means to some other end. That applies both to the ‘me’ and to the ‘others’: each person needs to remember that they are made in the image of God, and that everyone else is also made in the image of God. And it applies regardless of whether the other person recognizes it.
These are the people who come together regularly Sunday by Sunday, or perhaps occasionally; these are the people who together constitute the eucharistic assembly. They come in faith and hope in order to worship and celebrate together, responding to Jesus’s call to sinners and outcasts to sit with him at God’s table. Week by week, together they constitute the ‘church’ in that place, the local ‘ecclesia’. They come together as the children of God, the people of God, made in God’s image. They are nourished, doubly so, by the Word of God. And they go out as the Body of Christ. They come together as individuals, children, people. They are transformed by worship into one corporate group, one body.
They do not gather just to watch or listen to a show or a performance, to a great preacher, or a wonderful choir, or an inspiring concert. They do not come to participate from the sidelines like a football crowd cheering their team on. The liturgy is not some spectator sport or piece of theatre. Nor, equally, do they come to make private individual devotions, a private relationship between each worshipper and their God.
Instead, each member of the assembly is important and has a role to play in what the assembly does as a whole; each person is an active participant in the corporate worshipping group — because each is made in the image of God. The action of each member of the assembly, that common purpose, constitutes them as the assembly, and that person as a member of it. Within the assembly different people have different roles. Some may read, some may lead intercessions, others may lead singing or play musical instruments, someone will preside and others assist, someone will preach. Others will participate by joining in various responses, hymns and songs. Each of these (and other) roles is a ministry, an act of service to the assembly, an act that facilitates and enables the worship of the whole assembly to take place. Some of these roles will have formal appointment, and others will be by informal agreement of the assembly. Either way, they perform their roles within the context of, and with the explicit or implicit agreement of the assembly. Some of these roles help to constitute the assembly itself, in particular the role of president or presider.
Together all these people, convened for this purpose, form the eucharistic assembly, the local church, the ecclesia. The adoption by the early Christians of the word ‘ecclesia’ to describe their assembly indicates both their past and their future. The ecclesia (Greek: εκκλησία) was the term used in ancient Greek city-states for the democratic decision-making gathering of the city’s free-born men. When Christians began to use the term such semi-democratic city-states were already long gone. The word indicates perhaps the Christian intention of a free gathering of equals. But a gathering transformed from just free-born males to include Roman citizens and non-citizens, slaves as well as the free, poor as well as rich, female as well as male. This was a revolutionary ecclesia representing the people living in God’s kingdom. Truly, the eucharistic assembly, the ecclesia, was a transforming act.
In the same way, we gather today as a revolutionary gathering of all sorts and conditions, the people of God, sharing in God’s love. Recognition of this plays a part in the transformation of the worshipping community.
We are transformed by our worship in many ways; the one that will be focussed on here is how we are transformed by recognizing in each other the image of God. As the bishop said, we can look to left and right and see the image of God in our immediate neighbours. In most churches we will not generally see the faces of our fellow worshippers during the service, but there too we will find the image of God.
This is an ideal: it has to be recognized that not all our services live up to this ideal, not all those who attend are ready or able to participate in this way, and not all our buildings make it easy. We shall explore in future posts how the assembly can address these limitations, how the assembly gives legitimacy to its ministers, how the local assembly is part of a wider assembly across the world. In many situations, a simple explanation to the members of the assembly, both clergy and laity, may be enough for them to begin to realize their vocation, their ministry, as part of the assembly which comes together to worship and to hear and be present with, and be transformed by, the Word of God.
0 CommentsVestments, robes and canon law
The General Synod, meeting at York, on Saturday debated the mandatory use of robes and vestments for clergy at some services. The record of the proceedings states:
Private Members’ Motions
Canon B 8 (GS 1944A and GS 1944B)
The Revd Christopher Hobbs (London) moved:
‘That this Synod call on the Business Committee to introduce draft legislation to amend the law relating to the vesture of ministers so that, without altering the principles set out in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Canon B 8. the wearing of the forms of vesture referred to in paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of that Canon becomes optional rather than mandatory.’
The motion was voted on and passed by the Synod. The three amendments were not carried.
The audio of the evening session is available here.
The press reports this as the Church sweeping away the rules and allowing clergy to wear what they like
- The Mail — Church gives OK to vicars in shellsuits
- The Express — Church gives its blessing for vicar dress-down Sundays
John Keble
John Keble’s liturgical impact, like that of Benedict, is indirect but significant. It was on this day in 1833 that Keble preached a sermon at the University Church in Oxford. It was a fairly obscure sermon to the Assize Judges on what we might regard as an obscure topic (the suppression of a number of Irish bishoprics by Parliament), but it was regarded by John Newman as the beginning of the Oxford Movement — a recovery of the sense that the Church exists independently of the State. That Movement was subsequently responsible for a considerable liturgical enrichment and diversification of the life of the Church of England, leading to a renewal of the Eucharistic life of the Church and an increased awareness of ritual and symbolism. Keble did not play a significant part in these later developments, living instead the life of a country parson, scholar and poet. His poetry continues to be greatly valued and several of his poems are still sung as hymns.
Keble was born in 1792, the son of a priest, and studied at Oxford where he became a Fellow of Oriel College at the age of nineteen. His collection of poems, The Christian Year, was publsihed in 1827, and he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1831. In 1836 he left Oxford to became a parish priest at Hursley near Winchester, and he served there until his death in 1866. In his memory, his friends and supporters founded Keble College, Oxford.
0 CommentsFather of the eternal Word,
in whose encompassing love
all things in peace and order move:
grant that, as your servant John Keble
adored you in all creation,
so we may have a humble heart of love
for the mysteries of your Church
and know your love to be new every morning,
in Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
Additional Texts for Holy Baptism (GS 1958)
Updated with press reports
The additional texts for baptism were considered by the General Synod, meeting at York, on Sunday afternoon, and sent to a revision committee, which is the normal process. The official report records that:
Drafts for First Consideration introduced by the House of Bishops
The Chair of the Steering Committee, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, moved:
‘That the liturgical business entitled “Additional texts for Holy Baptism” be considered for revision in committee.’
The motion was approved by the Synod.
Press reports
There is coverage of this in some of Monday’s papers:
- The Times has a story headlined Devil demoted to ‘cartoon-like character’ (most of the story is behind the Times’s paywall)
- In the Telegraph Philip Almond expresses his opinion on the role of the Devil: Giving the Devil his Due
Benedict, Father of Western Monasticism
Benedict’s interest to liturgy is indirect. As the author of the monastic Rule that bears his name, he did much to encourage the spread of monasticism in the western Church, and consequently was a major influence on daily liturgical prayer down to the present day.
He was born in Nursia in central Italy around the year 480. As a young man he was sent to study in Rome, but was soon appalled by the corruption in society and withdrew to live as a hermit at Subiaco. He quickly attracted disciples and began to establish small monasteries in the neighbourhood. Around the year 525 he moved to Monte Cassino with a band of loyal monks. Later in life Benedict wrote his Rule for Monks, based on his own experience of fallible people striving to live out the gospel. He never intended to found an ‘order’ but his Rule was so good that it was disseminated and widely followed, becoming the model for all western monasticism. Benedict died at Monte Cassino in about the year 550, probably on 21 March, but he is generally commmeorated on 11 July in Anglican and other Calendars.
0 CommentsEternal God,
who made Benedict a wise master
in the school of your service
and a guide to many called into community
to follow the rule of Christ:
grant that we may put your love before all else
and seek with joy the way of your commandments;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
Amen.
trial Canadian Collects
The Anglican Church of Canada is trialling some new collects
The [Canadian] General Synod of 2010 mandated Faith, Worship, and Ministry to establish a Liturgy Task Force to work on the revision of our contemporary language liturgical texts. This Task Force has, in turn, been authorized by the Council of General Synod to release the first phase of its new texts for trial use and feedback as they become available. These draft materials — beginning with Collects for Sundays — are encouraged for use where permitted by the diocesan bishops. We ask that those who use them also participate in the process to feed back your evaluation of the resources to the Liturgy Task Force for its consideration in the final editorial phase.
The text of the Collects for use this year (Year A) ‘from Pentecost to the Reign of Christ’ can be downloaded as a pdf via the above link. Unlike the Collects in Common Worship which are determined by the named Sundays after Trinity, these prayers are aligned to the Sunday reading cycle.
(Thanks to Phillip Tovey for drawing my attention to this. Readers are welcome to send suggestions of suitable links either by email or as a comment on an existing article.)
3 CommentsParish Communion
It’s hard to imagine what the Church of England was like before the Parish Communion movement — and yet the movement itself is virtually unknown today. Through the majority of the twentieth century, certainly right up until the 1960s, the movement was active in promoting its vision of life and worship in the Church of England, attracting support from bishops and synods. But it very quickly faded from the scene, so that even those of us who grew up in the 1960s Church may well not have come across it.
At the same time as the Liturgical Movement was growing across the Roman Catholic Church, recovering a sense of the corporate nature of the liturgy, the Parish Communion movement (as it came to be called) was born and grew in England. The two movements seem to have begun and developed independently, though eventually they came into contact.
The history of the Parish Communion movement is told in Donald Gray’s book Earth and Altar: Evolution of the Parish Communion in the Church of England to 1945 (Alcuin Club Collections 68, 1986). Its roots lie in the Anglo-Catholic revival and the Oxford Movement, beginning with John Keble’s Assize Sermon in Oxford in 1833. The resulting interest in sacramental worship led to an increase in the celebration of Holy Communion, frequently with an increasing use of ceremonial. Because of the requirement of many Anglo-Catholics that the sacrament should be received fasting, it became the custom for the main ceremonial celebration of the Eucharist in many such parishes to be almost entirely a non-communicating act. Only the priest and perhaps one or two others would receive Communion. For the rest of the congregation, attending after Sunday breakfast just as they had previously attended Mattins, this was a choral, ceremonial and devotional high-point, but one in which they were passive rather than active participants. For the more ‘devout’ there would typically be one or more early celebrations at 8am and perhaps 7am so that they could receive the sacrament before breaking their fast.
At the same time, Anglo-Catholic priests were noted for their work in impoverished and neglected areas, particularly in the slums and docklands of large English cities and ports, and various groupings of Christian socialists and other activists came and went.
The Parish Communion movement combined two main aims:
- it strove to make the celebration of the Eucharist the primary service on a Sunday morning in each parish church, and to insist that it was a service at which the congregation should receive the sacrament;
- and it emphasised the link between that celebration of the Eucharist and social action
Social action was considered to be very closely aligned with the Labour movement, which itself was growing in strength during the first half of the twentieth century. At a time when the Church of England was still very widely regarded as the Conservative Party at prayer, the Parish Communion movement might be regarded as the Labour Party at prayer.
In order for the congregation to receive the sacrament before breakfasting the time of the service had to be one that was earlier than the norm of Mattins or High Mass at 11am, but late enough for them to have a bit of a lie-in on their weekly day of rest. 9am or 9.30am became a popular time. Parishes which still have their main Sunday morning Eucharist at this time were quite likely ones that participated in the Parish Communion movement. Frequently the service was followed by a parish breakfast. Not all those associated with the movement were insistent on fasting before communion — but its leaders and advocates were adamant on this point.
And what about ‘social action’? This other important part of the life of the Church was focussed on a weekly ‘parish meeting’, perhaps in the middle of the week, at which such issues could be discussed and support given to various initiatives, whether local, national or international.
What the promoters of the Parish Communion emphasised was the corporate nature of the Church, the corporate nature of the Eucharist, and the essential and corporate nature of the social action that was intimately bound up with them. The great manifesto of the movement was a collection of essays, The Parish Communion, published in 1937, edited by the Revd Gabriel Hebert. Momentum grew, and after the Second World War Parish and People was established as a group to campaign for the goals of the movement. With the reality of a majority Labour government from 1945, perhaps the political angle of the movement changed. By 1962, when Parish and People was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publication of The Parish Communion, the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM, recently renamed Christians on the Left) was being set up. There was much overlap between the two groups, and the CSM followed on from a plethora of similar socialist groupings, but gradually the two movements separated. By the end of the 1960s, having to a large extent achieved its liturgical aims, Parish and People had faded, although it continued to exist until the end of 2013.
What then did the Parish Communion movement achieve, and what can be learnt from it? Primarily it reminded large chunks of the Church of England (and other Anglican churches too) of the centrality of the Eucharist, and of the importance of a corporate celebration at which all received the sacrament. It was successful in promoting this ideal not only across much of the Anglo-Catholic world in which it originated and across the more central groups in the Church, but also into the more central-evangelical parts of the Church, so that a parish communion on a Sunday morning came to be seen as the norm. It linked this fundamentally with what it saw as the social justice agenda of the Church’s mission — though as socialism was tried in the secular world this perhaps became a party-political position that did not always sit well with those who were hearing the liturgical message. It fell short, perhaps, in a lack of attention to evangelism.
These three strands — the liturgy, action for social justice, and concern for evangelism — are the areas that we shall explore in this blog. The social justice agenda itself will largely be left to our sister Thinking Anglicans blog: here our concern is how that is linked to the liturgy. Similarly the topic of evangelism itself will be explored in the context of the liturgy: of what we do in Church, how our buildings serve us as local centres of worship, justice and evangelism.
4 Commentsbaptismal texts: press comment
Updated Sunday morning
There is some press comment today on the draft baptismal texts published yesterday.
Reports say that “sin” removed in the original trial in January has now been reinstated, and that the response from parishes trialling the texts was positive, with more than 90 per cent saying the congregation had been “more engaged” with the new liturgy and there was praise for its “unchurchy” language.
The Times: Sin makes return in revamped baptism
The Daily Telegraph: ‘Sin’ is back but ‘the Devil’ optional in new Church of England baptism service
The Guardian: No devil in detail of Church of England’s new baptism service
The Daily Mail: Church puts the ‘sin’ back into traditional baptism services
Sunday update: Tim Stanley blogs for the Telegraph Hey, Church of England: if you want to become a Christian, you have to renounce the Devil — an article that contains numerous errors of fact, but which does represent the Church’s dilemma.
(Some of these reports are behind paywalls.)
2 CommentsAdditional liturgical materials for baptism: texts
The baptismal texts to be considered by the General Synod next month are now available on the Church of England website. This material is scheduled to be considered on the afternoon of Sunday 13 July.
Following the period of experimental use, various changes were made by the Liturgical Commission and sent for consideration by the House of Bishops. The text agreed by the Bishops is now published as GS 1958 and includes an Introduction, the proposed texts themselves, and a proposed timetable for authorization. The timetable is:
2014
July — November: Revision Committee meets
2015
February: Revision stage at the General Synod
May: House of Bishops (if no further revision stage)
July: Reference to Convocations and House of Laity (if required)
July: Final approval at General Synod (if no further revision stage)
Thanksgiving for the institution of Holy Communion
Today is appointed in the calendar as a day of thanksgiving for the institution of Holy Communion. Appended to that description are the Latin words by which the Thursday after Trinity Sunday is more commonly known among those who actually celebrate it — Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.
The festival day has been overlaid with all sorts of rite and ceremonial that emphasise a particular aspect of some beliefs, namely that the elements of bread and wine, after the priestly prayer of consecration really are the body and blood of Christ, and therefore are to be adored in the same way that we might adore Christ or a relic of Christ. For Anglicans this kind of behaviour has to contend with Article 28 which contains these words
The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.
The history of this day is that it commemorates the Last Supper. Maundy Thursday also commemorates the Supper, but coming in Holy Week and beginning the great Three Days of the paschal feast, there are other things that rightly take priority. So with the three paschal days complete, and the fifty days of Eastertide complete, and the old week (or octave) of Pentecost complete, this is the first Thursday available for the commemoration. Pentecost no longer has an octave of its own, being regarded as the last day of Eastertide rather than primarily a feast in its own right, but the Thursday after Trinity Sunday is too well-established to move the commemoration a week earlier.
After the Reformation the feast ceased to be celebrated in the Church of England. Not until Newman wrote Tract 90 of the Oxford Movement’s Tracts for the Times was a serious argument made against the interpretation of Article 28. Newman argued that the Article did not forbid the reservation of the Sacrament, it just said that it was not created by ‘Christ’s ordinance’. This argument led many Anglo-Catholic parishes to restore Reservation of the Sacrament, and to introduce Corpus Christi processions and adoration.
So what, as Anglicans, should we celebrate this day?
The clue is in the title given the day in Common Worship: a day of thanksgiving for the institution of Holy Communion. We give thanks for the existence of Holy Communion. In his book Dining in the Kingdom of God (Archdiocese of Chicago, 1994), Roman Catholic priest Eugene LaVerdiere argues that rather than focusing on the Last Supper as the institution of the eucharist, we would do better to remember that the origins of the eucharist lie in a long and complex series of events that has the Last Supper … as their climax. LaVerdiere recognises that we may not consider all the meals in the gospel to necessarily be celebrations of the eucharist, but ‘they all have something to say about the eucharist’.
Sadly, the eucharist, and our understanding of it, can be a very divisive thing. One does not have to look very far to find some who find it largely unnecessary (or at least, that it is unnecessary to celebrate it very often), and on the other hand some who think that a priest saying particular words over bread and wine is the essence of the Church. No doubt I paraphrase each position a little unfairly — if so I apologise. But my point is that even if this is an unfair representation of what each believes, it is how the other perceives them.
How do we escape from this? The view expressed in this blog is that the eucharist is indeed fundamental to our life as Christians; that where the eucharist is, there the Church is; that the frequent celebration of the eucharist is given us as a means of growth and nurture. But it is also our view that this does not necessarily mean the eucharist as we have come to know it; how it exists today as a ritualized, vestigial meal, almost separated from real food and drink, in danger of separation from a real understanding of the presence of the living Christ. Our devotion to the eucharist compels us to consider a third way, in which we look for a real bible-based sacramentality, combining it with a traditional focus on its centrality (envisaged of course by that Archbishop whom Anglo-Catholics love to hate, Thomas Cranmer), and bringing to bear our God-given reason to try and reconcile these views.
And as we have said before, our eucharistic joy compels us to go out unto the world and share that joy by helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and free the oppressed.
That said, I shall, with slightly gritted teeth, be swinging a thurible later today in a Corpus Christi procession, complete with rose petals, canopy et al. Hmmm.
1 Comment