Thinking allowed

The Coronation Oil

on Monday, 6 March 2023 at 2.51 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as coronation, liturgical news, liturgy

The oil that will be used to anoint the king and queen at their coron­a­tion on 6 May has been con­sec­rated in Jer­u­s­alem by the Ortho­dox Pat­ri­arch of Jer­u­s­alem and the Anglic­an Arch­bish­op. The Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury’s web­site reports the details here, and that art­icle is archived below.

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Common Worship Almanac for 2022-23

on Tuesday, 18 October 2022 at 12.04 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgical news, liturgical texts, liturgy, software

My Alman­ac for the litur­gic­al year 2022–23, the year begin­ning Advent Sunday 2022 is now avail­able. The Alman­ac is a com­plete and cus­tom­iz­able down­load that can be added to the cal­en­dar on a desktop/laptop, a tab­let or a smart­phone provid­ing a fully-worked out cal­en­dar and lec­tion­ary accord­ing to the rules of the Church of Eng­land. Sev­er­al down­load formats are provided, giv­ing access to most cal­en­dar soft­ware on most devices.

As before, down­load is free, and dona­tions are invited.

What's new?

The Alman­ac is also avail­able as a web page that can be installed as a web app on smart­phones and tab­lets for easy access to all the data. New fea­tures include

• In the View tab you can toggle the dis­play of verse num­bers in the read­ings, mak­ing it sim­pler to copy and paste pas­sages to oth­er doc­u­ments in the desired format.
• Fol­low­ing the new Roy­al War­rant, updated BCP and CW pray­ers for the King and Roy­al Fam­ily are linked in the Resources tab; Acces­sion Day is now on 8 Septem­ber, rather than 6 February.
• Although not strictly a CW or BCP obser­va­tion, an entry is included this year for Coron­a­tion Day on 6 May 2023; it is expec­ted that resources for pub­lic observ­ance of the coron­a­tion will be pro­duced, and this mater­i­al will be added when it is available.
• Astro­nom­ic­al data (sun­rise, sun­set, moon rise and set and phase, sol­stices and equi­noxes) is now fully work­ing again, as is the sep­ar­ate Cross­cal cal­en­dar down­load at crosscal.oremus.org.

Donations

This Alman­ac is offered free of charge, and without war­ranty, but as you might ima­gine it takes some effort to com­pile. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to my costs then dona­tions may be made via PayP­al at paypal.me/simonkershaw. Altern­at­ively, Amazon gift vouch­ers can be pur­chased online at Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for deliv­ery by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .

The Alman­ac has been freely avail­able for over 20 years. There is not and has nev­er been any charge for down­load­ing and using the Alman­ac — this is just an oppor­tun­ity to make a dona­tion, if you so wish. Many thanks to those of you who have donated in the past or will do so this year, par­tic­u­larly those who reg­u­larly make a dona­tion: your gen­er­os­ity is appre­ci­ated and makes the Alman­ac possible.

Common Worship Almanac for 2021-22

on Monday, 11 October 2021 at 9.48 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgical news, liturgical texts, liturgy, software

My Alman­ac for the litur­gic­al year 2021–22, the year begin­ning Advent Sunday 2021 is now avail­able. The Alman­ac is a com­plete and cus­tom­iz­able down­load that can be added to the cal­en­dar on a desktop/laptop, a tab­let or a smart­phone provid­ing a fully-worked out cal­en­dar and lec­tion­ary accord­ing to the rules of the Church of Eng­land. Sev­er­al down­load formats are provided, giv­ing access to most cal­en­dar soft­ware on most devices.

As before, down­load is free, and dona­tions are invited.

What's new?

The Alman­ac is also avail­able as a web page that can be installed as a web app on smart­phones and tab­lets for easy access to all the data. New fea­tures include

• the Down­load tab now shows a live pre­view of the data that will be added to your cal­en­dar; as you select options from the menus the live pre­view auto­mat­ic­ally reflects your choices
• in the View tab you can toggle the dis­play of verse num­bers in the read­ings, mak­ing it sim­pler to copy and paste pas­sages to oth­er doc­u­ments in the desired format
• in the View tab the bible read­ings now have an addi­tion­al link to the NIV text at Bible Gate­way, as well as dis­play­ing the NRSV text (or the Com­mon Wor­ship psal­ter for psalms)
• a new short­er format for sub­scrip­tion links (old-style links con­tin­ue to work as well)

Donations

This Alman­ac is offered free of charge, and without war­ranty, but as you might ima­gine it takes some effort to com­pile. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to my costs then dona­tions may be made via PayP­al at paypal.me/simonkershaw. Altern­at­ively, Amazon gift vouch­ers can be pur­chased online at Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for deliv­ery by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .

The Alman­ac has been freely avail­able for over 20 years. There is not and has nev­er been any charge for down­load­ing and using the Alman­ac — this is just an oppor­tun­ity to make a dona­tion, if you so wish. Many thanks to those of you who have donated in the past or will do so this year, par­tic­u­larly those who reg­u­larly make a dona­tion: your gen­er­os­ity is appre­ci­ated and makes the Alman­ac possible.

2020-21 Almanac for Common Worship and BCP

on Thursday, 17 September 2020 at 5.31 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgical news, liturgical texts, liturgy, software

Now avail­able for the year begin­ning Advent Sunday 2020: Alman­ac, the cal­en­dar, lec­tion­ary and col­lects accord­ing to the cal­en­dar of the Church of Eng­land, for Com­mon Wor­ship and for the Book of Com­mon Pray­er. Down­load to your cal­en­dar or use the web app.

Down­load is free, dona­tions are invited.

What's new?

The Alman­ac web page has been com­pre­hens­ively updated since last year to make it easi­er and more use­ful. Updates include

• the down­load page and the daily view have been integ­rated into a single tabbed page
• the oremus Bible Browser (which includes the full NRSV, the AV, and the psal­ters from the pray­er book and Com­mon Wor­ship) is added on anoth­er tab
• a resources tab provides dir­ect links to all the offi­cial Com­mon Wor­ship texts, hymn sug­ges­tions (with links through to Hym­nQuest) and some oth­er litur­gic­al resources
• the Alman­ac daily view includes sun­rise and sun­set times, which can be cus­tom­ized to your location
• on phones and tab­lets you can add an Alman­ac icon or tile to your screen so that it is access­ible like an app (details in the Help tab), and you can swipe for­wards and back­wards through the days, and through bible pas­sages in the Bible tab

As usu­al, the Alman­ac is avail­able in a num­ber of formats for adding to Microsoft Out­look, Apple Cal­en­dar, iPhone or iPad, Google Cal­en­dar and oth­er cal­en­dar applic­a­tions. It can be synced from a desktop cal­en­dar to a tab­let or smart­phone (includ­ing Apple iPads and iPhones, Android phones and tab­lets, and Win­dows Sur­face tab­lets). There is also a csv format, which can be opened in a spread­sheet for fur­ther manipulation.

Nat­ur­ally I hope that the Alman­ac is free of errors, but I dis­claim respons­ib­il­ity for the effects of any errors. My liab­il­ity is lim­ited to provid­ing a cor­rec­ted file for import, at my own con­veni­ence. Please help by noti­fy­ing me of pos­sible errors.

Donations

This Alman­ac is offered free of charge, and without war­ranty, but as you might ima­gine it takes some effort to com­pile. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to my costs then dona­tions may be made via PayP­al at paypal.me/simonkershaw. Altern­at­ively, Amazon gift vouch­ers can be pur­chased online at Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for deliv­ery by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .

The Alman­ac web page car­ries the date 8 Septem­ber 2000, so, as the Beatles sang, “it was twenty years ago” that I first provided a digit­al litur­gic­al cal­en­dar, which in a couple of years evolved into a fully worked-out lec­tion­ary. There is not and has nev­er been any charge for down­load­ing and using the Alman­ac — this is just an oppor­tun­ity to make a dona­tion, if you so wish. Many thanks to those of you who have donated in the past or will do so this year, par­tic­u­larly those who reg­u­larly make a dona­tion: your gen­er­os­ity is appre­ci­ated and makes the Alman­ac possible.

Are individual cups legal for communion?

on Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 10.45 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical news

Since March, the Church of Eng­land guid­ance issued by the bish­ops has stip­u­lated that com­mu­nion should be received “in one kind” only, and that the chalice, the com­mon cup, should be with­held from all except the priest tak­ing the ser­vice. This has been backed by leg­al advice that a single cup must be used, and if it is impossible to share a com­mon cup, then the cup should be withheld.

Now a group of bar­ris­ters has chal­lenged this leg­al advice that it is unlaw­ful to use sep­ar­ate indi­vidu­al cups, issu­ing a con­trary leg­al opin­ion that the over­rid­ing pri­or­ity is that com­mu­nion should be admin­istered in both kinds, and that this should allow indi­vidu­al cups to be used.

The Church Times reports on this story here.

Prayers for Manchester

on Tuesday, 23 May 2017 at 2.31 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical news, liturgy

The Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion has received a num­ber of enquir­ies today in the wake of yesterday’s events in Manchester, ask­ing for resources for vigil ser­vices. In addi­tion to the pray­ers tweeted by the Church of Eng­land Com­mu­nic­a­tions team, by a num­ber of dio­ceses and by oth­er indi­vidu­als, the links below to the Church of Eng­land web­site give a num­ber of appro­pri­ate pray­ers for the world/society here https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/topical-prayers/prayers-for-the-world.aspx.

and for indi­vidu­als here https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/topical-prayers/prayers-for-personal-situations.aspx.

For those need­ing a com­plete order of ser­vice, pp. 443–448 of New Pat­terns for Wor­ship has an out­line headed “Facing Pain: a Ser­vice of Lament” — also down­load­able from here https://churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/newpatterns/sampleservicescontents/npw18.aspx

Some of the ‘Cross’ and ‘Lament’ (pos­sibly also ‘Liv­ing in the world’ and ‘Rela­tion­ships and heal­ing’) resources from New Pat­terns for Wor­ship might also be appro­pri­ate for inclu­sion in that ser­vice, or as stand-alone ele­ments in your reg­u­lar service.

Michael Perham

on Tuesday, 18 April 2017 at 10.14 am by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical news, liturgy

The Dio­cese of Gloucester has this morn­ing announced that Michael Per­ham, Bish­op of Gloucester between 2004 and 2014, died on the even­ing of Monday 17 April.

Michael Per­ham played a very sig­ni­fic­ant role in the litur­gic­al life of the Church of Eng­land, and was a mem­ber of the Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion between 1986 and 2001. He was a con­trib­ut­or to the books that became Lent, Holy Week, East­er, The Prom­ise of his Glory and Enrich­ing the Chris­ti­an Year, and then to Com­mon Wor­ship.

In the announce­ment, Bish­op Michael’s suc­cessor as Bish­op of Gloucester, Bish­op Rachel Treweek writes:

It is with great sad­ness that I am writ­ing to inform you that Bish­op Michael died peace­fully at home on Monday even­ing, April 17, fol­low­ing a spe­cial East­er week­end with all the family.

I last saw Bish­op Michael on Tues­day 11 April dur­ing Holy Week. Not only was it good to share togeth­er in the Euchar­ist on that occa­sion but also to preside at the Chrism Euchar­ist on Maun­dy Thursday know­ing that the Dean would then be tak­ing Bish­op Michael bread and wine from our ser­vice in Gloucester Cathed­ral with the love and pray­ers of the Diocese.

New Liturgical Commission

on Wednesday, 24 February 2016 at 11.08 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical news, liturgy

The Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion of the Church of Eng­land has a five year term, and the term of the present Com­mis­sion ends on 31 March 2016. The mem­ber­ship of the new Com­mis­sion has now been pub­lished on the Church of Eng­land web­site here.

Chair
The Bish­op of Exeter

Vice-Chair
The Bish­op of Sod­or and Man

Mem­bers
Ms Shayne Ardron
The Revd Can­on Dr Andrew Atherstone
The Revd Philip Barnes
The Revd Mark Earey
Ms Kash­mir Garton
The Revd Can­on Dr Chris­toph­er Irvine
The Revd Can­on Dr Simon Jones
Mr Simon Kershaw
The Revd George Lane
Mrs Lucy Moore
Dr Brid­get Nichols
The Revd Can­on Dr Jo Spreadbury
The Revd Can­on Dr Samuel Wells

The Com­mis­sion is a per­man­ent Com­mis­sion of the Gen­er­al Syn­od of the Church of Eng­land. It has a four-fold purpose:

• to pre­pare forms of ser­vice at the request of the House of Bishops
• to advise on the exper­i­ment­al use of forms of ser­vice and the devel­op­ment of liturgy
• to exchange inform­a­tion and advice on litur­gic­al mat­ters with oth­er Churches both in the Anglic­an Com­mu­nion and elsewhere
• to pro­mote the devel­op­ment and under­stand­ing of liturgy and its use in the Church.

I under­stand that the main focus for the next five years will be to encour­age bet­ter stand­ards in the pre­par­a­tion and con­duct of wor­ship. I hope to be able to provide reg­u­lar updates on the work of the new Commission.

Consultation on Vesture

on Tuesday, 2 February 2016 at 7.59 am by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical news, liturgy

A res­ol­u­tion was passed at the July 2014 meet­ing of the Gen­er­al Syn­od ask­ing that the Can­ons be amended so that clergy ves­ture be option­al rather than mandatory.

The House of Bish­ops has now put out a short (6‑page) con­sulta­tion paper on this top­ic which can be read here.

The paper asks Syn­od mem­bers wheth­er they sup­port the amend­ment of Can­on B8 to accom­plish this, and if so wheth­er it should fol­low the approach they present:

• In rela­tion to the Holy Com­mu­nion and Morn­ing and Even­ing Pray­er on Sundays, the min­is­ter would be able to depart on a gen­er­al basis from the nor­mal require­ments as to ves­ture, provided that he or she had first ascer­tained, after con­sulta­tion with the Paro­chi­al Church Coun­cil, that doing so would bene­fit the mis­sion of the Church in the parish.
• In rela­tion to the Occa­sion­al Offices, the min­is­ter would be able to depart from the nor­mal require­ment as to ves­ture, provided that he or she had the agree­ment of the per­sons con­cerned to do so. It has been sug­ges­ted that the require­ment for the agree­ment of those con­cerned might extend to wed­dings and funer­als but not bap­tisms on the grounds that the lat­ter gen­er­ally take place in a main Sunday ser­vice and should there­fore be with­in the min­ister­’s dis­cre­tion. Since, how­ever, the pre­scribed forms of ves­ture would remain the norm for all three occa­sion­al offices it would seem more straight­for­ward if the rights of those con­cerned were the same in each case.
• Where the min­is­ter depar­ted from the nor­mal require­ments as to ves­ture, the dress adop­ted by the min­is­ter should be seemly and not such as to be indic­at­ive of any depar­ture from the doc­trine of the Church of England.

The con­sulta­tion is aimed at mem­bers of the Gen­er­al Syn­od who are asked to send in their com­ments by 15 April, so if you have views on this mat­ter you should send them to your dio­ces­an rep­res­ent­at­ives. Copy­ing them to the Clerk to the Syn­od Jac­qui Philips jacqui.philips@churchofengland.org may also help.

new National Liturgy and Worship Adviser

on Friday, 2 October 2015 at 8.08 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical news, liturgy

The Bish­op of Exeter, Robert Atwell, the Chair of the Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion has announced that Mat­thew Salis­bury has been appoin­ted to what is now a part-time pos­i­tion as Nation­al Liturgy and Wor­ship Adviser of the Church of England:

Dr Mat­thew Salis­bury has been appoin­ted as the new Nation­al Liturgy and Wor­ship Adviser of the Church of Eng­land. Dr Salis­bury lec­tures in music at Uni­ver­sity Col­lege, Oxford and has con­sid­er­able exper­i­ence of writ­ing and speak­ing about liturgy and wor­ship. He also serves as the Chapel Warden at Worcester Col­lege, Oxford, where he reg­u­larly leads worship.

The Chair of the Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion, the Bish­op of Exeter, com­men­ted ‘…I am delighted that Mat­thew has decided to put his con­sid­er­able tal­ents to the ser­vice of the nation­al Church. He com­bines enthu­si­asm for com­mu­nic­at­ing liturgy to non-spe­cial­ists with an interest in devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing wor­ship resources through new media. I am con­fid­ent that he will be a great asset to the Church of England.’

Dr Salis­bury will take up his new part-time role in Church House, West­min­ster (com­bined with his oth­er exist­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies in Oxford) from early Novem­ber, work­ing along­side Sue Moore who has now taken on respons­ib­il­ity for day-to-day oper­a­tions as Admin­is­trat­ive Sec­ret­ary to the Commission.