Thinking allowed

The Coronation Oil

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

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.

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Common Worship Almanac for 2021-22

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.

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2020-21 Almanac for Common Worship and BCP

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.

 

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Are individual cups legal for communion?

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.

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Prayers for Manchester

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.

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Michael Perham

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.

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New Liturgical Commission

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.

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Consultation on Vesture

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.

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new National Liturgy and Worship Adviser

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.

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