Thinking allowed

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.

2 Comments

Thanksgiving for the Queen's ninetieth birthday

The Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion has pre­pared two col­lects (one in tra­di­tion­al lan­guage and the oth­er in mod­ern lan­guage) for use at ser­vices cel­eb­rat­ing the nineti­eth birth­day of HM the Queen, which falls on 21 April this year. These have been approved by the Queen, and the Com­mis­sion has asked that they be cir­cu­lated as widely as pos­sible. The Com­mis­sion has also provided two graces for use at church and com­munity gath­er­ings such as street parties.

Col­lects:
Heav­enly Fath­er, who hast brought our gra­cious sov­er­eign Queen Eliza­beth to the com­ple­tion of her nineti­eth year, and dost gath­er her people in cel­eb­ra­tion of the same: grant that we, rejoicing before thee with thank­ful hearts, may ever be united in love and ser­vice to one anoth­er, and her king­dom flour­ish in prosper­ity and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Heav­enly Father, 
as we cel­eb­rate the nineti­eth birth­day of Her Majesty the Queen, 
receive our heart­felt thanks
for all that you have giv­en her in these ninety years 
and for all that she has giv­en to her people. 
Con­tin­ue, we pray, your lov­ing pur­poses in her,
and as you gath­er us togeth­er in celebration, 
unite us also in love and ser­vice to one another; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Graces:
Boun­ti­ful God, giver of all good gifts,
we give thanks for the many years and long reign of our Queen; 
Bless our food, our neighbourhood,
and our enjoy­ment of each other’s company.
Help us to learn from Queen Elizabeth’s com­mit­ment to her people,
so that our com­munity may be strengthened 
and all may flourish.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, the King of love.

Gra­cious God, give our Queen con­tin­ued wis­dom and strength
to carry out the prom­ises she has made;
and bless (this food, and) those who are gathered here,
that, sus­tained by ser­vice for others,
we may faith­fully serve you, all the days of our life. 
[With words from The Queen’s First Christ­mas Broad­cast, 1952]

2 Comments

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.

0 Comments

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.

0 Comments

2015-16 Almanac


Each year since 2002 I have pro­duced a down­load­able cal­en­dar for the forth­com­ing litur­gic­al year, accord­ing to the rules of the Church of England’s Com­mon Wor­ship Cal­en­dar and Lectionary.

The 2015–16 Alman­ac is now avail­able for Out­look, Apple desktop and iOS Cal­en­dar, Google Cal­en­dar, Android devices and oth­er formats, with your choice of Sunday, week­day, euchar­ist­ic, office, col­lects, Excit­ing Holi­ness lec­tions, for Com­mon Wor­ship and BCP.

Down­load is free, dona­tions are invited.

0 Comments

Thanksgiving for the longest reign

The Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion has draf­ted two pray­ers for use to cel­eb­rate Queen Eliza­beth II becom­ing the longest-reign­ing mon­arch in Brit­ish his­tory, on 9 Septem­ber this year. These have been approved by Buck­ing­ham Palace, and the Com­mis­sion has asked that they be cir­cu­lated as widely as possible.

Pray­ers for use when HM The Queen becomes the longest reign­ing mon­arch in Brit­ish his­tory (9 Septem­ber 2015)

A Col­lect for use after the Col­lect of the Day at BCP ser­vices
Almighty God, who hast set our gra­cious sov­er­eign Queen Eliza­beth upon the throne of this realm, and giv­en her to sur­pass all oth­ers in the years of her reign: Receive our heart­felt thanks for her ser­vice to her people, con­firm and encour­age her in the con­tinu­ance of the same, and keep her in thy heav­enly wis­dom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who took the form of a ser­vant for our sake, and reigneth now in glory with thee and the Holy Spir­it, one God, world without end. Amen.

A mod­ern-lan­guage pray­er draw­ing on Phil­ip­pi­ans 2
Almighty God, 
whose Son Jesus Christ exchanged the glory of a heav­enly throne for the form of a servant,
we thank you that you have giv­en Eliza­beth our Queen a heart to serve her people,
and have kept her devoted in this ser­vice bey­ond all who were before her:
encour­age us by her example to serve one anoth­er, and to seek the com­mon good,
until you call us all to reign with Christ in your etern­al king­dom. Amen.

0 Comments

A community of forgiveness and reconciliation

bread and cup

Read­ing the gos­pel accounts it is clear that Jesus spent a fair amount of his min­istry eat­ing. Wheth­er he’s hav­ing private meals with his dis­ciples, pic­nick­ing on a hill­side with a few thou­sand listen­ers, invit­ing him­self or get­ting him­self invited to din­ner, or bar­be­cuing fish on a beach, the gos­pels record a sub­stan­tial num­ber of meal­time occa­sions. Clearly there must have been many, many more meals which are not spe­cific­ally recor­ded, but which are part of the same pattern.

For Jesus some of these meals were teach­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, occa­sions to share with his fel­low diners a story or par­able or some oth­er teach­ing. But they were more than just this. Quite a few of the meals are in the houses of out­casts – tax col­lect­ors, col­lab­or­at­ors, the ritu­ally unclean, adulter­ers, and oth­er sin­ners. Jesus preached the good news of joy, peace, social justice, free­dom from our slav­er­ies; that in God’s king­dom our sins can be for­giv­en, are forgiven.

Jesus taught his dis­ciples to pray: ‘for­give us our sins as we for­give those who sin against us’ (Mat­thew 6.12, Luke 11.4); and he also taught them: ‘if you for­give any­one’s sins, they are for­giv­en; if you do not for­give them, they are not for­giv­en’ (John 20.23). For­give­ness and recon­cili­ation hap­pen when people for­give each oth­er. When oth­er people for­give us for the wrongs we have done to them then we are for­giv­en; and when we for­give oth­ers for the wrongs they have done us, they are for­giv­en. Jesus, in his life and death, in his teach­ing and in his actions, lived a life of for­give­ness and recon­cili­ation, even at the last, and inspires us to try and emu­late that life: liv­ing in the king­dom, for­giv­ing and being for­giv­en. In this way we are recon­ciled to one anoth­er and are at one with God. In God’s king­dom such for­give­ness is freely avail­able: all cit­izens of the king­dom will will­ingly and freely for­give the people who have wronged them, and no one will bear grudges or hurts. And every­one will be for­giv­en. (Of course, in God’s king­dom every­one will strive not to do wrong or cause hurt, but that’s anoth­er part of the story.)

So when Jesus sat down and ate with out­casts he showed – to every­one who was pre­pared to see it – how near God’s king­dom was, how it was already here among us. He showed how it was pos­sible to live in God’s king­dom of social justice and recon­cili­ation. For­give­ness was actu­al­ized. In the social aspect of shar­ing a meal togeth­er and being pre­pared to accept one anoth­er, to give and to receive for­give­ness, to be recon­ciled to one anoth­er: in doing these things we can glimpse the king­dom, and indeed not just glimpse it but enjoy a fore­taste – the king­dom in action, right here and now.

And that brings us back to the liturgy. Jesus’s dis­ciples con­tin­ued to share their meals as an enact­ment of the justice and peace of the king­dom of God, and in doing so they recog­nized the con­tinu­ing pres­ence of Jesus as they broke bread togeth­er. This meal con­tin­ues to this day, whenev­er Chris­ti­ans gath­er togeth­er and share bread and wine in remem­brance of Christ: Christ is present, for­give­ness and recon­cili­ation are giv­en and received, the king­dom is brought into existence.

This then is our vis­ion of the Euchar­ist. It is a vis­ion that the Church some­times seems to under­stand only very dimly, per­haps because the Euchar­ist – and Chris­tian­ity in gen­er­al – has become over­laid with so many ideas and prac­tices that add ‘reli­gious’, ‘cere­mo­ni­al’ and ‘ideo­lo­gic­al’ com­plex­ity. Some of those lay­ers can be help­ful, and oth­ers may be less so. Here we are con­cerned primar­ily with liturgy, and how the king­dom of God is pro­claimed and lived through the liturgy. How does the Euchar­ist exem­pli­fy the king­dom? What kinds of prac­tice are use­ful? What do we need to recov­er, in our lan­guage and our cere­mo­ni­al? What do we need to pre­serve, or enhance, what do we need to lessen or jet­tis­on? How has the litur­gic­al revi­sion of the last hun­dred years helped or hindered? Quite likely we shall con­clude that there is no single answer, but dif­fer­ent emphases in dif­fer­ent con­texts, with some lim­its, and sug­ges­tions for a range of ‘nor­mal’ usage.

But this is our start­ing point: the pro­clam­a­tion of the good news and the recog­ni­tion of the pres­ence of Christ in the shared meal where all are wel­come, where the hungry are fed, and where sins are forgiven.

‘Your king­dom come on earth, as in heav­en: give us this day our daily bread and for­give us our sins as we for­give those who sin against us.’

illus­tra­tion by Leigh Hur­lock, from Gath­er­ing for Wor­ship, Can­ter­bury Press, 2005, 2007; used with permission.

2 Comments

An apology

It’s been a while since I pos­ted here. That’s because life is busy, and time to write detailed art­icles is lim­ited. Rather than wait any longer I’m going to sketch out anoth­er piece, and at some future point I will add more detail.

0 Comments

call for transgender recognition rite

Under the pro­voc­at­ive head­line “Should church intro­duce trans­gender bap­tism?” the BBC reports that the Revd Chris New­lands, vicar of Lan­caster, has

asked the Church of Eng­land to debate intro­du­cing a cere­mony akin to a bap­tism to mark the new iden­tit­ies of Chris­ti­ans who under­go gender transition.

The idea came after a young trans­gender per­son approached him, seek­ing to be “re-bap­tised” in his new iden­tity. Sim­il­ar cere­mon­ies are already hap­pen­ing in some oth­er Anglic­an churches.

This week­end, Nick Benn and his friends gathered at his church for a ser­vice to mark one of the most sig­ni­fic­ant events in his life so far: the trans­ition from his pre­vi­ous iden­tity as a young woman, to a new life as a man.

At Lan­caster Pri­ory, Chris New­lands is keen for the Church to have an offi­cial liturgy to guide the clergy on such occa­sions. He wants the Church to be able to demon­strate its accept­ance and love, and to help mark a mile­stone for someone trans­ition­ing from one gender to another.

Susie Leafe, dir­ect­or of Reform, is quoted, com­ment­ing on the ques­tion of ‘bap­tism’.

“The Bible gives us the notion that there is one bap­tism, so the idea of ‘re-bap­tising’ people is cer­tainly some­thing that would go against a lot of the deep theo­logy of the Church and would be confusing.”

3 Comments

New baptismal texts; and rules on eucharistic ministers

The Gen­er­al Syn­od of the Church of Eng­land, meet­ing in York, yes­ter­day gave final approv­al to the addi­tion­al bap­tis­mal texts. The texts are author­ized from 1 Septem­ber 2015.

The syn­od­ic­al report reads:

CHRISTIAN INITIATION: ADDITIONAL TEXTS FOR HOLY BAPTISM IN ACCESSIBLE LANGUAGE (GS 1958B AND GS 1958X)

Art­icle 7 busi­ness Final Approval

The Bish­op of Sod­or and Man (Chair of the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee) moved:

‘That the litur­gic­al busi­ness entitled “Chris­ti­an Ini­ti­ation: Addi­tion­al Texts for Holy Bap­tism in Access­ible Lan­guage” be finally approved for a peri­od from 1 Septem­ber 2015 until fur­ther Res­ol­u­tion of the Synod.’

The final vote was approved after a divi­sion of houses, with the vot­ing fig­ures below:

House of Bish­ops: For – 23, Against – 1, Absten­tions – 1,
House of Clergy: For – 114, Against – 6, Absten­tions – 5,
House of Laity: For – 126, Against – 10, Absten­tions – 6,

The Syn­od also approved new reg­u­la­tions on the author­iz­a­tion of people to assist in the admin­is­tra­tion of Holy Com­mu­nion. The rules allow the bish­op, on the applic­a­tion of the incum­bent or priest in charge, to author­ize named indi­vidu­als. The bish­op may also give the priest gen­er­al author­ity to allow people to admin­is­ter (with PCC agree­ment), and this may include chil­dren who have been form­ally admit­ted to Com­mu­nion before Con­firm­a­tion. Chil­dren in church schools may be author­ized with the agree­ment of the head teach­er rather than the PCC. The full rules are in the linked file. The new reg­u­la­tions come into force on 1 Octo­ber 2015, and revoke the old 1969 rules.

ADMINISTRATION OF HOLY COMMUNION REGULATIONS (GS 1992)

Reg­u­la­tions under Can­on B 12 Art­icle 7 business

The Bish­op of Sod­or and Man (the Rt Revd Robert Pater­son) moved:

‘That the Admin­is­tra­tion of Holy Com­mu­nion Reg­u­la­tions be approved.’

which was approved.

0 Comments