Tag Archive for 'calendar'

liturgy at General Synod

Published on May 8, 2010 in liturgy. 6 Comments Tags: anglican church, brother roger, calendar, collect, cs lewis, lectionary, mary mackillop, new zealand, thomas merton.

I have been able to find out a bit more about debates relating to liturgy at the meeting of General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia meeting in Gisborne from today. Motion 5 (below) is the one that confuses and concerns me most, followed by the bill on Ashes to Fire.

There is a bill to confirm the removal in the Prayer Book of
for all who through their own or others’ actions are deprived of fullness of life
for prisoners, refugees, the handicapped, and all who are sick.
and replacing it with
for all who are deprived of fullness of life,
for prisoners, refugees, and those who are sick.

There is a bill to confirm the addition of certain people to the formulary of our calendar:
Mary MacKillop, Brother Roger, Mother Teresa, CS Lewis, Thomas Merton (I set this process in motion, though my hope had been that, as well as these, a much larger revision of our calendar was undertaken)

There is a bill to confirm that the New Living Translation may be read in church.

There is a bill confirming authorisation of eight new Eucharistic Prayers (Alternative Great Thanksgiving A-F, and for use with Children A & B)

There is a bill proposing that a resource Ashes to Fire: Liturgy for the Seasons of Lent and Easter become Alternative Services. I’m not sure what it is “alternative to” as we’ve previously never authorised anything like this. Also I’m not sure of the intended status? Is this the start of the “twice round process” (passed by GS, by majority of pakeha dioceses, hui amorangi, and diocese of Polynesia, & back to GS, and then a year’s wait) through which this will be come a formulary? And if so, does that mean we must use this and nothing else during Lent and Easter? Or will this be a recommended resource, but we can continue to source excellent other material? I have not spent sufficient time with this material to give an opinion if the intention is that we will use this and nothing else from Lent through Easter. Also, even if that is the intention of General Synod, the reality will be that the church here would continue to use and create other material. You can download a PDF of Ashes to Fire here.

Motion 5 I think needs even more clarification. It is unclear to me whether it is intended to replace everything in our Prayer Book from pages 549 to 723 as it appears to be suggesting. Certainly it cannot do that as those pages are formularies of our church. If the intention is that this is yet another resource for liturgy in this province, I can live with that, even though I do not agree with the way that many prayers are associated with the lectionary as if they are collects.

The central prayer of the Liturgy of the Eucharist is the Eucharistic Prayer, in which we clearly, in Christ, are in relationship with God (the First Person of the Trinity, the Father/Matua), in the power of the Spirit. The central prayer of the Liturgy of the Word, the collect, normatively has this same dynamic. In the collect the tradition has us clearly, in Christ, in relationship with God (the First Person of the Trinity, the Father/Matua), in the power of the Spirit. The collect is not another nice little prayer addressed to whatever person of the Trinity your liturgical bottle has stopped spinning at. Many “collects” in our Prayer Book have neither this dynamic (they are, rather, addressed to Jesus or the Holy Spirit), nor (of lesser significance) the structure of a collect, however we have always been free to choose a collect which does have this dynamic. This resource in motion 5 spreads the three collects provided for each Sunday in the Prayer Book across the three years of the lectionary. I hope that our province will work towards a better way to associate collects with the lectionary. And that such collects associated follow the structure and dynamics of the inherited tradition. This motion is clearly not a formulary, and I would strongly oppose any development that would make it compulsory to use the suggestions, not leaving open the option of following the structure and dynamics of our inherited tradition.

I would speak against motion 5 because it is confused and merely increases liturgical confusion in our province. It also encourages the use of nice little prayers to Jesus and the Holy Spirit which may be wonderful in other contexts but inappropriate as the core prayer for the Liturgy of the Word.

Here is an earlier article I wrote on collect vandalism. This includes PDFs of what motion 5 is proposing be “authorised” as “replacing” our formulary pages (something, of course, that cannot be done in this manner).
Here is an explanation of the collect in my book Celebrating Eucharist.
Further reading on the collect.

Here is my call for General Synod information to be available online.
Here is my General Synod wish-list.

A participant’s blog

And don’t forget to pray for the meeting of General Synod.

When is Easter Day?

Published on March 20, 2010 in liturgy. 12 Comments Tags: calendar, Easter.

Easter Day can occur anywhere between March 22 and April 25. Often Easter Day for the Eastern half of the church is on a different date than for the Western half of the church. This year Eastern and Western Easter falls on the same date: Sunday April 4. Passover this year (5769) commences at sunset of Monday, the 29th of March.

The dating of Easter arises from the complicated joining of two different calendar systems. These calendars might be illustrated by the early story of Cain and Abel. If you are an Abel type – hunting, fishing, watching your flock by night, you will focus on the moon and the lunar cycle of 29 and a half days. Moonlight and tides will be significant to you. If you are a Cain type, a tiller of the ground and grower of crops, the solar cycle and its seasons will be more significant to you. The dating of Easter comes out of combining these solar and lunar calendars.

Passover – Pesach

The Jewish calendar is lunar. Twelve lunar months, with an occasional extra month popped in to keep up with the solar year. The month begins with new moon, and full moon, in the middle of the month, is the obvious time for extensive parties and festivals. There’s more light at night! Passover (Pesach) is the first full moon after the vernal (Northern Spring) equinox (14 of Abib in the Old Testament’s Hebrew Calendar) (Lev 23:5). This was to be a “perpetual ordinance” (Exodus 12:14).

Nicaea on Easter

There appears confusion between the synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and John on the relationship between the Passover celebration and Christ’s death. Added to that, some early Christians celebrated Pascha (Easter) on the Jewish festival of Passover, whilst others always celebrated it on the Sunday following. The former were called Quartodecimans (Latin: quarta decima, fourteen). The Council of Nicaea (325) decided against the Quartodecimans and in favour of Easter always being on a Sunday. Rather than produce a canon on this, they communicated this to the different dioceses and gave the Bishop of Alexandria the privilege of announcing annually the date of Easter.

The Council of Nicaea determined that Easter would be the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If full moon happens to fall on Sunday, Easter is celebrated the following Sunday. Furthermore, it fixed the vernal equinox to be 21 March.
By the sixth century complex mathematical methods had been devised, involving paschal cycles of 19 years in the East, and 84 years in the West. Hence Easter calculations are based not on the astronomical full moon but an “ecclesiastical moon,” based on these created tables.

The Gregorian Calendar

A further divergence developed when there was a growing realisation of the drifting of the Julian Calendar from the actual solar year. In the Julian Calendar every year divisible by four is a leap year. This actually makes the Julian year slightly too long. By the sixteenth century this drift had made 10 days of difference. Pope Gregory in 1582 declared that October 4th would be followed by October 15th, and that only centuries divisible by 400 would be a leap year. This is known as the Gregorian calendar most now use. 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 was a leap year. England, not under the authority of the pope, did not change to the Gregorian calendar until 1752 and there were riots demanding the giving back of the (by then) 12 days lost! The Eastern part of the church continues to calculate its festivals by the Julian calendar.

Hence, Eastern Easter also falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25, inclusive, but of the Julian calendar. There is currently a 13 day difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars hence, from the Gregorian perspective, Eastern Easter falls between April 4 and May 8, inclusive. Eastern Easter also never comes before the Jewish Passover.

Easter in the future?

There has been discussion about abandoning any relationship with the lunar cycle and fixing Easter on the Sunday after the second Saturday in April. The Second Vatican Council agreed to a fixed date for Easter provided a consensus could be reached among Christian churches.

There was an ecumenical meeting in Aleppo, Syria in 1997. This concluded that the present differences in the calendars and lunar tables (paschal cycles) have no different fundamental theological outlook. The suggestion there was to replace both Eastern and Western calculations with the most advanced astronomically accurate calculations of the equinox and the full moon following, using the meridian of Jerusalem as the point of measure. This has not advanced further.

Mary MacKillop’s canonisation

Published on February 22, 2010 in lectionary and liturgy. 4 Comments Tags: anglican church, benedict xvi, calendar, catholic, mary mackillop, new zealand, vatican.

Mary MacKillop

Pope Benedict XVI announced on Friday that Mother Mary MacKillop would be one of six canonised at a Vatican ceremony on October 17.

This Australian has strong associations with New Zealand. She visited here on several occasions. The first school run by her sisters in New Zealand was opened in Temuka in 1883. Other schools and institutions followed and the work continues into the present. While in Rotorua on a visit to New Zealand in 1901 Mother Mary was partially paralysed by a stroke.

In 2006 I put a motion to our diocesan synod which led to Mary MacKillop being voted to be added to the NZ Anglican calendar for August 8. This has passed a majority of diocesan synods and will this year be presented to a second meeting of General Synod. After this there is a year “lying on the table” for anyone to object. The church is so confident of her inclusion that she has already been included in the 2009 and 2010 lectionaries. It does mean, however, that her official inclusion in our NZ Anglican calendar will now be after that of the Roman Catholic Church. I would be interested if there is any movement to add her to the calendar by the Australian Anglican church.

Gracious God,
you gave to your servant Mary MacKillop
a heart to teach and care for children.
We thank you for the good she and her order have done.
By your grace give us a like compassion for the poor
and a concern for the education of the young
that we all may learn to praise you with joyful hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
who is alive with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Shape of Lent Easter

Published on February 21, 2010 in liturgy. 2 Comments Tags: calendar, Easter, facebook, Lent, liturgy, maundy thursday, Pentecost.

I have created this chart to help clarify how the Lent and Easter Seasons fit into the year. This period forms a quarter of the year. The forty days of Lent is an approximate tenth or tithe of the year. The fifty days of the Easter Season is approximately a seventh of the year – it forms the great Sunday of the year. It is concluded by the Day of Pentecost – from the Greek word for fifty. Also called Whitsunday – possibly from the French word for eighth Sunday (Whitsunday is the eighth Sunday of the great Season of Easter).

All days in my table are inclusive.

This period effectively of 96 days moves around a certain section of our calendar year by year.

The three days (inclusive) here refers to the “three days” Christ is in the tomb. The Triduum celebration is now more generally a reference to the Maundy Thursday until the Easter Vigil celebration.

The 40 days fast is preparing for the 50 days feast. You can accept the invitation to the 50 days here. Invite others.

Valentine’s Day

Published on February 14, 2010 in liturgy. 3 Comments Tags: calendar, candlemas, christmas, marriage, saints.

This is a repost of earlier material found on this site.

In 1752 England and the British colonies in America upgraded from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar by removing 12 days from the year to bring it back to the way the seasons were in 325AD when Christians first agreed how to date Easter. There were riots in the streets: “give us our 12 days back!” Do the Maths: January 6 is now where December 25 used to be. January 6 is a much more likely date to have snow (Is “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know…” part of a folk-memory of times when snow at Christmas was more common?)

So why might Valentine’s Day be so popular, spreading especially from Britain and USA? Do the Maths: counting back 12 days from February 14…. February 2! Today is when one of the most significant festivals, Candlemas, used to be! Is the significance placed on today possibly, in part (he says tentatively) a folk-memory of when Candlemas was celebrated today? [If you write your doctorate on this - please don't forget to credit me - you read it here first!] … As well, of course, as the following:

Christian roots

There are a number of early church martyrs called Valentine or Valentinus. Hence, the origin of the celebration is confused and disputed.

One legend has it that Valentine was a third century priest in Rome. The Emperor Claudius II thought that single men made better soldiers than married ones who had their minds on their wives and children. So he outlawed marriage for young men from which he drew his army. Valentine, however, continued to marry young couples secretly. But Valentine was caught and ordered to be executed.

According to one legend, Valentine was the first to send a ‘valentine’ greeting. In prison he fell in love, maybe with the jailor’s daughter. Before his martyrdom he wrote her a letter, signing it ‘From your Valentine.’ As is so often the case, the most legendary saints end up being amongst the most popular – and Valentine is no exception. Because of the legendary nature of the saint, along with St Christopher, St Valentine was removed from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969 after the Second Vatican Council.

In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honour St. Valentine.

Pagan roots

In the pagan days of the Roman Empire, February 14th was a festival in honour of Juno, Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. She was also the Goddess of women and marriage. On February 15th the Feast of Lupercalia began. This was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, and also to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

On the eve of Lupercalia the names of girls were written on paper and placed into an urn. The bachelors would draw a girl’s name from that jar. This lottery led them to being partners for Lupercalia. They might end up falling in love and later marrying.

Early Christianity often substituted Christian celebrations for pagan traditions. Around 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius fixed February 14 to be the feast day of St. Valentine. As with so many Christianisations of earlier festivals, it appears to have picked up traditions, understandings, and practices of its foundation.

In France and England there was the belief that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season. The earliest “valentine” we still have (now in the British Library in London ) is a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans in 1415 to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt.

Valentine’s Day became increasingly popular from the seventeenth century. Only at Christmas are more cards sent.

Mary MacKillop to be canonised

Published on December 20, 2009 in lectionary and liturgy. 1 Comment Tags: Anglican, benedict xvi, calendar, catholic, mary mackillop.

Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI issued a papal decree setting Mary MacKillop well on the way to being the first Australian to be canonised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. The decree also recognised the ”heroic virtues” of Popes John Paul II and Pious XII, along with seven others. Early next year a commission of cardinals will assess her case and the Pope then makes the final decision which now appears all but certain – with her canonisation probably occurring during 2010.

In 2006 I put a motion to our diocesan synod which led to Mary MacKillop being voted to be added to the NZ Anglican calendar for August 8. Although that is still to be passed again by a second meeting of General Synod (meeting in 2010) and then a year “lying on the table” for anyone to object, the church is so confident of her inclusion that she has already been included in the 2009 and 2010 lectionaries.

Together with Father Julian Tenison Woods, Mary MacKillop founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. She was for a while excommunicated, but now there are more than a thousand Sisters in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Peru. She is not present on the calendar of the Australian Anglican A Prayer Book for Australia, and I would be interested to know if there is movement there to add her to that calendar.

O antiphons

Published on December 17, 2009 in lectionary and liturgy. 3 Comments Tags: calendar, christmas, emmanuel, lectio, lectionary, magnificat, o adonai, o antiphon, o antiphons, o dawn, o key of david, o lord of might, O Root of Jesse, o sapientia, o wisdom.

In the NZ lectionary today (December 17), without any explanation, is titled O Sapientia. It is not in our NZ calendar. Until 1990 every day from now until Christmas Eve had such a title (O Sapientia, O Adonai,…) – and one would hope that clergy, at least, were trained to understand the reference. 1991 – all gone – these titles for those days disappear without explanation. Until, suddenly in the 1999 lectionary the solitary O Sapientia appears on this date and does so right into the 2010 lectionary. Nothing for tomorrow, or Saturday,…

From at least the eighth century the antiphon before and after the Magnificat at Vespers (Evening Prayer), for the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve, has greeted Christ with a title starting with “O”. These became the basis of the popular carol “O come, O come, Emmanuel”. The initials, when read backwards, form the Latin “Ero Cras” which means “Tomorrow I come.”

They are now also used, in shorted form, in the Alleluia verses before the days’ Gospel readings.

Here are reflections and musical settings (sung by the Dominican student brothers at Blackfriars in Oxford) for these wonderful antiphons that you can use day by day until Christmas Eve:

O Sapientia – O Wisdom – 17 December
O Adonai – O Lord of might – 18 December
O Radix Jesse – O Root of Jesse – December 19
O Clavis David – O Key of David – December 20
O Oriens – O Dawn – December 21
O Rex Gentium – O sovereign of the nations – December 22
O Emmanuel – December 23

Thomas Merton

Published on December 10, 2009 in liturgy. 1 Comment Tags: calendar, episcopal church, justice, new zealand, saints, silence, thomas merton, trappist.

Thomas Merton died 41 years ago today. Some years back I moved a motion at our diocesan synod, the cogs of which have been slowly working – (ACANZP’s) General Synod is anticipated to have its second vote on this in 2010 and then, after a year “lying on the table” (for anyone to make a submission that this should not proceed) he will be added to the formal calendar of this church. Appropriately; he has strong connections to New Zealand. The Episcopal Church this year added Merton to their calendar at their General Convention. In their Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints they describe him:

Thomas Merton [1915-Dec. 10, 1968] Trappist author and poet. Merton’s Catholic conversion is the subject of his best-selling The Seven Storey Mountain. He became a contemplative monk at Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky, yet remained engaged with social justice and world affairs through reading and vast correspondence.

Gracious God,
you called your monk Thomas Merton to proclaim your justice out of silence,
and moved him in his contemplative writings to perceive and value Christ at work in the faiths of others:
Keep us, like him, steadfast in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ;
who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St Matthew September 21

Published on September 21, 2009 in lectionary, liturgy and liturgy of the hours. 1 Comment Tags: calendar, collect, common prayer, lectionary, September.

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio

September 21 Feast of Saint Matthew

Collect from Common Worship

O Almighty God,
whose blessed Son called Matthew the tax collector
to be an apostle and evangelist:
give us grace to forsake the selfish pursuit of gain
and the possessive love of riches
that we may follow in the way of your Son Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

This is a contemporary reworking of the collect composed for the Book of Common Prayer (1549). That collect was based on the Gospel reading of the day:

ALMIGHTIE God, whiche by thy blessed sonne dyddest call Mathewe from the receipte of custome to be an Apostle and Evangelist; Graunt us grace to forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches, and to folowe thy sayed sonne Jesus Christ; who lyveth and reigneth, &c.

USA (TEC) BCP has replaced it with a collect composed by Rev. Dr. Massey H. Shepherd jr reminiscent of the one for the feast of Saint Andrew:

We thank you, heavenly Father, for the witness of your apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of your Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Br Roger photo

Published on August 21, 2009 in liturgy. 0 Comments Tags: anglicans, brother roger, calendar, justice, monastery, orthodox, roman catholics, silence, spirituality, Taizé.

Having described my visits to Taize, I dug out my own photo of Br. Roger from 1983 (above). For me it speaks volumes of who he was (for me and for others) – and how I encountered him.

Brother Roger of Taizé

Published on August 16, 2009 in liturgy and spirituality. 6 Comments Tags: anglicans, brother roger, calendar, justice, monastery, orthodox, roman catholics, silence, spirituality, Taizé.

Brother Roger was born in Provence in Switzerland in 1915 the ninth and youngest child of a Protestant minister’s family. He studied theology at Strasbourg and Lausanne. In 1940 he left Switzerland for his mother’s native France.

In 1940, he biked from Geneva to Taizé, a small village in Burgundy near Cluny. Taizé was at that time in unoccupied France, just beyond the line of demarcation to the zone occupied by German troops. For two years Brother Roger hid Jewish refugees before being forced to leave Taizé. In 1944, he returned to Taizé to found a monastery – a community of men vowing to live in poverty, chastity, and obedience. There was already something extraordinary in this venture – protestants don’t normally form monasteries.

After the war Brother Roger was joined by others, and on Easter Day 1949 the community was formally established. Brother Roger was deeply committed to the task of reconciliation – of having people of different viewpoints listen to one another respectfully and pray and work together without necessarily coming to agree with each other.

I have been fascinated by Brother Roger since I was a teenager. In the 1960s, to the surprise of this community of monks, young people started to camp around the monastery. These young people joined the monks at prayer but the complex monastic services the community had famously developed were too complicated for them.

Typical for the community – they abandoned the services they had worked years on to develop and which were internationally famous and developed a new, very simple style of service which could be easily picked up by young people with a lot of repetition, the use of many languages, and different parts and singing in rounds.

Brother Roger was a classically trained musician and understood the power of music as part of spirituality. It was Br Roger who introduced the meditative and reflective chants that are so strongly associated with the Taizé style of worship and that have had such an impact on contemporary spirituality.

About 150,000 young people visit Taize each year – normally staying for a week. Praying three times a day in the church which can hold thousands of people and spending the rest of the day in discussion and just enjoying being together.

I first went there in 1983 and stayed for two weeks – one in discussion and one week in silence. Each evening after the evening service Br Roger would have a huge crowd of young people around him – it always seemed impossible to get to him. One evening there was some translation happening, and I could see that the group of people closest to him could not speak French – this was my chance to go and speak to him. When he discovered I was from New Zealand he invited me to join the monks each day for their meal in the actual monastery. This was a great honor and special insight into the life of the 100 or so monks living quite separately from the young people. This community of monks is made up of Roman Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, and Eastern Orthodox – forming a parable of reconciliation.

The monks receive nothing from the young people – all they live from they grow themselves, produce, or make things to sell. They do not accept gifts. They do not accept an inheritance. The do not take out any insurance. Although Brother Roger was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1988 he shied away from the limelight. Once a year he would go and live and work with the poorest of the poor in some country and then write a letter which would become the basis for reflection for the young people. Other than that he was not one for preaching.

His primary idea was not to form a movement but that those who have visited Taizé should return to their own community and there seek to live out the insights and deeper spiritual awareness they have gained from their visit to the community.

In 2005 on study leave I was privileged again to spend a week in Taize and to meet up with the now-aging Brother Roger again. A month after that 2005 time there, during the evening service at Taizé on 16 August 2005, he was attacked and stabbed to death by a mentally disturbed woman.

As a protestant Br Roger received communion from the last two popes and a Roman Catholic Cardinal took his funeral Mass.

Br Roger and his community have been centrally influential in my life. Justice and prayer as being two sides of the same coin. The attitude of being non-judgemental, of listening to people where they are at, of realising that God is in people’s lives even if they express this differently to the way I do. Of respecting people – and not having the need to have everyone agree with me – or of trying to convert people to my particular way of expressing things.

In 2006 I moved a motion at our Diocesan Synod which has passed our General Synod and our church’s diocesan synods and Hui Amorangi to add to our church’s calendar:
16 August Brother Roger of Taizé, Prophet of unity, Encourager of youth, 2005

First communion on the moon anniversary

Published on July 20, 2009 in liturgy. 4 Comments Tags: calendar, Creation, humor, humour, Mass, universe.

replica of Buzz Aldrin's chalice

Today 40 years ago Buzz Aldrin had the first communion on the Moon. I am delighted that Rev. Mark Cooper, the senior pastor of Webster Presbyterian Church in Webster, TX, wrote to this site in response to my post:

“Greetings, All:

I have the honor of serving as senior pastor of Webster Presbyterian Church in Webster, TX. At the time of the lunar landing Aldrin was an elder in our church. A communion kit was prepared for him by the church’s pastor at the time, the Rev. Dean Woodruff. Since Presbyterians do not celebrate private communion, the communion on the moon was structured as part of a service with the congregation back at the church. Aldrin returned the chalice he used to earth. Webster Presbyterian continues to possess the chalice, which is now kept in a safety deposit box. Each year the congregation commemorates the lunar communion on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of the landing.

While we have to confess some pride in his being a Presbyterian (at least at the time – I don’t know anything about his affiliation now, if any) communion is certainly not solely a Presbyterian ritual. The Presbyterian communion table is open to all Christians. We call it “communion” because in it we commune with God and with all our brothers and sisters in faith, in all times and places and of all names. Aldrin did not take communion on the moon as a Presbyterian so much as he did as a Christian. We Presbyterian, even we Webster-type Presbyterians, do not own lunar communion. The communion on the moon belongs to us all. It can, and should, serve as a powerful symbol of God’s presence everywhere, and of our unity as one family of faith.”

The image shows the original card with the words “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.” (John 15:5) and “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the Son of Man, that thou visitest Him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). This card sold in an auction two years ago for nearly $US 180,000

Just for fun – don’t watch it if you have no sense of humour:

They DID land on the Moon!

Some possible blessings for an anniversary service:

Seek the One who made the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, the sun, the moon, the planets in their courses, and this earth, our home and may the blessing of God… (BCP TEC USA adapt)

Seek the One who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth, and the blessing… (Amos 5:8)

The Lectionary (part 1)

Published on July 19, 2009 in lectionary and liturgy. 8 Comments Tags: anglicans, bible, calendar, cs lewis, ecumenism, episcopalians, lectionary, RCL, Revised Common Lectionary, roman catholics, vatican.

I consider the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) as a gift from the Holy Spirit to the church. Although at the grass-roots level relationships between people of different denominations are healthy, at the power levels of institutional Christianity ecumenism has pretty much, in spite of innumerable meetings and reports, come to …. nought. Yet, Sunday by Sunday, Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, etc., read essentially the same readings.

In the synagogue the Torah is read through completely Sabbath by Sabbath. Some scholars, in fact, see patterns in the Gospels that the stories (pericopes) may relate to a week by week connection to the appointed synagogue reading (The evangelists’ calendar: A lectionary explanation of the development of scripture). For centuries the church also had a one-year reading cycle. It is possible that many of these readings connected to the Jewish festivals and readings at the same or similar time, and I would be grateful to any readers who could point to either books or websites that explore the connection between the traditional lectionary and Jewish roots.

That one-year cycle had a reading from a gospel generally preceded by another New Testament reading. There was normally no reading from the Old Testament.

After Vatican II the Roman Catholic Church produced a three-year lectionary. “The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly so that a richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s word. In this way the more significant part of the Sacred Scriptures will be read to the people over a fixed number of years” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, #51). This new lectionary has three readings and a psalm. The Old Testament became a regular part of the lectionary’s fare.

During the decade that followed the 1969 introduction many churches adopted and adapted this wonderful new lectionary. The North American Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) and the International English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC) took up this interest producing an ecumenical revision in 1983. After nine years of trialling, the Revised Common Lectionary was published. It differs little from the 1969 Roman Catholic lectionary – the most significant difference being that in the Roman Catholic lectionary the Old Testament reading normally relates to the Gospel reading. That option is preserved in the RCL, but after Pentecost there is a second option, to read the Old Testament semi-continuously, just as the other books of scripture normally are.

A relevant quote from CS Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters in which a senior devil called Screwtape is writing to his nephew, a junior devil named Wormwood, giving him advice on how to entrap a human called “the Patient.”:

[The Vicar] has deserted both the lectionary and the appointed psalms and now, without noticing it, revolves endlessly round the little treadmill of his fifteen favourite psalms and twenty favourite lessons. We are thus safe from the danger that any truth not already familiar to him and to his flock should over reach them through Scripture. (letter XVI) The Screwtape Letters: How a Senior Devil Instructs a Junior Devil in the Art of Temptation

Part 2 of this Lectionary series

First Communion on the Moon

Published on July 16, 2009 in liturgy. 34 Comments Tags: Anglican, calendar, Creation, episcopal church, episcopalians, Mass, universe.

L-R Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin

On Sunday July 20, 1969 the first people landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were in the lunar lander which touched down at 3:17 Eastern Standard Time.

Buzz Aldrin had with him the Reserved Sacrament. He radioed: “Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way.”

Later he wrote: “In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.’ I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute Deke Slayton had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly…Eagle’s metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.”

NASA kept this secret for two decades. The memoirs of Buzz Aldrin and the Tom Hanks’s Emmy- winning HBO mini-series, From the Earth to the Moon (1998), made people aware of this act of Christian worship 235,000 miles from Earth.

The 2003 Episcopal Church General Convention resolved that the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music prepare propers and collects for churchwide observance of the 40th anniversary of the event, July 20, 2009, and to include “The First Communion on the Moon” in The Episcopal Church’s Lesser Feasts and Fasts and on the calendar in the Book of Common Prayer for July 20. (Biretta tip: @rrchapman)

I only have the 1991 Lesser Feasts and Fasts on my shelf so cannot quote more than what I have found online. If you have the revised version, please add any omitted material in the comments section. I understand that there is now a “Common” to commemorate “those who have died in the course of space exploration – among them a significant number of Episcopalians. In addition, it provides a way of praying for future space explorers and for the thousands of people whose work make the space program possible.” The collect for this “Common” reads:

Creator of the universe,
your dominion extends through the immensity of space:
guide and guard those who seek to fathom its mysteries [especially N.N.].
Save us from arrogance lest we forget that our achievements are grounded in you,
and, by the grace of your Holy Spirit,
protect our travels beyond the reaches of earth,
that we may glory ever more in the wonder of your creation:
through Jesus Christ, your Word, by whom all things came to be,
who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

Colonel Aldrin holds a doctorate in astro-physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was acknowledged as the most highly educated of the first astronauts. He is a wonderful example of a scientist who is a committed Christian.

There appear differing versions of the story whether Buzz Aldrin was a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian/Anglican. I hope this will finally be settled in the comments and then I can amend this post – please add a reference to your comment of the denomination to which Buzz Aldrin belonged at the time of the lunar landing. Here are the conflicting references I have found so far:
Anglican/Episcopalian 1, 2, 3 (click on number to got to website)
Presbyterian 1, 2 (click on number to got to website)

Other useful sites:
Buzz Aldrin website
@therealBuzz

Update: an anniversary post is now online

Pentecost – Joan of Arc

Published on May 24, 2009 in liturgy. 2 Comments Tags: calendar, Easter, humor, humour, liturgy, Mass, Pentecost.

Joan of Arc - Feast Day May 30

In response to someone viewing my video on the Liturgy of the Notices, they emailed me a genuine notice from their parish bulletin. I have permission to quote it here – I have removed locations to keep anonymity:

Joan of Arc/Pentecost BBQ– Sun., May 31st after the 5:45 p.m. Mass (Parish of St Ann O’Nymous) Come out to Ann O’Nymous location after Mass to celebrate the feasts of Joan of Arc and Pentecost with a bonfire and BBQ!

On a more serious note, what about, on the Day of Pentecost, processing out with lit candles:

Everyone carried a candle lit from the Paschal Candle during the Easter vigil, symbolically sharing the light of the risen Christ. Perhaps on the Day of Pentecost, during the period of reflection after receiving communion, these candles could be relit from the Paschal Candle. The Pentecostal fire is thereby visibly divided and shared by everyone (cf. Acts 2:1-4; first reading for the Day of Pentecost, Three Year Series). The Paschal Candle can then be extinguished, vividly concluding the Fifty Days. The risen and ascended Christ, gone from our sight, is still present by the Spirit and we are commissioned to go out into the world to spread the light of Christ. (This might be symbolised by all processing out with the lit candles).

OTHER RESOURCES

A reflection on the Day of Pentecost collect/opening prayer

As the Day of Pentecost concludes a season, this collect would not be used during the week following. Instead, the Ordinary Sunday that this day replaces (9th Ordinary Sunday of the Year – Sunday closest to June 1 - Sunday between 29 May and 4 June) is the collect that is used if required during this week.

An outline for a vigil for the Day of Pentecost