Tag Archive for 'consecration'

Virtual Eucharist?

Published on June 28, 2009 in liturgy. 37 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Can sacraments work in the virtual world?

The Revd Professor Paul S. Fiddes, a Baptist minister and Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Oxford and Director of Research, Regent’s Park College, has just written a short paper arguing in favour of celebrating Eucharist in the virtual world.

Anglican Cathedral in Second Life

Anglican Cathedral in Second Life

Mark Brown, an Anglican priest and CEO of the NZ Bible Society is the founder of the Anglican Cathedral in Second Life. He has just placed Professor Fiddes’ paper on his blog and invited me to respond. Unfortunately Mark himself has to date not entered the discussion. Having just relinquished his position in the Anglican Cathedral in Second Life he may be giving the impression that he is in favour of expanding services in the virtual world to include “sacraments.”

Can bread and wine be consecrated via the internet?

When televised services first became possible, there was discussion whether bread and wine, placed before a television screen, would be consecrated by a priest presiding at a service being televised. Now serious discussions are beginning to take place about sacraments in cyberspace.

Professor Fiddes contends “Theologically we should develop a notion of ‘virtual sacraments’ rather than an ‘extension’ of the consecration of elements over a distance, and their direct reception by the person employing the avatar.” He makes this statement, however, without any substantiation why avatars administering and receiving sacraments within a virtual world is OK but extending this into real life via the internet is not. In general, however, this is in the context of a church that is often struggling to catch up with the potential offered by the internet.

Baptism, immersion into the Christian community, the body of Christ, and hence into the nature of God the Holy Trinity may have some internet equivalents – for example, being welcomed into a moderated group. But my own current position would be to shy away from, for example, having a virtual baptism of a second life avatar. Nor would I celebrate Eucharist and other sacraments in the virtual world. Sacraments are outward and visible signs – the virtual world is still very much at the inner and invisible level. Similarly, in my opinion, placing unconsecrated bread and wine before a computer or television screen and understanding this to result in consecration tends away from the liturgical understanding of the Eucharist (liturgy = work of the people/ something done by a community) towards a magical understanding of the Eucharist (magic = something done to or for an individual or community).

Sacraments 2.0

Professor Fiddes summarises

An avatar can receive the bread and wine of the Eucharist within the logic of the virtual world and it will still be a means of grace, since God is present in a virtual world in a way that is suitable for its inhabitants. We may expect that the grace received by the avatar will be shared in some way by the person behind the avatar, because the person in our everyday world has a complex relationship with his or her persona.

I strongly disagree with this argument. Professor Fiddes contends that God is present in a virtual world providing grace for its inhabitants. In Fiddes’ theology God gives grace to the avatar. This grace, Fiddes’ expects, will then be “shared in some way by the person behind the avatar.” The concept of an avatar being the receiver of God’s grace is astonishing from an Oxford Professor of Systematic Theology, let alone a Baptist minister, who normally would not allow God’s grace to be present in an inanimate object, not to mention a virtual one. Yet, surprisingly, he presents no justification for his startling assertions. In Fiddes’ perspective does all of the grace received by the avatar automatically get transferred to the person behind the avatar in a sort of ex opere operato mechanism? Or in some (many, most) cases is only some of the grace transferred, with the avatar retaining grace that was originally given by God to the avatar? What in Fiddes’ theology is the use of God’s grace to this avatar? What happens to this grace when the computers fail and the virtual world ceases?

Following Fiddes’ approach one would logically hold that God gives grace to a cartoon character like Mickey Mouse with whom an observer (or cartoonist) identifies – and that Mickey Mouse passes this grace on to the observer or cartoonist. Similarly God, according to Fiddes’, would give grace to a character in a computer/video game and that grace is then passed on to the person playing that character.

Mark Brown in Second Life

Mark Brown in Second Life

Although Fiddes claims that grace is not some sort of liquid, some sort of “substance”, there is nothing in his thesis that supports this claim. Putting to one side the comment that celebrating Eucharist in Second Life parodies Real Life church (and so would tend towards sacrilege), and the complexities of who might preside at a Second Life Eucharist (only an ordained person behind an avatar? only an avatar ordained within the virtual world?), I think it is better to examine the sacramental theology underlying Fiddes’ contention.

The majority Christian position (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran,…- but, it is to be noted for this response, not Baptist) holds that Christ is truly present in a distinctive way in the Eucharistic species of bread and wine. A sacrament requires particular “matter”. Baptism uses water, Eucharist uses bread and wine. We cannot pour a jar of jelly-beans over someone and say they are baptised. We cannot consecrate a bicycle and say this is the Eucharist. Such sacramental theology is also clear on whom we might confer the sacrament. We cannot baptise a pram. We cannot give communion to a letterbox.

Hence, we cannot baptise an avatar in the virtual world – as there is no water there, nor is an avatar a person on whom we can confer baptism.

There is within Christianity a minority position that regards sacraments as primarily something happening in one’s mind, or metaphorical heart. This position holds that the bread and wine are reminders to the faithful person receiving them. Fiddes, an ordained Baptist minister, is faithful to the Baptist foundations of Regent’s Park College in his sacramental ideas about an individual receiving grace by being mentally involved in a computer simulation. In the Eucharist, bread and wine are the medium by which one makes oneself present to the death of Christ. One wonders why Fiddes would continue this in the virtual world when there one could simulate the death of Christ directly. Communion in his view of the virtual world adds another now-unnecessary layer between Christ’s death and the person on the keyboard.

There is no denying Fiddes’ statement “There is a mysterious and complex interaction between the person and the persona projected (avatar).” This relationship is, in my opinion, akin to identifying with a character in a novel, play, or movie, or with a string puppet one is controlling in a puppet theatre. A baptism, marriage, or celebration of communion in such a novel, movie, or puppet show may deeply move the person identifying with the character. Such a person may very well be graced and transformed by God at such a time. But there is no sense in which the person identifying with the character is thereby baptised, married, or receiving the Eucharist.

The gothic architecture of the Anglican Cathedral in Second Life may mimic the gothic architecture of many cathedrals in Real Life and encourage a sloppy translation into Second Life of everything from Real Life. But, in fact, any architectural construct can be designed in a virtual world in a way that it cannot in Real Life. What we need is not a parodying in the virtual world of that which is particular to Real Life – we need to discern appropriate ways of mission and ministry in and through the virtual world that may very well be significantly different to what we can do in the Real World. It is that which is its blessing and its challenge.

Update: check here for a funny and thought-provoking video on the church’s use of new technology! :-)

stand up for your rites

Published on May 29, 2009 in liturgy. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
orans position - Catacombs of Priscilla, 3rd century AD

orans posture - Catacombs of Priscilla, 3rd century AD

“New Zealand’s [Roman Catholic] bishops are no longer seeking approval that kneeling be the posture for the faithful during the Eucharistic Prayer at Masses, reversing an earlier decision,” Michael Otto reports on front-page news of the fortnightly NZ Catholic (#317). Last November the bishops had voted, not unanimously, to kneel from the end of the Sanctus/Benedictus until after the Great Amen. Luckily, now that the bishops have changed their minds, that request was lost in the Vatican’s in-trays. The Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship has apologised for losing it. The article is unclear if kneeling will be required for what it terms the “consecration” (presumably the Last Supper story found in all of New Zealand’s RC Eucharistic Prayers). Or if standing throughout will be an option. Or if people can choose individually when to kneel or stand (I can already visualise the video of of the – how many variations can you think of, Mathematicians? – people bobbing up and down at different points within the same shared prayer… :-( )

[Aside: Not all Roman Catholic Eucharistic Prayers have a "consecration" (in the sense of Last Supper story). The Roman Catholic Church recognises the Eucharistic Prayer of Addai and Mari as a valid, consecrating eucharistic prayer even though it does not even contain the Last Supper story, nor the words “this is my body”, nor "this is my blood." These last two quotes from the Last Supper at that event were words, not of consecration, but of administration/distribution.]

The article NZ Catholic highlights the Vatican’s General Instruction of the Roman Missal has “they should kneel at the consecration, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present, or some other good reason.” Even there, however, this appears in the Errata of that document. The article goes on to point to Cardinal Ratzinger’s (aka Pope Benedict XVI) writing on kneeling in The Spirit of the Liturgy.

The bishops at the first ecumenical council of Nicaea (325) were horrified to discover that Christians were kneeling on Sundays and in the Great Easter Season of 50 days (which they termed Pentecost) and ruled in canon 20:

Since there are some who kneel on Sunday and during the season of Pentecost, this holy synod decrees that, so that the same observances may be maintained in every diocese, one should offer one’s prayers to the Lord standing.

Bishop Cullinane in the NZ Catholic article highlights that “the ancient tradition regarded standing as the posture of the Easter people.”

Other denominations may not have a moment-of-consecration theology, and wonder what the rationale for the rest of the Eucharistic Prayer is if its purpose is effected by a small section within it. These may see the whole Eucharistic Prayer as consecrating – or in fact the whole eucharistic action (from taking bread and wine, giving thanks, breaking bread and distributing bread and wine) as consecrating. Anglican eucharistic theology was sent off on a tangent after the discontinuity of the Commonwealth Period when the 1662 Book of Common Prayer added an “Amen” after the Last Supper story, put the fraction (breaking of the bread) as an action into the Last Supper story, and referred to what followed the Sanctus as the “consecration” – implying that the preface was not part of the “consecration”.

As with the NZ Catholic article, in which the new National Liturgy Advisory Group are reported as asking the bishops to review their decision and be stronger for standing, so the NZ Prayer Book commission presented to the Anglican General Synod (1987) a rubric at the start of the Eucharistic Prayer:

It is recommended that the people stand throughout the following prayer.

This not only preserves the unity of the Eucharistic Prayer, but also has the same posture for the presiding priest as well as all others participating. I well remember the debate about this in General Synod as some misunderstood the meaning of the word “recommend” and argued that the “traditional” posture of kneeling be added, so that the rubric now reads “It is recommended that the people stand or kneel throughout the following prayer.” (Note the posture does not change from “The Lord is here…” to the Great Amen). There was much muttering of “what about people in a hospital bed… wheelchair…” I note that the Book of Worship of the United Church of Christ precedes every rubric with “All who are able may…” Each of their Eucharistic Prayers (called there “Communion Prayer”) has the rubric, “All who are able may stand.”

This is my body

Published on May 2, 2009 in liturgy. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

brake-breadI was surprised to open the Easter edition (11 April) of the reputable Tablet to find the first article was a one-and-a-half page, very confused criticism of part of the Eucharist by Stephen Hough. The qualifications for this article as given by the Tablet is that he “is a concert pianist”. Mr. Hough is “perturbed” that the priest does not break the bread at the moment the priest describes Jesus breaking it within the Last Supper story (”Institution Narrative“) in the Eucharistic Prayer.

Mr. Hough quotes all the biblical Last Supper accounts and from liturgical texts and then says:

He “broke the bread”, but we don’t – at least not at the same moment. The priest waits until the Agnus Dei to break the consecrated wafer, which is quite a while after the Consecration. Indeed it is after the Eucharistic Prayer, after the Lord’s Prayer, after the sign of peace – just before Communion. Yet it is quite clear from all the sources, scriptural and liturgical, that the piece of bread at the Last Supper was broken before the words were said.

What Mr. Hough plainly fails to notice is the quite elementary realisation that at the Last Supper, Jesus saying “this is my body” did not function as the “words of consecration” but were Jesus’ words of administration. Even the Roman Catholic Church, which places such emphasis on these words, recognises the Eucharistic Prayer of Addai and Mari as a valid, consecrating eucharistic prayer even though it does not even contain the words “this is my body”.

At the Last Supper “this is my body” functions similarly to the words at the Eucharist when one receives communion: “the Body of Christ”. Jesus took bread, (and later wine) blessed it by giving thanks, broke the bread, and gave the bread with the words of distribution “this is my body”. What we do today in the Eucharist is quite similar: we take bread and wine, bless it by giving thanks (Eucharistic Prayer), break the bread, and distribute it with words such as “the Body of Christ”.

Mr. Hough describes his understanding of the Last Supper:

It is the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the Jewish calendar, the Passover. He [Jesus] is not holding a wafer and speaking words over it, around it, into it…

This, of course, totally contradicts his previous half page where he has repeatedly quoted scripture and liturgy that Jesus did in fact say a prayer of thanksgiving blessing whilst holding the bread!

Mr. Hough continues

And it doesn’t end there. “This[pouring the red wine into the cup] is my blood.” This is what will happen to my blood. It will pour out from my hands and my feet, and especially from my side. I don’t think it is the fermented grape juice in the chalice which is so much the object of his “This”, but rather the action of pouring out blood-like wine, …

Mr. Hough does not even attempt to justify his assertion that there was a pouring of wine at this point in the Last Supper.

I am astonished that such an unwarranted critique of contemporary liturgy was allowed to find print in such a reputable magazine. Mr. Hough has some lovely pious reflections on the fraction (the breaking of the bread) but they do not rely on his lengthy, incorrect analysis and the editor should have helped him write it into a much briefer, devotional article.

For further reading: Celebrating Eucharist especially chapters 2, & 10-13

Eight new Eucharistic Prayers

Published on October 25, 2008 in liturgy. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Eight new Eucharistic Prayers/Great Thanksgiving Prayers have been added to this website:

Alternative Great Thanksgiving A
alternative to Thanksgiving of the People of God
Alternative Great Thanksgiving B
alternative to Celebrating the Grace of God
Alternative Great Thanksgiving C
alternative to Thanksgiving for Creation and Redemption
Alternative Great Thanksgiving D
alternative to Thanksgiving and Praise
Alternative Great Thanksgiving E
alternative to Form for Ordering the Eucharist
Alternative Great Thanksgiving F
alternative to Service of Holy Communion
Alternative Great Thanksgiving for use with Children A
Alternative Great Thanksgiving for use with Children B

Six of these began as revisions by Rev Ken Booth with the following rationale:

  • To shorten New Zealand Prayer Book Great Thanksgiving prayers which some found too long and were sometimes pruning ill advisedly. This was achieved by omitting any doublets or “expansions” of key events in the narrative, resulting in up to a sixth reduction. In one case, the Great Thanksgiving for use with the sick (NZPB page 732) was expanded to make it more appropriate for use in contexts beyond the sick.
  • To standardise responses to allow communities to be less book-bound and use regular sung responses – in line with international ecumenically agreed texts.

(The drafting before the revision which was passed at General Synod)

I was asked for my opinion about them as these texts were heading for General Synod. In the brief time I had available prior to their General Synod submission I suggested that

  • Seasonal and festal variants could be inserted
  • The people’s acclamation be moved from directly after the Last Supper story to the more natural break between the remembering/proclaiming/anamnetic material of the prayer and the asking/epicletic material. I also suggested a more appropriate, consistent clear cue.
  • Minor alternations – adding “sing” to “say” where appropriate. Changing “Your [God’s] body” to “Christ’s body”, simplifying the children’s final acclamation to be consistent with all other final acclamations.

All my alterations (in red or blue) were accepted by all involved with these prayers.

Some will notice that some of the original intentions of the Prayer Book versions have been diluted. Celebrating the Grace of God, originating with Bishop Brian Carrel, eschewed the use of “Blessed is he…” (words unpopular for some in the Eucharistic Prayer). Those two lines have now been restored. The intention of Rev. Richard Easton in his work resulting in Thanksgiving and Praise was to not merely have the congregation echo the priest, but have the congregation move the eucharistic prayer forward in ways that more traditionally would have been left to the presider. Those parts have been returned to the priest. Those who have especially strong convictions along these two lines still have the full use of the original prayer book versions.

A weakness in practice is that congregations used to a particular prayer can sometimes start on remembered responses that have either been removed, altered, or moved in these new prayers.

I am not as convinced about the Alternative Great Thanksgiving for use with Children A in which children have to learn a new responses (without a consistent cue) [and hence prefer the Alternative Great Thanksgiving for use with Children B or my own Eucharistic Prayer 2]

On balance, however, I am highly enthusiastic about the opportunities provided by these new resources.

In the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia these only needed a majority of synods of the episcopal units to assent to General Synod’s approval. If you are reading this in another context, you will know your own requirements for eucharistic prayers.