Tag Archive for 'eucharist'

Lay presidency

Published on March 17, 2010 in liturgy. 27 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I see, from time to time, discussions about “lay presidency” of the Eucharist. In favour of this, regularly the eucharistic rite is dismembered and the discussion quickly degenerates to, “why can a lay person do this bit and not that bit?” This functionalism and legalism is often emotionally undergirded with an anti-catholic attitude {Sydney Anglicans are forbidden from such “popish” practices as wearing a chasuble (as St Paul did), adding water to the wine (as Jesus would have),… if they could get rid of the connection between priesthood and eucharist they would have removed most of the catholic hardware on which Anglicanism runs}.

Any reflection on eucharistic presidency can begin with the concept and practice of presidency generally. A teacher presides over a classroom, a judge presides over a courtroom. This does not mean the teacher does everything – quite the opposite. Good educational theory will have the teacher enabling, facilitating the learning of all in the room. The teacher involves individuals and the whole class in the learning process. Similarly, the judge does not do everything in the courtroom, others have specific tasks and the judge oversees and coordinates the smooth running of all that happens in the room.

The priest oversees all that happens in the Eucharist. The priest doesn’t do everything – quite the opposite. Others have specific tasks and the priest coordinates the smooth running of all that happens at the Eucharist, enabling, facilitating the worship of all present. There are certain things that the presider needs to do in order to be clearly and appropriately presiding.

In New Zealand Anglicanism certain things have happened that have obscured the place of the priest at the Eucharist.

In the revision of the BCP that began in 1964, the commission designed the Liturgy of the Word in such a way that it could stand alone in the form of an Office, replacing, for example, Matins or Evensong. This meant that this could be led by a lay person. The commission wrote:

For occasions when it is not desired or possible to celebrate the Holy Communion, the first part of the Liturgy to the end of the Intercession provides an order of worship complete in itself. This service does not require the presence of a priest. (Introduction to 1966 Liturgy)

Furthermore, during theological study at St John’s College in Auckland, ordinands “practised” liturgical leadership by leading parts of the Eucharist that did not require ordination. In so dividing up the leadership of a service this gave a poor model of good liturgical leadership and presidency . Rather than reflecting on appropriate presiding models, these ordinands, once ordained, cloned their St John’s experience in their parish. What could arguably have had a certain appropriateness in a seminary context, was now replicated in a context in which it was not.

Poor liturgical study, training, and formation combined with rubrical fundamentalism with a Prayer Book that continued the 1964 distinctions between “first” and “second” part of the Eucharist and its leadership, and little reflection on the nature of presidency generally, as well as (appropriate) reaction against the tradition in which “the priest did it all” increased the trend to having a lay person “lead the first part” and a priest “lead the second part”. This development naturally leads to the question: why can a lay person not “lead the second part?”

In rural, multi-centre parishes (often in the past the first experience of a priest being a vicar after curacy) the priest was moving from centre to centre on Sunday morning, and might not arrive at the start of the service. A lay person would then start the service off.

“Locally Shared Ministry/Total Ministry” has severed the link between pastoring, preaching, and presiding for priesthood, dividing up the tasks that need to be held together to prevent a priest’s presiding from appearing like magic. In many ways, that last part of the sentence should be in the forefront of many people’s reflection. What is left in many communities who would articulate a “low” view of ordained priesthood is in fact a rubrical fundamentalism that gives the appearance of the priest being a sort of magician who is brought out to do those bits of a service a lay person cannot lead: the absolution, the consecration, the blessing. What is lost in this is both an appropriate understanding of lay ministry which has been clericalised, as well as an appropriate understanding of priesthood which has been reduced to a magician.

Those who advocate for “lay presidency of the Eucharist” do so by stating that these presiders will be authorised to preside by the bishop. One presumes that such authorisation would be done prayerfully – in which case we have such authorisation by the bishop already. For two millennia it has been called “ordination”.

This can be regarded as the third post in a series. The first discussed being ordained directly to the order to which God calls you. The second discussed persons in one order acting out the ministry of persons in another order.

per saltum ordination

Published on February 3, 2010 in liturgy. 20 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Direct ordination or not?

Priesthood is normally understood as church-facing/Christian-community-facing leadership. Priests gather and lead the Christian community gathering (breathing in).

Priests in the Church are called to build up Christ’s congregation,
to strengthen the baptised…
to be pastors…
to declare forgiveness through Jesus Christ,
to baptise,
to preside at the Eucharist,
to administer Christ’s holy sacraments.
NZ Anglican ordinal, Prayer Book pg 901

Deacons, on the other hand, are ordained to world-facing, sacrificial leadership. They lead the Christian community dispersed in service in the world (breathing out).

Deacons in the Church of God serve in the name of Christ,
and so remind the whole Church
that serving others is essential to all ministry.
NZ Anglican ordinal, Prayer Book pg 891

Currently, to be ordained a priest (church-facing leadership) you have to be ordained a deacon first (world-facing leadership). This is termed “sequential ordination”. If God is calling you to church-facing leadership rather than world-facing leadership – tough! So most people perceive deacons as apprentice priests. And those God calls to the diaconate (and not to priesthood) are regularly seen as people who haven’t made the grade and are stuck in their apprenticeship.

In the Latin Rite of Roman Catholicism (the majority of Roman Catholics), “permanent deacons” can marry (prior to ordination) and then regularly do priest-like ministry (church-facing, rather than world-facing) because of a shortage of celibate priests. [Other Roman Catholic rites allow for married priests and have a stronger tradition of a clearly differentiated diaconate]

(Unfortunately) I have regularly seen people who once said strongly they were called to the diaconate, after a period decide they were called to priesthood after all. I can only quickly think of one person, I know personally, called to the diaconate who has stayed a deacon.

[I am not in this post going to bring bishops into the discussion. There is an ongoing dispute about the nature of bishops:
Are bishops priests to whom we have delegated the authority to ordain (the position of St Jerome)?
Or are priests delegates of the bishop in the local congregation (so that when the bishop is present the priest ought not to function in that ministry - the position of Theodore of Mopsuestia)?]

As I wrote above, currently to become a priest one must be a deacon first. A different approach, “direct ordination” or “per saltum ordination” (literally “by a leap”) is the understanding that you be ordained directly to the order to which God calls you. If you are to be a deacon, you are ordained a deacon (the current practice); if you are to be a priest, you would be ordained a priest (not a deacon first). Some scholars argue that in the early church all ordinations were per saltum (see Hallenbeck ed. Orders of Ministry). St Ambrose’s direct ordination to the episcopate is probably the most celebrated story.

There seems a surprising amount of emotional energy invested in maintaining the status quo. We have probably all met bishops proudly (sic!) proclaiming “I am still a deacon!” Episcopal Cafe has presented two interesting posts about the emotional dimension against per saltum ordination (part 1; part 2).There is also a discussion about this in the discussion area of Sarah Dylan Breuer’s facebook page. Some theologians hold that per saltum ordinations would be invalid. What is your position? And in the comments area – why?

There will be a sequel to this post in the near future.

SOAP Lectio Divina

Published on January 25, 2010 in liturgy, liturgy of the hours and spirituality. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

For all I know some readers of this post may wonder where I have been living all this time, or maybe that I move in far too small circles! Recently I was reading some comments of a woman who was taking for granted that all her readers knew what the “SOAP” Bible-reading method was. Well I had never heard of it. So I got in touch with her and she explained it stands for:

Scripture – pick your passage, follow a system, use a lectionary
Observation – what particularly touched you in the scripture passage?
Application – how can you apply your observation to your life?
Prayer

Recommendations are that all this be written in a journal – starting each section S, O, A, P
In my correspondence with her I mentioned how it has similarities to the great tradition of Lectio Divina, “Spiritual Reading”. She had never heard of that :-)

Lectio Divina has four movements
Lectio – read the passage
Meditatio – reflect on the passage
Oratio – respond in prayer
Contemplatio – rest in God

Previously I have written some more on Lectio Divina
There is also a good introduction to Lectio Divina here.

One comment I found suggested that the SOAP method started here.
A website for storing your SOAP is here.

A couple of final points: SOAP and Lectio Divina do not replace serious academic study of the scriptures – it prayerfully complements study. IMO the Christian spiritual life flourishes when there is a regular balance and variety of prayer styles: Eucharist, lectio divina, intercession, Daily Office, silent prayer,… There is a danger when only one or few from this list are present to nourish our spiritual life.

Comments below, as well as responding to this post, might include other ideas, websites, and resources.

homodoxy

Published on January 21, 2010 in liturgy. 31 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

I think the word “orthodox” might be in trouble. Let’s try and save it from losing its meaning.

I am seeing a lot of people calling themselves “orthodox” Christians and using the term to put down others as “unorthodox”, “heterodox”. But actually I don’t think these particular people should be allowed to use the term “orthodox” – as they are changing its meaning (and hence emptying its meaning IMO). They are perfectly welcome and free to start a new movement, start a number of new movements, but these particular people are not orthodox – there is a perfectly good word for them: they are homodox.

Orthodox, first of all, means “right worship” (ortho – right; dox – like doxology – worship). If you call yourself orthodox, at the very least it should mean that most Christians for the first 1500 years or so of Christian history should be able to walk into your worship and pretty much feel at home. Augustine, Teresa, Ambrose, Luther, Francis, Hildegard, Basil, Julian, Justin, etc. should be able to walk into your worship and recognise you are following a lectionary inherited from the Synagogue, have the basic shape of worship inherited from the earliest church, a Eucharistic Prayer, and responses that go back to the Last Supper and beyond, to a thousand years or so earlier…

Orthodox, would also mean, right beliefs. At the very least that would surely be affirming the important doctrines and disciplines of the seven ecumenical councils of the united church of the first thousand years or so. Should that not include the church’s structure that along with its liturgy and scriptures evolved fairly quickly in the earliest period of the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (Some might call themselves “orthodox” but could probably not name the councils, let alone state anything they teach, or justify why they reduce them to, for example, four, or claim to hold to them but would balk at, for example, calling Mary “Theotokos”)

Homodox means “having the same opinion”. Many people who are misusing, abusing the term “orthodox” are in fact not orthodox at all, they are homodox (let me preempt the comment now: it does not mean worshipping gays :-) ) They want everyone to think exactly like them (yes, often particularly about gays). Orthodox can cope with diversity, do not need everyone to agree about everything, celebrate diversity, honour difference: In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas. (In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.)

So next time you see someone putting down others, and calling themselves “orthodox”, pause, check whether they really are orthodox or whether that word is being abused and emptied of its meaning. And then, if they pause momentarily from their tirade, and you have even an inkling they might be prepared to listen to someone else, take a deep breath and very politely tell them they aren’t orthodox but homodox. Of course if they listen to you, and are prepared to change their mind,… maybe they aren’t.

Anglican Covenant – partly used

Published on December 22, 2009 in liturgy. 17 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Go forward in your time machine to a few years from now and imagine seeing on eBay or Trade Me: “For Sale, one partly used Anglican Covenant – owner hoping to recoup at least some of the significant amount of money and hope invested in it.”

The first drafts of the covenant were so un-Anglican the covenant did not even mention the unifying significance of common prayer in Anglicanism. I placed a submission, as did other visitors to this site. What developed was certainly an improvement in that regard. However, in the language of the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act the proposed “covenant” is not “fit for the purpose” and will not “do what it is meant to do.”

The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion has just released the revised text of section 4 of the proposed Anglican covenant. This is available here (left hand side last draft, right hand side current draft). A commentary from the working group that did the revision is available here. Lionel Deimel provides a possibly easier-to-follow version of the changes.

God’s platypus

God created a platypus denomination that experts have never believed can actually be a living denomination. It has bumbled on. In the last five or so decades, the communion has stumbled on fine in an “impaired” manner with women priests (and even bishops), differences about divorce, and local revisions of liturgy, even local alteration to eucharistic presidency. Now, because of disagreements over human sexuality, rather than facing that issue in the same manner as with the previous ones, there is the call to alter the whole basis of our structure. Let us be honest about this. The issue is gays. Whilst our diocese has passed a motion affirming the covenant in principle, the called for a listening process to gays has not even begun. Some people are not in a hurry to face the issue: gender and sex issues have been dealt with by Anglicanism (either overtly or covertly) in only one direction (consistently: liberalisation) – except (possibly) for gays (and even there – has any formal policy been reversed and headed back towards a more “conservative” position?). In the rising tide of these issues the “Anglican Covenant” stands as a rake trying to hold it back.

The covenant in NZ

Locally, NZ Anglicans are abysmally ill-and-uninformed (we colonials struggle with our smoke-signals under new environment-friendly protocols). A pro-covenant NZ bishop published an article in which our diocesan bishop, Victoria Matthews, was said to be one of the covenant drafters/revisers. She is not. In our numerically tiny province such comments carry disproportionate weight. He claimed that diocese would sign up to the covenant rather than provinces. He was unaware that ACC had met and sought revision of section 4.

The covenant requires recognition of four instruments of communion (and possibly the newly created “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” – a fifth?) Out of these, currently our NZ Anglican church only canonically recognises the Archbishop of Canterbury. I am no canon lawyer (in fact does NZ have any canon lawyers? We generally have so few canons – if you smile nicely in our province you can mostly get away with anything you like) but if we need to recognise the other three (or four) that requires two meetings of General Synod and a year “lying on the table for anyone to challenge” – then after that we might proceed to accept the covenant. The Church of Nigeria, of course, recently removed all references to the Archbishop of Canterbury from its constitution – so that will be a fascinating province to watch in its discussion about the covenant.

Go back in your time machine, say fifty years ago, and get everyone then to sign up to this “covenant”. Returning to the 21st century, probably there is now no three-tikanga Anglican church in NZ (remember the first ever motion by the Primates Meeting was trying to prevent that development – you don’t remember? Was the General Synod voting on three tikanga even informed of the Primates’ motion? – ah, the smoke signals problem again)? With a covenant in place over the last five decades or so, there probably also would now be no women priests or bishops (only five of the 44 member churches of the Anglican Communion actually have women bishops currently); probably no communion to infants prior to confirmation; probably no marriage of divorcees (what is it with two-or-three-times-married Anglicans loudly condemning gay lifelong commitment?); probably no divorced-and-remarried bishops (maybe not even so for other clergy, see 1 Timothy 3:2); in NZ (as well as not having the three tikanga structure of which we are so proud) probably not having two co-bishops running one diocese.

The marriage covenant, blessings, and pre-nups

Covenant sounds innocent enough – it’s a biblical word and those pro-covenant have traded on its biblical resonances (”covenant” is biblical therefore this covenant is biblical). But Anglicans have devoted little energy to the understanding of that most common of covenants, marriage (the Henry VIII factor?) [For example the CofE distinction between a service in which the Archbishop of Canterbury blessed Charles and Camilla after they took their marriage vows, and ummm… a service in which the Archbishop of Canterbury would have blessed Charles and Camilla after they would have taken their marriage vows]. It is the poverty of reflection on marriage and blessings that has landed us in this current predicament. There has been little reflection on the validity or otherwise of the marriage covenant if a couple makes a prenuptial agreement. Section 4 of this Anglican Covenant is a prenuptial agreement.

To sign or not to sign – concretely

In part covenant discussions are thin because of the poor reflection not just about the theory and theology of communion – but of its ramifications in actual practice.

Imagine, for a moment, if the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia don’t sign the covenant. Very little changes. It is possible that these provinces lose voting rights in the non-binding meetings of the communion. I suspect they would still be present “as observers” and probably have speaking rights. Anglicans will still be able to receive communion in these churches, clergy will still be able to serve in these churches, Kiwi and North American clergy will still be able to serve in England under the Colonial Clergy Act. Kiwis will still be able to elect Canadian bishops.

What about if everyone does sign? Very little changes in terms of the hoped for unity of the Communion. If all do sign, my bishop, Victoria Matthews, still cannot act as a bishop in England, nor even read the bible aloud in the presence of men in some churches in our neighbouring province. Those she has ordained are not accepted as clergy in many places. Impaired communion is as impaired as ever. It will not alter the diversity (disunity?) within a province and diocese – where one parish uses lectionary and wears vestments, and a neighbouring parish defies using lectionary, liturgy, and only wears suits; where one parish denies the literal virgin birth, and a neighbouring parish requires its belief as core doctrine. The proposed “covenant” is not “fit for the purpose” and will not do what so many of its advocates are convinced it is meant to do.

Some of the covenant’s strongest advocates will be sorely disappointed that the final version has removed the previous draft’s option of allowing ACNA and other members of the “continuing Anglican” alphabet soup and episcopoi vagantes groups an opportunity of signing up and fast-tracking acceptance into the Anglican Communion. The final draft is clear – only current member provinces of the Anglican Communion will be offered the covenant to sign. If you want to join the Anglican Communion – there’s already a process in place to do that.

Handing over your sovereignty

The previous draft twice had “[signing up to the covenant] does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction.” One of those has been removed in the final covenant. Certainly within post-colonialist Aotearoa-New Zealand Anglicanism there will need to be much convincing whether or not signing up to the covenant represents submission to some sort of body beyond our shores. One thing is certain: NZ Maori will not sign up to anything that hands over their tino rangatiratanga, their sovereignty over their own life. And within our constitutional arrangements, they hold veto over our corporate life.

Does it matter? – ultimately

Ultimately, of course, church, the gospel, and life are not about denominational boundaries. Actual unity and disunity lie at right angles to the denominational lines that occupy some people so intensely. A covenant or no covenant will make no difference to climate change issues, world poverty, wars, depression, recession, the search for meaning, the journey to holiness, relationship problems, unemployment, ill health,…

Catholic spirituality

Published on November 19, 2009 in liturgy and spirituality. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Regular readers here will know I usually avoid classifying myself or others into different boxes and categories. Lately Anglican Catholics have been much in the media in response to the Vatican’s setting up of Anglican Personal Ordinariates.

Bishop Christopher Epting, the Episcopal Church’s deputy to the Presiding Bishop for ecumenical and interreligious relations, has just issued a valuable statement on this.

Last Sunday, Fr Peter Williams, a leading Kiwi Anglican Catholic issued this useful statement:

We Anglican Catholics have always believed that the Church of England essentially continued as part of the great Catholic Church of the west, despite the political events that severed the link with the authority in Rome. Even here, in this corner of the very dispersed Anglican Communion, we continue to believe that. The Catholic essentials continue to keep us close, even though we Anglicans have developed a marked style of our own. As an Anglican Catholic I value that distinctive style a great deal: its dispersal of authority; its unity in essentials and great diversity in inessentials; its ability to live appropriately in very different contexts; its unity through common prayer more than through common dogma; its liberality of style, and so much else.

The Vatican offer appears to invite Anglicans to retain Anglican style, while joining a Communion which is controlled and centralised as never before, which is strangling the life of many of its own communities by its rigid insistence on inessentials such as clerical celibacy and the ordination of men only, and which is inhibiting the ministry potential of so many by demanding slavish conformity. There is an inconsistency here which makes me very uneasy. It certainly has not raised my respect for Vatican judgement or leadership. I shall be very surprised if many Anglicans respond to this offer, and they are likely to be those who cannot cope with the generosity of Anglican style anyway.

The Vatican’s problems which are great, and the Anglican Church’s problems which are also great, will not be helped at all by such an ill-considered move. The spectacular decline of organised Christianity in the west is no respecter of churches, and is best responded to with a generosity of ministry and spirit, rather than with a retreat to the fortresses.

Within all these discussions one might be forgiven for asking, “What constitutes a catholic? What is essential to catholicism? What is catholic spirituality?” Is putting a chasuble on? Or swinging a thurible with some incense? Is wearing a biretta? Or wearing lace, or calling it a cotter? Or being addressed “father”?

Drawing on the insights from the Rule of St Benedict, as highlighted by Martin Thornton, Derek Olsen recently asked these questions and added a three-legged stool to the commonly-used one of scripture, tradition, and reason: the fundamental principles of Eucharist, the Daily Office, and personal prayer. Fr. David Cobb, of Christ Church, New Haven, expanded this with another three legged stool:

If our spirituality is not grounded in the Prayer Book System of Office, Mass and personal prayer- in the same way that our theology is grounded in Scripture, Tradition, and Reason-(and one might add if our life is not focused on service, stewardship and witness, another useful three legged piece of furniture) -   then vestments, titles, billowing clouds of incenses and resonant organs are just trifles.  They are, in themselves more appealing than liturgy that is sloppy or chummy or self-consciously restrained – but they are not the point.

Might I add the point that, in my opinion, catholic spirituality is founded upon an insight, a belief, a sense that God’s creation is good. We live in a sacramental universe. With flaws, fine. But creation does not manifest God, is not a vehicle for God, in spite of anything – but because of its goodness. Our human nature is good enough to be joined to God in the incarnation. So bread and wine, and water, and relationships, and sex, and flowers, and music, and colours, and smells, and gongs, and stained-glass windows, and glorious architecture, and singing, and oil, and gestures, and laughter, and tears, and processions, and icons, and candles, and… all can and are the vehicles in and through and with which we encounter the deep mystery in whom we live and move and have our being – the mystery we call God.

Just for the record: I’m an orthodox charismatic evangelical catholic :-)

comments policy

Previous posts on Anglican Personal Ordinariates:
First post
Second post
Third post
Fourth post

priest is my altar ego

Published on November 18, 2009 in liturgy. 25 Comments Tags: , , , .

Occasionally one encounters an internet troll. Their aim is merely to pick a fight. Recently I had a person on twitter take issue with my calling myself a priest.

This person claims to be a church leader (not a priest!) in a well-known denomination, claims to be able to read Greek, etc. But he could not and would not answer my simple question posed in different ways: “what is the origin of the English word priest?” Even after I twice sent him links on the etymology of the English word priest. Instead, I got a barrage of responses about Maryolatry, Christ’s unrepeatable sacrificial death, the inefficacy of works, the absence of Christ in the Eucharist, the priesthood of all believers, the evils of tradition, and on and on it went…

The word priest came up in last Sunday’s reading didn’t it:

Hebrews 10:11-14,(15-18),19-25

11 And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,”
13 and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.”
14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,”
17 he also adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
19 Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),
21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
24 And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,
25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The problem is akin to the issue with the English word “love”. Generally people have become more nuanced with that word, clarifying if they mean love (agape, αγάπη) or love (eros, ἔρως), etc. We need to do the same IMO with the word priest.

The English word priest derives from the Greek presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος), in fact it is a contraction that can still be spotted from the original word PRESbuTeros. [Just as the English word bishop derives from the Greek episcopos (επίσκοπος) and is also a contraction that can still be spotted from the original word: ePISCOPos.]

The word used in the letter to the Hebrews reading above, in the concept of priesthood of all believers, in the Old Testament for Levites, etc. is NOT presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος). It is a completely different word: hiereus (ἱερεύς). Unfortunately the English word priest does double duty. It is rightly used for the ordained elder in a community, the presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος), as it has from the beginning of Christianity. It has also come to be used for hiereus (ἱερεύς).

Unfortunately, because of this simple dual usage of the English word, theological confusion reigns. Many abandon the Christian tradition going back to the New Testament of leadership by a priest/presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος) on some sort of misunderstood assumption that our shared hiereus (ἱερεύς) has overthrown the New Testament and undivided-church tradition of such leadership by a priest/presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος). Unfortunately the prevalence of clericalism in some quarters, where priest/presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος) is treated as some sort of sacred caste, has in fact made the issue worse, not better.

Because of the misunderstanding between the terms, many think and act as if getting the laity to act more like a priest/presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος) is somehow affirming the priesthood of all believers when it does nothing of the sort – it is unfortunately merely clericalising all the baptised rather than affirming and living any real vocation to our shared hiereus (ἱερεύς) with Christ. Getting laity up the front in worship and dressing them priest/presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος)-like, advocating for the abolition of priestly/presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος) presiding at the Eucharist, and so forth is not about understanding the hiereus (ἱερεύς) of all Christians whatsoever, it is merely showing an ignorance of the multi-faceted vocations that are offered within the one body of Christ, the church.

No comments from internet trolls please :-)

I provide wonderful resources for those who genuinely want to work harder at understanding the original biblical texts.

collect vandalism

Published on September 4, 2009 in liturgy. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In my opinion, one of the great treasures of Western Christianity is the collect. We have a treasury of collects that goes back fifteen centuries and further. A collect, like a haiku or a sonnet, has a particular, tight literary structure. It is memorable, general, and regularly expresses a profound Christian truth in a short compass. Anglicans inherit Cranmer’s magnificent translations from the crisp Latin. Roman Catholics are working on new translations of the collects (opening prayers) which will make them look a lot more like their Anglican equivalents. Many will remember memorising the great collects in Sunday School. On many occasions Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and others pray the same collect. New Zealand Anglicans, with a culture of flexibility, choose a collect from any source they like. Each week this site has provided a commentary on at least one of the great collects. Recently all NZ Anglican clergy and worship leaders were sent a new resource cutting options to one collect provided for each celebration. Whilst I energetically agree with the principle of common prayer, I even more energetically protest the vandalism that this resource does to our wonderful inherited collect taonga (treasure).

Collects for Season and Sundays (PDF)
Collects for Other Feasts and Holy Days (PDF)

A collect concludes and completes the Gathering of the Community. Individuals gather, sing (one of the most unifying human experiences), and finally (1) are invited by the presider to (2) deep silent prayer which is (3) collected by the presider praying the collect which (4) is affirmed by the community’s Amen. After this we are gathered from being individuals to being a community ready together to hear what the Spirit is saying to us as the gathered church.

The collect (like haiku or sonnet) has its own particular, recognisable structure. In the five-fold structure, three parts are always present (marked *):

*You– Address
Who – Amplification (& motive)
*Do – Petition
To – Purpose (& motive)
*Through Jesus Christ…

An example of a collect that reaches back at least one and a half millennia and is prayed by Anglicans, Roman Catholics and others:

Let us pray (in silence) that we may love God in all things and above all things

pause for deep silent prayer

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding;
pour into our hearts such love towards you
that, loving you above all else,
we may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
who is alive with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.

Now compare this with the first “collect” in this new resource:

Praise to you, Christ our Redeemer
for you were circumcised this day
and given Jesus as your name.
Praise to you, Jesus, well are you named
for you save us from our sins.
Hear this prayer for your name’s sake.
Amen

This is not a collect. In this new resource, any person of the Trinity can be addressed at random rather than the great liturgical tradition of praying to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit. It is a lovely little prayer that so easily gets lost in the re-cluttered vestibule of the gathering rite of those who do not understand the grammar of liturgy.

The “collects” of this new resource were sent with the information that “The Common Life Liturgical Commission has been working on developing replacement pages for pages 550 – 723 of our Prayerbook.” Many leaders in our church, not being clear about our processes, have taken this at face value and now think that those pages have been formally replaced. But those pages of our Prayer Book are binding formularies of our church. They can only be replaced by (1) a vote resulting in agreement in all houses and tikanga of our General Synod, (2) assent by a majority of our diocesan synods and Hui Amorangi, (3) another vote in a newly elected General Synod, followed by (4) a year’s wait before they become such a replacement. This “collect” resource has not even been presented to General Synod (step 1). If and when it reaches stage 2 I will be voting against these becoming formularies, against their replacing our current pages. Those pages of course need replacing – but not in this manner. Those of us committed to orthodoxy (which means “right worship”) currently have a choice in which collect we use and can continue to use either a classic or more recent collect (in the style and usage given above).

Furthermore, the material is presented with the claim that “the endings are now consistent throughout” – this is clearly false. Sometimes each year is presented with the same collect at the expense of our inherited, shared collect (eg. Epiphany). Sometimes, it seems there has not even been the slightest attempt to read the collect aloud, eg. “… help us to see to see…” (Lent 3 Year B).

The typos in the text indicate this is not a quick drawing from a digital version, someone has put a lot of energy into typing up this text. Apologies to the person(s) who has(/have) put such effort into this resource that I am so under-whelmed by its usefulness and appropriateness.

Further reading on collects
If you are interested, there is more on this approach to the use of the collect in Chapter 6 of Celebrating Eucharist.

Reflections August 16

Published on August 11, 2009 in liturgy. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

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20th Sunday in Ordinary Time August 16 from the collect/opening prayer (NZPB)
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time August 16 from the collect/opening prayer (Roman Catholic)
Proper 15 August 16 from the collect/opening prayer (BCP TEC)

Image: Mosaic panel on the left (north) wall of the apse of the Church of St. Vitale, Ravenna, depicting Emperor Justinian, clothed in full regalia and standing in the center of a retinue of clergy, officials and soldiers (flanked on the right by Bishop Maximian), bringing the bread of the Eucharist to the altar. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=32148 [retrieved August 10, 2009].

Marion Hatchett RIP

Published on August 9, 2009 in liturgy. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .


Marion Josiah Hatchett

1927 – 2009

No liturgical bookshelf would be complete without some work by Rev. Dr. Marion Hatchett who died August 7. He was central in the development of the 1979 Prayer book and the 1982 Hymnal for The Episcopal Church (USA).

His writings include:

Sanctifying Life, Time and Space: An Introduction to Liturgical Study (1976)
A Manual for Clergy and Church Musicians (1980)
Commentary on the American Prayer Book (1981), and
The Making of the First American Book of Common Prayer (1982).

About leading worship he regularly asked the question “Is that particular action edifying to the people?” Ask that question before you do something you like, or think is nice, or have seen someone else do. Look at the tradition and ask, “Will this edify the people?”

Here are a couple of quotes from Hatchett that I can really identify with (to be read aloud slowly with a Carolina drawl):

The prayer book committee had operated on the assumption, apparently mistaken, that clergy, lay leaders and church musicians could read italics.

The word ‘may’ indicates that something is not normative. I once attended a rite two liturgy where all three opening sentences were said, followed by the Collect for Purity, followed by the Gloria, followed by the Kyrie in English, followed by the Kyrie in Greek, followed by the Trisagian. I was just glad that all six forms of the prayers of the people were not printed in the same place as the eucharistic liturgy and that they did not opt for all four forms of the eucharistic prayer.

I had just been organising to contact him to ask if he could provide an explanation for the pattern of Episcopalians and Roman Catholics praying the same opening prayer/collect. More on Marion Hatchett here.

Most recently he was in the news for a speech he gave recently at General Theological Seminary:

The American Church jumped way out ahead of the Church of England and other sister churches in a number of respects. One was in giving voice to priests and deacons and to laity (as well as bishops and secular government officials) in the governance of the national church and of dioceses and of parishes. The early American Church revised the Prayer Book in a way that went far beyond revisions necessitated by the new independence of the states.

At its beginning the American Church legalized the use of hymnody along with metrical psalmody more than a generation before use of ‘hymns of human composure’ became legal in the Church of England. At an early stage the American Church gave recognition to critical biblical scholarship.

The American Church eventually gave a place to women in various aspects of the life of the church including its ordained ministry. The American Church began to speak out against discrimination against those of same-sex orientation, and the American Church began to make moves in establishing full communion with other branches of Christendom.

Historically the American Church has been the flag-ship in the Anglican armada. It has been first among the provinces of the Anglican Communion to take forward steps on issue after issue, and on some of those issues other provinces of Anglicanism have eventually fallen in line behind the American Church. My prayer is that the American Church will be able to retain its self-esteem and to stand firm and resist some current movements which seem to me to be contrary to the principles of historic Anglicanism and to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.

Here is the full text which includes several chuckles.

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Marion. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer (TEC) page 465

Thanks to @seanferrell for letting me know

consecrating only bread?

Published on August 2, 2009 in liturgy. 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

flying-disk-gun-hq9645-300x300I have blogged previously on the impact of swine flu on liturgy and the usefulness of the illustrated wafer-firing apparatus. Since then, however, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, amongst many others have added suggestions. In their case it was to suggest suspending administering the chalice to the congregation, or, if seeking to offer communion in both kinds, to follow a practice they say is common in Africa that “the presiding minister… personally intincts all wafers before placing them in the hands of communicants.”

In discussions, I have heard of communities “pre-intincting” – they dip the wafer in the wine prior to celebrating the Eucharist and so consecrate wine-dipped wafers (in this situation I am not sure if a chalice of wine is also being consecrated). But now I have been pointed to a blog where the Church of England curate, the Rev. James Ogley, (he prefers to call himself an “elder”) writes about how his parish of Bursledon, in the Diocese of Winchester followed the advice of the Archbishops but “did not even have a chalice on the table” whatsoever.

The Church of England makes reference to the Sacrament Act of 1547 which has that the “moste blessed sacrament be hereafter commenlie delivered and ministred unto the people, within this Churche of Englande and Irelande and other the Kings Dominions, under bothe the Kyndes, that is to saie of breade and wyne, excepte necessitie otherwise require“. In other words, receiving under one kind is permitted in exceptional circumstances. This is also envisaged in Common Worship’s Celebration of Holy Communion at Home or in Hospital with the Sick and Housebound: “Communion should normally be received in both kinds separately, but where necessary may be received in one kind, whether of bread or, where the communicant cannot receive solid food, wine.”

In all of 2,000 years of Christian history I cannot recall, even during lengthy periods of the norm of receiving in one kind only, or of many people present not receiving at all, of only consecrating one kind. I would be interested in knowing any historical precedence for this, or if this is happening elsewhere, or of Church of England canons relating to this apparently revisionist celebrating of the Eucharist. (And puhhleez can we do better than “it doesn’t matter because Church of England orders are invalid anyway…”)

Bishop Alan Wilson (CofE) has said it well

The genius of Anglicanism, its missional crown jewels within the whole Kingdom of God, has been its ability to run essentially (but not exclusively) primitive Evangelical software on essentially (but not exclusively) primitive Catholic hardware.

Within Catholicism one could hardly find a more sensitive issue than to fool about with the Holy Eucharist and its celebration.

The Lectionary (part 2)

Published on July 31, 2009 in liturgy. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

In the last post on the lectionary I gave background to the RCL (Revised Common Lectionary) and highlighted that a community discipline of following the lectionary frees us from the vagaries and some of the eccentricities of allowing pastors total discretion to pick their own favourite Bible passages.

I think there is always a danger from some to turn liturgy into rubrical fundamentalism – always following the instructions of our liturgies to the letter solely because these instructions are there. I am far more interested in understanding the reasoning and principles underneath our rubrics (liturgical instructions). This post, hence, will look at some of the advantages of following the lectionary as well as examining some alternatives.

The Lectionary is part of Common Prayer

  • The lectionary is a whole church or denomination sharing a unified, common pattern of biblical proclamation. For example: the gospel book we are all focusing on together this year is Mark. This is the experience of over half the world’s Christians – a remarkable movement of the Holy Spirit in our own time.
  • The lectionary means that all in a community can prepare ahead: clergy, preachers, those worshipping in the congregation, musicians, Sunday School teachers, and so on.
  • Clergy, worship leaders, and preachers meet, discuss, and pray together, share resources and ideas around the lectionary. Because the lectionary is shared ecumenically, such meetings can happen locally between many churches and denominations, and even virtually online.
  • There are wonderful shared resources around the lectionary, ecumenically, internationally, and including online. These include preaching resources, commentaries, Sunday School material, and devotional resources.
  • Individuals and groups reflect prayerfully on the following Sunday readings in the style of Lectio Divina or systematic Bible study or other methods.
  • The lectionary provides a dynamic direction with a carefully thought out pathway and flow in the church’s seasons as well as in Ordinary Time.

The alternative

In my experience, the strongest criticism of RCL comes from those who claim they want to “preach through the whole Bible systematically.” For some time I have been involved with online and offline discussion and critique of RCL. One ordained minister criticised RCL for skipping gospel passages from one week to the next. I am sympathetic to this critique. But what interests me is that when I check that ordained minister’s community website it is noticeable that when the lectionary is abandoned 2 Peter 1:20-21 is followed the next week by John 14:1-6 then Luke 10:25-28 then Isaiah 53:5 then Matthew 23:1-37 then Hebrews 10:24-25! My point is that those who abandon the lectionary appear to have scripture-reading systems that are inestimably impoverished in comparison to the RCL which they criticise.

Another supposedly “systematic-Bible-preaching” site I examined, in a year apparently dedicated to preaching systematically through the book of Jeremiah, there were actually only 14 sermons and Sundays devoted to the Book of Jeremiah. That is, in fact, about the same number of Sundays that RCL devotes to Jeremiah. With a bit of planning, that community could have used the RCL AND had as good a preaching series on Jeremiah! Another similar style of site I visited had five Sundays devoted to Romans 1, another to Romans 2:1-16, nothing for Romans 2:17-3:8, a Sunday for Romans 3:9-31, and then… no more on Romans!

My challenge to those who abandon the lectionary is: show us how your community is doing something so stunning that the negatives of abandoning common prayer are outweighed by your own system.

The Protestant Bible has 1189 chapters. Read and preached on a chapter a week (the systematic manner that many RCL-criticisers mostly suggest) – this results in…. 23 years of preaching to get through the Bible! I can just visualise the Christian formation being provided to the University student attending your church for the three years of her degree when those years just happen to coincide with the systematic preaching through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy!

The RCL as a preaching tool

Each Sunday the RCL provides a Gospel reading, another New Testament reading, a psalm, and normally two tracks for the Old Testament. One track of the Old Testament links it with the Gospel reading, the other follows the Old Testament semi-continuously in the same manner that the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament are read. [Consistency demands that once a community starts following one track, that is what is used at least for that liturgical year]. Those so inclined can see that these five biblical readings for three years provide fifteen years of exposition before one even needs to return to examine a text for a second time!

It may very well have been possible to have produced something better than this three year cycle we share with more than half the world’s Christians, but that opportunity has now passed. Whatever we alter in this treasure will lead to greater losses than gains in my opinion.

Whilst I rejoice at the liturgical renewal that has put the Eucharist back at the heart of the Christian community, this has not happened without some loss. The Eucharist is the jewel in the crown of Christian worship. For some (many?) that is all they experience – the jewel, no crown. The Eucharist, hence, becomes the sole place for worship, prayer, contemplation, education, fellowship, and so forth. This is a weight too much for the Eucharist to bear.

The Sunday Eucharist ought not to be the only encounter that Christians have with the scriptures. Christians ought regularly to be encouraged to read a book as a whole, for example. Mark’s gospel, our focus this year for example, takes only little more than an hour to read. A Christian community can provide other opportunities for encountering the scriptures in a deeper way – not just individually or in small groups, but online. I am amazed when communities are not providing online resources and discussions to facilitate the deeper, ongoing, systematic, continual working through the scriptures to complement what is provided Sunday by Sunday in their common worship.

RCL, then, is not merely one cool resource alongside others that people might choose from or create their own. Just to take the example of the NZ Anglican Church: the RCL was brought to General Synod where it was passed without amendment, then all the diocesan synods and Hui Amorangi unanimously passed it, then General Synod passed it for a second time, and then a year had to go by allowing for anyone to appeal this new formulary – plenty of opportunities for the sort of discussion and amending by the sort of people who now do not use it. Everything passed unanimously. Clergy promise and sign at their ordination that they will use only authorised material in leading services, and sign again each time they get a new position and licence. Our church’s pledging not to depart from formularies like this is even binding on us as a church by Act of Parliament.

The next post on the lectionary will provide links to some of the best online resources connected to the RCL.

Lord of the Dance

Published on July 27, 2009 in liturgy. 1 Comment Tags: , .

In Africa I saw the rubrics for the Eucharist that at the Gloria the priest and others in the sanctuary dance around the altar while everyone else dances in their place in the congregation.

Here’s a variant from a wedding (Kevin Heinz and Jill Peterson):

Biretta tip to my good e-friend Deacon Greg Kandra

Before you go tut-tutting to the comments section read 2 Samuel 6:14ff

14 David danced before the LORD with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod.
15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.
16 As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.

Shakers are well-known for their liturgical dancing. The tune of Simple Gifts, an 1848 Shaker song by Elder Joseph Brackett, is used in the 1963 Sydney Carter song Lord of the Dance. St Gregory of Nyssa church (San Francisco), well-known for its congregational dancing in worship here rehearses Simple Gifts:

More dancing from St Gregory’s can be seen in their Easter Vigil.

And if this inspires you to join the Shakers – at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, which still has four members, is still accepting new adult members interested in joining them.

Shakers dancing during worship

Shakers dancing during worship

MORE on dancing and worship

Liturgy as language (part 3)

Published on July 25, 2009 in liturgy. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

This series “Liturgy as language” is going in a direction that will be relevant to other contexts (trust me – I know what I’m doing). But this particular post continues and completes the previous post in outlining briefly the New Zealand Anglican context that has brought us to this place. If you are not in New Zealand your context may have similarities – but if there are no similarities to the NZ context, and if you have no interest in this kiwi context go for a walk through a park, or telephone a friend, or contemplate for five minutes, and we’ll see you next time…

New Zealand Anglican Liturgy from 1984

The story so far to 1984 and beyond is of an increasing abandonment of the concept and experience of “common prayer.” Common prayer includes knowing what is coming, one can prepare in anticipation for the communal worship beforehand, during the service one can respond and participate at significant moments often “by heart”, worship has stability from week to week, from one congregation time-slot to another time, and there is a sense of sharing in a wider community – from community to community, locally, and even internationally and ecumenically. [Common prayer also spares us from everything being under the control of the pastor or particular worship leader.] All that changed around 1984 in New Zealand Anglicanism.

Since that post I have had people give example after example – including one of our larger communities where the response to even “The Lord be with you” varies from week to week, demanding one keeps one’s eyes on the pew sheet…

Some comments on the previous post highlighted that the loss of common prayer includes a disenfranchising of children who cannot read, of parents supervising children, and of older people. In other words the “target” of the worship is precisely towards the age-group regularly missing in NZ Anglicanism! A further reflection might be that this means that “targeting” this age-group in this particular manner is notably unsuccessful – and that is leaving to one side my opinion that the “target” of worship ought to be God…

A list of some further changes in the last 25 years

The trajectory of liturgical worship sketched in NZ Anglicanism after 1984 continued and accelerated. Some points include:

  • At the 1987/1988 General Synods, the requirement of at least those ordained to pray the Daily Office was removed from our formularies. This resulted in individualising prayer and daily devotion. Clergy of course (one would hope) continued a personal devotional life but more often did so because it enriched their own individual piety – not with a sense that they were “praying the prayer of the church.” Even those who continue praying the Daily Office now often (mostly?) do this as a way of individual piety rather than as the prayer of the church (which it now struggles to be so understood). Furthermore, a variety of different forms of daily devotions is now provided – so that there is no assurance that those committed to the Daily Office are in any sense “on the same page.”
  • Total Ministry/ Locally shared ministry/mutual ministry increasingly developed, both in rural and urban areas. This way of locally calling to ordination (and other ministries) may include having positive encouragement of the ministry of all the baptised, but in practice it also resulted in poor liturgical formation, training, and study by those being ordained. In some places the link between presiding, pastoring, and preaching was broken.
  • Having a lay person lead the “first part of the service” with the priest absolving and leading the Eucharistic Prayer often ended up re-cluttering the Gathering Rite (so that the lay leader would have something to do), increasing a magical understanding of priesthood, and breaking the sense that the Eucharist and any service is a single, unified rite with a dynamic sense of movement. [There are other issues with this: the quality of formation of such lay leadership and concomitantly its effect on the quality of worship, the clericalisation of lay ministry, the loss of the sense of the full participation of those in the pews, and the focusing of lay ministry into the sanctuary rather than into the world...]
  • The Education for Liturgy Kit (E.L. Kit), the only provincial liturgical formation resource (an undated 200 page ring-bound prepared by the Provincial Board of Christian Education) is now pretty well unknown and difficult to obtain. There appears nowhere one can obtain it. There are no references to it I can find online. New clergy, and those coming from overseas regularly have not even heard of it.
  • One of the best endowed seminaries in the Anglican Communion, the provincial St John’s College, handed over most of its academic training to Auckland University which has little energy for what it termed “parson’s papers” such as liturgy. The NZ Anglican Church keeps no statistics of the proportions of those training now at this national theological college, but I would be interested if any reader had any idea about this. I am guessing not more than a fifth of those training for ordination are training at St John’s, and even some of them are not there for a full course, but are there only for a year or so.
  • Curacy, traditionally four years formation under two different training vicars, often became not viable financially so that some of those recently ordained were immediately placed in charge of a parish with variable ongoing training and formation.
  • This province, small in worship numbers and stretched by vast distances, has increasingly put its energy into areas other than liturgy and not placed quality of worship as a primary strategy of its common life.
  • The 1996/1998 General Synods altered the Form for Ordering the Eucharist formulary so that it is now authorised for Sunday Eucharists also. Previously this highly flexible rite was explicitly for special occasions other than the Sunday Eucharist (as it is in TEC). From this time all that is required now, even for the Sunday Eucharist, is three paragraphs in a Eucharistic Prayer – all else may be sourced elsewhere or created locally. Prior to 1998 responses varied but there was a limit to the variation. That limiting ceased in 1998.
  • In 2002 General Synod passed the Worship Template which accepts any service that has the following structure: Gathering – Story – Going out; ie. a beginning, a middle, and an end.
  • 2006 General Synod authorised the Alternative Form for Ordering the Eucharist as a formulary of our church. Even the highly flexible Form for Ordering the Eucharist clearly was not seen to be sufficiently flexible. Now all that is required is that the Eucharistic Prayer be authorised somewhere in the Anglican Communion.
  • The latest meeting of General Synod (2008) authorised another raft of Eucharistic Prayers. These are mostly not new ones, but reworking of other current Eucharistic Prayers in NZPB so that those who have one of those “by heart” find themselves stumbling over these revisions and in the congregation blurting out responses that are no longer there.

A church prior to 1984 held together by the shared discipline of common worship is now held together by everyone knowing everyone (extended whanau/family style). Understandably some are clamouring now for other forms of holding our unity.

For the New Zealand Anglican church the sense that liturgy is the work of the (whole) church wherever we are, from rural church, to school chapel, to cathedral, to hospital bedside – we are all praying the same, participating in the one worship, has been mostly lost.

Liturgy as language (part 2)

Published on July 8, 2009 in liturgy. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

1984 25 years on

Liturgy of the Eucharist 1984

Liturgy of the Eucharist 1984

This is the second post in a series looking at how we can use fixed liturgical worship to form thriving, vibrant, growing communities. The series began from the contention of a well-informed New Zealand Anglican priest and his assertion that he cannot think of a single congregation that follows our official liturgy that is either growing, or thriving with a good mixture of ages (especially including younger people). Furthermore, this, he sees as originating in decisions made in the 1980s.

This particular post will be part focusing on New Zealand’s Anglican liturgical history essentially over the last two and a half decades as I believe that this period’s history clarifies the situation we now find ourselves in. This will continue in a later post. And then the series will continue by exploring what, in my opinion, is the underlying dynamic that has been lost during these decades. This current post may be of particular interest more to Kiwis. So, if you have no interest in Kiwi Anglican liturgical history go and have a coffee with a friend, or go and watch a sunset, or pray the daily office…

It will become clear that in the last two and a half decades in NZ Anglicanism there has been a movement away from the concept of liturgy as common prayer. The 1984 Liturgy revision began the loss of knowing responses by heart. From this point NZ Anglicans inevitably become more book-bound (pew-sheet bound, or later projector-screen bound).

Kiwis – don’t look it up: what is the response to “The peace of God be always with you.”?

1964 to 1984

New Zealand Anglicans once had had a relatively conservative liturgical life, following the Book of Common Prayer and minor variants of that. In 1964 there began a revision process that resulted in a 1966 eucharistic rite and a further revision of this in 1970. So by 1984 there had been two decades of either the BCP or a well-received, single contemporary revision. In 1984 all that changed. Now, alongside the contemporary revision were new Eucharist rites that, though structurally relatively similar, had significantly innovative texts.

In these innovative eucharistic texts the traditional, ecumenical, internationally agreed English-language texts used throughout the Anglican Communion were replaced. The following are two examples replacing the sanctus/benedictus (”Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might…”) in 1984:

Holy God, holy and merciful, holy and just,
glory and goodness come from you.
Glory to you most high and gracious God.

and

Holy, holy, holy:
God of mercy, giver of life;
earth and sea and sky
and all that lives,
declare your presence and your glory.

One of the new rites intentionally had far more for the congregation to recite, again increasing the tendency to have more time with heads in books.

Every Sunday in the 1984 revision now no longer had a single collect usually drawn out of the great collect heritage shared throughout Anglicanism. Now each Sunday there was a choice of three collects – many of them not following a collect structure or style.

Kiwis – don’t look it up: what is the response to “The peace of God be with you all.”?

A completely new Order for Celebrating the Eucharist was produced and included in the 1984 Liturgy. In this order basically everything for a Eucharist (even responses) could be resourced from anywhere or created locally (excepting the Last Supper story and one paragraph were fixed in any constructed Eucharistic Prayer).

People were not all following the same readings either. As well as the BCP lectionary, New Zealand’s own creation (a two year thematic lectionary), the Australian Anglican revision of the Roman Catholic three-year lectionary was also authorised.

As well as music and singing being central to liturgy in my opinion, singing inevitably aids memorisation. With three completely different texts (for example) for the sanctus/benedictus (not interchangeable between rites) many communities no longer accessed good quality national ecumenical music or international Anglican and/or ecumenical musical settings.

In summary

From 1984 some wonderfully poetic, imaginative, creative, inclusive, and inculturated texts were being presented to regular worshipping Anglicans. It must be remembered, all this is within the context of a very small province of church-going Anglicans. The numbers in church (say about 35,000 in church on Sunday) are probably that of a reasonable size Church of England diocese. Moving from worshipping community to community there was no longer the expectation that the same readings would be followed, that the same collect would be used, that the same responses and texts would be used, that the same musical settings would be found. Even within a single parish, moving from one service time to another one might encounter completely unfamiliar material. Week by week turning up at the same time on Sunday one could be confronted with a different set of responses in rotation.

Creativity and flexibility became values now embodied in the official rites. Saying and singing things “by heart” (in the deepest sense of that phrase) was being lost. Common prayer – in the sense of celebrating Eucharist as the great shared worship action of Christ and his body, the church – was being lost in individualism and congregationalism. The measure of a “successful” service was shifting. The understanding of liturgy was shifting from community actions and celebration accompanied by words with a significant amount sung and by heart - to reciting beautiful poetic words at each other read from books and ever-changing pew sheets.

Answers:
The Peace of God be always with you.
Praise to Christ who is our peace.
and
The peace of God be with you all.
In God’s justice is our peace.

Next time you hear either of those particular responses check – is the person addressing you/the congregation or addressing the book (pamphlet) s/he is reading from? And are most in the congregation addressing the presider in return – or do they have their eyes fixed on the book/screen/pamphlet? If in your community you are actually addressing each other and there are no books/screens/pamphlets involved at this point give yourself a gold star liturgical WOF. If you got both the above responses correct from memory your application to lecture on liturgy at St John’s College has been accepted. For the rest of us… this series will be continued…

The next post in this series is found here