Category: worship

theological quandary

wonderfulexchange14 Comments

I have been brooding on the theology of the reserved sacrament again. Or rather, the lack of theology.

I find myself in the awkward position of having to support and encourage a pattern of worship I’m not sure I understand. Indeed, I’m not sure that the church as a whole has come to an understanding of this — though I hope I’m mistaken. What are we doing when — week after week, as a normal pattern of worship — our main service is Holy Communion from the reserved sacrament?

I have asked this before. So let me be more specific.

1. In Holy Communion from the reserved sacrament, how does a person’s self-offering relate to the offering of the eucharist?

When we celebrate the eucharist, I assume (and teach) that we offer ourselves to be broken and transformed in and through the offering of bread and wine, and the receiving of communion. At a celebration of the eucharist, there is an authentic correspondence between our self offering and the liturgical action. Things really change.

But when the service is from the reserved sacrament, the bread and wine have already been offered and transformed. How does our self-offering fit with that? How is it liturgically expressed? Are we in danger of losing the sense of self-offering in the eucharist if we are not clear about the differences between celebrating the eucharist and receiving pre-consecrated bread and wine?

Or am I just missing something about the theology of the eucharist?

2. What does it mean for the same congregation to receive communion time and again from the same celebration?

This is thankfully not our practice in Dunoon — apart from the few who come on a Thursday to enable the celebration, who then receive again on Sunday (for the once a month service from the Reserved Sacrament). But recently, I learned of a church which very seldom sees a priest through the winter. The last priest there in the autumn consecrates lots and lots of bread and wine. The congregation then take communion from what is reserved each week until a priest comes again.

I do not know what this means.

Dear readers, will you please help make sense of this for me? And will you help us have this conversation more widely in the church? I know that it’s a hard thing to do on a blog, but unless you want to play with Wiki’s, it’s the best forum we have.

Please pass this post on to all of your theologically savvy friends. I welcome responses in the comments or by email.

I am also linking a sermon I preached last year, when I tried to explain the custom of Holy Communion from the Reserved Sacrament to the congregation in Dunoon. (And do stop to admire the irony of my preaching a sermon that was pastorally necessary, when a year on I still don’t really understand a bit of it.) I am not at ease with the sermon, and there may be things in it you can correct, but it offers some perspective for those new to this (all you city dwellers spoilt with endless priests, for instance.)

I used to think this was a fairly marginal issue — and that Communion from the Reserved Sacrament was rare as a main Sunday service. I now think that it is becoming a normative pattern of worship in many parts of our church, and I’m not sure we know what we’re doing.

when we gather

wonderfulexchange14 Comments

During my first year of studying theology, a lecturer asked us to make a list of all the things that we thought must happen in the context of the eucharist. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics — all were invited to make their list, and compare notes. I should confess: I forgot the sermon. I didn’t choose not to include it. I just forgot. And before you get your hopes up: I would not forget it now.

But I find myself thinking about the question again in a new context. This time it is not ‘what must happen for a eucharist’ but ‘what should happen when Christians gather on a Sunday?’

Now ideally, those questions would be one and the same. The eucharist is at the heart of Anglican practice and theology, and I wish that we could assume that every Anglican congregation could gather for the eucharist each sabbath day. But we can’t. Continue reading “when we gather” →

morning song

wonderfulexchange5 Comments

One of my Religious friends is off on her summer holidays. Did you know nuns got holidays?

Now, we all know what priests do on their holidays. They visit friends and family, and live out their ecclesiastical fantasies (big important provosts visit tiny rural congregations, where life must seem simpler; rectors of tiny rural congregations go to splendid big cathedrals where smoke billows and choirs sing). But nuns? What do nuns do on their holidays?

Apparently, they wake singing responsorial psalms. Or rather –responsorial not-psalms.

All join in now. Opening responses, followed by verses set to your favourite chant:

V. The littlest worm
R. The littlest worm

V. That I ever saw
R. That I ever saw

V. Was curled up
R. Was curled up

V. In my soda straw
R. In my soda straw

Ps:
The littlest worm I ever saw *
was curled up in my soda straw.

He said to me ‘don’t take a sip*
for if you do I’ll surely slip.’

I took a sip, and he went down*
right through my pipe. He must have drowned.

He was my pal, he was my friend*
there is no more, this is the end.

Now don’t you fret, now do not fear*
that little worm had scuba gear.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son*
and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now*
and shall be forever. Amen.

funeral frustration

wonderfulexchange3 Comments

Here’s another little plug for your local independent funeral director instead of the big well known firm.

This morning’s conversation with the man from the big firm:

him: So at the end of the service, I’ll go to the front and thank you on behalf of the family, tell them where the reception is, and tell them about the donations box.

me:   (surprised, and trying to go gently) Oh, I’ve not encountered that before.  I don’t think there’s any need.  There’s a notice about donations and the reception in the service booklet, and I can give them a reminder earlier in the service.  That way at the end of the service the family can have a few minutes of quiet as they listen to the music they have chosen.

him: OK, so you’ll tell them about the donation and hotel at  the end, and then I’ll come up and thank you.

me:  no, that’s really not necessary.  The end of the service is a time for quiet and prayer.

him:  Well, I usually come up and thank the minister.

me:  There is no need to.  That is a time for prayer and not for announcements.  It would change the dynamic of the service to start speaking again.

him:  It wouldn’t change anything at all.  That is what I always do.

At this point, I have to confess I gave up.  This has been the most difficult funeral I’ve ever done because no one is listening to anyone, and each has a different story.

So, this one time I will suppress my liturgical common sense and let him do it.  And next time, I will be able say with authority, ‘No, I have tried it that way.  It doesn’t work.’

I don’t expect the undertaker to understand the liturgical choices one makes.  I do expect him to know that there are choices to be made, and that making them is my job not his.

Does every minister go through this, I wonder, or are Piskie and C of S funerals really so different that the undertaker has come to believe that it’s his job to get the family to choose the hymns, arrange music before and after, and decide how the service ends?