Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Survivor/Victim -Looking at the meanings of words in the Safeguarding World
Jessica Martin ViaMedia.News Real Presence in Sex and Sacrament
Talique Taylor Earth & Altar What is Communion?
Kelvin Holdsworth What’s in Kelvin’s Head Turning Up and Being Counted
I thought Kelvin’s piece was excellent.
Some interesting pieces on Holy Communion but I found Jessica Martin’s argument unconvincing. Much of life is indeed commodified but surely that applies to in-person as well as online interaction? Many of us from migrant families are used to staying in touch with loved ones thousands of miles away; this may be hard but does it really make the interaction worthless? Can a grandparent and grandchild talking by Zoom or Skype be written off so easily – or indeed any intimacy between partners physically apart because of the need to earn a living, whereas peepshows supposedly represent more authentic connection… Read more »
Kelvin is right! Perhaps we clergy do not emphasise enough the practical value of at least weekly worship at the Eucharist. How often do we point to ‘Christ in the midst’ as out inspiration and food for the journey of life. This is precisely why the monastic tradition insists on the Daily Mass – to empower those gathered for worship in the art of living out the Gospel: “Turn towards him and be radiant.”
How right you are, Fr Ron! I remember an old adage that went something like this: On the Lord’s day, gather with the Lord’s people to share the Lord’s supper in the Lord’s house. Sadly, ‘pick and mix’ religion has devalued this vital concept.
The tradition of weekly eucharist in each local church in the CofE was the outcome of liturgical and eucharistic revision in the 1950-60’s. In this rural part of SW England that is only possible if clergy become mass priests and race round numbers of remote, small churches and small congregations each Sunday. It is impractical and undermining of ministry and well being. I am not sure why you think pick and mix is the issue. It is simply an unsustainable demand on clergy. Nor is a weekly eucharist the only pattern available – or the historically dominant one.
Very true, David. Geographically it’s even harder in many parts of the world, unless you dispense with seminary and salaries and simply ordain elders in each church as they did in NT times. When I served in the Diocese of the Arctic, clergy who were looking after three-point parishes over a hundred miles apart could only reach their out-stations by plane, which was very expensive. Some outstations could only be visited by their clergy three of four times a year. The rest of the time, the churches were led by their catechists and lay readers.
I remember, in the mid 1970s, as a Franciscan Brother (SSF) in Brisbane, picking up at the airport the Anglican Bishop in the Arctic for a friary visit, and talking with him about the Arctic system known as TEAM – Teach Each a Ministry – through which local elders, trusted by the community for their spiritual maturity, were encouraged to share the ministry of the Church. Some were ordained as village priests to serve the sacramental needs of the local people. It would seem, at the time, that this was meeting a deep need in that vast diocese. Is this,… Read more »
Ron, I think that was in the Diocese of Alaska, yes? The Canadian Diocese of the Arctic didn’t have the TEAM program. The Diocese of the Arctic has been training indigenous clergy at its training college in Pangnirtung for decades now. But they are trained for full time stipendiary ministry, so the problem has not gone away. One issue has been that the extended family structure is very strong in some of the isolated Arctic settlements, and some of the families have long-standing feuds. A locally ordained person from one extended family can get caught in that conflict. When I… Read more »
Thinking back a decade or so, when I arrived in Salisbury and was exploring my vocation the then bishop, David Stancliffe, was offering “ordained local ministry”, basically ordaining an experienced person within a parish to serve that parish only if a normally ordained priest was unavailable.
Whenever he got a complaint of a lack of a priest in a parish, his response was “it’s up to you, send me someone suitable and I will ordain them for you”.
But I think that OLM programme stopped shortly after he left about 2009.
There is a possible middle way for areas with many parishes and few priests, and that is communion by extension, where an authorised person distributes the Blessed Sacrament which has been consecrated by a priest elsewhere. This might help those who regard regular communion as important, whilst avoiding overloading the few priests. Others might think it the worst of all worlds. The former bishop of my diocese was very reluctant to authorise this practice, even when the incumbent was ill or on leave but there was a deacon serving as curate. I don’t know his reasons – it may be… Read more »
I can understand the bishops’ reluctance to regularise Communion by Extension. The Eucharist is an event: one in which the faithful gather, hear the word of God, offers themselves with the gifts for transformation, are joined to the one perfect sacrifice, and are then sent out having fed on the body of Christ to be the Body of Christ in the world. But will Communion from reservation, if practiced regularly, undermine one of the great insights of the Liturgical Movement, namely that the Eucharist is something we do, not just something we get; an action rather than an object; a… Read more »
Seems to me this is a standard practice for shut-ins, invalids, those without reliable transportation here in the USA. My parish has several of these people (called LEMs–lay eucharistic ministers) who bring the elements to parishioners who request it every Sunday (and on Christmas, too).
Yes, that practice is common over here too for the sick and infirm, but what I was referring to is different, being a means of enabling congregations gathered in a church to receive the Sacrament, when there are not enough priests to go round. It can include most of the elements of a normal Eucharist, save only for the consecration.
Although the Eucharist is central to most (not all) expressions of Christianity, there is much more to worship. Teaching, as in sermons and discussions; music; the company of other Christians; the arts; the opportunity to be lifted outside ourselves by hearing of the struggles and triumphs of others – all are part of what we gain by gathering with others to worship.
I can no longer get to church in person, but I thank God that I can still join worship services via Zoom.
All very true, Janet, and we definitely found that during Covid-19. I felt a bit like the proverbial blind person whose other senses had been sharpened to compensate; I went without communion for several months, but my sense of encounter with God in the scriptures was dramatically increased. And of course the Eucharist has evolved over the years. There’s no record in the NT of it ever happening in any other context than a shared meal (a Mennonite theologian once said provocatively ‘If our communion services aren’t vulnerable to the same abuses found in 1 Corinthians 11, are they real… Read more »
I instinctively agree with Fr. Ron, but I also respect The Salvation Army (particularly their works of compassion for those living on the streets), which has no Eucharist.
For those of us who value the sacraments the decline in vocations to the priesthood is very sad. The Manlake deanery in the Lincoln diocese is to have only four stipendiary priests for the town of Scunthorpe and it’s surrounding rural parishes. There may be SSM priests but even so celebrations of the Eucharist will be not much more frequent than in the Arctic Circle. Strange that God calls so many priests to the City of London but not to Lincolnshire. Online services are of no use to those who are digitally excluded and those of us who believe in… Read more »
Fr Dean – maybe the retreat in pastoral provision is linked to the 2021 Census figures, released today, which shows an alarming drop in those who identify as Christian. As the Church of England is still Established, the buck stops with them. C of E 2021 statistics still not published. Whose sensibilities are being protected?!
There is more than one way of valuing the sacraments. I remember hearing of Presbyterian churches which held communion services only once a quarter, but those who expected to participate spent the week beforehand examining their lives, righting wrongs, and restoring broken relationships (ye who do earnestly repent of your sins and live at peace with your neighbours…). This seems to me to place a very high value on the sacrament, and to be at least as likely to result in changed lives as those who take holy communion each week without thinking much about it. And, why should Christ… Read more »
‘And, why should Christ not be really present in the bread and wine for those of us sitting at our computer and holding the bread and wine up while the priest blesses them?’
Those who are partaking of communion in this way assure us that it is very real to them. Would God really refuse to feed those who through no fault of their own can’t get to the feast?
Depends. I would suggest that Christ is present in the breaking of bread — when we eat together and (among other things) share our bread with others. It is hard to share your bread with others if they are not actually there with you.
But if it is not possible for them to be there with you, and you ask God to make this bread and wine for you the Body and Blood of Christ, would God not answer that prayer? Why would a God of love refuse it?
How many people, kneeling at the communion rail, share their wafer with the person next to them? Those of us who share, via the internet, with others, can find it a genuine experience of fellowship. It partly depends how it’s done, of course. The church I currently worship with meet in a semicircle, with cameras showing congregation, musicians, celebrant, etc to us. The images of those of us at home are projected onto the wall on the open side. We can choose to have our mikes turned on so they can hear us joining in; sometimes a person online will… Read more »
I don’t believe that what you’re doing is sacramentally effective.
But what about the digitally excluded? You’ve dodged that point Janet.
I learned a lot (to say the least) about the Blessed Sacrament many years ago from a faithful senior parishioner, a Salvation Army Captain, who had been a prisoner of war in Changi. His padre then had recommended taking communion to sustain him. And he did – in the form of the available rice and rice water. When he was freed and returned to London, the Bishop of London privately and properly confirmed him, and he kept up the practice in Bread and Wine, still as an active Salvationist. I was honoured to know him and look forward to feasting… Read more »
Very moving. I wonder whether the Salvation Army Captain to whom your refer encountered in Changi the Bishop of Singapore of the time, the heroic John Leonard Wilson, who was also a prisoner there. He was of course later Bishop of Birmingham. It seems that the Bishop of London who confirmed the Salvation Army Officer must have been J.W.C.Wand.
The Parish Communion Movement has been a matter of gains and losses.Getting up for the 8 o’clock ,fasting communion mostly gone.We have become far too casual in our reception of communion and there has been a lamentable absence of teaching, Too often the service has become a sort of jolly community celebration and little more. So I’m not sure loss of a weekly eucharist in some places is necessarily a dreadful thing. If we could train licenced lay people to put on a simple liturgy of the Word in every church at the same time ( esp in the countryside)… Read more »
Perry, It is probably unintentional but your post seems to be a bit patronising towards “licensed lay people” putting on a “simple liturgy of the word” Around where I come from Licensed Lay Ministers are trained alongside ordained ministers for much of the liturgical and theological content of their joint training, to degree level. And because many LLMs are retired they are much more able to keep up to date with post registration training and theological developments than their incredibly busy, ordained, stipendiary colleagues. I would hope many of them can put or more than a “simple” service. Although I… Read more »
But surely “church elders” means “presbyters”? That’s what presbyters are — the local leaders standing in for the bishop.
Thanks Simon, I am curious to learn here. It seems to me that the Didache, and Acts, which I understand to be very early documents, offer a picture of mendicant “apostles”, i.e. people living in poverty and wandering from place to place, offering teaching to various communities, very much in the tradition of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in the gospels. The Didache seems to suggest that the “elder”, not the apostle had the authority with the local community. But your discussion of bishops and presbyters suggests a transition to a different pattern, in which those who claim direct succession… Read more »
When did the tradition of apostolic succession begin, and how and why did it originate?
That’s a very good question Janet.
I didn’t mean it to be patronising. However well trained you are ( and that includes clergy) I would hope you can do simple services, by which I mean,relatively short, participatory and straight forward. Psalm Reading Canticle Prayers Silence, a hymn perhaps if that is possible.:a liturgy of the word which meets the needs of ( in the countryside) congregations perhaps not in double figures. And how many trained LLMs we have they are probably not enough in a benefice of 5 or more churches I was thinking of members of the congregation given some basic. training as local worship… Read more »
it’s sort of happening already. we’re in interregnum, and even when we weren’t had a priest one service in 4-5 for communion, and one other service a month with a LLM. Now, it’s LLM when we can get one, and anything else is going to have to be Morning Prayer, no preaching, led by either a churchwarden or volunteers from the PCC. Otherwise we will die. Other than that, we face the usual problems of a very rural English multi-church benefice where the congregations simply won’t go to anything that isn’t happening in their own parish church. So a service… Read more »
“Benefice Services (one per month) can be even more bleakly amusing – not only do very few come to wherever it is from elsewhere in the benefice, but some of the regular congregation in the hosting parish stay away because it’s not ‘their’ service with all those potential incomers.”
I find this appalling! Where is the fellowship with all Christians? Whatever happened to “common prayer”? I hope these communities do not depend on tourism if this is their attitude toward visitors even from the next village over.
It’s just what happens. We’re not in a tourist place – very off the beaten track and quite common not to see anyone from outside whichever village you live in (apart from the postman or tradesmen) for days on end. I genuinely believe what we’re dealing with (in parts of l’Angleterre Profonde) is a form of what was initially protest, which has now been sanctified into a worship pattern. It’s like the villages have reacted to (decades ago now) being told they’re not having their own vicar and a service every week with ‘ok, we’ll just support our village church… Read more »
That’s a great idea Perry.
There was another important aspect to the Parish Communion Movement, I think. As well as emphasising the need for a weekly Eucharist it also emphasised the social action that flowed from that eucharistic community. I suppose a lot of that fervour eventually went into the Labour Party and once that party gained power after WW2 there was less incentive for the Movement to be involved.
Jesus considered the Eucharistic Celebration: people gathering together to meet ‘Christ in the midst’ by virtue of receiving the body and Blood of Christ to be an absolute necessity: “Do this to re-member me- not only in memoriam but also a perpetual re-membering of the Body of Christ in a particular community. Perhaps in the U.K. at least, there needs to be a re-educating of the Faithful Laity to accept the fact that some of them might be called to ordination without necessarily making the priesthood their ‘full-time profession’ (I don’t suppose the early apostles were paid by Head Office.… Read more »
Whilst I don’t disagree with the sentiment, I’d be careful about a line of argument based on “re-member”. It may be a convenient way of making a point, or just a clever pun, but it’s terrible etymology, even in English, and doesn’t stand a chance in Latin or Greek! And as for Aramaic, it probably makes no sense whatsoever.
But surely better than the beige stuck-in-the-pastness of “making the memorial”.
My argument Simon, is more dedicated to anthropology and theology than mere etymology. Agape!