Ian Paul Psephizo Five good reasons for not giving
Martine Oborne ViaMedia.News Blackburn: What We Still Don’t Know
Drew Nathaniel Keane The Living Church
Sunday Liturgy without a Priest: Part One (Communion by Extension)
Sunday Liturgy Without A Priest: Part Two (Morning Prayer and Antecommunion)
Phil Hooper Earth & Altar Who is Athanasius of Alexandria?
Re Ian Paul’s essay: Why no mention of “giving” beyond the monetary? We can give of our time and services–repairs to church property, serving at community dinners, baby-sitting during services. For those who are lacking in monetary wherewithal, this form of giving is of equal value.
Re Keane’s essay on Communion by Extension: Where does the LEM (lay eucharistic minister) come in? In our parish, it is regular practice for a properly trained LEM to bring consecrated host and wine to those parishioners who, by reason of illness or infirmity, cannot attend the Sunday service.
Ian Paul’s article is very middle class and entirely focused on giving as a percentage of income without any consideration of disposable income. When people are having to use food banks in large numbers, you would think he might have got the message, but obviously not. He rubs in his middle class income so it isn’t just income he mentions. No people should tithe on net income because he is focused on tax, notwithstanding that the poorest in the parish will be below the tax threshold. And as you say, giving in kind is ignored. The impression too is that… Read more »
Did you actually read it all? “So rather than just give money, why not also give your time and talents to help that money be used well?” It’s about money in the context “reasons not to give (money)”. And he does not (re: Kate) at any point “focus” on percentage….there’s a mention of the CofE’s 5%. I think that dates from the 1950s.. The two comments seems to me more like having a go at Ian Paul rather than a fair reading of what was actually written. Critique by all means… what was actually written keeping an eye out for… Read more »
“So rather than just give money, why not also give your time and talents to help that money be used well?” I read that as “In addition to giving money, give time and talents…..,” which is not my point at all. Many in this world are unable to give money for a variety of reasons. They give their time and talents as a substitute for money. Call it barter, if you like–for the services and comfort and communion the church gives them, they repay with services of their own. There was a time in history when this was an honorable… Read more »
I read it as the 5% of net income being part of the context he sets at the start for the whole article. After your comment, I have re-read it and my view stands. He raises an expectation of giving 5% of net income, discusses 5 reasons for not doing so and dismisses them all to varying degrees. YMMV but that’s how I read it.
Communion by extension was a part of my deacon year. The elements were consecrated at an 8 am or 0930 am mass at Wirksworth and taken by me (and my prede/suc/cessors of course) to an 11 am service at one of the nine surrounding villages. At the consecration there was an addition to the eucharistic prayer something along the lines of “may this bread and wine be to us and our brothers and sisters at [wherever] the body and blood …” So the elements were consecrated specifically for that community, not for the aumbry (there weren’t any aumbries in the villages anyway). Personally, I don’t like the idea of using… Read more »
Surely there is hardly any coherent Anglican theology about anything. We make it up as we go along.
Yes!
True. There’s the preferred way and the one dictated by necessity. Sometimes all we have to stand on is our intention to do the right thing. I’m trusting God to make things “coherent” in the end.
If only we could convince certain people of this when it comes to things like, for instance, marriage.
At least you are honest I suppose. But rather depressing isn’t it?
On concelebration, GS Misc 163 “Concelebration in the Eucharist” of 1982 by Trevor Lloyd and Hugh Wybrew concludes: This paper has been occasioned by a request that the Liturgical Commission provide guidelines for concelebrated eucharists. For those who adopt current Reman Catholic teaching and practice, adequate guidelines already exist. We have indicated the principles we believe should underlie a form of concelebration which is not co—consecration, but which expresses what we believe to be a more satisfactory view of the relationship of the ordained ministry to the church, and of both to the eucharist. The notes accompanying the eucharist in… Read more »
As a Lay Reader I had the privilege of leading Communion by Extension on Christmas morning when my wife had to manage four communion services at four churches in one morning. Strictly speaking communion by extension is meant to be in special limited circumstances but this was a practical solution for our situation. I had been given permission by our Suffragan bishop. Sadly a well known Bishop of Winchester pulled the plug on it eventually. I do wonder what the church hierarchy want. Practical loving service to the people or inflexible rules
Congrats TA for the Liturgy without a Priest series! TBHH: As an RC, I’d to think that Priests shortage would only be… An RC sort of things with the Anglicans having married men and many women as Priests!… Eventually it is not!… To let alone the transconsubstantiation theological sort of thinking that ultimately is ignored by 99% of the regular Church goers on a time when even Blessed Sacrament adoration is falling mostly on the rare side of the pound here, the reserved Sacrament is generally seen like on the 1982 RC/AC agreement on Real Presence of Christ in the… Read more »
This sounds like an argument (not necessarily one I disagree with) for the return of the “Mass Priest” – ordained to celebrate the sacraments but not licenced to preach nor necessarily as a pastor.
Such a similar arrangement. Either way one just for emergency purposes to serve the ones far out of regular contact or special groups, not the norm. I understand the desire from many (even in my own RCC!) to oversimplify the Priesthood, basically at the point of removing it from Churches!… But, ultimately, we need some sort or organizational foundations in our lives and society. Jesus himself gave the Last Supper primarily to his best friends and disciples!… If I need someone to help me in the Court room, I expect to at least find a licensed Lawyer!… So, now if… Read more »
As to Communion by extension, virtual Eucharists et al my answer is simple – look at what the Bible tells us. I am with the Evangelicals for once. Wait, the Bible is silent in the arrangements so none of the arguments are based on Scripture. Isn’t it interesting that to prevent same sex marriage some people insist on a highly restrictive reading of the Bible then ad hoc things on the much more important topic of the Eucharist? There is nothing in Scripture to indicate any need for a presbyter, that’s all man-made doctrine. In fact 1 Corinthians 11:20-22 describes… Read more »
You talk about “man-made doctrine”. As opposed to what? That written by elephants or chimpanzees? All doctrine (even about Jesus) is a human construct or opinion. To say priests and liturgies are “irrelevancies” is just your opinion, which may be wrong.
So you think that the emphasis should be on having an ordained minister present to lead the Eucharist. That’s what should dominate our thinking. Seems to me that if we think that way we are making the priest into an idol that is essential for proper worship and fellowship.
It is you who is emphasising an exaggerated role of the priest in order to justify your own desire for lay celebrations. Every time I have said mass, it has never entered my mind that I am an Idol to be worshipped. You are, however, entitled to your “man-made” opinion.
Well put Kate. I think the point about scriptural consistency is indeed relevant here. Those who support SSM on the basis of scriptural silence and pastoral need, need logically to apply the same thinking and practice to communion by extension. I suspect though many do not. Cherries and picking come to mind on both sides of the churchmanship divide or is that chasm!
On the rare occasions that General Synod has debated lay presidency at the Eucharist (last time 1997?), the House of Clergy have been at their most vociferous. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas usually!
We have already reached the point at which regular Communion is no longer possible for many of us because there aren’t enough ordained ministers, and it’s only going to get worse. It’s why we are discussing things like Communion by extension.
If the Church ever does form a settled view on same sex marriage, I predict that the mismatch between the frequency at which people desire Communion and the frequency at which they can receive it is likely to fill the vacuum.
Anglicans in the past received holy communion far less frequently than many now but prepared for it more devoutly. It might be better to have more non eucharistic services. The Parish Communion movement has downsides as well as pluses. It has tended to “unchurch ” a lot of believing but not particularly sacramental people. Evensong was once a very popular service. ( The best attended when I was a choir boy 1958 to 65). I recall an Anglican biblical scholar saying that the parish communion had become a jewel without a setting. I think he had a point.
Evensong has, alas, disappeared from the majority of parish churches now. It would be good to see a revival of the sung office in churches, but I wonder how many could muster the musical resources for such a thing, or how many congregations would have a clue how to sing any kind of chant.
One good reason, certainly around here, is the increasing age of church members, who simply don’t want to go out at night. This doesn’t just apply to church activities, but to a range of other social organisations too. In a big city like this it may reflect fear of being bushwacked; a rural area perhaps limited public transport. There’s a lot of reasons
In the church that I am a member of age is certainly an issue. The vast majority are too young to have a clue how or why to sing chants! The evening service, however, is regularly attended by 250 adults.
We would need more church musicians, adequately trained. The changes both liturgical and musical of the last half century, the over-emphasis on the spoken word rather than musical, visual and olfactory stimuli, have at best discouraged and at worst repelled many musicians, even those sympathetic to the message. Congregational chanting is alive in the Church of Ireland where Mattins or Morning Prayer remains the principal service at least twice a month, the “community memory” of chanting having never been lost. The parish communion movement had no traction in Ireland, with the exception perhaps of two or three churches in Dublin… Read more »
Traditionally the Church of Scotland only had Communion quarterly, or less frequently. But it was a Big Thing, with several preparatory services beforehand.
(Sadly in my view, too great an emphasis was placed on “Fencing the Tables”, i.e. asking people to engage in deep self-examination to discern whether they were “worthy” to receive Communion; anecdotally the consequence was that, after the big build-up, few people actually “communed”. The idea of the Sacrament as God’s gift made freely available had somehow got lost in an over-rigorous interpretation of St Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians.)
Many thanks. That is so very true, but when the parish communion movement was in its formative period, it did sometimes have impressive results, which might help explain its enduring popularity with some clergy, as in these very rare recordings here, from 1970 (at the magnificent Walpole St Peter, Norfolk, Ely diocese): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0JwMrjYNvE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dYTV7oAbg8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdhvvPocg3M. I believe the celebrant is Jack Woods (1919-2009), incumbent from 1960-75. He was later to be provost of Inverness.
Great sermon from Hugh Bishop (first video) before, of course, he fled Mirfield. Not life after death but life through death – much scope for thought. It is possible – just – to find a rural church with such liturgy (I celebrated at one last Sunday) but they are certainly not full.
I was raised with the expectation of taking Communion once a week. I think that’s even what I was taught as the ‘norm’ in confirmation classes. For large parts of my life I have lived in parishes where there is just one Communion service a month, sometimes not even that.
fair enough – and I’m in monthly communion land here – but standard weekly communion is such a brief snapshot of time across the CofE that it’s very unlikely that even the people with you in the church you were raised in, had been raised with that expectation. Unless it was very Anglo Catholic.
I think rural liberal that fasting communion was taken very seriously in anglo-catholic circles , so communion was rarely weekly. Until the 60s the devout would make their communion at 8 am and return for the High celebration at 11 (which may well have been noncommunicating).
Following the relaxation of fasting requirements post Vatican 11 ( to the horror of many anglo-catholic priests) it became more common for people to make their communion at a High Mass. How things have changed in my life time!
Yes, Perry, I was confirmed in 1965 with the strong advice to receive (fasting) at 8am and then attend (only) the Sung Eucharist at 10am. I think there were about 20 of us confirmed, but I don’t think any of the others even came to 8am after a week or so, and none at 10am. It felt as though Confirmation one ought to do as a rite of passage in the village if from a C of E family. In my case, I became a server at 8am, and was quietly nurtured, though I didn’t come to sense a vocation… Read more »
For much of my working life the main body of the church of Christ the King in Gordon Square has been very mysterious, being used for public worship only annually on its feast day, although with the chancel being employed regularly by FiF. I was informed that the very shadowy trustees of the Irvingite church (which has, for practical purposes, become extinct) had put very strict controls on its use, and had effectively mothballed it, as at Albury in Surrey (which is only ever opened up to be cleaned) (the works of Kenneth Stevenson and, more especially, Columba Flegg on… Read more »
There is a much more recent, and detailed, history of the Catholic Apostolic church: ‘The Lord’s Work’ by Tim Grass (Pickwick publications, 2017). There has also, in recent years, been a lunchtime organ recital on the first Friday of the month, but it gets very little publicity. I don’t know who organises it. It has been a way of seeing the interior of the church without experiencing Euston Church religion! There is also the lovely looking Pearson church in Maida Vale, which, according to the Charity Commission (number 245205) has an active congregation, according to the accounts for the year… Read more »
I come from an extremely high anglo-catholic formation – FiF/The Society, the lot, though I find myself in an extremely isolated mud-and-mattins rural parish these days.
FWIW I practice fasting before communion, but that can mean not consuming anything before lunchtime given the communion times on offer! I’d love an 8am…
Confirmation statistics are in free fall. So the percentage of the population technically eligible to receive holy communion becomes ever smaller. Some dioceses admit to communion before confirmation but I wonder how many then get confirmed. I think some clergy don’t bother with confirmation at all. I have often wondered what bishops think of this situation.
A friend who was a bishop’s chaplain told me that often ConEvo ordinands had to be hastily confirmed before their ordinations could go ahead. I’m ambivalent about confirmation but it does serve as a staging post, or rather it used to. In my latter years they became sparsely attended services, sometimes only the candidates’ spouse or parents would attend to support them.
I was confirmed in the armed forces. Three candidates, the unit chaplain, and a visiting bishop whose name I don’t even recall being told.
Preparation for confirmation was a few dinners with the chaplain over about three months, and ‘read, learn and inwardly digest Hugh Montefiore’s Confirmation Notebook.’
This was 2002
I’m surprised that there were not more candidates if it involved dinner in the officers’ mess.
we were all officer cadets, but the dinners were in the chaplain’s house on the married patch
If not the Bible, then early church history. My reading of the Didache is that they had what would now be called lay presidency, with only occasional visits from a “prophet” (i.e. mendicant preacher, who I guess would be counted somewhere in the apostolic succession context).
Kate, I think you make a good point about any need for priests, although those in authority will always find a way to justify their existence and specialness. But, I think in verses 20 – 22, the author is chastising Corinthians for participating in a communal meal as if they were still at home, paying no attention to the needs of their neighbor. Getting engorged while their neighbor goes without drink. And, for me, the words in the following verses 23 – 25 “do this in remembrance of me” are the most significant. It matters not whether the substantiation is… Read more »
I agree with you 95% but we now see symbolism and reality as antipodes whereas in the Bible the two concepts overlap. The rainbow isn’t merely symbolic: it is a physical manifestation of God’s promise. I think the difference we see today between the bread and wine being merely symbolically the body and blood and real presence isn’t a sharp distinction the Apostles would have understood.
I dont know where to put this comment, but I just wanted to acknowledge the ministry of Revd Anna Matthews who died so suddenly.
I met her on a few occasions and found her to be the most sharp, tenacious, gracious and warm of ministers.
She had a sharp acerbic mind, and warm and open heart.
May she rest in peace, and rise in glory.. and may her family at her domestic home and spiritual home know that same peace in their tumult and tragedy.
Amen to that. I spent time with her only once, several years ago, at a DDOs’ conference. But she left the kind of impression on me that meant I was moved to tears hearing of her death, and again today, when I read of the circumstances and the incredibly courageous and faith filled message from her husband. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
Giving and receiving. I have just read the comments here and think that you are missing the point (or points). Don’t worry about % of income or how much time you “give” you will know that you have truly given when you go without so that someone else has benefited. Without that feeling of loss you have given nothing. On the subject of bread and wine, the bible/word of God simply asks that when we meet we remember the son of God by drinking wine and eating bread. It is us that has made so much more of it. We… Read more »
Like Homeless Anglican, I don’t really know where to put this comment. I’m just dropping in to let folks know that Father Ron Smith, a regular commenter here, died on Monday. See a statement from the family on his blog here. Thanks to Bishop Peter Carrell of Christchurch for posting this information on his blog.