What is in Kelvin's Head?

General Synod: Come for all now is ready

12/06/2015

I’ve commented before that you can tell almost all you need to know about a Christian community by the way that they invite people to communion.

Yesterday, General Synod started to meet in Edinburgh and by some distance the most significant theological statement came, not in the debates about how we will talk about same-sex couples and marriage, not in the considerable theological reports that we had but in a tiny little exchange used in the liturgy.

Come all people: this is Christ’s table to which all are invited.
Come, for all is ready.
Thanks be to God.

Now, the reason this is significant is that this isn’t what we usually say in church. This isn’t what is part of the regular liturgy. So far as I could tell, it was used yesterday at the Synod Eucharist simply by the sanction of the nodding of seven bemitred heads gathered around the altar.

It was a joy to me to find such a thing said. I’ve believed this way for quite some time.

In St Mary’s we say, ‘everyone is welcome to Communion in this church’. Occasionally I get people asking whether we really mean it and I always say ‘You bet we do!’

Now the thing is, it is uncommon. Some churches make theological demands – all those who are trinitarian Christians are welcome to receive the bread and wine. For others, one sacrament acts as both a barrier and a key to another – all those who have been baptised are welcome to receive communion. Still others make Church membership the key. And for others still it is good behaviour, for example, the terrifying – all who are in good standing with their church are welcome…

Yesterday at our set piece Eucharist when we are all on show and amongst ecumenical and interfaith friends, we said that it was for all people. It was hugely significant and hugely welcome.

But the thing is, liturgy changes us. That’s part of the idea.

If we say things like this then it will change what we do.

The church is currently debating whether to change what we do with regards to marriage. Is it open to straight couples or in fact something that is open to any couple? Are gay people fully accepted as God’s children, whose relationships God will bless or not?

We’ve got to the stage of discussing that seriously at last. This isn’t my conversation any more. It felt like that for years. Now it is the church’s conversation.

If we start to behave in the Eucharist as though the gifts of God are for everyone then there must be rising hope that we will apply the same to all our sacramental thinking.

The debate is happening. Real change is possible. It started most particularly in that little exchange at the mass.

Come all people. Yes, come all people.

That’s the kind of church I want to belong to.
Thanks be to God.

19 responses to “Grace Received: communion on the battlefield”

robert e lewis

19/04/2020

RE “Spiritual Communion”–This prayer has been used in one form or another of late in various instances, including the Easter Sunday service at the National Cathedral.

My Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. I desire to offer you praise and thanksgiving as I proclaim your resurrection. I love you above all things, and long for you in my soul. Since I cannot receive you in the Sacrament of your Body and Blood, come spiritually into my heart. Cleanse and strengthen me with your grace, Lord Jesus, and let me never be separated from you. May I live in you, and you in me, in this life and in the life to come. Amen .

I detest this prayer. It is smarmy, dorky, and focused on ME ME ME. There must be something better that we can come up with in this unprecedented moment when we cannot gather for Eucharist.

As an alternative I have created this prayer (well, not “created,” but rather pieced together using phrases and motifs from the BCP and A New Zealand Prayer Book), which I offer as a starting point for dicsussion.

it has echoes of the sursum corda and the sanctus
it is WE language (not ME language)
it expresses both our fear and our hope
it points to working together to end our exile.
it includes the key phrase “receive into our hearts by faith”

Lord, the door of your church is locked.

We are not able to gather around your table;
we are not able to share your peace.
We are anxious and afraid.

Nevertheless, we lift up our hearts,
we join with angels and archangels
and all the company of heaven
as we proclaim you holy
and receive you into our hearts by faith.

Strengthen our love for you.
Give us patience and hope,
and help us work together with all your faithful people,
that we may restore health and wholeness to one another
and to all your creation.
Through Christ our Savior, Amen.

Reply
Father Ron Smith

20/04/2020

There will come a time – we are told in a certain Christian hymn: “When Sacraments shall cease” In the meantime, Jesus told his disciples that they were to “Do this to remember me”. In saying that, I’m pretty sure that Jesus meant that we were to gather together (whether in the body, corporately, or – in todays’s situation – possibly over the ether of the Internet – to re-member Him.

Having been given the Spirit of Christ in our Baptism, we are told that the Holy spirit now lives within us. Teilhard de Chardin, when faced with the prospect of celebrating Mass with neither bread not wine to hand, asked God to “be my bread and wine for today”. He believed that he was receving Christ sacramentally in that moment. Knowing that God is much great than our understanding of God, can we not believe that God will feed us sacramentally when our hearts are actually open to receive Him? “I will never leave you” said Jesus. Do we really believe Him in this time of extraordinary need?

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David Wood

20/04/2020

A typically helpful and generous reflection, Kelvin, thank you.

Thanks to you too Robert, for your simple and elegant prayer suggestion, which will hopefully replace that narcissistic rubbish.

Reply
Anne Wyllie

05/05/2020

Thank you Kelvin for your helpful and thought-provoking reflection and questions. As a lay member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, I am following the current guidance from our College of Bishops and making ‘spiritual communion’ instead of partaking of bread and wine whenever I join in an online SEC Eucharistic Service. As a member also of the Church of Scotland, I gladly accept the invitation from Ministers in the Church of Scotland and other churches in the Reformed tradition to set apart a portion of bread and wine in order to receive it during an online Communion Service conducted by such a Minister. Do I feel more nourished by one of these acts of worship rather than the other? Actually, so far, no: I value both traditions and am grateful to belong to both.

Reply
Rev. Lewis G. Walker

05/05/2020

And what exactly is the purpose of an article which is all to do with senseless sensationalism and nothing to do with good an sound Theology?… This is the sort of nonsensical gibberish I expect to find the Sun Newspaper, or the Daily Mail, or the Express… They all make a living out of hysterical spectacle passing as “journalism”!

What is the main objective of an article like this?… I have no idea! Irresponsible scaremongering certainly springs to mind, along with disbelief. What happened to Faith?

This is not a matter of public relations, Earthly Humanism, or marketing. And this is NOT the place, the time or the subject matter for senseless speculation of utmost gravity!

This is the MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST, the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, instituted by Him at the Last Supper, with a simple and straight forward request: DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.
For 2020 years Christendom has honoured that promise, through and through, amid endless wars, plagues, sieges, catastrophes in Europe and elsewhere and terrible tragedies such as World Wars 1 and 2, persecutions, and even evil, demonic dictatorships such as the Soviet Union and China.
Despite all that, Our Lord Jesus Christ emerges, always radiant, always loving, always REAL and PRESENT, a magnet of the Christian Faith, the ultimate catalyst of the New and Eternal Covenant, declared at every Holy Mass during the Canon, at the Elevation.

COVID-19 is no different than any other calamity the miserable History of Humanity has landed on our doorstep. And as before in 2020 years of Christian History, Our Lord Jesus Christ shall rise again, because we shall raise HIM again. We shall raise him in churches, and if we are forbidden to do so, we shall raise HIM in the streets, in processions, in Open Air Masses, in the open and in hiding if it needs be. And we shall raise HIM again, in public places and in private homes, in gilded altars and on kitchen tables if it comes to that!

And why?!… Because He promised and so far has never failed us, to fulfil His Mission NEVER TO LEAVE US ALONE, even though He ascended to the Heavens.

So the message for you, and ME, and all others in ALL CHURCHES is simple: Get AWAY from behind the comfort of a screen and a keyboard, put a washed and nicely ironed cassock on, get inside a cotta, grab a stole and get out, celebrate Mass as before. Ring the bells until they drop off the silent towers.

Get organised, invite local brass bands, CELEBRATE the Victory of Resurrection as it should be celebrated. Take the Holy Eucharist in procession from local churches to the Cathedral, stop all the traffic, make a splash, make noise. MAKE A FUSS!

Dying on the Cross for all of us is worth all of that and more, I believe.

Have FAITH! And for goodness sake, blog less, especially when you are bored, it results in train crash articles like this one. Do something else for the Love of God.

Regards.

The Faithful will come, because Love is more powerful than blogs, empty notions, cheap pseudo-debates and all that nonsense.

Reply