What is in Kelvin's Head?

Going out and coming in

27/05/2015

This week I’ll have been at St Mary’s for nine years. It is the anniversary of my installation on Sunday. And this year I’ve decided to give myself an anniversary treat.

When I came to St Mary’s there was much to try to understand and much to take in. Just trying to get your head around how things work in a new congregation is always tricky. Every place does things almost the same. But almost the same means that every place does things differently. Slightly differently – and that’s much more difficult to cope with than learning something completely new.

One particular conundrum presented itself to me on my first Sunday. How did we get in? Did the clergy and choir go in singing a hymn and then turn and greet the people or did we process in, turn, greet and sing a hymn?

Trying to learn from those who ought to know, I took a couple of people aside and asked them. Their responses were enlightening.

Person number one told me very assuredly that the choir and clergy processed in singing and then greeted the people.

Person number two told me just as assuredly that the choir and clergy processed in, greeted the people and then we sang the hymn.

This was less than helpful. As the days counted down towards my first Sunday I needed to know.

The only thing I could do was ask another person and take their answer as the tiebreaker. And so I did.

“Oh, Provost, we do whatever the Provost would like us to do,” was the answer.

It was a slightly disturbing answer because one of the things that I knew I needed to be here was to be someone who didn’t have all the answers and who could let St Mary’s find a way of being where all the questions didn’t get thrown at the Provost to answer.

However, without being able to get a definitive answer from anyone, I did in the end say what we were going to do in order to get ourselves into place.

The trouble is, I’ve been regretting one detail ever since, particularly recently.

What I said would happen is that we would process in. Then the choir and clergy would bow to one another from either side of the communion table, the clergy would turn, greet the people and then we would sing a hymn.

It looks smart, it means we all start knowing what we are doing and we don’t flap about with music as we are processing.

But the thing that has been bugging me recently is that it only really includes those who are at the sharp end of the church.

We bow to one another to signify that God is present – that God is amongst us; that God is about us and within us.

But what about the bulk of the congregation? Isn’t God in them too?

This has been bothering me for some time and I found myself talking to Richard Giles about it on Saturday.

Now, Richard Giles is one of the most interesting liturgists to have emerged in the last few years. And on Saturday he looked me in the eyes and said the magic words – “Well, if you are not happy with it, just change it. It isn’t too late….”

And he was right.

So, we’re going to change things from this Sunday.

From this week, the choir and clergy will process in. They will then bow to one another from either side of the table. And then the clergy will turn and bow to the congregation who are invited to return the bow.

We’re all in this together.

The smallest of gestures can mean a great deal in the world of liturgical worship.

We’re going to try this one for a bit and see whether it works. My last thought on the subject has served us well for nine years, but it is time for a change.

Odd what Provosts give themselves as anniversary presents, isn’t it?

anniversary, bowing

23 responses to “What if this is the end of the Eucharist?”

Thomas Scott

06/05/2020

Just noticing here that DGD (of happy memory) seems to have left out of his catalogue of joyous, sad, perilous, and solemn occasions any instance of celebrating during a plague or pestilence. I’m not worried about the mass. The eucharist need not be celebrated as though it were a car battery, as if not offering it now would somehow allow the power to run down. It is not at risk, we are, which I think is your point. The questions asked are worth asking, of course.

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Mo Nicholson

06/05/2020

Mo Nicholson. This is an intriguing discussion and what I would like to add to it is the observation that I have had to learn the hard way that participation in the Eucharist being made impossible in no way diminishes an individual’s ability to worship God or be in fellowship with other believers. I am barred from receiving Holy Communion in the Catholic church because allergies make this impossible for me. The pain induced by this has little to do with feeling separation from God, in fact nothing at all as I do not feel that. It comes from feeling excluded from the community, different sections if which regard it as desirable or tolerable that a member of the community should be excluded in this way. This experience has made me understand as never before that if we place prime value on liturgical celebrations, ir indeed anything else, above charity, compassion, welcome and inclusivity, in other words love, then we have become the sounding gong which St Paul warned against. If we truly believe that God is love, as I do, then it is obvious that it is love for one another which makes us true children of God our Father, and in light of this we could begin to look at these present challenging circumstances as simply an opportunity to love more, to reach out to one another in whatever way possible in the knowledge that this is what actually matters and always did. Only perhaps we were tempted to almost make a fetish of our rituals, sacraments and so on. And perhaps this can show us a better way more adapted to the world we are supposed to serve.

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Lynsay Downs

06/05/2020

You and your conversation with Dave Roberts prompted me to write this. Does it resonate for you?

https://astonishing.community/2020/05/06/conversations-in-coronatide/

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1. Kelvin
  
  06/05/2020
  
  Thanks Lynsay – yes, it does resonate with me very much.
  
  I’ve shared it on facebook. I think it is really helpful.
  
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Fr Keith

06/05/2020

Thanks again for such a thoughtful piece. With the Eucharist central to much of, at least Anglican/Episcopalian, worship in recent generations, we perhaps forget that the Church in these islands was, between the Reformation and the liturgical revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries, sustained by Mattins and Evensong as the regular diet of worship on Sundays. I’m not advocating a return to such times, but there is, as you suggest, work to be done on non-Eucharistic worship (though not defining it as a negative). Thanks again.

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Fenland Boy

07/05/2020

For the record, I’m not in favour of lay presidency at the Eucharist. I believe, for better or worse, in an ordered church.

Why are you concerned about lay Presidency?

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Chuck

08/05/2020

May I say respectfully, lighten up. Many Anglicans/Episcopalians lived on the edges of civilization in the nascent U.S. and various elements of the British Empire. Priests to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and to baptize were seldom seen, at most twice a year in many areas. (Bishops, only every several years.) The Church carried on in this manner decade after decade. If circumstances require, the Church will carry on again despite our profound sense of loss.

I should add, to those who grew up under threat or reality of war, persecution, oppression, famine, other disease, etc, the present difficulty is not unfamiliar in many respects.

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Miriam MacCarthy

08/05/2020

Thank you! It is wonderful to read these serious, personal thoughts about the Eucharist. My feeling is that it has become celebrated to the point of boredom. Church, and what we do in it, is in danger of becoming simply a habit. It could just as well be crackerjack for a fast-asleep congregation. My heresy is that the direction Jesus gave is to “do this in remembrance of me”, and that means everything we eat at any time, whether alone or with others, in thanksgiving. If that is seriously done, it has vastly more meaning. It really gets ones attention and requires preparation. Would not become popular or usual, I predict!

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