Here’s what I said on Sunday.
I ask you. Which sounds more fun – the fleshpots of Egypt or wandering aimlessly in the desert?
It is not hard to have some sympathy with the children of Israel. Moses and Aaron have led them away from a life which was unfair though one which was mundane and familiar. And they have led them – not to the promised land – not yet anyway, but to the desert.
The wilderness. The desert. The place where there is emptiness. (more…)
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.
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.
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/
Thanks Lynsay – yes, it does resonate with me very much.
I’ve shared it on facebook. I think it is really helpful.
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.
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?
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.
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!
I see that Richard Holloway has railed against Mel Gibson's film. http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=281832004 I've no intention of going to see the film myself and for that reason, am a little wary of condemning it outright. It seems to me to be rather ghoulish to go and see such violence on film. I don't believe that it…
Last Sunday's sermon has attracted a lot of comment in a surprising place – the bulletin board of the Ship of Fools website. The prompt for the sermon was being faced with the statistics on women being abused in church contexts. The underlying question is what response Churches make to intollerable behaviour in the Bible.…
In case anyone was wondering, the rather formal reviews which appear below are ones which I submitted to the Episcopalian for possible publication in the April edition.Yesterday was spent being appraised, dealing with chimney sweeps, speaking to people on the telephone, visiting someone in hospital, planning Easter, church correspondance, inspecting a newly tuned piano, sorting…
How can the mysteries of the faith be expressed on stage or film? Mel Gibson?s rather gory answer to this question is currently to be seen in cinemas across the land but for a more thoughtful and more fun version of the Passion with plenty of other biblical stories thrown in, take a look at…
Leave a Reply