Category Archives: Spirituality

Decision on Calendar Issues

The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music met yesterday afternoon. One of the top topics was the future of commemorations and the state of the Episcopal sanctoral calendar. I had pulled together the work of the subcommittee into a document which was further modified by committee and which was subsequently posted to the SCLM blog where we asked for feedback. Based on the feedback and discussion in the SCLM, we will be moving forward with a reconfiguration of HWHM tentatively retitled “A Great Cloud of Witness” (likely with a clear and descriptive functional title appended to the Scriptural phrase…).

Here are the key features of the recommendations:

  • We clarify that the sanctoral calendar of the Episcopal Church consists of those days celebrated by all—the Principal Feasts and Holy Days of the Book of Common Prayer—and that the calendar in the prayer book reflect this.
  • We clarify that all other days are—as they have always been—optional. They can be celebrated or not at the discretion of the presider or parish.
  • We move away from a canonization model. Instead, the resource follows a “family history” model and identifies people who have been significant and important for the church being the church in the 21st century.
  • The recognition of sanctity of any of the people either on or off the list is a local decision.
  • The central ecclesial act of recognizing a saint is eucharistic celebration. In order to clarify that the list of names and the resource is not a sanctoral calendar, entries will contain a collect for devotional purposes but not full eucharistic propers. However, suggestions for appropriate propers will be provided should a local community choose to honor a given person or group as a saint or saints.
  • Speaking of collects, the prayers currently contained in HWHM will be overhauled. We agreed that the goal is for each commemoration to have an actual collect that is appropriate for worship (not a supplementary mini-bio as one person said in the meeting…). However, given the scope of work, some entries may share appropriate Common collects if unique rewrites cannot be completed for all.
  • The bios will also be redone to remove errors and to highlight Christian discipleship.
  • Because this is not a sanctoral calendar there will be a clause in the criteria allowing for extremely occasional inclusion of non-Christian people with the clear understanding that the bio needs to be upfront about the fact that this is an exception and be equally clear on how the person’s life, witness, work, whatever directly connects to the church’s understanding of Christian discipleship. For example, all of the Dorchester Chaplains will be included—even Rabbi Goode—because the a significant part of the witness of this group is their ecumenical nature. To leave out Rabbi Goode would undercut an important aspect of the commemoration. Is anyone suggesting that Rabbi Goode is a Christian, “anonymous” or otherwise? No. Is his inclusion here indicating that the Episcopal Church now thinks of him as a saint? No. Instead, it recognizes that he was an integral part of a heroic gesture of compassion and ecumenical cooperation that local congregations are free to observe or not at their discretion.
  • The Weekday Temporal material and the Commons for Various Occasions will be collected together and will receive greater emphasis as equally valid alternatives on non-festal days.

There are other things that haven’t been fully decided that still remain to be hashed out. Too, none of this is official until General Convention renders a decision on it. GC may decide to scrap the whole thing and go back to HWHM. However, this represents what we’re working to pull together and put before convention.

As regular readers know, I don’t consider this a perfect solution. There are a number of things I would do differently if it were up to me, but it’s not—this is part of a church-wide process that must satisfy a wide range of theological and political positions. However, it is a workable solution, and addresses many of the flaws identified in HWHM. Whether we’ve just created new flaws, only time will tell…

Just Because…

Here’s the front image for the Hours of the Holy Trinity in the Taymouth Book of Hours according to the Sarum Use (f. 32v). The whole thing can be found here at the British Library: (http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Yates_Thompson_MS_13&index=2) Why? Because it’s awesome!

Sarum_Trinity_Taymouth

Calendar Subcommittee Recommendations Up for Comment

The Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) is now making public an interim update on the Calendar. The proposal is located here. It recommends splitting the current material into two parts (whether physically located in two volumes or not—that’s still under discussion): “A Great Cloud of Witnesses” which is cast as a “family history” rather than a sanctoral calendar and “Weekday Eucharist Book” (which needs a better name) for collecting the material for weekday Eucharistic celebrations into meaningful groups.

This is the result of much consultation, much thought, and several contentious meetings. It’s not perfect, it still has some unknowns, and it has some weaknesses, but overall I think it’s a stronger way forward than Holy Women, Holy Men.  At this point, we’re essentially putting it up for public vote. While adding nuance might be nice, chances are this is going to be a up or down decision—HWHM or GCW—based on the feedback left on the blog.

I’m working on a post to provide some of the context for some of the choices that might seem odd. I thought I’d have it up by now, but life has intervened. Hopefully later today!

The Beauty of Holiness

I was struck again this morning with the strong sense of the inter-relation between beauty, truth, and holiness. Beauty is a pathway into the soul. We need to be more attentive regarding the ways that we can work this truth into our daily practices of faith and life…

 

On the Choice of Offices

A correspondent sent me a note over the weekend, noting (correctly) that if one wishes to undertake the discipline of the Office, it’s good to pick one primary form and stick with it. His question, then, was which one:

  • The BCP Offices,
  • The Roman Liturgy of the Hours,
  • The Anglican Breviary,
  • The Monastic Diurnal + Matins

Others could be added to these…

It’s a good question and one that I spent some time wrestling with a few years ago. I can’t tell him, or you, or anybody else what to do, of course, but here’s the answer that I’ve come to and that works well for me.

I’m a Prayer Book Catholic within the Episcopal Church. Now—as we’ve noted before, the term “Prayer Book Catholic” isn’t exactly the same in England as it is in America due to the differing situations of our respective prayer books. However, I take it to mean that I am obliged to the prayer book and its system of devotion as understood and supplemented by the riches of the Western liturgical heritage.

Thus, for me, I am obligated to the Morning and Evening Prayer Offices of our authorized Book of Common Prayer—that’s part and parcel of what it means to be an Episcopalian.

Now, the Offices contain a number of permissions—like the liberty of antiphons and hymns—that open the door to the riches of our heritage found in books like the Anglican Breviary, the Monastic Diurnal, the English Office,  the Brevarium Romanum, A Monastic Breviary, and many others.  As a result, I have and use these other books to supplement my prayer book services both in terms of material and in terms of additional offices.

Indeed, this was part of the genesis of the St. Bede’s Breviary. I wanted to create something that was faithful to the rubrics of the prayer book, but that also could easily include the other items when I had the time and desire for them. As a result, I have my “House Use” that I use regularly and can choose from the other leaner versions as circumstances require. However, at the root is always the framework and content of the BCP Offices.

In Advent and Lent I like to add in the Little Hours and will often do so—or attempt to do so—from the Anglican Breviary or Monastic Diurnal or the Sarum Primer.  I say attempt because I don’t often succeed. My zeal for devotion frequently outstrips the time I have for it.

And that raises another important point. The BCP Offices are the least onerous of the list above. After all, it’s two Offices a day (only four if Noon and Compline are included). If I were to take the Anglican Breviary as a base office discipline,  I would be obligated to pray all of it. Even doing so in aggregation would be difficult, and at this season of my life I just can’t imagine being able to juggle it all consistently, day in and day out. I hope this will change some day—but can’t see it happening until the girls can drive themselves!

For me and the discipline I’ve chosen, the Anglican Breviary represents the best source for supplementary material. I want to be able to pull in its antiphons and hymns. More particularly, I’d love to be able to draw on its patristic readings to augment the Offices.

So, if some are you are wondering why I’m proposing the Anglican Breviary project while also talking about the importance of the prayer book, this is how it fits together. I know several people who faithfully pray the breviary and who have asked me to work with it; I’d also like to make it available to interweave with the prayer book itself.

At the end of the day, selecting an Office discipline is a balance of ecclesial identity, devotional continuity, and an honest appraisal of your own ability to stick with the choices you’ve made. The heart of the Office is the repetition of the Psalter. If you can’t consistently make it through the whole psalter in your chosen Office discipline, then you’ll want to reassess it and consider if you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, and what will work for you. It’s always easier to start with the shorter and more basic and graduate to more complex forms as you go.  But don’t be hasty about it either. Liturgical formation—like all other life-long habits—should be measured in months, seasons, and years rather than days and weeks.

Theses on Spirituality

Here are a few thoughts that have been bouncing around my head around the topic of Christian Spirituality with an eye toward its Anglican expression.

1) Spirituality is the cultivation of the habits of living out the Gospel. “Cultivation” is a set of ideas, beliefs, doctrines, and practices oriented around forming habits. Thus, spirituality is not simply an “idea” thing or a head thing—it’s a “doing” thing with head components.

2) The core of the Gospel as far as spirituality is concerned is that God, in Jesus, is reconciling the whole world to himself. This is fundamentally what we’re aiming at. God is calling all things back to himself, to the original created goodness of everything, that is part and parcel of Christ’s victory over sin, hell, and the grave.

3) Our habits align with God’s purpose of reconciliation when we are participating in love of God and love of neighbor. God wills for us to live in union with him. However, living in union with God and his will is only possible when we are living in union with our neighbors–as well as the rest of the created order. (Cf. 1 John: how can we say we love the God whom we do not see, when we are not loving our brothers and sisters whom we do…)

4) A key part of an authentic spirituality is a ruthless quest for reality. In order to act with love towards God and neighbor, we have to understand the true nature of these relationships, where and how we compromise them, and be committed to engaging the ways that we compromise them. Real spirituality is not a form of spiritual escapism (although there are false forms that may be); real spirituality is not a flight from reality—it is a flight towards it.

5) As a result, an authentic spirituality has to take both sin and evil seriously as components of life that compromise our relationships with God and one another. Part of facing reality means acknowledging ways that personal sin, corporate sin, and societal sin hinder and sabotage our relationships with God and one another. A number of spiritualities floating around in the Church recently tend to downplay sin—particularly personal sin—preferring instead to rest on the strength of our original created goodness. In no way do I want to deny that we were created good and have the image of God within us. However, to suggest that our everyday ways of being and relating naturally reflect these doesn’t match reality.

6) Encountering reality is an unsettling experience. It’s easier to talk about reality than it is to face it, acknowledge it or experience it. Indeed, one of the many functions of human societies at all levels is to create insulators that conceal reality from us. And we collude with them in ignoring it. What exactly am I talking about when I say reality? Well—that’s a big topic that I’m not going to tackle now, but I’ll just give you two examples. First, American society works hard to insulate us from the reality of death. We buy meat from the supermarket in convenient packages. We have specific places—hospitals and hospices–where sick people go and where death is suppose to happen. Second, society works hard to keep us entertained. Between mass media, professional sports, games on our smarts phones, you name it—there is a tremendous industry around giving us diversions. But diversions from what? From silence? From being alone with ourselves and with each other? Why are these spaces and silences so threatening to us—and to the powers that be?

7) Insofar as spirituality involves moving past these insulators and encountering reality as it is, it must always contain counter-cultural elements. Because of the social character of these things that insulate us from reality, an authentic spirituality will have to have counter-cultural components precisely because it must lay bare that which society wants to hide.

8) Engaging reality requires disciplines of triangulation. Because of the variety of things that insulate us from reality—social constructs, our own personal habits of self-deception—we need habits and practices that will ground and re-orient us to what is really real and to what our purpose is. The reading of Scripture, praying the psalms, works of mercy and justice, sitting in silence, confessing our sins to God or to another—these things help us get the perspective necessary to apprehend that which is real and of value. Any one of these on their own can be subverted into just another form of pious insulators; they need to be used in combination.

On the Canticles

I got an email from a reader asking about the canticles. I realized that there were some sections of my chapters on the Office that didn’t make it onto the blog, and the canticle section was one of them. So—here’s a bit on the canticles…

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Following each biblical reading is a canticle. When I first experienced Episcopal Morning Prayer, I was completely baffled by the canticles. The priest leading the group would call out a number; she never had any hesitation about what to pick. Some were often said, but others were never said. Too, several of the other people in the group seemed to know in advance what she was going to say. I had a hard enough time just finding the right number, since the first canticle that I saw was numbered “8”! Eventually, I got it all figured out, but I’ve never forgotten my initial confusion.

What I didn’t know was that the canticles numbered 1 through 7 are located in Morning Prayer: Rite I. Canticles 8 through 21 are in Morning Prayer: Rite II. All of the canticles in Rite I appear in contemporary language in Rite II, but not vice-versa. Furthermore, there is no inherent or logical connection between the Rite I numbers and their Rite II counterparts! So—your first challenge in negotiating the canticles is navigating through them.

There is a basic principle at work here… In each block, the one in Rite I and in the one in Rite II, the canticles appear in canonical/chronological order. Thus, the Rite I block starts with material from the Apocrypha, goes through the canticles from Luke in canonical order, then moves to the two compositions from the Early Church. In a corresponding fashion, the Rite II block starts with the material from Exodus, then goes to the canticles from Isaiah before moving to the Apocrypha but adds an additional one in before moving to the Luke material, and items from Revelation, ending with the Early Church compositions.

As with the invitatory psalms, the names of the canticles are given both in English and in a classical language, usually Latin. People and reference works may use either name, so it never hurts to be familiar with both.

Canticles 1 and 12 are “A Song of Creation” (Benedicite, omnia opera Domini). The Benedicite comes from one of the additions to the book of Daniel that is found in the Greek Old Testament, but not in the Hebrew version. It’s best understood as an expansion of the content and theme of Psalm 148 where all creation is called upon to worship and give glory to God. In the narrative, this is a song put into the mouth of Daniel’s three companions which they sang in the midst of the fiery furnace. As a result, sometimes this will be referred to as “the song of the three young men.” In the former prayer books, this canticle was used as the first canticle during penitential seasons when the Te Deum was suppressed. That’s not because there’s anything penitential about it—it’s one of the most joyful canticles around! Rather it’s because this was the second canticle found in the pre-Reformation prymers and Books of Hours; if the Te Deum—which was the first canticle in them—was dropped, this one was next in line. Hence, the tradition grew that the Benedicite should replace the Te Deum, and it subsequently entered and formed the prayer book tradition.

Canticles 2 and 13 are “A Song of Praise” (Benedictus es, Domine). This song comes from the same place as the previous canticle and, actually, comes right before it in the text. While the first one calls all creation to bless God, this is an example of such a blessing. It praises God, envisioning him enthroned within a grand temple having aspects of the Temple in Jerusalem (dwelling “between the Cherubim” is a reference to the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant which was kept in the Holy of Holiest, the inmost part of the Jerusalem Temple”) but being located “in the firmament of heaven.”

Canticles 3 and 15 are “The Song of Mary” (Magnificat). This is one of the most beautiful songs in all of Scripture and is Mary’s response to the dual greeting from her cousin Elizabeth and the yet-unborn John the Baptist. Based in part on the Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10) and with echoes of Psalm 138 and 146, it admirably anticipates Luke’s Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-26)—and, indeed, they are well worth studying together. In the pre-Reformation system, Evening Prayer (their Vespers) only had one canticle—and this was it. As a result, it became the standard third canticle, the one after the first reading of Evening Prayer. It still holds this first place in both Rite I and Rite II services of Evening Prayer.

Canticles 4 and 16 are “The Song of Zechariah” (Benedictus Dominus Deus). This song was sung by Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth and father of John the Baptist, at the prophet’s birth. This was the standard second canticle of Morning Prayer and was the chief canticle of the pre-Reformation version. I’ve always found the second part of this song, in particular, especially meaningful. Through the voice of Zechariah, we who pray this are commissioned and reminded of our duty to spread the Gospel—and are given a convenient summary of it focusing on forgiveness, mercy, light, and walking in the paths of peace.

Canticles 5 and 17 are “The Song of Simeon” (Nunc dimittis). Simeon, having waited all his life to see the Messiah, holds the infant Jesus in his arms at the end of his days and sings this song. With its themes of ending and new beginning, a growing light and a coming peace, it was used in the pre-Reformation system at Compline, the Office just before sleep. Adapted into the prayer book system, it became the fixed fourth canticle, following the second reading of Evening Prayer.

Canticles 6 and 20 are the “Glory (be) to God” (Gloria in excelsis). While it begins with the song of the angels at the birth of Christ, the rest of the canticle is a composition from the Early Church. Familiar to most of the Western Church from its use at the beginning of the Eucharist, its appearance here is an Eastern element; this was the standard morning canticle for the Eastern Churches.

Canticles 7 and 21 are the “We Praise Thee/You” (Te Deum laudamus). Another composition of the Early Church, the Te Deum was sung at Matins on Sundays and festivals. At the Reformation, the prayer book appointed this as the first canticle of Morning Prayer every day of the year except for the 40 days of Lent. Its connection with festivals was strong enough that, by the early medieval period, the Te Deum was sometimes used with some additional suffrages as a celebratory liturgy.

Canticle 8—the first of the canticles only found in Rite II’s contemporary language—is “The Song of Moses” (Cantemus Domino). It is “especially suitable in Easter Season” because this is the song sung by Moses and the Israelites after their deliverance from Egypt through the Red Sea. The Red Sea passage has long been understood as a symbol of Baptism and resurrection, and this connection is stated explicitly in the Easter Vigil’s own victory song, the Exultet.

Canticle 9 is “The First Song of Isaiah” (Ecce, Deus). Coming from the prophet Isaiah, this song concludes his vision of the messianic age to come. This song is to be sung in celebration of the recognition of what God has accomplished and the salvation wrought through his messiah. For us, it ought to be a reminder that we stand in the midst of the “already/not yet”; God’s promises have been fulfilled in the person of Jesus, yet we do not always perceive the fulfilment of these promises. The use of this canticle is a sign of hope.

Canticle 10 is “The Second Song of Isaiah” (Quaerite Dominum). This song comes from a place towards the latter part of Isaiah. It closes out a section that encourages the people, exiled in Babylon, to return and rebuild Jerusalem again to its former glory. It urges them to seek the Lord and to trust in the fulfillment of the divine word at a point when many doubted that the city would ever be rebuilt and the land reclaimed. The language of repentance makes it particular suitable in penitential seasons.

Canticle 11 is “The Third Song of Isaiah” (Surge, Illuminare). This song from the end of Isaiah, also from the time at the end of the Exile (around 520 BC or so), exhorts the people with a vision of the rebuilt Jerusalem. This vision of a preternaturally brilliant city that calls the nations to it influenced Revelation’s vision of the New Jerusalem as the Bride of the Lamb and, subsequently, the theology of the Church as a New Jerusalem. The images of light connect it strongly to the themes of both Advent and Epiphany.

Canticle 14 is “A Song of Penitence” (Kyrie Pantokrator). This canticle comes from the brief apocryphal book, the Prayer of Manasseh. Manasseh was crowned as king of Judah at the age of twelve somewhere around 700 BC and reigned for 55 years. He has the dubious honor of being the most evil king to hold the throne of Judah. The narrative of his reign in 2 Kings 21 is a catalogue of idolatry and slaughter. The retelling of it in 2 Chronicles 33, however, includes a scene of his repentance and makes mention of a prayer where he humbled himself before God and received forgiveness of his sin. Although our composition is likely not this prayer itself, it certainly represents what the prayer could have been! It is, as the prayer book note suggests, the perfect canticle for Lent and for other penitential circumstances.

Canticle 18 is “A Song to the Lamb” (Dignus es). While the Book of Revelation is known for its apocalyptic imagery and its abuse by those who would read modern political events through it, it should be better known as the book of the New Testament that contains the most songs! This one comes from the description of the heavenly throne room. We are treated in Revelation 4 through 6 to a vision of the throne room of God, where a set of concentric circles of worshipers arrays the whole created order in a ceaseless song of praise to God and to the Lamb. This is the celebration of the saints and angels and all creation in thanksgiving for creation and redemption.

Canticle 19 is “The Song of the Redeemed” (Magna et mirabilia). In an interlude between acts of judgment and the seven last plagues, the seer John sees  the martyrs singing a song described as “the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the Lamb” (Rev 15:3). This canticle is that song. From the introduction, then, the author of Revelation intended this song to be in conscious continuity with our Canticle 8, the Song of Moses.

Alright… Now that we’ve gotten through all of these—how do we go about using them and what’s the best way to arrange them? What canticle should you use when—and why?

There are several ways of answering this question. Like so much about the prayer book, it depends on your tradition—and that, in turn, gives us the simplest answer. Does your parish pray the Office together? If so, it’s best to find out what pattern they go with and use it.

If not, there are a variety of choices. I’ll talk you through three of them.

The simplest is a traditional pattern that has the least amount of variation. As I mentioned in discussing the canticles, the prayer books up until the present one had a fairly fixed order. There were four readings, two at each Office, and a canticle after each reading. The first canticle was either the Te Deum or the Benedicite—depending on the season. The three Gospel Canticles, the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis were the second, third, and fourth canticles respectively. The reason why these canticles appear in these positions is based on how Cranmer consolidated the eight hours of prayer down into two: Morning Prayer received the Te Deum from Matins and the Benedictus from Lauds; Evening Prayer received the Magnificat from Vespers and the Nunc Dimittis from Compline. Thus, the simplest way to arrange the canticles is to use this basic pattern.

One of the more complex options is the way that the prayer book recommends. After the Offices themselves, a means of deploying all of the canticles appears on pages 144 and 145. We’ll start with the suggestions for Morning Prayer on page 144. The basic idea here is that the Old Testament lesson receives an Old Testament canticle, the New Testament lesson receives a New Testament/Early Church canticle.  Sunday and Feast days retain the traditional canticles, though not in the traditional order; Wednesday and Friday—the traditional fasting days—receive the more penitential materials, especially in Lent. Additionally, in Lent and Advent the Te Deum and Gloria are replaced by other options. The easiest way to use this chart is to write it in where you intend to use it. As a result, in several of my prayer books I’ve copied it into the blank space at the bottom of page 84, and have also written the appropriate days and seasons at the top of the canticles themselves. (Don’t be afraid of writing in your prayer book if it’ll help you use it!)

The suggestions for Evening Prayer on page 145 assume the use of two lessons at Evening Prayer. If you are only using one lesson, use the second column and alternate between the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. Otherwise, it alternates between the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis for the second canticle except on Sundays and Feast Days when both are used. On weekdays the first canticle rotates through a set of Old Testament options.

A third way to proceed is by a blend of these two. For those who want to retain the classical use of the Benedictus and the Magnificat but still experience the variety of new canticles that this prayer book offers, the Old Testament option for Morning Prayer can be followed with the Benedictus after the second lesson; the New Testament option for Morning Prayer can be used to follow the first lesson at Evening Prayer and the Magnificat used after the second lesson.

Anatomy of the Eucharist: Part 3

Ok—this is the final section. It began here with the Anatomy of the Eucharist, Part 1 and continued with Anatomy of the Eucharist, Part 2.

With this, I have finally concluded drafting my chapter on the Eucharist. I don’t know that it’s achieved its final form, though. I think I may juggle some pieces. I know some of you suggested moving around some parts of Part 1—I need to revisit that now that I have a more definite shape of where I’m going and what falls where.

God willing, this is the last installment of the Prayer Book Spirituality Project and it’ll shortly be packed up and sent off to the sharp knives of the editors.

Be warned: this is rather long. However, I’d rather make this section long than break up the inherent flow of this part of the service.

So—without further ado…

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The Holy Communion

Rite One

Rite Two

Required?

Variation
Offertory Offertory Yes As desired
[hymn, psalm, or anthem] [hymn, psalm, or anthem] Optional Weekly
The Great Thanksgiving The Great Thanksgiving Yes By prayer
The Lord’s Prayer The Lord’s Prayer Yes None
The Breaking of the Bread/Fraction Anthem The Breaking of the Bread/Fraction Anthem Yes As desired; by season
Prayer of Humble Access Optional
Distribution Distribution Yes As desired
[hymn, psalm, or anthem] [hymn, psalm, or anthem] Optional Weekly
Post-Communion Prayer Post-Communion Prayer Yes By occasion
Blessing Blessing Optional As desired; by season
Dismissal Dismissal Yes As desired

Let me give you an initial perspective to frame our discussion as we move into the Holy Communion. Gregory Dix, an Anglican Benedictine monk, in his monumental work Shape of the Liturgy gives us a key entre into the spiritual heart of the Eucharist as a result of his study of countless Eucharistic prayers of the Eastern and Western Churches. No matter what else they might do or have, they all had these four fundamental actions in common: take, bless, break, give. On a basic structural level, it’s easy to line these up with the elements in the chart above. In the Offertory, the congregation brings offerings to the altar including the bread and wine. Then, the Eucharistic prayer itself is the blessing of these elements. The bread is broken at the Breaking of the Bread/Fraction Anthem, and then both elements—bread and wine—are given to the people at the Distribution.

The real genius and spiritual meat of Dix’s observation, though, only comes with reflection. It’s easy enough to match up his four actions with parts of the service. But to stop and to leave it at that is to miss the deeper opportunities for reflection and growth to which Dix can take us. You see, no one action exhausts any particular element of the Eucharist. If we stop at the structural level, we fail to notice that these four actions tend to be operative in each individual part of the Eucharistic act. There’s a continual flow of these actions around and through the various parties enacting the Eucharist: When the priest “gives” the consecrated bread, we—the congregants—are “taking” (receiving), and in our receiving is Christ’s own “blessing.” To just call this Distribution/”Give” is to limit ourselves to a clerical perspective. The priest is “giving,” but what are we doing, what is Christ doing, where is the Spirit moving?

Likewise, within the Eucharistic prayer when we together with the priest are “blessing,” we are also in the act of “giving”—our very souls and bodies! And in so doing, Christ is “taking” while the Spirit is also “blessing.” Now, I could try and step through each element for you and show you how they line up, but that’s not how this works. As you engage in the Eucharistic meal, the Eucharistic practice, you will see for yourself different aspects come to the fore as you are ready to see them and as you need to see them. What is required is a sense of the four fundamental actions in order to be attentive to them.

The Offertory

The Offertory is the point when the gathered community offers its material possessions for the good of itself and the world around itself. Despite what you might think based on the church’s preoccupations, the Scriptures—the New Testament in particular—has far more to say about possessions and what we do with them than it does about sex! Proper stewardship and the sharing of resources has been a hallmark of the Christian teaching from the beginning (the book of Acts in particular makes this quite evident). This element gives us an opportunity to literally put our money where our mouth is. In this act, the congregation’s gifts are received and are then brought forward to the altar to be dedicated to God.

The Offertory Sentences all explore the ideas of offering and sacrifice primarily through a lens of stewardship. What we have is what we have been given whether directly or indirectly by God in creation. Some priests may raise the elements and say a prayer over them at this point—this isn’t a pre-blessing but rather a prayer of thanks to God for giving us bread, wine, and sustenance that we then are privileged to offer back. It is a recognition of the inherent circularity in the act of giving a part of the creation as a gift to the Creator.

The Great Thanksgiving

We now come to the pinnacle of the second part of the service, the great Eucharistic prayer. One of the most common ways of breaking it down is dividing it into its constituent parts. That is, there are subsections within the various Eucharistic prayers that have certain roles that can help us understand what we’re hearing and doing. This is a very common way to break things down. This is what your priests learned about in seminary, and a lot of writings on the Eucharist spend a lot of time on these and on their historical development. As a result, when priests teach the Eucharist, this part often gets emphasized—maybe even over emphasized—because this is how they were taught. It’s easy to trace these parts and to see literary dependence between different kinds of Eucharistic prayers.

But—fundamentally—the Eucharist isn’t about literary dependencies.

It’s not about the history of the development of the text of the prayer, either.

The Eucharist is a whole-body multi-sensory experience where we remind ourselves who God is for us, we praise in awe and wonder, and—ultimately—we taste and see that the Lord is good. We receive Christ into ourselves so that we (all of us, together, the whole company of faithful people) may be received more deeply into him.

And that’s why we look at the parts of the prayer—so that we can more clearly perceive within ourselves the fruits of his redemption.

The chief parts of the prayer itself (sometimes called the anaphora or canon) are these:

  • The Opening Dialog
  • The Thanksgiving (Preface)
  • The Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) [stuck in the midst of the Thanksgiving]
  • The Words and Deeds of Jesus (Institution Narrative)
  • The Remembrance (Anamnesis)
  • The Offering (Oblation)
  • The Invocation of the Spirit (Epiclesis)
  • The Final Blessing (Doxology)

The Opening Dialogue

The Opening Dialogue is a brief interchange between the priest and the congregation. It is a ritual exchange where we acknowledge what we are about to do and make public profession of our unity in what follows. This dialogue begins with the standard exchange that is the normal liturgical greeting and response: “The Lord be with you”/”And also with you [And with thy spirit.]”

The call to “lift up your hearts” only appears in the Eucharist. There are a few different ways to understand this call. One is to see this phrase as a metaphor inviting us to be joyful. By lifting up our hearts, we are metaphorically lifting them from sadness and putting them into a more acceptable place proper for rejoicing. Another, favored by John Calvin among others, takes it in a spirito-spatial sense. He understood this to be a reference to lifting our hearts “upwards” into heaven and into the presence of the enthroned Christ.

The final exchange establishes an agreement about what we’re all about to do together: to “give thanks” is, in Greek, the verb eucharistein from which our word “Eucharist” comes. The response, whether it’s the Cranmerian “It is meet [fitting] and right so to do” or the modern paraphrase of the priest’s statement, “It is right to give him thanks and praise” is a word of agreement. In essence, the priest says, “Let’s eucharist now!” and our response is “Yes, let’s!” From the point on, the priest continues, but we are all committed to the words the priest says and are united in the priest’s prayer. The priest is praying on our behalf, and in consonance with our own silent prayers. We are not observers simply because we are not talking; we are full participants—or at least certainly should be! This is part of the agreement we’re making. So, another way to consider it is that, in the final exchange, we as the people of God are extending our permission for the priest to give thanks to God in midst of all of us on behalf of all of us.

The Thanksgiving

The Eucharist is an experience, but it’s not a strictly subjective one; we can’t make it into whatever we think it ought to be. Instead, the priest begins with an act of thanks that also reminds both God and us of the extent of our relationship up to this point. We are reminded of the intrinsic character of the God whom we are thanking.

Since we have just finished giving the priest permission to start thanking, the prayer logically proceeds in that vein. In most of our prayers, there is a Proper Preface that gets inserted at this point. Most seasons have their own Preface; on Sundays during green seasons there are three—Of God the Father, Of God the Son, and Of God the Holy Spirit—that may be used. Some occasions get their own prefaces—Baptisms, marriages, ordinations, a few classes of saints, the dead. Too, on regular weekdays the prayer is written so the preface can simply be dropped out. The proper prefaces thank God from a particular perspective and emphasize some special aspect of our relationship with God. The seasonal prefaces naturally emphasize something that pertains to the season, usually using images, biblical allusions, or referring to biblical events prominent in the season’s readings.

However the preface goes—or even if it’s left out altogether—it always concludes the same way. Our thanks turns to praise and we join our voices with the whole heavenly chorus.

The Sanctus

A joke was making the rounds a while ago when I was in seminary in the South that went something like this:

A Southern Baptist minister and an Episcopal priest ran into each other at the Post Office one Monday morning. The Baptist turned to the Episcopalian and said, “We had such a great day yesterday! We had over 300 people show up. A famous foreign missionary came and gave us the message. And that was just our Seeker Service!”

“Wow—congratulations,” his Episcopal colleague responded.

“So—how’d you do?” the minister prompted.

“Let me think…” said the priest. “We had the Maxwells, the Murphys and their kids, and Bill & Joe. Old Miss Wordward was there and so was her driver. And we had nine ranks of angels, 144,000 sealed out of the tribes of Israel, and then a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, tribe, people and language. Our Lord Jesus Christ came and gave us himself. And that was just our 8 AM Low Mass!”

In addition to poking gentle fun at denominational rivalries, I’ve always remembered this joke because it expresses something deeply true about our understanding of worship—especially sacramental worship.

The Gloria is the first angelic song of our service. The Sanctus is the second. Coming as it does right after the invitation to “lift up our hearts” it reinforces the notion that the Eucharist is occurring in a different spiritual space than our normal lives. We are now existing in a geography peopled by saints, angels, and the hosts of the blessed dead. Or—better yet—it reinforces that there is something richer and deeper going on all around us of which we are usually unaware…

The word Santus is Latin for “holy” and the text of this song comes from Isaiah’s great vision of God in the Temple recorded in Isaiah 6. In his vision, this was the song of the seraphim as they flew about the person of God: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isa 6:3). Significantly, St. John the Divine records a similar song from the four living creatures about the throne of God: “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (Rev 4:8). This second part of the song from Revelation conceptually leads into the second half of the Sanctus: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” A few things are potentially going on here.

First, it allows the liturgy to return the song heard in Isaiah and to amplify it with the song heard in Revelation. I hear the addition making an incarnational turn in that the coming of God in flesh (and sacrament) names for us specific ways in which God’s glory fills the creation.

Second, this addition is a direct quotation from Mark 11:9 and Matthew 21:9 that refers to Jesus. If Jesus hasn’t already been brought in to the picture by the Proper Preface, now he has. In our great act of communally blessing and thanking God as part of the greater chorus, our praise makes reference—if only indirectly, to the person of Jesus and, as it were, reminds the priest to say more about him. Sure enough, the prayer will usually take a more Christological turn after this point. We are blessing him who will shortly come and bless us in his sacramental presence.

Third, in the gospel contexts, these words are from the lips of the crowd at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This provided an ideal point of connection for the patristic and medieval interpreters who allegorized the Eucharist according to the life of Christ; at this point Jesus enters the holy city to be sacrificed.

 And the Thanks Keep Coming…

Some liturgical scholars will speak of the “Post-Sanctus.” This is the part that we’re looking at now. The name makes sense because this is the part that literally comes after the Sanctus. However, I don’t like it because it causes confusion about what’s actually going on. Don’t get me wrong, the name works, and is useful, but it’s most useful when you’re looking at a list of literary elements.

Here’s the problem that I have with it: it creates the sense that we’re doing something different now than what we were before—and that’s not the case. The priest is still engaging in the same basic act of thanks that the prayer started with. Furthermore, when we start breaking things up into elements it looks like we have three separate things here: A Thanksgiving – the Sanctus – The Post-Sanctus. When we see these three as a conceptual unity (which they are), then we better understand that the Sanctus too is an inherent part of our complete act of thanksgiving!

As prompted by the congregational reminder in the second part of the Sanctus, the object of the thanks focuses on what God has done for us specifically in and through the person of Jesus. God’s work of Creation often appears here, but the real move is to the person of Christ.

The Words and Deeds of Jesus

At this point we shift from Jesus in general to a vignette of Jesus in particular. The previous section invoked the broader work of redemption, often centering on the cross. Here we focus on the pivotal moment at dinner the night before.

Say what you like about history and continuity, we know that this part goes back to the very beginning of what Christians do together. Of all of the writings that we have, the letters of Paul are the ones that are the earliest. While dating the writings of the New Testament is a fairly tricky business, we know that Paul was writing in and around the year 51. Indeed, as best as we can tell, his letters were committed to paper ten to twenty years before the gospels themselves were being circulated. As a result, the earliest still-surviving written testimony we have to Jesus Christ, who he was, what he did on this earth, is preserved for us in 1 Corinthians—and it’s this moment:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23-26)

This moment is central for who we are and for who we are together.

It’s easy for us to become numb to certain words and actions, and these are no exception. We become used to hearing them and lose sense of how radical they are. If I had to focus on a single word to try and rekindle the wonder that lives within it, it would be “covenant.” In Classical Hebrew, you don’t “make” a covenant. Instead, the proper turn of phrase is to “cut a covenant.” Genesis 15 shows Abraham cutting a covenant with God and it really does involve cutting animals in half as part of the ritual action! Covenant-cutting is part of what God does. God commits reconciliation with his creation by means of covenants, solemn promises between the divine and the human. Now—here—at dinner—Jesus commits to a new covenant cut in his blood, by means of his blood. The symbolic action will become literal in a few short hours. And yet the great movement to which all of this is driving is not fundamentally about blood and death but about consummating a reconciliation.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:33-34)

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev 21:2-4)

As Christians, we stand as people, witnesses, of this new covenant. In these words we hear it proclaimed week over week. And yet our struggle is to hear it again and again, to take its call to heart again and again, to step into the world that it offers us at our fingertips, closer to us even than our hands and our feet.

The Remembrance

Having heard again the words of Christ, we are struck by the repetition of remembrance. After the bread, after the wine, he enjoins his disciples gathered with him—and that, too, is us—to do this, the act of blessing, breaking, sharing, in memory of him. Accordingly, in our prayer of thanksgiving having just heard this reminder we echo in return an act of remembrance. But what exactly are we remembering? Well—nothing exact if our prayers are anything to go by! That is, we’re not just remembering a poignant moment before he died; we’re not just remembering his death. Rather, our memory encompasses in a flash the whole sweep of our Great Three Days and includes not just his death, not just is descent among the dead and his redemptive work there, but also his resurrection, as well as his ascension, as well as his promise to come again, as well as the totality of who and what he was, is, and will be for us.

The Offering

Here we speak in prayer what we effected in action at the start of this particular movement. In a choreographed moment (the offertory) that we initially labelled as a “take,” the prayer reveals it to be a “give,” but—oddly—in the act of giving, we shall receive, and it will be a blessing…

In the offering, the priest prays the elements back to God. And, in doing so, lays bare what we’re really offering here: ourselves. At the end of the day, this isn’t about bread and wine. It’s about the greater transformation into the fullness of God. It’s about us being transformed. But not just us, either. It’s about the whole created order being transformed back towards the image and ideal in and through which it was created in the first place. It’s that reconciliation business yet again.

The Invocation of the Spirit

The invocation of the Holy Spirit should remind us of what we’ve found ourselves in the midst of. Remember, in a very real sense, we have been invited into the interior dialogue of the Holy Trinity. As members of the Body of Christ and incorporate within him, we are participants in his own self-offering to the Father through the Spirit. Sometimes—and here especially—I think that our invocation of the Spirit isn’t truly an invoking in the proper sense. To invoke is to call; we’re not actually calling the Spirit; the Spirit’s here—it’s been here! Rather, we’re being proper in acknowledging one in whose presence we stand. And again, because it’s proper, not because we control it or direct it, we request the Spirit to do what it does in sanctifying the gifts and also us.

The Final Blessing

Finally we conclude the prayer with a final note of thanks. Acknowledging what we are doing, we attempt to wrap words around the Triune confluence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within which we have been privileged to participate. We have some fun with prepositions as we struggle to adequate describe our perception of the glory of Christ towards the Father—by him, with him, in him…. And of course the Spirit of whom we have just spoken is unifying and binding the act into a worthy garland of praise.

The prayer comes to an end with a great “Amen.” This “Amen” is our collective assent to what the priest has just prayed. Just as the prayer begins with an act of agreement that it is by all, for all, though through the mouth of one, so the “Amen” confirms the unity of our collective prayer. If you notice—these “Amens” are the only ones in the prayer book printed in all caps. They remind us visually of their importance and the emphasis that they deserve.

On that “Ping” Moment

Ok—now that we’ve just finished up our run-through of the Eucharistic prayer, we have to pause for just a moment. We’ve got to talk about the “ping.”

This is something liturgists love to fight about.

When do the elements, the bread and wine, really become “Jesus”? Where’s the moment at which the sacramental presence becomes present in a way that it wasn’t before? A favorite professor of mine liked to call this the “ping” moment… So—where do we look?

There are three good options: 1) The words of institution when the priest recalls Jesus’ own words over the bread and wine, 2) the invocation of the Spirit, and 3) the final Amen. Naturally, different groups have lobbied for different options.

The Western Church, in particular, has typically tended to go with 1. The whole reason that the Host is elevated in the Roman Catholic Mass at the words of institution is so that the congregation can adore Christ who is then present in a way he wasn’t before. When Martin Luther reformed the Mass, he basically took out everything except the words of institution and for generations this was the only part of the classic prayer that Lutherans used. For Luther, it was all about the promise of Christ to be present when the Word of the Gospel is joined with the elements, that’s when the magic happens.

The Eastern Church tends to go with 2. The invocation of the Spirit is what accomplishes the change, they’ll tell you. The priest doesn’t “make” anything, God does; therefore, it’s the action of the Spirit that effects the fundamental transition into the fullness of the Eucharistic presence.

A classic Anglican position likes 3. If we didn’t need the whole prayer, why would we have the whole prayer? Besides, consecration is a function of celebration; this isn’t a mechanical action. As a result, the whole prayer should be seen as a collective and coherent act of consecrating the elements.

Thankfully, although faced with an array of three possible options, all with good reasons to back them up, I can give you the single correct answer—it fundamentally and truly…doesn’t matter.

Well, let me clarify: it doesn’t matter when it happens; it matters that it happens.

Honestly—we don’t know and it’s not worth fighting over. What’s much more important is that we locate a movement of the greater presence of Christ in our midst at some point within this action. If it helps you to see it at a particular point—by all means, go with that! If it doesn’t matter to you, leave it at that. For me, I’ll always be a number 1 kind of guy. A good friend of mine who was raised Pentecostal will always be a number 2. And that’s fine. Neither of us can prove our point and for the sake of our own devotion and the sake of growing more deeply into the mystery of Christ we don’t need to. The “when” is not as important as the connection itself.

The Lord’s Prayer

As a fitting conclusion to our great prayer of the service, we then pray together the Lord’s Prayer. A standard element in most Christian services, we shouldn’t at all be surprised to find it in the Eucharist. The question, though, is why here? Why now? In one sense we’re continuing the theme of Christ’s conversation with the Father. We, as the Body of Christ are praying his own prayer. But I think there’s something more particular going on with its placement. When we pray this prayer at this moment in the service—after the prayer but before the distribution—it changes the way we hear the line at its center: “Give us this day our daily bread.” An obvious association is made between the petition for bread and the Eucharist, the bread from heaven.

The question is, how long afterward this meaning will linger? Does receiving the prayer at this point and experiencing this particular interpretation of what the text means alter it for us after that and become our instinctive understanding of the line? It’s hard to say. Perhaps its better to say it this way: this placement certainly recommends a meaning. While not closing off other interpretations of the line, it certainly does invite us to see it being fulfilled within the Eucharist.

The Breaking of the Bread/Fraction Anthem

Now we come to the worst-kept moment of silence in the Episcopal Church…

After the heading “The Breaking of the Bread”, the prayer book gives two short sentences as directions: “The celebrant breaks the consecrated Bread. A period of silence is kept.” After 15 years of attendance at Episcopal Eucharists, I can’t recall more than a few where the time between the breaking of the bread and the start of the Fraction anthem could justifiably be referred to as “a period.” Most of the time there is no pause at all—one runs right in to the other. And that’s a shame. This is a good point for reflection.

At this point we have the Fraction Anthem which are the words said or sung around the breaking of the bread. It’s quite common to have a double anthem here. The priest’s “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” and our response “Therefore for let us keep the feast” is an anthem; however, it’s common to immediately thereafter have either a choral or a congregational “Lamb of God”—also a fraction anthem. From a technical perspective, this is redundant. On the other hand, two different things are being expressed and both can use the expression! Indeed, the Rite I service  includes both texts—the Christ our Passover and the Lamb of God—even though the Rite II text only contains the Christ our Passover.

The Christ our Passover anthem holds together the notion of the sacrificial meal. That is, it underscores the notion of sacrifice—as controversial as that still remains in protestant circles—but precedes immediately to the meal. The fact of the sacrificial death does not end the sacrificial act; hearking back to the Homeric, the meal has got to follow!

The Lamb of God anthem, on the other hand, contains the sacrifice concept but rather than the meal makes the turn towards the expiation of sin. It’s a more introspective response but one that deserves to be heard in relation to the other.

The prayer book doesn’t contain any other fractions although it gives permission for others; the hymnal, on the other hand, has quite a few more. In addition to the two already mentioned, it also has:

  • The disciples knew the Lord Jesus (S167)
  • My flesh is food indeed (S168-9)
  • Whoever eats this bread (S170)
  • Be known to us (S171)
  • Blessed are those who are called (S172)

All adaptations of New Testament readings, these additions give us more perspectives into the meal which we are about to receive

Prayer of Humble Access

Rite I offers the Prayer of Humble Access as an option; Rite II does not mention it at all. In a very real sense, this prayer has become something between a Rorschach test and a litmus test for those who either champion or decry the liturgical shifts away from the 1928 status quo.  For fans of the new approach, the Prayer of Humble Access seems overly penitential. With its bald assertion that “we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table” (BCP, p. 337) it seems to dismiss the real consequences of grace, redemption, and reconciliation. Others, conversely, see its absence as a sign of spiritual arrogance and as the Church’s capitulation to a culture of entitlement that believes it deserves anything it wants. The proper question focuses around the “we”—who’s this “we”? Is this the “we” before, after, or apart from God’s grace?

Two things here.

First, I must say, reading the troublesome line in context helps… The sentence right before it—the one with which the prayer opens, actually—is this: “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.” (ibid.) The first line, therefore, draws a contrast between humanity’s own efforts towards righteousness, and the abundant mercies of God. The next sentence is logically read to mean that by our own efforts and merits we just don’t measure up. As Archbishop Cranmer penned this in the 16th century I’m sure he heard echoing in his ears Martin Luther’s teaching on Original Sin: that it consists of the basic inability to love, fear, and trust God as we should. Therefore, Luther taught, even if we outwardly act in accordance with all of the commandments we will still fail to satisfy them if we are not loving, fearing, and trusting with our whole hearts. That’s the intention here and the ground of our unworthiness apart from the grace of God.

Remember, though, the first sentence ends with the reminder that we don’t have to measure up! We don’t come to the table on our own nor do we have to earn our spot. Rather, we are called by the “manifold and great mercies” of God. The first sentence has a balance to it that starts with our efforts and moves to God. Classically, our next two sentences were one sentence connected together which echoed the structure of the first moving, again, from us (“We are not worthy…”) to God (“Thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy”).

Thus, pulling the line out of context is a perfect recipe for misunderstanding it and the theology behind it.

Second, I want to remind us again of Rudolf Otto’s discussion about the human experience of the Holy. An inevitable part of that experience is the impact caused by the recognition of the gulf between Creator and creature. As I read it, this language of unworthiness is part and parcel of trying to wrap human language around the experience of finding oneself in the presence of the Holy. Like all attempts at this kind of language, it falls short. When this linguistic inadequacy is coupled with an atrophied sense of the Holy, than the prayer’s language can feel unnaturally or improperly penitential. Our greatest remedy, then, to overcoming the obstacle here is not to chuck the prayer, but to recognize and embrace its diagnostic function as a guide back to cultivating our own sense of the Holy.

Yes, I do understand that this 16th century wording does trip into the whole late 20th century conversation about the psychological importance of self-worth. I’m all for healthy self-confidence. But—again—as with Confession—it eventually comes back around to the reality of the human condition especially when it is put in perspective with the reality of God. We have sinned. We do sin. We hurt ourselves and the people whom we love. We have not lived up to our covenant promises to God. And yet the God who reveals himself at the table and in the breaking of the bread is revealed to be a God of manifold and great mercies who will not stop calling us back to himself and will not rest until we evermore dwell in him, and he in us.

Distribution

At this point, the priests and the congregation receive the consecrated elements. There are some various words that can be used, all of which emphasize a special sacramental presence of Christ in the moment. Really—the words aren’t the main thing here. The main thing is receiving the Sacrament.

Thanks to the opening title sequences of the TV show “Iron Chef”, my family is well acquainted with the crowning quotation from French lawyer, politician, epicure, and early theorist of a low-carb diet, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”

It’s that moment.

If ever that phrase had a deep, philosophical, existential reference—it’s this point.

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

 

So—what should you feel when you receive Communion?

My mother sometimes told me as a child that if you didn’t feel anything that means that you hadn’t spiritually prepared yourself properly. Now that I’m a grown-up and have lived with this for quite some years, I don’t think that’s quite right. (Sorry, Mom!)

It’s not a question of “should.” We get into danger when we start placing emotional requirements onto religious experiences. Because when we do that, we start creating expectations. If these expectations somehow aren’t met—or worse, if we are led to question whether they were met enough—then we can spiral into some unhealthy territory while we attempt to sort through what we did wrong to make God not like us to the degree that he didn’t let us feel what we were supposed to feel. Please—don’t go there…

Conversely, holding specific emotional expectations of the experience leads to the creation of tactics to either meet them or to exploit them.  We can fall into this trap ourselves, but it gets even worse when worship leaders decide that they need to take matters into their own hands to make sure everybody feels the appropriate feeling. Because then we get into various forms of emotional and spiritual manipulation. And you know that doesn’t end well!

The better question isn’t “what should you feel” but “what do you feel?”

For me, the time after receiving Eucharist is a moment for awareness and for—literally—communion. What am I feeling? What am I thinking? How is God speaking to me in the midst of this very intimate experience?  These are very real questions. I’m a thinking-oriented person by nature so I generally have to take some time with that first one since it’s not something I focus on a lot. But this is precisely the time to do that!

The prayer book allows “hymns, psalms, or anthems” during the ministration of Communion, and I’ve heard some people say that this sung element should be the whole congregation’s sung prayer upon receiving and is preferable to an individualistic act of prayer by yourself. Forget that! This is your time of communion with him whom you have taken into yourself. If you’re moved to sing along with a congregational hymn do that—but because you want to and because it’s expressing where you are, not because you have to. If you feel called to stay in prayer, do it.

My practice is usually to “kneel & feel” for a bit, then to pray the prayer appointed “After Receiving Communion”:

O Lord Jesus Christ, who in a wonderful Sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy passion: Grant us, we beseech thee, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, p. 834)

You’ll note that this prayer isn’t about what we feel… Instead, it asks that God would give us the grace to properly venerate the Sacrament. Venerate here means to hold it in honor, to respect it in all its forms, and to give it the full attentiveness it deserves as a central mystery of our faith. The result of this veneration is so that we might be enabled to perceive the fruits of Christ’s redemptive work within ourselves. Notice here what we’re saying. We’re not asking for grace to be redeemed. Nor are we asking for grace to feel redeemed. Instead, we’re asked for a grace of perception. The prayer acknowledges that whether we feel it or not, whether we perceive its fruits or not, Christ’s redemption is already at work in us! We don’t get a choice here! We’re only asking to be allowed to see the products of the work of inner transformation that Christ is working in us.

Brillat-Savarin’s quote I mentioned above was paraphrased in the 1920’s by nutritionist and salesman Victor Lindlahr into its more common current form: “You are what you eat.” There’s a subtle difference between the original and this form, and I rather think this one works better here.

Between the Bread of Life, the Cup of Salvation, and the fruits of redemption, it’s shaping up to be quite a meal.

Post-Communion Prayer

There are two forms of the Post-Communion Prayer in Rite II, one of them being a direct descendent of the prayer used in Rite I. Depending which one you’re praying, they weave together many of the themes that we’ve touched on (and will talk about again in the next chapter). The key here is that each of prayers has two main components. First, it gives thanks for what we have received. We give thanks for the gift of the sacrament and for what that means corporately—that we are part of the household of God. Second, it acknowledges that we have to go out and act like it. God has given us work to do—his own work of reconciliation—and in this meal we are strengthened to go forth and accomplish it. In doing so, we demonstrate with our lives our connection with the household of God, that we are board-mates with Christ. Showing up on Sunday and coming to the table isn’t the point; doing the will of the one who sends us is the point.

Blessing

The blessing either by the priest or bishop moves this thought along. If our initial acclamation at the beginning of the service was the priest’s liturgical hello, this is the priest’s liturgical goodbye. Properly and appropriately it comes in a Trinitarian formula, and there are seasonal variations available in the Book of Occasional Services and elsewhere.

Dismissal

Not to be out done, the deacon—in places where there is one—also has an official liturgical goodbye and that’s this element. Like the priest’s blessing, like the post-communion prayer, it has two key aspects: we are God’s, and he’s got some work for us to do…

Our response, “Thanks be to God,” then, is our liturgical goodbye. Too, it stands as an act of thanks, an act of praise, and an acknowledgement of the charges that we have been given.

Pre-orders for the New Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book

I just heard back from Scott Gunn that the final bits are mostly in place on the new revision of the Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book. After a brief delay, it’s scheduled to go to the printer before they leave for Christmas. 

The pre-order page is now up on the Forward Movement site! 

David Cobb, who I’m lucky to consider a mentor and a friend, did a great job with this volume; my chief role (as I’ve said before) was simply to gild the lily. It won’t be too long now before we have the printed texts…