Last year, we celebrated the Feast of Dedication on the first Sunday in October. As that conflicted with Thanksgiving this year, the feast is moved to the other suggested option of the last Sunday in Trinity; i.e. the Sunday before the Sunday Next Before Advent.
Last year, I focussed primarily on the fact that although individual parish churches choose a feast of title, we usually confuse that particular feast, referring to it as a patronal festival. Strictly speaking a parish does not have a patron Saint per se - a diocese, city or country may; S. John the Baptist being the patron Saint of our diocese, and for Anglicans, of our country. Recognizing feasts of title and patron Saints, we should never lose sight of the fact that all church buildings, even though they may have a title for a particular Saint or event as in our case, they all are dedicated to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Again, last year, I further focussed on the fact that Jesus Christ is not only the embodiment of the New Covenant, which is to say, He is the New Covenant, He too is the Temple, as He has removed the veil and He is the place where man meets God. Therefore this festival is truly a feast of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Let us this year, contemplating one of the thoughts in the Collect for today, and the beginning of the Epistle reading, ponder the wonderful but perhaps frightening idea that each of us is a living temple, that each of us is “built up into a spiritual house” as S. Peter says. Stated slightly differently in the Prayer of Thanksgiving following our having received the precious Body and Blood of Him Who is the New meeting place between man and God, the dedication of “ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice” to God.
And nowhere should this great mystery of each of us being the dwelling place of God be more evident than when we gather together for corporate worship, and in particular the celebration of the Liturgy, the Holy Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Mass.
Probably based on the fact that we review the two most important Sacraments, Baptism and the Holy Eucharist when preparing individuals for Confirmation, there is a tendency to spend little time afterwards deepening the understanding, particularly, it seems, as regards the Eucharist. Fr. Palmer was very explicit in his book for clergy, altar guilds and servers, Readiness and Decency, that the teachings of the Catechism should be an ongoing source for sermons as well.
Therefore, perhaps to correct a deficiency in that regard, let us spend some time in reviewing both our understanding of, and how we should approach the Eucharist on this most appropriate Sunday in the Church year.
Michael Coleman, sometime bishop of the Diocese of Qu’Appelle - that’s in Saskatchewan - in his book The Cross, The Eucharist and You, undated, but written in about 1950, in the chapter entitled The Eucharist and This World, speaks longingly of healing the broken unity of the Church, “The way for basic unity, then, is to be found in the Eucharist which has been, since Christianity began, the central act of worship for the followers of our Lord and Saviour. As we view other Christian bodies outside of our own Communion, we need to note that each one would appear to have one strand of the golden thread of the Eucharist’s truth, though not always maintaining the whole thread. Thus we find in some Reformed Churches the thought of the Eucharist as only being a memorial supper; while on the other hand in the great Church of Rome an almost overemphasis would appear to be on the strand of sacrifice.
“The truth surely is that the Lord’s Own Service is indeed a memorial supper, is indeed the Holy Sacrifice, is indeed the great Eucharist (Thanksgiving), and is indeed the Holy Common-Union (the original term for Communion according to the good bishop) of man with man, and man with our Lord.”
Earlier in a general chapter on the Eucharist, the bishop states, “The Holy Eucharist is not only our constant meeting place on earth with our Blessed Lord, it is not only the most glorious and fullest way whereby we may offer our lives to Him, it is not only the memorial of the Christ’s Passion – it is also, most definitely, the sharing here on earth, and day by day, in the eternal sacrifice that our Great High Priest for ever pleads in Heaven.”
Elsewhere, Bishop Coleman, by quoting several passages from the New Testament, emphasizes that from the very outset, the real presence of our Lord was believed by the Church.
His observations are spot on, and any of us I believe could have mentioned the various points that he makes in his book. His focus is primarily on the corporate understanding and approach to the Eucharist, but he pretty much stays at that corporate level that most of us should have learned during our respective preparations for Confirmation. I have recently revisited a slightly older book, written by Fr. Frederic Harton, sometime Dean of Wells Cathedral, The Elements of the Spiritual Life. From the title, one might correctly conclude that the focus is much more towards the individual than is Bp. Coleman’s book.
And while the
primary focus of Fr. Harton’s book is indeed on how individuals, through forms
of personal prayer and devotions, might experience a deeper spiritual life, and
in so doing, a life much closer to fulfilling God’s will in our respective
lives, he does, in the latter chapters, include a consideration of Liturgical
Prayer. He makes a two-fold distinction, between
liturgical prayer on the one hand, versus both: other forms of corporate
prayer (such as Guild Offices, Prayer meetings, Stations of the Cross, the
Three Hours on Good Friday and so forth), and also personal Mental
Prayer, a primary theme of most of the rest of the book. His point in that regard is that the purpose
of liturgical prayer is quite different from other forms of prayer. By liturgical prayer, he clarifies that he
means primarily the Holy Eucharist, but also the Divine Offices of which the
Eucharist is the centre.
His thoughts are so erudite that I hesitate to
paraphrase them; therefore, I should like to share some of them with you. In large part, they fit very well with the
theme of each of us individually dedicating or rededicating our selves,
souls and bodies. Having observed that
the focus of his book is mainly towards the individual, you will notice in the
quotations that follow a certain tension between the individual and the
corporate body of worshippers – and that should come as no surprise when we
contemplate the nature of our gathering as individuals to worship corporately
in the celebration of these divine mysteries.
“The purpose of the Liturgy is not the saying
of certain prayers, though prescribed prayers must be said, but the performing
of an action of perfect worship to God the Father. Liturgical prayer has many virtues: it
prevents individuals from becoming cranky and self-centred, by keeping them in
touch with the corporate prayer of the Church; it prevents prayer from floating
away in a mist of sentiment, by attaching it to definite times, actions and
intentions; it keeps a balance between vocal and other prayer, which is always
necessary ... but all these good effects are entirely secondary to its main
purpose, which is nothing less that the uniting of the individual in the Church
with her divine Head in the perfect worship of God the Father.”
In going on to emphasize that liturgical prayer
begs a rather different approach than the saying of our daily personal prayers,
Fr. Harton comments, “The Liturgy exists for the purpose of worship, not for
the comfort or edification of the faithful; we do not therefore take part in it
for any personal gain, but to make the most perfect offering to God of which
man is capable.” Then in a statement
that might sound somewhat self-contradictory, “And if we make our Communion and
receive Him Who is our perfect joy, still it is not for our own benefit, but
that we may be more wholly given to God in union with Him.”
In prefacing an admittedly too brief
consideration of Christ as our Great High Priest and the only perfect atoning
sacrifice, he states, “The worship of the Liturgy is sacrificial, being nothing
less than the offering to the Father of the sacrifice of Christ, which is
ultimately the act of Christ Himself.”
After commenting on the timelessness of the
Eucharist, similar to the eternal nature of the Crucifixion, an act performed
once for all time, Fr. Harton comments, “This ‘eternal presentation’ by our
High Priest is the centre of the worship in heaven, and what Christ does in
heaven in His risen body that also does He on earth in His mystical body. It has often been suggested that the worship
of the Church on earth is the terrestrial parallel of the worship in heaven;
that as Christ offers Himself in heaven, so He gives to His Church to offer Him
on earth. Such statements are only
partially true; the worship of the Church on earth is not related to the
worship of heaven, it is a real part of it; the Mass is not the offering of the
Church as an entity separate from Christ, it is the offering of Christ
Himself. Christ is not only the Victim,
but also the Priest, offering in His mystical Body on earth that sacrifice
which He ever offers in His risen Body in heaven. The Church in offering the Holy Sacrifice
does so not as an institution or a body of people, but as the Body of Christ;
her action is the action of her divine Head through the power of the Spirit;
she is the body of the High Priest, performing His High-priestly act.”
And here is where this all becomes very
personal, “In this presentation of the sacrifice every member of the Body of
Christ has its part. The Mass is not a
service which is performed by a priest and his assistant before, but
independently of, a congregation of more or less interested individuals.” After listing the various parts, and
emphasizing that everyone from the celebrant, through the assistants, servers,
choir to the people all have their part, he states, “When the individual takes
his part in the celebration of the divine mysteries he is not making his own
prayer – he enters into an act of prayer which is going on independently of
himself as an individual, because it is the prayer of Christ our High
Priest. Even here on earth each Mass is
not a separate act of worship, but the taking up, in that particular place, of
the ceaseless worship of the Church throughout the world.”
In embellishing the point of the necessity of
the individual being subsumed into the one perpetual celebration of the Holy
Eucharist, Fr. Harton observes that, other than the Creed, the prayers are all
in the plural.
Among the many other laudable ways in which he
expresses how we, as a unified body of individuals should approach this
particular service, be it a weekday when only a few are here, or Christmas or
Easter, there is only one more that I should like to share. “The liturgical worship of the Church is
essentially impersonal, because it is suprapersonal, and this impersonality is
right. The sacred vestments, so far from
doing honour to the individual priest, obscure his personality; he is no longer
Fr. Joe Bloggs, but Christ’s deputy. The
priest who attempts to use his personality or consciously develops personal
eccentricities at the altar is putting himself before his Lord, and so
dishonouring Him; and the layman who worships merely as an individual is doing,
in his own degree, much the same thing.”
Clearly, what he seems to be aiming at there is
that we, as an assembly of like-minded individuals, should sound as one voice
when we offer our collective prayers, and to emphasize this he uses the example
of plainsong as the most proper form of singing during the Eucharist, as it is
impersonal in nature compared to part singing that characterizes many
hymns. I guess that if I take all of
this to heart, I should stop singing the tenor lines in the middle verses of
well-known hymns.
Fr. Harton makes, I think, some very good points in terms of what might be an adjustment or readjustment in our thinking; however, we must also acknowledge that for many of us, Sunday Mass is the only service at which we are able to be present. It would be, for example, unseemly to supress those parts of the service wherein we sing hymns with gusto to the glory of God. Still his primary thoughts are very well-taken indeed – we should do well to come to this service acknowledging that we all are functioning members of the Body of Christ, and as such, rather than perhaps to approach passively – what can I get out of the service – to be prepared to offer ourselves, our souls, and bodies – what I should be contributing to this earthly participation in the perpetual Eucharistic sacrifice of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, I dedicate my self anew.
ANNUNCIATION OTTAWA 2007 +CR