It is a given of our time that every parish should aim to celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday. This in significant measure grows out of the liturgical movement of the latter half of the 20th century, of which the Book of Alternatives Services is a fruit. We should be grateful for this witness that the Supper celebrating the Lord’s death and resurrection is paramount for a Christian congregation, especially on the weekly day of His resurrection.
Still, it is worth recalling how recently, namely a generation ago, communion once or twice a month was the practice in many parishes. We do well to note some of the unforeseen consequences of that custom’s eclipse. The disappearance of Sunday Morning Prayer means a greater clericalization. Every congregation needs a priest every Sunday. We might offer, by way of contrast, the example of the Anglican Church in the rapidly growing parts of Africa, where a parish priest might oversee a dozen congregations with catechists leading Morning Prayer on Sundays. To be sure, communion usually is celebrated somewhere in an African parish every Sunday. But the priest might not arrive for communion in any particular village more than once every couple of months. Such occasions are filled with anticipation and excitement. Their ministry is more weighted toward lay leadership and catechesis. What if we, like they, had an order of catechists? How might this help us to know our faith better, and help some struggling missions to survive?
There are other unforeseen consequences….
See a paper or booklet by John Webster ‘Whatever Happened to Morning Prayer’ (delivered while he was in Toronto maybe) for similar excellent points with a little more elaboration.
I think there are also greater dangers lurking in the Eucharistic practices of our church, though they may be, primarily, in the form of responsibilities (for catechesis, for proper celebration, for an attendant ecclesial life filled with other important instruments of God’s efficacy) not fully embraced and lived up to.
What’s wrong with Morning/Evening Prayer Monday – Saturday and Holy Eucharist on Sunday? I also see the romanticizing of all-things African Anglicanism here by implying that what they are doing out of necessity should be normative for our worship despite our presence of priests. I think it is a dubious the argument to minimize Eucharist for the hypothetical visitor who is offended if not welcome at the Lord’s Supper before baptism.
I think my place as an Anglican today is to emphasize what distinguishes us from the non-denom down the street, and that means emphasizing self-examination, confession and partaking of the Lord’s Supper. This is what will hold us together as a family and body.
Morning Prayer as AnteCommunion is quite possible.
Use of language like “barring” people from receiving the sacrament is most often used lately in a pejorative sense, although I know George doesn’t mean it that way. But he does hint at the notion that many now have that we shouldn’t do things in our worship which some are not permitted to participate in fully. But we shouldn’t be sheepish about restrictions around the full sacramental life of the Church. The Eastern Orthodox certainly aren’t– if you’re uninitiated, you can’t do it. It isn’t their intention to make anyone feel unwelcome, but rather to encourage them to go deeper in discipleship and to desire full initiation in order to join fully in the sacramental life of the Church.
His point about one priest serving several churches is a good one. And in such a case, Morning Prayer is the way to go when Father isn’t there. But there should be a Eucharist in every church where a priest is present on Sunday, because that’s the ideal.
Re #2–The issue isn’t the loss of Morning Prayer as a service, which could certainly be fixed by using the Daily Office in lieu of Antecommunion in a full celebration of the Eucharist. The issue is that insisting on a full celebration every Sunday as the principal service in every congregation makes all those congregations dependent on having a priest available every week. There is simply no way for us to continue doing that within the traditional model of Anglican ministry.
The majority of our congregations are too small and too economically-challenged to support a full-time seminary-trained priest, and there are insufficient outside resources to provide a priest for every church at every service, either. That leaves the congregations that can’t afford a priest in second-class status; that was not true when Morning Prayer was the standard service in most places for 40 or even 48 Sundays a year. The priest could ride circuit among 2, 3, or a dozen mission congregations while lay readers took the majority of services. We can’t do that today when the norm is a weekly Eucharist at the principal service.
Unfortunately, the non-stidendiary alternatives seem like poor alternatives. Anglicans expect our clergy to have significant theological training and enough time available for pastoral care, prayer, continuing study, and sermon preparation. Unpaid clergy rarely have that kind of time available while working to support their families. Unlike most of the Global South, we do not have a corp of lay catechists and other ministers to supplement the clergy. Even if we did, they could not help with the liturgical shortfall… unless we are willing to adopt the Sydney expedient of allowing lay presiders at the Holy Table.
It’s a problem, and it is about to get much worse as the Baby Boomer generation of priests starts to die off. There are far too few younger clergy coming into the system to replace them.
I have to agree with Dr. Sumner on this. The Eucharist is central to my worship, but I wonder very much if the expectation of Eucharist every Sunday in every church is sustainable, or desirable.
As George+ says, it requires clergy and therefore makes smaller churches unviable. It also makes churchplanting less possible, since it requires clergy to preside even when the starting congregation is tiny. Most of us aren’t well prepared for churchplanting anyway, since seminary doesn’t tend to teach it, nor are we necessarily called to it. In such cases, a lay cathechist would make more sense, with oversight and regular visitation from clergy.
Moreover, the expectation of weekly Eucharist isn’t always pastorally wise. Baptisms are a prime example. We now are expected to baptise in the context of the main Eucharistic liturgy on Sunday, which makes theological sense. Pastorally, however, I find baptims exhausting to all involved. With the affirmation of the baptismal vows, the homily, and Eucharistic liturgy I can do little to shorten a service to make it easier on young parents.
Moreover, with the number of non-churched relatives making it out for the service, the confusion around the table is palpable. Morning prayer would alleviate much of this concern.
Stephen+
I should add, that a problem with using Morning Prayer more regularly in the Canadian Church is that unless you use the traditional language of the Book of Common Prayer, you are generally left with the very lame Morning Prayer service from the Book of Alternative services. The language is flat, the theology is weak, and the structure disjointed.
Stephen+