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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: do you have to include a homily with the matins service?
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Lucydog
Apprentice
# 15116
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Posted
Are the homily and intercessions a mandatory part of the matins service in the CofE? To me, it feels like having a donkey paired up with a racehorse. We have Matins on an occassional basis. It's not my favourite type of worship, but I can see why people like it, and the homily and intercessions bolted onto the end just don't seem to fit, in my mind.
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Cryptic
Shipmate
# 16917
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lucydog:
To me, it feels like having a donkey paired up with a racehorse.
Beautifully put!
No, there is no requirement for homily or intercessions at either matins or evensong.
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Illegitimi non carborundum
Posts: 225 | From: Sydney | Registered: Feb 2012
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Common Worship states (para 8, page 27) regarding Morning and Evening Prayer and a Service of the Word:
"The sermon and a Creed or authorized Affirmation of Faith may be omitted except at the principal service on Sundays and Principal Holy Days."
I can't remember where the Book of Common Prayer (1662) says you must have a sermon. I think it implies it should come after the gospel at Holy Communion, the first part of which should follow on from Mattins every Sunday.
When I was taken to Evensong as a child I always thought it odd how the sermon was not integrated into the service. (I was liturgically sensitive with no church background.)
[ 30. July 2012, 07:12: Message edited by: venbede ]
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
We have BCP Choral Evensong most weeks at my place and very rarely, if ever, have a sermon, although we do include some form of intercessory prayer.
Whenever I have attended a BCP service of Mattins or Evensong where a sermon has been included, it nearly always comes at the end of the service and is followed by intercessions. To have the sermon following the readings would interrupt the flow of the service IMO.
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
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Lucydog
Apprentice
# 15116
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Posted
That's how we have it Spike - service with sermon and intercessions at the end, and it's the only service that Sunday, it sounds as though we do have to have it. Shame.
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Clavus
Shipmate
# 9427
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Posted
In the Book of Common Prayer, intercessions (in the form of the 'State Prayers', or the Litany) are part of the service, which ends with the Grace. A sermon is not part of the service. For this reason, within living memory some churches would extinguish the candles after the Grace and before the Sermon (capital 'S' because it was a separate event in its own right but not a service).
Nowadays of course most services include a sermon and almost all sermons are part of a service. But it was not ever thus.
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
The classical prayer books seem to expect that Holy Communion (or at least Antecommunion with sermon) will be celebrated each Sunday and holy day for which propers are provided, and that Morning and Evening Prayer will be said daily. Sermons are expected at HC, but not at the Office.
Needless to say, the omission of the Eucharist on Sundays in favor of Choral Mattins is a distortion of the prayer book scheme.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
All through the era of 'Dry Service' the service consisted of Matins, Litany and Ante Communion ending with the Bidding Prayer, Lord's Prayer, Sermon, Prayer for the Church Malignant and a Blessing. The proper Canonical place for the Sermon was in the (Ante-)Communion Service.
Gradually during the late nineteenth century (it started earlier some places) the Dry Service was cut down by the omission of the Ante-Communion, and later still by the omission of the Litany. The problem with that was that it broke the link between the lessons and the Preaching.
Unfortunately, no-one thought to alter the rubrics to place the sermon after the second lesson, which would be a more natural place if you are making Matins the preaching service.
The rubrics of the BCP that we use, PECUSA 1928, allow the following
Morning Prayer and Sermon
Litany, Ante-Communion and Sermon
Morning Prayer, Ante Communion and Sermon
Morning Prayer, Litany and Sermon; and
Morning Prayer, Litany, Ante-Communion and sermon.
Some abridgements are allowed when two or more services are combined, and also Ante-Communion may (and should) be replaced by Holy Communion as often as one can get a reasonable number of Communicants. The reason one sees so little of the variations on the morning service is because a lot of folks who think they can get into heaven by works-righteousness only what their fire-insurance commitment to last 0:59:59.
+PD
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
...to last 0:59:59.
+PD
Or less.
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Vaticanchic
Shipmate
# 13869
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Posted
Almost nothing is mandatory in the CofE. Apart from the loopholes in the CW rubrics, any liturgical guru will be able to show you chapter & verse where virtually anything is approved or authorised.
Anybody telling you that a thing must be done is pushing a personal agenda. This is sometimes ok, as long as you're the one doing the pushing.
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"Sink, Burn or Take Her a Prize"
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
Yes, the anything goes side of the C of E's modern language liturgies was one reason I swapped back to the BCP. I fear anarchy more than tyranny, so the BCP with its clear rules is more appealing to me than the CW Smogasbord.
PD
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Roadkill on the Information Super Highway!
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
There are a whole number of things in CW that are mandatory - if clerics are too vague, fluffy or arrogant to include them, that is not due to the Liturgical Committee's valiant attempts to be as flexible as possible.
And there are a whole lot of things in the BCP that are not made clear - like the place of a sermon at Evensong or what happens when a Sunday and Red Letter Day coincide, to mention but too.
One good thing about the BCP is that there are no hymns. I doubt whether its enthusiasts follow it there.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
... to mention but two.
I shouldn't post before breakfast.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Lucydog
Apprentice
# 15116
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Posted
We do have an incumbant who has made several changes, saying that it has to be done that way. What I can't work out (as the Diocese are no use whatsoever in giving guidance) is how do we verify this? (I've no intention of getting into a fight with the incumbant about this, but surely there should be a clear and accessable source of information on all this?)
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Hello Lucy
I don't quite understand you. Are you saying you used to have a sermon at Morning Prayer, which was the principal service at your church, but you don't now?
If so, (and you are in the Church of England) then a sermon is mandatory. ie, para 3 on page 57 of the main Common Worship volume:
"... a sermon must be included in Morning or Evening Prayer when it is the Principal service on a Sunday or Principal Holy Day."
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Hang on, I've just read your first post and see you might mean the other way round. You used to have Morning Prayer without a sermon but the new incumbent says you have to have one.
S/he is quite right for the reasons in my last post.
Personally, I think if you can get a priest present, then the principal service should always be Holy Communion. But it doesn't say so specifically in the rubrics.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
The trouble is that having Holy Communion is not very missional. Where you have the staff and the opportunity it seems best to have both Service of the Word or Morning Prayer and Holy Communion on the schedule. When I have been able to do this I have noticed that folks start out in the non-Eucharistic service then as they become more involved a fairly high proportion tend to move to the Eucharist at least sometimes. However, whatee yur schedulin happens to be, he main service needs to have a sermon or other 'teaching slot.'
PD
[ 31. July 2012, 16:34: Message edited by: PD ]
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The trouble is that having Holy Communion is not very missional.
I've never been able to understand this attitude. Especially if the alternative is Morning Prayer: a devotion devised by monks for themselves and the extra devout. Whereas the Eucharist is the assembly of the Holy People of God and is all about mission, even to its familiar name of Mass... we are transformed in order to go out in mission (Ite, Missa est - go, the mission begins)
In practice, unless the church has the resources to put on two main services each week, either the Service of the Word will dominate the schedule so that the faithful are not fed (not by the Sacrament, and not always by the Word either, if the sermons are as trivial as often happens); or some sort of schedule like 'First Sunday in the month: Mission Service'. To which the fringe worshippers you're hoping to attract rarely come because they don't plan their lives according to the Church Calendar, let alone the (local) church calendar.
Maybe what makes churchpeople embarrassed, and puts outsiders off, is the idea that all who attend the eucharist should receive the sacrament. While that is the ideal for the committed faithful, the greater part of Christendom got by for nearly two millennia by attending the eucharist regularly but only rarely receiving. Maybe there is a way of revisiting that approach in order to be less off-putting to enquirers.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Ticking the Like box again.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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(S)pike couchant
Shipmate
# 17199
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The trouble is that having Holy Communion is not very missional.
I've never been able to understand this attitude. Especially if the alternative is Morning Prayer: a devotion devised by monks for themselves and the extra devout. Whereas the Eucharist is the assembly of the Holy People of God and is all about mission, even to its familiar name of Mass... we are transformed in order to go out in mission (Ite, Missa est - go, the mission begins)
That's a somewhat creative translation, to put it charitably. To put it less charitably, there is absolutely no way in which 'ita missa est' can be translated as you suggest. The usual translation of 'The Mass is ended. Go in Peace' is quite liberal, but it at least keeps the use of the simple past tense, which you have transformed into a present tense.
Otherwise, however, your point is excellent. I would, however, suggest than some of the most 'missional' services are actually partaliturgies like processions and benediction.
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'Still the towers of Trebizond, the fabled city, shimmer on the far horizon, gated and walled' but Bize her yer Trabzon.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Given the point Angloid was making, the etymological relationship between mass and mission was irresistible.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The trouble is that having Holy Communion is not very missional.
I've never been able to understand this attitude. Especially if the alternative is Morning Prayer: a devotion devised by monks for themselves and the extra devout. Whereas the Eucharist is the assembly of the Holy People of God and is all about mission, even to its familiar name of Mass... we are transformed in order to go out in mission (Ite, Missa est - go, the mission begins)
In practice, unless the church has the resources to put on two main services each week, either the Service of the Word will dominate the schedule so that the faithful are not fed (not by the Sacrament, and not always by the Word either, if the sermons are as trivial as often happens); or some sort of schedule like 'First Sunday in the month: Mission Service'. To which the fringe worshippers you're hoping to attract rarely come because they don't plan their lives according to the Church Calendar, let alone the (local) church calendar.
Maybe what makes churchpeople embarrassed, and puts outsiders off, is the idea that all who attend the eucharist should receive the sacrament. While that is the ideal for the committed faithful, the greater part of Christendom got by for nearly two millennia by attending the eucharist regularly but only rarely receiving. Maybe there is a way of revisiting that approach in order to be less off-putting to enquirers.
I agree with you, and nothing would make me happier than if we could overcome the cultural thing about non-communicating attendance at HC. However, one is up against the majority Anglican perception that when you attend HC you should communicate. The other thing that works against non-communicating attendance is the popular idea that you have to be holy in order to be a Communicant.
In order to disabuse people of this notion you need to get them through the door, but you are loading the dice against yourself if you do not have non-eucharistic worship.
PD
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otyetsfoma
Shipmate
# 12898
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Posted
Read to them from time to time the three exhortations that follow the prayer for the Whole Stae of Christ's Church Militant ( "when the minister gives notice... If he finds them negligent,,, and Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye that...")
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The trouble is that having Holy Communion is not very missional.
I've never been able to understand this attitude. Especially if the alternative is Morning Prayer: a devotion devised by monks for themselves and the extra devout. Whereas the Eucharist is the assembly of the Holy People of God and is all about mission, even to its familiar name of Mass... we are transformed in order to go out in mission (Ite, Missa est - go, the mission begins)
In practice, unless the church has the resources to put on two main services each week, either the Service of the Word will dominate the schedule so that the faithful are not fed (not by the Sacrament, and not always by the Word either, if the sermons are as trivial as often happens); or some sort of schedule like 'First Sunday in the month: Mission Service'. To which the fringe worshippers you're hoping to attract rarely come because they don't plan their lives according to the Church Calendar, let alone the (local) church calendar.
Maybe what makes churchpeople embarrassed, and puts outsiders off, is the idea that all who attend the eucharist should receive the sacrament. While that is the ideal for the committed faithful, the greater part of Christendom got by for nearly two millennia by attending the eucharist regularly but only rarely receiving. Maybe there is a way of revisiting that approach in order to be less off-putting to enquirers.
I agree with you, and nothing would make me happier than if we could overcome the cultural thing about non-communicating attendance at HC. However, one is up against the majority Anglican perception that when you attend HC you should communicate. The other thing that works against non-communicating attendance is the popular idea that you have to be holy in order to be a Communicant.
In order to disabuse people of this notion you need to get them through the door, but you are loading the dice against yourself if you do not have non-eucharistic worship.
PD
But surely "missional", which is where this little discussion started, isn't about Anglicans and non-communicating attendence. Isn't it about dealing with non-Christians -- who in this day and age probably don't have a clue about any of the issues you mention, to the point of being utterly unaware that they are issues.
You can still argue, and I would have some sympathy for it, that HC isn't a "Missional" service, but you'd also have to admit, IMO, that Morning Prayer -- whether with sermon or without, and whether choral or not -- is just as "non-missional".
Again IMO, what we christians and particularly (though not exclusively) Anglicans do on SUnday mornings is almost guaranteed not to communicate anything at all to non-Christians or non-Anglicans. It isn't "missional" and it can't be. Indeed, it's not intended to be "missional". It's intended to strengthen and enable the people, who ought to go from the service better able to be "missional" to those they meet, play and work with, whether they are acting as individuals (as parents, for example) or as part of a community (example: working in a parish-sponsored foodbank).
John
[ 31. July 2012, 20:07: Message edited by: John Holding ]
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
"do you have to include a homily with the matins service?"
No, but if Morning Prayer is the main act of public worship on the Lord's Day, then there should be a sermon. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The trouble is that having Holy Communion is not very missional.
I've never been able to understand this attitude.
I know what you mean, but it seems common. Almost universal in large parts of the CofE.
We stopped having Communion at baptisms in our parish because the clergy and at least a large minority of the congregation didn't like the two together. The clergy said that it was confusing and unwelcoming and unfriendly for visitors which may or may not have been the main reason for the others.
I think I said before that when our vicar was away for a few months on a sort of sabbatical I scheduled the services and put Communion (with visiting clergy) at nearly every Sunday morning service and, after about three or four in a row, started to get complaints - not many, but some.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I think I said before that when our vicar was away for a few months on a sort of sabbatical I scheduled the services and put Communion (with visiting clergy) at nearly every Sunday morning service and, after about three or four in a row, started to get complaints - not many, but some.
And I bet most of the complaints were from regular communicants 'who didn't like it too often', rather than the supposedly bewildered fringe attenders (or, in case they might reasonably be supposed to be shy of commenting, from the regulars on their behalf).
I suspect poor or non-existent teaching on the eucharist is the reason for the reluctance. And I don't just mean 'catholic' theology: Cranmer's quasi-Calvinist approach is just as meaty and equally misunderstood.
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Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I understand Calvin himself was pretty meaty on the subject, as was Luther.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Try
Shipmate
# 4951
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Common Worship states (para 8, page 27) regarding Morning and Evening Prayer and a Service of the Word:
"The sermon and a Creed or authorized Affirmation of Faith may be omitted except at the principal service on Sundays and Principal Holy Days."
I can't remember where the Book of Common Prayer (1662) says you must have a sermon. I think it implies it should come after the gospel at Holy Communion, the first part of which should follow on from Mattins every Sunday.
When I was taken to Evensong as a child I always thought it odd how the sermon was not integrated into the service. (I was liturgically sensitive with no church background.)
Since, of course, the Eucharist is the principal service whenever there is one celebrated on a Sunday, that would indicate that there is no need to include a homily in Matins. Prudentially, of course, if the congregation for Matins is different than the congregation for the Eucharist.
I'm in the camp that says that if you aren't celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday you bloody well need to start. It's always been the central act of Christian worship since New Testament times (and a weekly Eucharist is why I'm Episcopalian, not Methodist).
The rubrics for the Daily Office in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer note that "a sermon may be preached after the office; or, within the office, after the Readings or at the time of the hymn or anthem after the Collects."
I have always thought that the best position for the sermon would be immediately following the Readings, in order to preserve the link between the written Word and the preached Word.
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“I’m so glad to be a translator in the 20th century. They only burn Bibles now, not the translators!” - the Rev. Dr. Bruce M. Metzger
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Try:
Since, of course, the Eucharist is the principal service whenever there is one celebrated on a Sunday...
Not in the Church of England it isn't. Not every parish anyway. Until very recently not in most parishes.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Ken's right, I'm very sorry to say. When I was young, in mainline churches Holy Communion was typically a said service at 8am. The main service was Mattins at 11.
That is now very rarely the case in towns, but in the country where Lucy is, they are probably still having 11 am Mattins, at least a few times a month.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
Hmmm, nt so long ago the three services in the Church of England were Matins, Evensong and Stay Behind!
A fairly common practice, but one that was dying out when I was a kid, was to have Matins ending with a sermon, then let most of the congregation go leaving only intending Communicants. The Minister would then start at 'Ye that do truly..." and celebrate a very abbreviated Communion service. This was commonest in Evo shacks. Our MOTR place went in for 10.30am MP & Sermon, then a low celebration of HC at noon, except on the first Sunday of the month when HC was at 10.30am and Sung.
PD
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Quite a few places alternate Morning Prayer with Holy Communion on different Sunday mornings, so get in two or three Communions a month, We did that for a while but have been sliding towards fewer Communions because we tend not to do it at baptisms and special services so its often only once a month.
If 8am Communion still exists anywhere I'm never awake early enough to come across it. But there are many churches that have two well-attended morning services, say one at 9am or 9.30, followed by another at 10.30 or 11. In that case whichever one is the one that's still going on at 11 is likely to be the de facto main service of the day. And its also likely to be the one attended by most teenagers and/or young families with kids, in which case its often the one that doens't include Communion.
Odd how the names of the Office services are loaded. I've always called them "Morning Prayer" and "Evening Prayer" (after all that's what's in the Prayerbook). "Matins" seems archaic to me, mainly of historical relevance or for when talking about monks and monasteries. In a modern context it feels rather deliberately and pointedly a high-end-of-MOTR-to-mildly-Anglo-Catholic usage, a little bit artificial. And for some reason it feels higher up the candle when spelled with two "T"s!
The word "Evensong" rather than "Evening Prayer" isn't so loaded for Churchmanship and comes much more naturally - any old Anglicans can and do use it - but it has implications about the style of Evening Prayer service. If you call it "Evensong" it must be BCP. And being English that means the Real Prayerbook, 1662, none of your Johnny-come-lately-1920-whatevers, and certainly not anything published since the 1960s. And there ought to be congregational chanting, and probably a choir, and quite possibly a robed one, and maybe even an Anthem. And it has to start at 6.30pm. And it will last exactly an hour with sermon and hymns, or twenty-five minutes without. And there will be sung: The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. It is written. It shall be so.
[ 02. August 2012, 16:44: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Morning and Evening Prayer are what they are called in the Prayer Book as also in the Roman Catholic breviary.
Mattins or Matins is to my mind the quintessential Middle of the Road service.
Old fashioned monks would call Morning Prayer Lauds. Mat/tins was the service during the night, which could be anticipated the evening before.
"I sometimes go to Matins
And always to Evensong,
And I like an inspiring sermon,
As long as it isn't too long.2
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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(S)pike couchant
Shipmate
# 17199
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The word "Evensong" rather than "Evening Prayer" isn't so loaded for Churchmanship and comes much more naturally - any old Anglicans can and do use it - but it has implications about the style of Evening Prayer service. If you call it "Evensong" it must be BCP. And being English that means the Real Prayerbook, 1662, none of your Johnny-come-lately-1920-whatevers, and certainly not anything published since the 1960s. And there ought to be congregational chanting, and probably a choir, and quite possibly a robed one, and maybe even an Anthem. And it has to start at 6.30pm. And it will last exactly an hour with sermon and hymns, or twenty-five minutes without. And there will be sung: The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. It is written. It shall be so.
At every parish where I've been a regular communicant, Evensong has been the main Sunday evening service. Most parishes can't manage a choir, at least not on most Sundays, so it's usually only a cantor (or cantrix) In all cases, it was followed by a sermon, and some hymns and concluded with a period of non-liturgical worship — what I believe Evos call 'praise worship'— by which I mean that we used prayers from a variety of books and sometimes no book at all. Naturally, as in most non-liturgical services, it followed a pretty standard format each week and always included some of the same prayers. Of course, everyone knelt for the entire time and faced toward the altar and there were one or two things that one wouldn't find at a hardcore Evo shack — prayers referencing the Sacred Heart or the Immaculate Conception of the BVM and the invariable prostration. Still, all in all a very 'evangelical' service, down to the hymns sung (including things like 'Just as I am', 'Lead, kindly light', and that saccharine but moving hymn with the chorus 'Come into my hear Lord Jesus/ There's room in my heart for thee' — even 'Amazing Grace' from time to time).
I really do think Benediction is the service where Catholics are closest to Evangelicals.
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'Still the towers of Trebizond, the fabled city, shimmer on the far horizon, gated and walled' but Bize her yer Trabzon.
Posts: 308 | From: West of Eden, East of England | Registered: Jul 2012
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sebby
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# 15147
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Posted
In my spot-the-church-sign days, I would notice that 'Matins' was higher than 'Mattins' and both were really MOTR and/or country. There also seemd a significance in the colour of the notice board. Red seemd very establishment and blue a bit higher (or the ohter way around, I can't remember). We were black.
We had the usual three services 8; 11; 6.30. Once a month the 11 was followed by what PD descrobes as the stay behind. The first Sunday of the month instead of an 8 there was a 9,15 Sung Eucharist.
Interestingly, in the questions and answers section of the Church Times a couple of weeks back (maybe last week), there was a correspondance about varied one-Sunday-communion and-another-not parishes. It was remarked that this tended to lead to a reduction in communicant numbers over the long term. The replacement of the eucharist by matins or a family service might please a few old people and some families, but the young tended to disappear after they started going to the 'Big School' and had no contact with the sacraments, and others who like a weekly communino either try and get to the 8 or another parish.
Amusingly it was suggested that to incrwase interest more should be made of the eucharistic settings, the festivals and feasts, including wine and cake after the service on the vicar's birthday.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Try:
Since, of course, the Eucharist is the principal service whenever there is one celebrated on a Sunday...
Not in the Church of England it isn't. Not every parish anyway. Until very recently not in most parishes.
Crossed wires? I think Try means that even if communion is tucked away at 8am it is still the main service. That's my view anyway.
Canon law certainly makes it clear that the Eucharist should be celebrated every Sunday in every parish. Unfortunately I know of a 'united benefice' where the vicar gets around the law by ensuring that always one (but rarely both) of the churches has it. In a one-priest rural parish with half a dozen churches it is understandable, but not in a two church urban parish with two full time priests and three retired/NSM. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Red seemd very establishment and blue a bit higher (or the ohter way around, I can't remember). We were black.
We had the usual three services 8; 11; 6.30. Once a month the 11 was followed by what PD descrobes as the stay behind. The first Sunday of the month instead of an 8 there was a 9,15 Sung Eucharist.
I think blue noticeboards go with the establishment. But no doubt it varies.
Interesting pattern of services there, sebby. It is exactly the same as I remember from the MOTR village church where I grew up. I think the 'stay behind' disappeared fairly early on, but the 11.00 was always Matins (I can't remember how many Ts)... even though (in the late 50s early 60s) many or most parishes replaced it with Sung Eucharist either monthly or alternate weeks. The 9am monthly sung Eucharist was a custom too.
I think there was a dynasty of Tractarian vicars (father, son, grandson if I recall correctly) in the 19th century who pushed fairly hard for some things (they rebuilt the church and furnished it in true Ecclesiological style) but who (or their successors) ran up against rural intransigence. Hence it was vestments at 8.00, formal Matins at 11, and traditional Evensong for the lower orders.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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sebby
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# 15147
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Posted
We were quite similar. I am thinking only of 1982, and the vicar had been a student of Percy Dearmer at King's. Evensong was quite well attended and mixed, though.
For the 8 he used to wear full vestments (incl maniple), and at mattins choir dress. This was long surplice and Warham guild hood and scarf (with MC I remember, that he had gained at the Somme).
On the Sundays when HC followed, mattins was cut short after the jubilate when he would go to the altar. On those Sundays a stole was worn over the Warham guild hood.
I so remember that surplice. It was silk. But it had been repaired so many times with old cotton hankies that it looked a patchwork quilt when you got close.
He had many memories of Percy Dearmer. He was a kind, popular, liberal in many respects, dear old man born in 1887 and loved by the whole parish whether church or non-church, and known by just about everyone.
He ansered to just about anything 'Father', 'Vicar' 'Mr ...' and some even said 'Sir'. But he used to address them as 'Sir' back, and women including the one who used to clean for him, were addressed as 'Ma'am'. A popular period piece, kind and loving.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Try
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# 4951
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Try:
Since, of course, the Eucharist is the principal service whenever there is one celebrated on a Sunday...
Not in the Church of England it isn't. Not every parish anyway. Until very recently not in most parishes.
Crossed wires? I think Try means that even if communion is tucked away at 8am it is still the main service. That's my view anyway.
And it is my view as well. Theologically speaking the Eucharist is always the principal service of the Church of God, the Body of Christ gathered to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Anything else is simply an optional devotion, at least as far as lay people are concerned. This is still true even if the Eucharist is at 8:30 and Morning Prayer takes place at 10:30 and includes a robed choir.
In TEC I have seen modern-language Evensongs- in fact "Evensong" is often simply another term for Evening Prayer with hymns.
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“I’m so glad to be a translator in the 20th century. They only burn Bibles now, not the translators!” - the Rev. Dr. Bruce M. Metzger
Posts: 852 | From: Beautiful Ohio, in dreams again I see... | Registered: Sep 2003
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Corvo
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# 15220
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Red seemd very establishment and blue a bit higher (or the ohter way around, I can't remember). We were black.
I think blue noticeboards go with the establishment. .
Blue is the recommended 'corporate image' colour for Church of England noticeboards.
Last time we repainted the boards we used the recommendation as a way of avoiding lengthy discussion.
Posts: 672 | From: The Most Holy Trinity, Coach Lane, North Shields | Registered: Oct 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Try:
Since, of course, the Eucharist is the principal service whenever there is one celebrated on a Sunday...
Not in the Church of England it isn't. Not every parish anyway. Until very recently not in most parishes.
Crossed wires? I think Try means that even if communion is tucked away at 8am it is still the main service. That's my view anyway.
Yes, but in practice the real main service is the one the people actually go to, and that is almost always whichever one is going on at about 10:30 or 11am on Sunday, regardless of however many others there are in the rest of the day or the week.
quote:
Unfortunately I know of a 'united benefice' where the vicar gets around the law by ensuring that always one (but rarely both) of the churches has it. In a one-priest rural parish with half a dozen churches it is understandable, but not in a two church urban parish with two full time priests and three retired/NSM.
You have obviously been to our parish. Inner London "team ministry". Two stipendary clergy, a training curate, three retired/NSM, three Readers. Churchmanship varying from Calvinistic conservative-evangelical to Catholic-lite extreme liberal (so collectively self-identifying as "open evangelical" ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ) Four or five services on a Sunday in three different buildings, and at least one somewhere every weekday. So there is always at least one Communion on Sunday (usually two, often three) and at least one on another day. But more people attend the 10:30 Sunday Morning service in the largest of the three churches than attend all the other services in the week in all three put together. And only about half of those are Holy Communion, probably just under half to be honest (maybe I'll count them...)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Yes, but in practice the real main service is the one the people actually go to, and that is almost always whichever one is going on at about 10:30 or 11am on Sunday, regardless of however many others there are in the rest of the day or the week.
In practice you are right of course. But the theoretical position, for me, governs the choice of readings: the 'Principal Service' lectionary should IMHO always be used at the Sunday eucharist, no matter what other services it might be used at as well.
quote:
You have obviously been to our parish. Inner London "team ministry". Two stipendary clergy, a training curate, three retired/NSM, three Readers. Churchmanship varying from Calvinistic conservative-evangelical to Catholic-lite extreme liberal (so collectively self-identifying as "open evangelical" ) Four or five services on a Sunday in three different buildings, and at least one somewhere every weekday. So there is always at least one Communion on Sunday (usually two, often three) and at least one on another day. But more people attend the 10:30 Sunday Morning service in the largest of the three churches than attend all the other services in the week in all three put together. And only about half of those are Holy Communion, probably just under half to be honest (maybe I'll count them...)
Our parishes are just so alike! We're two churches, not three; one more Reader and one fewer priest; laity ranging from Orange Lodge protestant to near-Buddhist; clergy from traditional (but not 'conservative') evangelical to yours truly who is more of a Vatican 2 RC. It drives me potty at times. But I stay because [a] they are a lovely and Christian bunch of people, and [b] most alternatives within a sensible distance are even worse.
[ 03. August 2012, 16:37: Message edited by: Angloid ]
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
I do hope we haven't scared of Lucy, whose question started all this.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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