All Things Seen & Unseen

Participation in the Holy Communion (also known as The Eucharist, The Lord's Supper) is the sacrament offered in the service of Holy Communion. Anglicans gather around Word and Sacrament, two highlights of their churchly service to God. The Nature of The Holy Communion The Holy Communion is a contentious subject within Anglicanism (as it is in the broader Church itself) although to be an Anglican no one is required to accept a certain doctrine/practice concerning Holy Communion. How the sacrament is viewed carries with it certain practices: for example, for an Anglo-Catholic who subscribes to the belief that the words of institution bring about a changing of the Communion elements into the actual body and blood of Christ, bowing or genuflecting to the aumbry (a small, lockable safe on the wall of the sanctuary) which holds the reserved sacrament (bread that has been blessed) is common. Evangelicals, on the other hand, would rarely reserve the sacrament and do not usually bow t...

This third section of Holy Communion is introduced with the words said by the lay reader/minister: Let us pray for the world and for the Church. In most Anglican churches I've been in the prayers are prayed by a congregational member because these prayers are 'the prayers of the people '. Sometimes the pray-er will even stand at the back of the church or in the aisle a little towards the front to emphasise the fact that these prayers come from the congregation. The prayers are supplicatory in nature. Various formats can be used and numbers of formats are given in the Prayer Book and other appropriate sources can also be used. Usually after each area of prayer is finished, the pray-er will say some like,  Father, hear our prayer [with the congregation responding with something like] through Jesus Christ our Lord. Prayer may then begin with   Almighty God, your Son Jesus Christ has promised that you will hear us when we ask in faith: receive the prayers we offer. Four typical...

In Philippians 2.12-13 the apostle Paul counsels the church to 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling FOR God is at work in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure'. God is at work in us; therefore, we can work out what He has already done within. Ephesians 5.1-2 sets out an important aspect of the conduct of the Christian: walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us (repeated in 5.25 to husbands). In 5.1-2 we are called to be 'imitators of   God' (!): to be like our parent seeing we are his children. We, who have been loved beforehand (even when we were enemies of God, Rom 5.10) are called to walk in LOVE. ('Walk' means 'to conduct your lives' [according to the will of God].)

I want to pause from outlining the Anglican Service of Holy Communion and examine the question of the preaching the Gospel in this service. Sometimes it can be too easy for preachers to re-tell a bible story and with that re-telling intersperse a number of moral exhortations. However entertaining this action may be, it is not preaching the gospel. It is presenting a moralistic discourse with lots of ethical crumbs which don't add up to the solid food of the whole Word of God. Ethical urgings are just a form of law after all. Nor by that comment am I disparaging the law. 'The law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous and good' (Rom 7.12). To be opposed to the Law is to fall into the error of antinomianism (anti-, nomos [law]). But keeping the law cannot save us. The law simply arouses our sinful desires (Rom 7.5). Hence, although the law is part of the Word of God unless the gospel of free grace (Eph 2.8, 9) is also preached the congregation will go away believing ...

The next major section in the Anglican Holy Communion service is titled, The Ministry of the Word. For evangelicals in particular, this section is the highlight of the service because the Church in this section hears the Word of God read. On a personal note, in the first Anglican service I attended it was this section of the service that amazed and delighted me. Before that service, I had honestly believed that Anglicans could not be classed as biblical Christians at all but as Romanists (Roman Catholics) who rarely if ever opened their bibles. However, I was confronted with four Scripture readings done with such reverence and solemnity that I hadn't heard delivered in such a way before. And this was in a high Anglican service with crossing and genuflecting! Of course, I had heard the Scriptures read in former churches but usually just one passage and often that would be truncated. (Nevertheless, I now know that my background furnished me with a knowledge and appreciation for the S...

One of the great themes running through Anglican worship is the theme of MERCY. Someone has said that whereas John Calvin focussed on the Sovereignty of God which is an important theme of the Scriptures, Martin Luther could never forget the mercy of God particularly as shown in the Incarnation and in Christ's Redemption. For Luther, God's coming to the creation in the Person of His Son and our Lord's dying on the cross was the greatest act of mercy that the universe has ever beheld. (Cranmer was heavily influenced by Martin Luther as is evident in the former's liturgy and preaching. He even married his first wife while in holy orders even though on arriving back in England he was forced to give up holy orders because of this decision!) In a letter to Philipp Melanchthon his closest friend, Martin Luther with characteristic vigour said: If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear th...

Eleven small (numbered) 'subsections' make up the first section of the Holy Communion Service, titled Gathering in God's Name . The opening four subsections: §1. A hymn § 2. An Invocation--the Name of God is invoked § 3. The Greeting § 4. Prayer of Preparation (Collect of Purity) were referred to in an earlier post. Then follows subsections § 5-7 which is concluded with the Absolution for sin. § 5. The Two Great Commandments , the Ten Commandments or other suitable passages are used As soon as we hear these commandments being said, we are all reminded of one of the purposes of the Law (Rom 7.7). The law makes us aware of sin: of our deep inclination to wander away from God and seek out other gods. Each Sunday Anglicans are made aware of their sinful state before God and of their continual need for divine forgiveness. Thus the hearing of the commandments leads on to a time of silence and then to a § 6. Confession of Sin The confession is prefaced with the words, 'L...

Increasing our faith may take place during times when the presence of God is most evident. However, paradoxically, it is perhaps likely to take place when we are being sorely tested. It is at just those difficult times when we can learn to practise exercising faith when circumstances don't encourage us. But we need to practise exercising it by remembering in whom we believe.