Insider's Guide to Holy Communion (Church Nerd 3)

 

The Church Nerd (3)

Insider’s guide to Holy communion

--Fr. Tony Hutchinson

For around 2,000 years, Christians have come together week after week, communing with God and each other in a very special way, the “Holy Eucharist.”   Eucharist is a Greek word for “Thanksgiving.”   In the Greek Church it is called the Divine Liturgy, which means the Work or Duty of God’s people. In the West, we call it Holy Communion (sharing and becoming one with God), the Lord’s Supper (in memory of Jesus’ last meal with his friends), and sometimes the Mass (the sending of God’s people into the world). Whatever we call it, Eucharist is the center of our worship and life together. 

In the Episcopal Church, our order of service comes from the Book of Common Prayer.  First published in 1549 England based on earlier liturgies, and most recently revised in the U.S. in 1979, the Prayer Book makes us part of a great dialogue of prayer and worship going back to Jesus’ earliest followers.   Much of our Sunday bulletin here at Trinity includes gender-inclusive updates of the 1979 Prayer Book called Enriching our Worship, approved by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. 

There are two halves to the Eucharist:  what the Prayer Book calls “The Word of God,” and “The Holy Communion.”   The Liturgy of the Word is often called Ante-Communion.  It is the part before the sharing of the Peace midway through our worship.  Holy Communion proper, also called the Liturgy of the Table or the Great Thanksgiving, is the part that comes after the Peace.

THE GATHERING

We enter the Church preparing to worship. The church bell calls people to prayer and worship.  At the door, there is a baptismal font filled with blessed water.  Some of us as we enter, use it to touch our foreheads or make the sign of the cross.  It reminds us that the waters of baptism give us entry to the Church, just as the Waters of the Red Sea put the Children of Israel on their way to the Promised Land.   Traditionally, we give a slight bow to the altar as we cross the center aisle to go the pews, a sign of reverence for God being made manifest to us in this holy meal.  We keep silence and use the time to prepare, meditate, and pray.  Many use the prayer before communion found on page 832 of the Prayer Book:

Be Present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever, Amen. 

The first act of our worship is the gathering of the people at prayer. The word “church” means “assembly” or “gathering.”  Prelude music gathers our hearts and our minds, followed by the opening hymn.  The choir processes in, and then the ministers of the service.  Processions remind us that the people of God, through time and history, are moving toward God's Kingdom – following the Cross of Christ – and bringing the Light of the Gospel to the whole world.

We bring to our worship our whole being. We pray not just with words, but with all our being, all our senses. We pray silently and out loud; we pray through speech, and through music. We pray with our bodies as able through our postures of standing for praise, sitting to listen, and kneeling to pray.  We pray by sight through visual symbols and colors.  We pray with our sense of smell through the scent of candles, altar flowers and greens, and occasionally incense.  We pray with taste through the bread and wine we share.

We begin by standing as a sign of attentiveness.   Our attention should follow the Cross as it enters and proceeds to the altar.  Many people turn and follow facing the Cross as it processes.  It is customary to give a slight bow to the Cross as it passes us, a sign of our thankfulness for Christ’s redeeming work. 

The Gathering includes an opening acclamation, the collect or prayer for purity, and then a Song of Praise like “Glory to God in the Highest.”   Then the opening prayer assigned for that day is said.  A short prayer like this is called a Collect (COLL-ect) because it collects our thoughts and desires.

The clergy, acolytes and choir members wear vestments. In the Episcopal Church, there are no such things as “robes.” Rather, all of the vestments have names.   Vestments remind us that our worship is not just here in this place and time, but part of a great current of faith and prayer.   The Church is embodied in specific groups of people, but belongs to no single time or place.  It is universal as well as local.  Vestments remind us that we are part of this larger current. We have different colors that mark each season of the year.   We use green in Ordinary Time between Pentecost and Advent. 

THE LITURGY OF THE WORD 

Next we hear readings from the Bible, called lessons (from Latin lection “reading”).  The word “Bible” comes from the Greek word that means “the little books.”   They are not so much the words dictated by God as they are the field notes of God’s people. 

We hear four passages from the Bible, assigned for each Sunday in a three-year rotating cycle called the “Revised Common Lectionary.” We hear the same texts as heard in other churches—Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Roman Catholic and others.  This is part of our connection with those other people in other places. We are currently in the first year of the cycle – “Year A.”

The Lessons

First we will hear a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians often call the “Old Testament.” Then we hear a psalm, sometimes helping to recite it.   We then hear from one of the New Testament letters. The New Testament was written in Greek, which was the common language of the Roman Empire of the time. 

At the end of each lesson, the prayer book has the reader declare: “The Word of the Lord. ”  By saying “word” we do not mean that God wrote the words, but that God can speak to us through these stories and texts.   Another common ending for the lesson is “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches” –a phrase taken from the Revelation of John, the last book in the Bible. Our reply is “Thanks be to God.”   The fourth lesson is always from a Gospel.

The gospel is a Greek word meaning “good news” and that is the title given to the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, stories of the life of Jesus. The Gospel lesson is always read by a member of the clergy, as a sign of the Gospel’s special place for us in our scriptures.  It is a Deacon’s special task to read the Gospel among the people.  On special occasions, the Gospel may be sung or chanted.

The Gospel

On most Sundays, there is a Gospel procession into the center of the congregation, signifying that the Gospel is at the center of our life as a faith community. The Gospel Procession is led by the Cross and candles.  For Eucharists, it is appropriate for us to stand up and turn to face the Gospel book and reader as a sign of attentiveness.  The Gospel procession echoes the Jewish practice of carrying the Torah – the scrolls containing God’s Law – into the congregation.  It also reminds us that we are to carry the Good News of Jesus Christ into all the world.

Making the Sign of the Cross with your thumb on the forehead, mouth and chest at this time asks God’s blessing “in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.” This way of making the sign of the cross is one of the earliest known symbols of the Church, dating from the Second Century.

The Homily

At this point in the service, we usually hear a homily, or short reflection on the scriptural passages, or a longer sermon.   The preacher is to make the lively word of God accessible and understandable to the people, proclaim God’s love and forgiveness, and stir up the people to repentance and amendment of life.  A good preacher comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. 

The Creed

Following the homily, we take a few moments of silence to reflect. Then we respond to the Word of God by reciting together the Nicene Creed, a fourth century statement of the Church's Trinitarian belief in God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Originally a loyalty oath for bishops, it has since evolved into a symbol of our shared faith in the larger universal Church, what the Creed calls katholikos, “according to the whole,” or catholic (with a small c). 

The Creed expresses thus the faith of the whole Church in all times and places.  Bishop John Shelby Spong once said that when he recites the Creed, he always finds objections and, but when he sings it, he believes it with all his heart.  Although the meaning of some of the phrases may not be clear to you, think of the Creed as a prayer or a song that you share with all Christians in all times and places.

Here at Trinity, we recite the Creed according to its original text in the Fourth Century, rather than the slightly expanded form that later became popular in the Western Church.   We thus say simply that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” rather than “from the Father and from the Son.”  This is approved by the Episcopal Church and is a way of showing our solidarity with Christians of all traditions, both Eastern and Western.

Some people make the sign of the cross at the end of the creed to remind us that at our baptism we were signed with the sign of the cross and made Christ's own forever. Such acts of reverence are ways in which we show outwardly what we believe inwardly.

After the Creed, we further respond to the Gospel by offering prayer, for Christ's Church and for the world. Together, we pray for the Church, for ourselves, and for the departed.  These prayers are called “Prayers of the People” because they represent our deepest longings as God’s people at prayer. In them, we intercede, or pray for others. 

Confession and Absolution

Then, we ask God's forgiveness for the wrongs we have done, both individually and collectively. Confession is an important part of prayer whether we do it privately or in church with others. After the confession is announced, there is a time of silence for private, silent individual confession. Then we recite together the words of confession. Please notice that our confession of sin is not just about individual failings and shortcomings.  It also includes the evil done on our behalf, and the evil that we commit in our institutions and corporate life.  We kneel, as able, for confession as a sign of humility.  After confession, the Priest says the words of absolution, or forgiveness, assuring us that God has forgiven all of us.

The Peace

The first part of the service ends with the Peace. We greet one another joyfully in the spirit of friendship and reconciliation and in the love of God, exchanging God’s peace with one another. It is way for us to heal from our grudges and wounds before coming to the table of Communion.  The “passing of the peace” is a very ancient way for people to greet one another. Jesus taught us that we should love one another as sisters and brothers, and reconcile before coming to worship God at the altar. The apostle Paul taught that we should forgive one another as God forgives us before we come to the table to share in the bread of Communion.

THE HOLY COMMUNION

The Offertory

We begin the Holy Communion itself, or the Liturgy of the Table, by offering to God money for the Church’s ministries, food for the poor, and the bread and wine we will use at Communion.  The Priest gives an offertory sentence that bids us to remember that all our possessions are really gifts we have from God.  We pass alms basins to collect the fruit of our labors as an expression of thanks. Offering our gifts back to God is a key part of our Great Thanksgiving. The Music ministers give their own offering, one of art, to God at this time as well, the Offertory Anthem.

During the Offertory, the deacon “sets the table” by laying first a corporal, a white linen cloth serving as a placemat, upon which are placed a chalice, a cup for the wine, and a paten, a plate for the bread. The purpose of the corporal is to hold any crumbs that may come from the bread, since they are considered sacred once the bread is consecrated.  Next, wine is poured into the chalice and a little water is added. Adding a little water to the wine was a sign of hospitality in the Middle East in the time of Jesus, increasing the wine’s flavor and thirst-quenching power.  It later was taken as a symbol for the mixture of divine and human elements in the person of Jesus. 

In the early days of the Church, worshipers brought their own bread and wine to the service. The deacons chose what was needed for the consecration, and the rest was set aside for the poor. Today we have lay people who bring the bread and the wine to the altar along with the other gifts of the people. The bread and the wine, along with the money collected for the work of the church, are the offerings that will be presented to God.

The bread and wine are called oblations, or things offered up.  As the gifts are offered to God, we often express our offering in a responsive phrase such as “All things come from you, O God, and of your own have we given you,” or by singing the Doxology, “Praise God from whom all blessing flow.”    Recognizing that all blessings come from God and that we owe God our thankful gifts in return, is the basis of Christian Stewardship. 

Before the priest begins speaking the Eucharistic prayer, it is the custom in many churches for the acolyte to pour a little water over the priest’s hands.  In the early church, offerings included farm produce and animals, so it was important to wash the priest’s hands after handling the offerings.   The receptacle for this purpose is called a “lavabo bowl.” “Lavabo” means “I will wash” in Latin.  This reminds us that we should all come to God's altar with clean hands and pure hearts. It has long been the custom for the head of the Jewish household to wash his or her hands in a similar way before the prayers at the Passover meal. Jesus probably did this at the Last Supper.

The Great Thanksgiving (Prayer of Consecration)

The Priest consecrates the bread and wine using an ancient prayer form preserved in the writings of Hippolytus of Rome from the Second Century.   It is based on the accounts of the Last Supper found in the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul.  The Prayer Book provides several versions of the Prayer:  Prayer A follows traditional Anglican forms and emphasizes the Cross; Prayer B follows Hippolytus closely; Prayer C uses modern images and cosmology in a responsorial prayer shared by priest and people; Prayer D follows the ethereal and delicate Eastern liturgy of St. Basil the Great in the 4^th Century.  Enriching our Worship’s Prayers 1, 2, and 3 are all modern theology and gender inclusive language adaptations of Hippolytus.  The people begin the prayer standing, since it is they acting through the priest who consecrate the gifts.

In the Eucharistic Prayer, we remember and make present the ancient story of God’s saving acts of old.    Anamnesis is the Greek word that describes remembering and bringing things to mind to make them real and present for us.  We remember the story of the people of God and make it our own story.

We give thanks and praise in response to our anamnesis.  This thanks leads us to offer our gifts to God by lifting them up, oblation.    We tell the story of the Last Supper, our Christian Passover, in a narrative including Christ’s words of institution calling us to meet and remember him by this means.  We also call upon God in an epiclesis, or invocation, asking for God to pour out the spirit to make bread and wine we offer holy, the Body and Blood of Christ present for us, and to make us holy as well.  In the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, we remember, we give thanks, and we offer gifts in return, calling upon God to accept the gifts, send the spirit, and make us and the gifts holy. 

Sursum Corda

We celebrate this holy meal at what we call the Holy Table, also called the Altar since on it we offer these gifts made holy and dedicated to God as a sacrifice.   Often the priest will ask us for special intentions for prayers to accompany our offering.  The Eucharist begins with the “Lift up your heart” opening dialogue– the “Sursum Corda.” The words follow the format of an ancient Jewish table blessing.

Sanctus and Benedictus

The Eucharistic prayer’s thanks is expressed with ancient songs of praise and blessing: the Sanctus, the ancient hymn: “Holy, Holy, Holy,” followed by the Benedictus: “Blessed is the one who comes in the Name of the Lord...” reminding us that our God does come to us in the Holy Communion, and is made known to us in “the breaking of the bread.”  After the Sanctus and Benedictus, many people remain standing for the rest of the prayer, since they are celebrating it along with the priest.  Tradition has been also to kneel after the Sanctus and Benedictus, as a sign of reverence for the real presence of God in the bread and wine blessed with Christ’s own words, “This is my body, this my blood.” 

Anamnesis (Remembering), Words of Institution, & Epiclesis

In the Eucharistic prayer, we retell salvation history and then the story of the Last Supper. We remember Jesus’ last meal with his friends and the words he spoke over the bread and the wine before his arrest, torture, and death on the cross.   Once we have remembered the ancient story as our story, we offer up our gifts of bread and wine as well as ourselves and our lives to God.  Our act of offering prepares us to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit, asking that both the bread and wine, and that we ourselves, be made holy.

Amen, Lord’s Prayer, and Breaking the Bread

Once the invocation has taken place, the people of God finish the Prayer together.   We say the Great Amen—that final “So say we all,” “and so it is” that we say together as the priest holds up the bread and wine.  This AMEN, printed in all capital letters in The Book of Common Prayer, is where we all make this common prayer our own. It is not some magic in the priest’s hands that make this meal we share holy; it is our coming together as a family to affirm the thanking, remembering, offering and invoking with a resounding AMEN that makes our bread and wine, and us too, something more than before. Our prayer is completed when we recite together the Lord’s Prayer.  Then the priest breaks the bread, and we sing or recite a short song for the breaking of the bread, or fraction anthem, usually “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast” or “Lamb of God … have mercy on us.” 

 
The Communion of the People

You may have been receiving Communion your whole life, or this is new to you. So let me remind you again how to receive the Bread and the Wine of Communion. For the bread, cup your hands and hold them up chest high so that the priest can easily place the bread on the palm of your hand.  If you need to have gluten free bread, place your palms down.  You may then consume the bread.  If you wish to receive the chalice, please guide it to your lips by holding the bottom of the cup – and not the top.  If you wish to dip the bread in the wine, have the server take it for you, intinct, and them place it in your mouth.  If you do not wish to receive the bread, cross your arms over your chest and the priest will bless you.  If you do not want to receive the wine, also cross your arms and the chalice bearer will say a prayer for you.   When you receive the Bread and the Wine, it is appropriate to say “AMEN.”

After everyone has received Communion, the vessels are reverently cleansed. Some of the consecrated Bread and Wine is reserved for the sick and those who are unable to come to church. It is kept in the Aumbry, or tabernacle, marked by the ever-burning “presence lamp.”

We share the Eucharist also with sick and shut-in members of the Congregation.   Since they cannot come to Church, we take Church to them. And please let us know when circumstances are such that you would like us to bring communion to you. The deacon organizes this ministry, and so leads the congregation in sending out the Eucharistic visitors. 

Post Communion Prayer, Benediction, & Dismissal
We end the Holy Communion by saying together a prayer of thanksgiving for our Great Thanksgiving.   After this post-communion prayer, the priest leads in community announcements, celebrations, and prayers, and then will give us all God’s blessing.  Some congregations do these community events after the Peace, but at Trinity we keep them for the end to maintain a smooth flow of the worship without a big break in the middle between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table.

We now prepare to leave. A procession leads us out into the world around us so that we may do the work that God has called us to do, wherever we may be: in our homes, in our schools, in our work and in our play. We have been fed with spiritual Food. God has given us the strength to live our lives as faithful followers of Christ.

We conclude the Eucharist where we began, in the midst of life, in a world where there is suffering and need.  But in these liturgies of the Word and of the Table we have been centered.  We come to the Lord’s Table, as Prayer C says, not for solace only, but for strength, not for pardon only, but for renewal.  This sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ is also a sharing in the risen life of Christ, and that sharing must go with us as we go back into the world.  The Eucharist is the work of the people of God together. It is not a service confined to Sunday morning. Rather, it is a way of life. It is the essence of life itself.

The word “mass” comes from the Latin word for dismissal. We are not allowed to linger; we are called to get back out into the world and do the work we are given to do.

Finally, the Deacon will send us forth to do the work that God has called us to do, and we all respond by saying with gusto: “Thanks be to God.”