Celebrating the Eucharist

Patrick Malloy

Description

In this first new Eucharistic customary in nearly 20 years, Patrick Malloy, an Episcopal priest and liturgical scholar, presents a clear, illustrated guide for the presider and other leaders of the liturgy, contemporary in approach but based on ancient and classic principles of celebration.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, like its predecessors, is long on telling the Church what to say, and short on telling it what to do. This leaves those who "choreograph" Prayer Book liturgies with a complex task and a powerful influence over the faith of the Church. The author begins with a concise theology of the liturgy that underpins all of his specific directives in the book.

Contents include: Theological and liturgical principles; Liturgical ministry and liturgical ministers; Liturgical space; Vesture, vessels, and other liturgical objects; The liturgical year; The shape of the liturgy; The sung liturgy and singing during the liturgy; The order of the Eucharist (the "heart" of the book); and The celebration of Baptism during the Eucharist.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Practice
• Christian Rituals
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Church Publishing Incorporated
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780898698077
• Langue: English

Extrait

Celebrating the Eucharist
Figure details
The title page reads A Practical Ceremonial Guide for Clergy and Other Liturgical Ministers; Patrick Malloy. Church Publishing, an imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York. It depicts the hands of a minister touching the bread. A chalice of wine is placed near it.
CELEBRATING THE EUCHARIST
A Practical Ceremonial Guide for Clergy and Other Liturgical Ministers
Patrick Malloy


CHURCH PUBLISHING
an imprint of
Church Publishing Incorporated, New York -->
Copyright 2007 by Patrick Malloy All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible , copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malloy, Patrick. Celebrating the Eucharist: a practical ceremonial guide for clergy and other liturgical ministers / Patrick Malloy. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-89869-562-5 (pbk.) 1. Lord s Supper-Celebration. 2. Lord s Supper-Episcopal Church. 3. Lord s Supper (Liturgy). 4. Lord s Supper-Lay administration-Episcopal Church-Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title. BX5949.C5M35 2007 264 .03036-dc22
2007040412
Printed in the United States of America .
Illustrations by Dorothy Thompson Perez Cover design by Jennifer Glosser Interior design by Vicki K. Black
Church Publishing, Incorporated 445 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10016
www.churchpublishing.com
07 08 09 10 11 12 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS

Preface
I. PRAYING AND BELIEVING
1. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
2. Rubrics and Customaries
3. Principles for Making Liturgical Decisions
4. Liturgical Space
Enacting the Liturgy in Various Spaces
5. Vesture and Vessels
The Alb
Eucharistic Vestments
Vessels
6. The Liturgical Year .
Origins and Development
Pastoral Practicalities
The Easter Cycle
The Nativity Cycle
7. Liturgical Ministries
The Liturgy and the Real World
Liturgical Ministers Assigned by the Rubrics of the Prayer Book
Liturgical Ministers Not Explicitly Mentioned in the Rubrics of the Prayer Book
8. Postures and Gestures
Praying
Sitting
Walking
Standing
Genuflecting
Bowing
Kneeling
Turning
Crossing
Looking
Carrying Objects
Exchanging the Peace
Kissing
Censing
9. The Greater and the Lesser
Gathering
Proclaiming and Responding
Praying for the World and the Church
Exchanging the Peace
Preparing the Table
Making Eucharist
Breaking the Bread
Sharing the Gifts of God
II. THE SUNDAY EUCHARIST
10. The Opening Rites
Gathering
The Elements of the Opening Rites
11. The Liturgy of the Word
The First Readings
The Proclamation of the Gospel
The Sermon
The Nicene Creed
The Prayers of the People
The Confession of Sin
The Peace
12. The Liturgy of the Eucharist
Preparing the Table
Making Eucharist
Breaking the Bread
Sharing the Gifts of God
After Communion
13. The Concluding Rites
General Overview
The Blessing
Announcements
Dismissal
The Disbanding of the Assembly
14. Celebrating Baptism During the Sunday Eucharist
Baptism in Today s Church
Water: The Primary Symbol in the Celebration of Baptism
Optional Baptismal Symbols
The Baptismal Liturgy
PREFACE

Church Publishing asked me to write a eucharistic customary for the Episcopal Church: a step-by-step, how-to book for ministers, lay and ordained, and for the assembly. I wrote something else. Since the Reformation, one group of Anglicans and then another have claimed to know the authentic way to celebrate the Eucharist. I did not want to jump into that fray.
Besides, at this point in the development of the Western liturgy, too much is in flux for anyone to presume to say a definitive word. Officially authorized liturgical materials are multiplying and liturgical spaces are configured in ever-evolving arrangements. Episcopalians (as well as most other groups of Christians) are diverse in ways unthinkable when the current Prayer Book became the Prayer Book in 1979. Rite 13, Quincea ara , cremains, divorce rituals, discontinuing life support: while same-sex blessings may make the headlines, they are but one of the contemporary realities the framers of the 1979 Prayer Book could not have imagined in the context of common prayer. The other major denominations, too, find themselves living in a brave new liturgical world, even if they are not featured on the evening news as often as we are.
The scholars and pastors who coordinated the experiments and compiled the findings that led to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer were not na ve. They knew they were creating a book of prayer to form a church that would live in an inconceivable world. Some clever person said that the crates of Prayer Books dropped at the doors of nearly every Episcopal Church in 1979 were full of time bombs. Almost thirty years later, they are still ticking in a church unawares.
Immersed in the rich stew that finally boiled over at Vatican II, the learned and wise editors of the Book of Common Prayer imagined a church where baptism, not ordination, was the threshold into full membership. Where the voice of God might come from people who never before had the right to speak. Where the face of God might look like a person no cradle Episcopalian had ever seen up close. Where the will of God might dawn first on someone other than the priests. Today, we are living into a future the framers of the Prayer Book glimpsed in the fog of the future: too far off and too clouded for them to know exactly what it was, but intimated nonetheless.
People once wrangled over the language of the Prayer Book as much as we wrangle over blessings for same-sex unions. Some still do. But language is the least of it. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer was not a new skin to hold old wine, a new way of saying old things. It marked, some would argue, a revolution. The skin and the wine were both new. The revolution began before Prayer Book revision did, but when the 1979 Prayer Book flew off the presses and hit the pews, it mapped out a path that would carry the revolution into the future. This Book of Common Prayer was indeed a time bomb, and it keeps on ticking.
The liturgy is serious business. It is not about dressing up and parading around, saying peculiar words and doing odd things. It is a confrontation with God that changes lives. And changed lives change the world. Annie Dillard famously wrote that Sunday congregations are like children with chemistry sets mixing up batches of TNT. They are blind to the power they hold in their hands.
This book comes out of pastoral experience as much as it comes out of academic study. For six years, the people of Grace Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, have realized that they were dealing with explosives, and they have handled them carefully. They have worked to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist with as much authenticity as they can muster, recognizing what is at stake. The rectorship has been mine, but the liturgy has been ours. Literally dozens of people, and sometimes the entire parish, have prayerfully considered how to make what we do on Sunday reflect as fully as possible what we as Episcopal Christians believe. At the same time, we have worked to make what we do during the week true to what we do on Sunday. Whether we have decided to tweak some minor detail or to rip the whole thing apart and start over, we have decided it together.
The first two chapters set out in general terms how ritual works and, in particular, how it works in church. Most of the examples are from the Episcopal tradition, but hardly all. With rare exceptions, the references throughout the book are to the liturgical texts themselves and to some of the primary commentaries on them. The next chapter sets out principles for how a community might sift through all of those details as it finds its own way. The remaining chapters in Part I consider from theological, historical, and social scientific perspectives the building blocks of the eucharistic rite: postures and gestures, buildings, objects, time, and the ministries. An outline of what is at the core of the eucharistic liturgy provides a matrix for focusing on what is essential and not being distracted by the endless details that can draw the intellect, heart, and imagination away from the essence, which is nothing less than the presence of Christ.
Part II on the Sunday Eucharist is the how-to that Church Publishing wanted in the first place. Those chapters do not describe the way to do it; rather, they set out one way, sprinkled liberally with options that, in a particular pastoral setting, might be far better. Only rarely do I intend to say that to do it any other way would be a mistake. And, since a picture truly is worth many words, a collection of brief streaming videos illustrating what is described in this book will be posted at the Church Publishing website, http://www.churchpublishing.org/celebratingtheeucharist .
The how-to chapters are as much descriptive as prescriptive. They outline, for the most part, what happens on Sunday morning at Grace Church and many Episcopal churches like it. The earlier and later chapters are not disconnected, however; the liturgy we celebrate and the theory that informs it feed into one another. In nearly every instance, it is difficult to say which came first. Seminarians often complain that their course work has nothing to do with life in the trenches, that the theory does not prepare them for real life. This is an attempt to bridge the gap and to show that, actually, it does.



It was Paul Marshall, the Bishop of Bethlehem,