Saturday, January 8, 2011

Getting ready to worship: two blogging Priests reflect on Holy Communion

The always thoughtful and well studied Reverend Dr. Leander Harding has a new book available, In the Breaking of the Bread.

"Liturgy is an English form of a Greek word that means literally 'the work of the people.' So here we have a plan for the holy work to which the people of God are called, and that is the proclamation of the Word of God and the celebration of Holy Communion. Through Christ, the eternal Son of God, we have a new and holy communion with God, with each other, and with the whole Creation. We are called to proclaim and celebrate this new reality through reading and meditating on the scripture and through fulfilling the command given by Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed,'Do this in remembrance of me' (Luke 22:19)."

There's more thought on this from Fr. Hall in Brookings, SD. Reflecting on the largely ignored "Concordat" between Episcopalians and Lutherans, he takes a hard look at questionable practices that make a mockery of claims about "Eucharistic sharing,"

I, for the life of me, don't understand the idea of Communion for the Unbaptized. I do understand the logic in that its supposedly an issue of "hospitality." In terms of the meaning of the actual term "Communion" itself, the idea of allowing Communion for the Unbaptized is preposterous. I mean you are literally allowing someone to join into Communion with God and the Church (Eucharist is not just a me-and-God thing but a me-and-you thing) having not been joined in Baptism. How can one join in Communion (through the Eucharist) if you have not in fact been joined in Communion (through Baptism)? You're joining but not really joining? You're just temporarily joining this one time?

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