Comments on: This is my body

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:05:41 +0000

Just to inject a different element (sic!) into the discussion…
Isn’t it true that the focus of the Liturgy and discussions on eucharist revolve around the Eucharist as receiving the body and blood of Jesus… but was he intending a major focus to be ‘participating in the new covenant’? ‘This is my blood of the new covenant’. What would happen if we focussed equally on that?

I’d like to suggest a more transformative divine encounter… experience of the kingdom of God… a healing of divisions…

By: Jim Beyer

Jim Beyer — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:41:12 +0000

Bill, we agree on the fire worshipers. The ‘criticism’ of the consecration practice in the Tablet is very odd. Getting rid of the breaking of the bread during the quotation of Jesus was one of the better ideas in the most recent revisions of many provinces’ BCP.

I am a devout student of Dom Gregory Dix and I do think the shape and content of the liturgy matter. Our pianist friend is simply wrong.

FWIW
jimB

By: Bill Carroll

Bill Carroll — Sat, 02 May 2009 08:41:59 +0000

I just want to know where we get to say “Whoomp there it is.”

I’m also fond of saying “Jesus has just left the building,” long after the dismissal, when the candles are snuffed, so the fire worshipers will know its okay to leave.

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:19:30 +0000

You are right, True Anglican, that 1662BCP uniquely instructs that the bread should be broken within the institution narrative. This confusion, however, should not be attributed to Thomas Cranmer as you do. Neither his 1549, nor his 1552 communion rites are so confused, as you already intimate. Cranmer died in 1556, so your attributing this 1662 confusion to him is anachronistic.

By: TrueAnglican

TrueAnglican — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:49:33 +0000

Stephen Hough’s erroneous liturgiology was shared by none other than Thomas Cranmer, as I recall, although oddly no manual acts of any kind are prescribed during the eucharistic prayer in the text of the 1552 BCP I consulted on line. Certainly the 1662 BCP says specifically that the priest is to break the bread as he recites the words of institution. In the U.S. Episcopal Church the practice continued (or at least was called for by rubric) until the adoption of the 1979 BCP. In my Anglo-Catholic missal-following youth in the U.S., celebrants performed what was called the “little fraction” during the words of institution, then inserted a more extensive and thorough though unauthorized fraction after the Our Father (and before the exchange of the peace, another ceremony not contemplated by the 1928 BCP).

By: Peter Carrell

Peter Carrell — Sat, 02 May 2009 03:07:47 +0000

Clearly you are either not familiar with, or have temporarily forgotten the oeuvre of Damian Thompson (editor of the Tablet’s rival, Catholic Herald, and Holy Smoke blogger) which when one is familiar with it (as I am) means one would be surprised by nothing in the Tablet by way of it’s (lack of) quality content

This may or may not shed light on the eucharistic theology (I speak advisedly) of Mr Hough http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/stephen_hough/blog/2009/01/09/eucharist_i

Incidentally Damian Thompson’s view of Stephen Hough as friend, pianist, and religious commentator is thus:

“I know: I’m plugging a mate, but I’ve been a piano anorak since, oh, I don’t know, the days when English Catholic bishops had a rudimentary grasp of Latin, and I was a fan of Hough’s years before I met him. It’s fascinating, wonderful and almost scary to hear his playing develop the veil-piercing spirituality I associate with Cortot, Edwin Fischer, Kempff and Horszowski.

Before I’m awarded Private Eye’s Order of the Brown Nose, however, I should add that the great man’s tastes in religious (as opposed to to musical) spirituality are quite deplorable. He’s seriously impressed by that pretentious old muppet Rowan Williams, and announced recently that he “always finds something to enjoy” in The Tablet. Well, I always find something to enjoy in Viz, Stephen, but that doesn’t make it Catholic. “

By: Kirkepiscatoid

Kirkepiscatoid — Sat, 02 May 2009 01:28:46 +0000

I can’t get too worked up about the “exact when’s and what’s” in the Eucharistic Prayer, honestly. It is the whole thing that makes “it” happen!