The above image appears to be going viral, being posted by even some of my most sensible friends. So it is worth a moment of reflection. Some people heatedly want a Western return to the priest presiding ad orientem (facing East) rather than the popular versus populum (facing the people). This type of person rejoiced
Priest back to the people Read More »
Yes. There are exceptions. Exceptional circumstances and contexts in which the norm cannot be applied. But when planning for new worship spaces, and when renewing inherited spaces it should be clear that the altar is the community’s table – not somehow exclusively the possession of the ordained and if there is a procession of the
Not coming to the table for communion Read More »
Is the Anglican Church “catholic”, “protestant”, or both? How does it describe itself, and does that matter? Regulars will know, I am always particularly wary of uses of the categories: catholic, orthodox, charismatic, protestant, evangelical. Often what one person says, using one of these terms, is quite different to what another person hears – sometimes
Anglican Catholic Protestant Orthodox? Read More »
Pastoral over ideology Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States (Vatican ambassador to USA) directly challenged the U.S. Catholic bishops meeting this week. “The Holy Father wants bishops in tune with their people. The pontiff made a special point of saying that he wants ‘pastoral’ bishops, not bishops who profess or follow a
God – people – rules Read More »
While many individuals and churches (including my own Anglican province) uncritically bless unrestricted serial monogamy for heterosexuals (ie. more to have and to hold; less forsaking all others), many of those same people insist that homosexuals not be able to commit to one person they love before God. Many still see marriage as giving permission
Forsaking all others Read More »
The top name on the web for 2013 is Pope Francis, and @Pontifex is the fourth most-used word on the web (ranking after “404”, “fail”, and “hashtag”). The Global Language Monitor has made its 14th Annual Survey of Global English of 1.83 billion English-speaking people of the world. The secular mythology of our culture pushes
Pope Francis tops internet Read More »
I have been writing about connections between washing hands and spirituality prior to the Eucharistic Prayer as part of the Abrahamic faiths entering a church. There is another example of hand-washing and spirituality that New Zealanders would encounter regularly. Maori have a deep and complex understanding in spirituality of tapu and noa, usually translated as
Many of us have, by now, bought our copy of the booklet The Lectionary Te Maramataka 2014. UPDATE: here is the PDF of The Lectionary Te Maramataka 2014 (1.40 MB) As the booklet itself makes clear, this lectionary booklet can be used to find the appropriate liturgical colour. As in the example in the image
New Zealand Lectionary 2014 Read More »
