Dear Friends,
Today is the second and last Sunday on which the sanctuary area of S. Michael’s Church is under reconstruction. The carpentry and the re-staining of the handsome rimu floor are complete; the wiring for power and for sound is ready, though the systems are still to be adjusted; and the carpet laying will be done on Tuesday and Wednesday. After several years of imagining and planning and waiting, at last the transformation has happened. The previous arrangement was installed in 1965 according to the best liturgical and architectural lights of the day. The new arrangement makes the best of today’s insights into the purposes of the place of liturgical gathering, as well as into the contemporary use of heritage spaces. Many of us have found the new revelation of the architectural elements in this lovely place quite stunning. When we have recovered from that, we need to consider how our spiritual and liturgical practice can respond and be renewed. I shall be providing some opportunities to explore this during Lent (Ash Wednesday falls on 25 February, a Lent programme will be available soon).
The most obvious practical and spiritual consideration is our posture for receiving Holy Communion. Standing was the custom for the first thousand years of Christian practice and has become so again in recent decades. The Eastern Churches have always done this. In Western Europe in the 13th century, with the growth of a particular theology and piety of the Blessed Sacrament, it became more common to kneel as an expression of devotion, but at the same time it became much less common for ordinary people to receive Holy Communion at all. The emphasis went towards seeing and adoring the Sacrament, rather than actively participating in it. Kneeling seemed to be an appropriate posture for this.
Now, there is a renewed sense of the Sacrament as encompassing the offering of the Body of Christ, the receiving of the Body of Christ, and the becoming of the community as the Body of Christ, all together. Standing seems to be appropriate for this, with the greater awareness of relationship that it allows with the others gathered with us in the Body of Christ.
As part of this plan, the altar rails have been taken out and put into careful storage. In the Anglican tradition, altar rails were ordered especially under the high church Archbishop Laud (1634). They were not for kneeling at, but to keep out dogs and other irreverence. In the 1650s Parliament ordered them to be removed, but from 1660 on they were again in use. It was probably not until the Catholic Revival of the mid 1800s that kneeling for Holy Communion (or even receiving Holy Communion at all) began to be the custom again.
At S. Michael’s, we have had some moveable but very stable kneeling benches made so that those who wish can kneel at them. Others may wish and be able to kneel without them, and others may like to try standing.
As we conclude the Eucharistic Prayer every day, “United in Christ with all who stand before you in earth and heaven, we worship you, O God, in songs of everlasting praise.”
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
