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At the weekend, I ran across a lovely 45-second long video of dozens of young Catholic Iraqis making their First Holy Communion in April 2022:
Sachin Jose, who filmed this splendid procession, is a Catholic journalist.
I wish him and all the young communicants a very happy Christian walk.
It is always better for parents to initiate their children in the faith rather than wait until they are young adults and ‘give them the choice’, as so many parents aged 70 and younger say. We now have three generations of adults brought up this way. What a parlous state of affairs.
Psalm 127:3 reminds us that we all come from our Creator:
Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
Therefore, let us honour Him by consecrating our children to Him from an early age.
Waiting or allowing them to make a choice makes a commitment to Christ much more difficult. Yesterday’s post featured an Anglican priest who baptises adults whose parents never brought them up in the faith. He says that the adult catechumens wonder what the fine print is, as if Baptism were the same as a mobile phone contract, rather than a spiritual journey of sanctification and salvation.
Children can easily learn from their parents that there is no finer promise of everlasting glory than faith in Jesus Christ. There is no reason to wait to teach them prayers and take them to church for regular worship or Sunday School.
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On the back of exploring what’s on Episcopal priests‘ minds, I am crossing the Atlantic, returning to the UK, to explore what Anglican priests are thinking about.
I will continue both series.
The Revd Marcus Walker, serving in the Diocese of London, deplores the bewilderment and criticism surrounding the recent group photograph of Mike Pence and his coronavirus team in prayer.
Note that they are not praying in public, as detractors have said. Press photographers happened to be present for the meeting.
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer has such a prayer, which can be said during the Litany. Highly useful during the coronavirus scare:
In the time of any common plague or sicknes.
O Almighty God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wildernes for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron, and also in the time of King David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembring thy mercy didst save the rest: have pitie upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sicknes and mortality, that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angell to cease from punishing: so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sicknes, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Marcus Walker later located his ‘jumbo book of State Prayers’ and noted the following shift in emphasis in them from the 18th to the 19th centuries:
Turning to the opprobrium heaped upon the American vice president and his team, this is what Mr Walker and his readers tweeted:
https://twitter.com/dearenkal/status/1234694948957696001
Nor do I.
The Revd Giles Fraser, formerly a Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral and current Rector at the south London church of St Maryâs, Newington, told the readers of his online magazine Unherd how he has changed the Communion service during the coronavirus outbreak (emphases mine):
I have a cough. I have had it for weeks. A deep hacking affair that brings up nasty thick greenish goo. Itâs not the virus â I havenât got a high temperature or any other symptoms. But it is dramatic enough to clear the seats next to me on the tube.
In church on Sunday, too, I could feel the anxiety radiate out from my coughing away behind the altar into a twitchy congregation. We have suspended sharing the peace for the time being. Instead of shaking hands or kissing, we wave at each other. So, too, we have decided to take communion in one kind only â that is, we share the bread but not the common cup of wine. And in this context, the symbolic handwashing the priest performs before the Eucharist is no longer simply a ritual act. It feels like a necessity. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
As one of my posts explained last week, the Cup can be suspended during health emergencies under a) the Doctrine of Concomitance and b) the 1547 Sacrament Act.
The Doctrine of Concomitance says that Christ’s substance in the Eucharist cannot be divided. The bread and the wine are both the entire real presence of Christ.
Giles Fraser and one of his readers helpfully tweeted about both:
Someone responded — possibly an agnostic — taking to task Christians who are panicking over the coronavirus. He has a point:
It amazes me how those who pontificate so much about life thereafter being so wonderful succumb to panic at the thought of death. Just a pause for thought. The Lordâs supposed to be our protector but only if it means it protects us from death. Come on religious people! Get a grip.
I don’t understand it, either.
On that note, and from a Catholic perspective, Dr CC Pecknold, a professor who also writes for First Things, tweeted about the plague in Venice between 1630 and 1631:
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234597736965660672
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234938019028885510
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234953276291940352
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234604843567894528
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234648054063648769
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234799546527551490
Exactly. However, that is what stubborn secularists, such as those criticising Mike Pence and his coronavirus team, refuse to understand. Christians pray for guidance and relief during troubled times.
There was more to the conversation. Someone was disappointed that the Peace had been suspended in his diocese:
https://twitter.com/ccpecknold/status/1234627232754282498
How true.
In closing, after the plague had left Venice, the citizens of that city built a magnificent church in thanksgiving:
Would this happen now were, heaven forfend, the coronavirus to become an epidemic? No. Not at all.
More’s the pity.
In Italy, churches are closing their doors for the next few weeks:
This church in Rome is open but has taken additional precautions:
Meanwhile, let’s continue to pray that we may be guided in the correct practical direction during this pandemic and ask the Lord for it to harm as few people as possible.
I do think these health disasters are ‘come to Jesus moments’. Is anyone out there listening, including some notional Christians? Or are we all going to panic?
Last week — and by chance — I found a few interesting Twitter feeds from Episcopal priests in the United States.
I’m thinking of starting a new series: ‘What’s on Episcopal priests’ minds’.
Without further ado, here goes.
The Revd Robert Hendrickson is rector of Saint Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona. He is an Anglo-Catholic.
This tweet lists his views on Sunday services:
I’m not sure what he is saying about Purgatory, which, as far as I know, is not a belief of the Episcopal Church.
For everything else, in layman’s terms, he is saying that:
a) the priest should kiss — osculate — the altar. A proper altar should have a consecrated square of stone in it that the celebrant kisses before celebrating the Communion service, as if he were kissing Christ. It is a sign of reverence.
b) the celebrant should wear a maniple, which is an embroidered band of silk worn over the left hand, reminding a priest that he is God’s servant. From Wikipedia, which has illustrations (emphases mine below):
Originally, the maniple was likely a piece of linen which clerics used to wipe their faces and hands and has been described by some modern commentators as being akin to a handkerchief. It appears to have been used in the Roman liturgy since at least the 6th century. The maniple can vary widely in size, shape, and degree of embroidery and ornamentation.
Common symbolic comments refer to the maniple’s likeness to the rope by which Christ was led and the chains which bound his hands. It has also become known as an emblem of the tears of penance, the burden of sin, and the fatigue of the priestly office. This understanding is reflected in the vesting prayer said while putting on the maniple before Mass. Anglican commentators have described the maniple as a symbol of being a servant to the servants of God.
Alphonsus Liguori claimed: “It is well known that the maniple for the purpose of wiping away the tears that flowed from the eyes of the priest; for in former times priests wept continually during the celebration of Mass.”[11]
c) he does not like concelebrated Communion services. Concelebrated services parcel out various parts of the Communion liturgy among two or more priests. (I agree: too distracting.)
d) the Revised Common Lectionary is not very good. (I tend to agree.)
e) the Revised Standard Version of the Bible is preferable to the New Revised Standard Version.
f) facing east — the traditional direction — at the altar is preferable but not better.
g) he would like to see more feast days celebrating Mary, the mother of Jesus.
h) benediction — a blessing — should be offered to all who do not receive Communion.
i) Morning Prayer — what used to be the main Sunday service, with one or two Communion services per month — is preferable over Communion every week. (I definitely agree.)
This is why he dislikes concelebrated services:
Some priests believe that getting in the habit of going up to the altar to receive a blessing instead of Communion accustoms people who are not yet baptised to the altar rail. This is a relatively recent development in the Anglican Communion and, quite possibly, priests might have a point:
Morning Prayer is a big hobby horse of mine, too. Would that it returned:
Robert Hendrickson explains his religious journey, including his love of Morning Prayer, in a fascinating post of his, ‘Morning Prayers with Hymns and Anthems: A Catholic Case for the Office on Sunday at 11:00’.
Like me, he was raised a Catholic. For both of us, Morning Prayer was a big draw to the Episcopal Church. Both of us also read the Book of Common Prayer (different to the English one) and got to know clergy and congregation at the churches we respectively chose.
His experience fully mirrors my own.
Excerpts follow from his defence of Morning Prayer.
His story begins in New Haven, Connecticut. His wife had been raised a Methodist. Both were looking for one church they felt mutually comfortable in.
Enter Morning Prayer, especially Rite I:
Our third Sunday, we visited Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green. The welcome there was warm without being cloying. The music was beautiful. The choir that day was the Choir of Men and Boys. The liturgy was dignified without being self-conscious. It was Rite I Morning Prayer with Hymns and Anthems done with grace, dignity, reverence, and joy. In short, it was classically Anglican and my wife and I both fell in love with the parish.
Coming to New Haven, I had grown up Roman Catholic and my wife had grown up United Methodist. We were looking for a church that we could attend together. The beauty of Trinity on the Greenâs Morning Prayer service was that I could participate fully and prayerfully without wrestling with what it meant to come to a âprotestantâ Communion service. By the time a service of Holy Communion came around at Trinity, I had talked with the priest there, gotten to know parishioners, read large parts of the Book of Common Prayer, and made up my mind that this was the church for me. More importantly, it was the church for us.
Morning Prayer served an evangelical function in the best sense of that word. We were brought into the life of the parish and, over time, made the decision to receive Communion there. It was a service in which the presence of God was made manifest through art and warmth and we were drawn into the Presence of God, in the Sacrament, over time and after much thought. We committed to the parish and felt deeply and warmly cared for.
Hendrickson became a priest, thanks to that profound experience via Morning Prayer:
I daresay that I owe my vocation in the Episcopal Church to Morning Prayer (as well as kind priests who encouraged me).
For those parishes looking for a way to be welcoming while maintaining the historic Reformed and Catholic understandings of the Sacraments, I would urge a re-examination of our Churchâs history of Morning Prayer as a central act of worship.
Detractors will say — and they do — that one should not deny the congregation Holy Communion. At the church I attended in the US, the early morning and evening services were Communion services every Sunday. The main one, however, was Morning Prayer on most Sundays. We had one Communion service per month at 11:00.
Hendrickson appreciates what the detractors are saying, however:
If the choice, however, is between Communion without Baptism (an abandonment of the Reformed and Catholic traditions) or regular Morning Prayer with less frequent Communion, then Morning Prayer makes great sense …
Now so many have much of the ceremony but little of the theology …
Morning Prayer can be an absolutely beautiful and dignified service full of joy.
It is ideal for newcomers — Christians who are church shopping and especially those who are enquiring about Christianity:
It is a service ideally suited for education, formation, and evangelism. It can prepare believers for Baptism and Communion. For those who are seeking a way to welcome, educate, and form believers for the life of the Sacraments, Morning Prayer is a meaningful and authentic liturgical response.
As more and more people come to our churches with little or no experience of the Church, minimal knowledge of the story of Christ, and virtually no understanding of the Sacraments, regular Morning Prayer may make far more sense than regular Mass. In many ways, it would be a return to a time when we had a Mass of the Catechumens (those being instructed in the faith) and the Mass of the Faithful (those that have received Baptism).
This does not impart judgment or a lesser status! This means we have a group of people being raised up in the faith and that we trust them to hear, learn, and to make the choice as to whether they want to make that step through Baptism to the Altar. If I were to enter a temple, mosque, or any other holy place, I would not expect to be welcomed to their holiest rites as a visitor. In fact, I would assume they were not all that important to them if I were!
Our modern Christian experience is looking evermore like that of the early Church and our practices need to be informed by them. We will have more adult baptizands, more people knowing little of the story of Christ, and less cultural influence. We will have to take the time to bring these folks into the fullness of the faith we have received. It is not our role to dismantle the Sacraments we have been entrusted with but to find new ways to draw those who have never heard to the Remembrance. Morning Prayer may be the perfect Anglican answer for this day and age.
Fully agree!
I see that Saint Philip’s in the Hills still has 100% Communion services, but, here’s hoping the congregation and clergy eventually make the move towards Morning Prayer.
On Sunday, October 27, 2019, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden was denied Holy Communion at Mass in South Carolina because he has publicly supported abortion.
Fox News reported that Biden, a self-described ‘practising Catholic’, had no comment on being refused the Sacrament:
“I’m not going to discuss that,” Biden told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an on-air phone interview on Tuesday.
Biden and his wife attended Mass at the St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence during a campaign stop, but he was denied Holy Communion — seen by Catholics as receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ — after the pastor took issue with Biden’s support of a woman’s right to an abortion.
The pastor of St Anthony’s was quite open about the refusal:
“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden,” Rev. Robert Morey said in a statement on Monday. “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching. As a priest, it is my responsibility to minister to those souls entrusted to my care, and I must do so even in the most difficult situations. I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers.”
Good for him. It was unlikely to have been an easy decision to make, considering the former vice president’s status as a political celebrity.
A Catholic pastor, Fr Ryan of St Mary’s in Huntingburg, Indiana, explains the finer points of refusing Holy Communion:
https://twitter.com/FrHilderbrand/status/1189232617310380033
https://twitter.com/FrHilderbrand/status/1189233415515713542
However, Biden is on public record for his support of abortion ‘rights’. Note in particular the first tweet below. The Scripture citation is 1 Corinthians 11:29:
https://twitter.com/FrHilderbrand/status/1189234683030261764
https://twitter.com/FrHilderbrand/status/1189237121141428226
Every Catholic knows what the rules are for Holy Communion.
Joe Biden should have learned from John Kerry in 2004.
That said, perhaps supporting abortion means more to the two of them than receiving Communion.
Now there’s something to think about.
Saturday, July 20, 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of Americans landing on the moon!
Marking this anniversary should have been the buzz (pun intended) of the Western world, right?
Instead, people tweeted a variety of negative remarks:
‘Who cares?’
‘This country stinks.’
‘That’s all in the past.’
‘Did it really happen?’
Even one of the commentators on ITV4 who mentioned it during the Tour de France coverage said:
Allegedly.
That’s a sad state of affairs for such a great achievement, one which I remember clearly as a schoolchild at the time. So does a Fox News correspondent:
Commemoration at the White House
I was delighted to see that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump paid the great heroes their due. As Neil Armstrong has gone to his rest, his family were invited. Good call.
Mrs Trump knocks it out of the park with this one:
I will get to Hollywood and the moon landing further down in the post, but, for now, let us recall one of Astronaut Armstrong’s quotes. Who alive then could forget the ticker tape parade, televised nationwide?
https://twitter.com/nellie501/status/1035570051368341504
Returning to the White House commemoration, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin was thrilled:
Hollywood’s take: First Man
I have not seen this film, nor do I intend to do so.
First Man made its debut in August 2018.
As China is buying up much of Hollywood, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) asks a pertinent question, given the revisionist nature of the film:
Cotton was not alone.
Conservative columnist Don Surber also made his views known:
Hollywood made a movie about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin going to the moon. It picked a Canadian actor to play Armstrong …
Then the movie omitted the planting of the AMERICAN FLAG on the moon.
That was the sole purpose of the mission.
This flick shows Hollywood is anti-American.
The House UnAmerican Activities Committee was correct. Communist[s] were taking over Hollywood for propaganda purposes …
This week, John McCain died. I remember that one of the things that kept him alive in Hanoi was the knowledge that we landed on the moon. OK, he thought it was seven months earlier than it was, but Hanoi fed him Fake News but let the truth slip that Apollo 8 made it to the dark side of the moon.
JFK inspired us: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
He Made America Great Again.
I was 9.
Reagan Made America Great Again.
Trump Made America Great Again.
Hollywood can go to China.
Speaking of Trump, Hollywood and First Man:
As Dinesh D’Souza pointed out, the movie seems to have airbrushed out the Cold War:
Breitbart had more on Gosling on September 1:
Explaining the decision to omit the American flag-planting scene, Canadian actor Ryan Gosling, who stars as astronaut Neil Armstrong, said that the landing âtranscended countries and bordersâ and that it was a âhuman achievementâ rather than an American one.
âI think this was widely regarded in the end as a human achievement [and] thatâs how we chose to view it,â Gosling said. âI also think Neil was extremely humble, as were many of these astronauts, and time and time again he deferred the focus from himself to the 400,000 people who made the mission possible.â
On September 3, 2018, Breitbart reported:
Last week, [director Damien] Chazelle dismissed criticism that the omission of the American flag was meant to be a political statement. âTo address the question of whether this was a political statement, the answer is no,â the First Man director said in an interview with Variety. âMy goal with this movie was to share with audiences the unseen, unknown aspects of Americaâs mission to the moonâparticularly Neil Armstrongâs personal saga and what he may have been thinking and feeling during those famous few hours.â
Buzz Aldrin, the most visible member of the crew today, wasted no time in tweeting the historic photo of the American flag:
He had saluted the flag on the moon (look for his ring finger and pinkie):
The portrayal of Neil Armstrong rankled many Americans. Returning to Breitbart‘s September 1 article, fellow astronauts Aldrin and Chuck Yeager were not happy:
Aldrin indicating disapproval of the filmâs anti-American sentiment would provide further embarrassment for its director Damien Chazelle, who has reportedly portrayed frontman Neil Armstrong as a âliberal progressive,â âanti-Trump,â and ânon-flag waver.â When asked his opinion about such a portrayal, legendary pilot Chuck Yeager said that it would not reflect the Neil Armstrong he knew.
Yeager tweeted:
What really happened
On the 50th anniversary of the day Apollo 11 launched, Aldrin tweeted:
Even though the text is in French, those who were not alive for the ground-breaking, historic moon landing will enjoy seeing the many photos at L’Internaute, which bring back many fond memories for me.
This 20-minute film by David Woods shows the complete descent that day. Compelling viewing:
A NASA webpage features the video and gives us the following information. Yes, there was drama, too:
Explanation: It had never been done before. But with the words “You’re Go for landing”, 50 years ago this Saturday, Apollo 11 astronauts Aldrin and Armstrong were cleared to make the first try. The next few minutes would contain more than a bit of drama, as an unexpected boulder field and an unacceptably sloping crater loomed below. With fuel dwindling, Armstrong coolly rocketed the lander above the lunar surface as he looked for a clear and flat place to land. With only seconds of fuel remaining, and with the help of Aldrin and mission control calling out data, Armstrong finally found a safe spot — and put the Eagle down. Many people on Earth listening to the live audio felt great relief on hearing “The Eagle has landed”, and great pride knowing that for the first time ever, human beings were on the Moon. Combined in the featured descent video are two audio feeds, a video feed similar to what the astronauts saw, captions of the dialog, and data including the tilt of the Eagle lander. The video concludes with the panorama of the lunar landscape visible outside the Eagle. A few hours later, hundreds of millions of people across planet Earth, drawn together as a single species, watched fellow humans walk on the Moon.
Relive — or find out more about — the moon landing on a special NASA page.
Here are a few front pages. The whole country was buzzing:
If this were fake, would Buzz Aldrin and others be tweeting about it?
Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin
It seems Buzz Aldrin wishes he were younger so that he could fly to Mars:
Here he is making a visit to the pilots on a Delta aircraft:
On a more serious note, Aldrin — a practising Presbyterian — took Communion on the Apollo 11 mission, but the general public did not know.
A 2012 Guardian article has more (emphases mine):
Before Armstrong and Aldrin stepped out of the lunar module on July 20, 1969, Aldrin unstowed a small plastic container of wine and some bread. He had brought them to the moon from Webster Presbyterian church near Houston, where he was an elder. Aldrin had received permission from the Presbyterian church’s general assembly to administer it to himself. In his book Magnificent Desolation he shares the message he then radioed to Nasa: “I would like to request a few moments of silence ⊠and to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.”
He then ate and drank the elements. The surreal ceremony is described in an article by Aldrin in a 1970 copy of Guideposts magazine: “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.”
Not only that, Aldrin also read from the Gospel of John.
The public never found out until years later. This was because of Madalyn Murray O’Hair‘s objection to the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis:
Aldrin had originally planned to share the event with the world over the radio. However, at the time Nasa was still reeling from a lawsuit filed by the firebrand atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, resulting in the ceremony never being broadcast. The founder of American Atheists and self-titled “most hated woman in America” had taken on Nasa, as well as many other public organisation[s]. Most famously, she successfully fought mandatory school prayer and bible recitation in US public schools.
After the Apollo 8 crew had read out the Genesis creation account in orbit, O’Hair wanted a ban on Nasa astronauts practising religion on earth, in space or “around and about the moon” while on duty. She believed it violated the constitutional separation between church and state. In Magnificent Desolation, Aldrin explains how astronaut Deke Slayton, who ran the Apollo 11 flight crew operations, told him to tone down his lunar communiquĂ©. “Go ahead and have communion, but keep your comments more general,” he advised. Looking back Aldrin writes that the communion was his way of thanking God for the success of the mission. Yet, later he hinted that he could have been more inclusive:
“Perhaps, if I had it to do over again, I would not choose to celebrate communion.
Although it was a deeply meaningful experience for me, it was a Christian sacrament, and we had come to the moon in the name of all mankind â be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, agnostics, or atheists.”
O’Hair’s case against Nasa eventually fizzled out, but it dramatically changed the tone of the Apollo 11 landing. Aldrin had originally intended a much more pioneering Christopher Columbus-style ceremony on the moon. That was never to be.
Apollo 8’s Genesis message was delivered on Christmas Day 1968, incidentally.
Back now to Apollo 11. Aldrin’s home church still commemorates his out of this world Holy Communion, which was a beautiful way to give thanks to God for His Son and the successful moon landing mission:
… at Webster Presbyterian church â the spiritual home of many astronauts â Aldrin’s communion service is still celebrated every July, known as Lunar Communion Sunday. Pastor Helen DeLeon told me how they replay the tape of Aldrin on the moon and recite Psalm eight, which he had quoted on his return trip to Earth (“⊠what is man that thou art mindful of him”). The church still holds the chalice that Aldrin brought back with him. Judy Allton, a geologist and historian of Webster Presbyterian church, produced a paper, presented at a Nasa conference, arguing that communion could be an essential part of future manned space travel. She claims that rituals such as Aldrin’s communion “reinforce the homelink”.
In 2002, Aldrin did not appreciate being poked with the Bible by an irreverent moon landing denier. Aldrin punched the man. Perth Now recapped what happened:
On September 9, 2002, Aldrin was accosted by conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel and a film crew outside a Beverly Hills hotel he was lured to on the pretext of being interviewed for a Japanese childrenâs TV show.
The footage shows Sibrel confronting Aldrin and demanding he swear on the Bible he walked on the Moon, calling the former astronaut out for being a âthief, liar and cowardâ.
âYouâre the one who said you walked on the Moon when you didnât,â Sibrel says.
Aldrin is also reported to have been aggressively poked with the good book.
The 72-year-old lost his cool and punched the heckler in the jaw.
Pleading self-defence Aldrin was let off by police on the basis of an absence of visible injury and a lack of criminal record.
Believers sided with Aldrin after the regrettable affair, though it could be said his heated response to the heckling provided grist for conspiracy theoristsâ mill.
On a lighter note, in 2017, Revolution magazine, which discusses machines of all types, interviewed Aldrin about the watches he and his fellow astronauts wore on the mission. It also covered watches worn by astronauts on other Apollo missions. The brand of choice? Omega:
The Tribute to Apollo 11 45th anniversary limited edition is another phenomenal demonstration of Omegaâs ability to thoroughly modernize its design language while retaining a salient link to the past. The watch is configured to evoke the ref. 105.012 Speedmaster worn by Revolution UK14 cover star Buzz Aldrin when he stepped onto the Moon in 1969. While Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon, his Speedmaster was left behind in the Lunar Module whose electronic timer had failed. Meanwhile, according to Aldrin, âIt was optional to wear the watch [outside of the spacecraft]. Few things are less necessary when walking around on the Moon than knowing what time it is in Houston, Texas. Nonetheless, being a watch guy, I decided to strap the Speedmaster onto my right wrist around the outside of my bulky spacesuit.â
Thatâs right, he made a conscious decision to strap his Omega onto his wrist because what kind of Space Cowboy would be complete without his most heroic of timepieces? This made his Speedmaster the first watch on the Moon.
Wow. I never gave the astronauts’ watches a thought, especially with regard to the moon landing.
Conclusion
May we never say the moon landing didn’t take place or that it was an unremarkable achievement.
America’s moon landing was indescribable. People all over the world who were alive at the time remember the excitement and awe they felt that day.
The John MacArthur sermon I cited for my post on Acts 20:7-12 has some interesting information about rituals in the early years of the Church.
Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
Worshipping on the Lord’s Day
MacArthur explains that the Lord’s Day — Sunday — became the day of Christian public worship to commemorate Christ’s Resurrection:
First of all, when did they come together? The first day of the week. Now that became the meeting time for the Church. You say, “Didn’t they meet every day?” Sure they did. They met, from Acts 2, “Daily, from house to house.” And listen. Christianity is not a one day a week thing, is it? It’s an everyday thing. And that little church, wherever it was, in whatever little town, those Christians were together usually during the week. There were Bible studies in home. They were breaking bread in homes. They were sharing the Lord’s table, perhaps, in home. So it was not uncommon for the Church to meet on a daily basis in its early years.
But together, the church came on the first day of the week. And you say, “Why did they do that?” Well, you go back to John 20, just to refresh your memory. Verse 19. This was immediately after the Resurrection, “The same day, at evening, being the first day of the week.” Do you know when the first day of the week started in the Jewish calendar? Saturday night, right? After the sun went down, the Sabbath ended. The days were counted from sunset to sunset. And so it was on Saturday night, literally, but it was the first day of the week. So then it was Sunday.
We don’t prefer to call it Sunday. It’s all right if you want to call it Sunday, but that represents the sun god. But that’s okay, because there is no sun god anyway, so you can call it Sunday without feeling bad. But I prefer to call it the Lord’s Day. That’s Revelation 1:10. John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” That’s why in your bulletin you’ll find that we call it the Lord’s Day.
Now they met together here in John 20:19 on the first day of the week, and who appeared to them? Jesus did. Eight days later, verse 26 says, “The next time the first day of the week came, they were meeting together, and the Lord appeared.” Well, you see what happened? They were together on the first day. That was Resurrection, commemoration day. The Lord appeared both times, so He had risen on the first day, appeared on the first day, appeared again on the first day, and they just took the first day and ran with it. That became Resurrection Day, the Lord’s Day.
And so the early Church celebrated its fellowship and its worship and its teaching together on Sunday. And let me hasten to add that I think such meeting together of the Church is strictly important. In Hebrews 10:25 it says, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, and much the more as you see the day approaching.” That means you ought to come together with the believers and not forsake that.
Now notice that it is not the Sabbath Day anymore. Sunday is not the Sabbath. You hear people talk about going to church on the Sabbath. This is not the Sabbath. The Sabbath was yesterday. And the Sabbath is a dead issue, friends.
You know, I was on the radio in Honolulu. They have a talk station, like KABC. It’s the number two rated station in Hawaii. And they give three hours Sunday afternoon to a Christian kind of dialogue. And so I was the three-hour answer man on Honolulu radio station, KORL. And it was really interesting just to sit there, you know, and be on the grill with all these people. You know how talk radio goes. You do have that little button, however, you know, that you can just say, “I’m sorry, ma’am.” Boing, you know, and it’s all over.
But anyway, people called in, and one fellow asked me a question at the very beginning. He said, “What day is the church supposed to meet?” And you know, I didn’t realize I was being baited, but I was, apparently, because I went into this long, lengthy answer about the meaning of the Lord’s Day and the whole thing and everything. Got all done, and the lines went bananas. And I realized there’s a tremendous contingent of Seventh Day Adventists in Honolulu. And all of a sudden, I had opened up Pandora’s box, and they couldn’t handle the calls, and everything was going, and it was amazing, all the calls that were going on.
Through all of this, I simply maintained, in answering these various questions, that the only way you can allow for the – to worship on Saturday is, one, to ignore the history of the Church; two, to assume that the old covenant is still in vogue; three, to reject the teaching of the Apostle Paul. Well, they didn’t take too kindly to all of those junctions, but I supported them by Scripture. In Colossians 2:16, it says, “Let no man therefore condemn you in food -” That is, if you don’t eat like Jewish people used to eat. “In drink, or in respect of a Feast Day,” if you don’t keep the Passover or the Sabbath, “or of the new moon, or of a Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come.” And once the thing comes, you don’t need the shadow anymore. So don’t let anybody [try to influence] you in those things.
So we went on and on about that. It’s clear to me that the Lord’s Day historically and biblically became the time when the Church met together. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul just assumes it. He says, “When you come together on the first day of the week, that’s the time to bring your offerings.” Right? The Church should meet on the first day. If you want to meet on the Sabbath and you want to buy the Sabbath, then you’re going to have to buy the whole old covenant and you’re going to be saved by works, and that’s what we got into on the radio.
And I finally just turned the tables and I asked the question, I said, “Well, let me ask you about your doctrine. You’ve asked me about mine.” So I said to some guy who was giving me this long argument, I said, “Why is it that you say that the only covenant people are the ones who worship on the Sabbath, and that the mark of the beast is on everybody who worships on Sunday? That’s in your theology.” And there was a long silence. And then he admitted that that was true, that the mark of the beast is on those who worship on Sunday. And ultimately, what they were saying was you’re saved by works, keeping the whole covenant. Obeying the law. And we got into all kinds of legalism, and it became a tremendous thing because I’m so fresh in Galatians that, you know –
You know, the Lord has a way of just arranging things. Somebody must have thought, “Man, he’s got all that stuff down, you know?” That’s why it’s good to study the Word of God. You know, I’ve found that in my life. You study a certain passage, and the Lord will give you opportunity to use it.
The Church met then on the Lord’s Day, and at the beginning, they met on a daily basis, and pretty soon it became a kind of thing where they would continue to meet in small groups, in homes. But on the time that the Lord’s Day came around, the first day of the week, they would congregate together [e]n mass[e]. I don’t believe for a minute that the Church is just to be little groups scattered all over town. I think the Church is to come together.
Worshipping as a congregation
The earliest Christians eventually had to leave the synagogue environment and worship in people’s houses. Then, congregations grew to the point where churches were built. It is important that believers come together to worship publicly:
I don’t believe for a minute that the Church is just to be little groups scattered all over town. I think the Church is to come together.
Now where did the Early Church meet? Well, look here. It says in verse 8 they met in an upper chamber. They met everywhere. First, they met in the temple, didn’t they? And you imagine how popular that was. Boy, that must have been interesting. And then after that, they started meeting in synagogues. You know, Paul would go to a town. A bunch of people would get saved in the synagogue, and they’d keep coming to the synagogue and having their meetings there.
But eventually, it just didn’t work in the temple and it just didn’t work in the synagogue, and so they began to pull out and establish their own Christian assemblies. And the natural place to go, first of all, was to homes. Right? So the Church began in homes. And they must have been some very substantial homes. Some very large homes, to accommodate the many Christians that existed in those early years.
By the – oh, I’d say between the middle and the end of the second century, they began to build their own buildings to accommodate all of the Christians. But here, they were still meeting in an upper room, in a home. And when Paul wrote Colossians 4:15, he referred to the Church in the home. When he wrote Romans 16:5 and 1 Corinthians 16:19, he referred to the Church in the home, Aquila and Priscilla and Philemon too, refers to the Church that met in the home. And so there was a very common occurrence in the Early Church, and that was to meet in homes. And then later on, buildings were built.
Just all of that to say this. It’s important for the Church to come together someplace. We cannot exist in isolation, can we? We need the fellowship, the unity of the body. And so this little pattern here that we see gives us an example of how the Early Church met. On the first day of the week, verse 7, “When the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart the next day, and continued to speak until midnight, and there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together.”
The love feast
MacArthur explains, scripturally, how the love feast came into being and how it disappeared. Centuries later, with the Reformation, Pietist communities in various countries revived it, and certain Christian sects still hold a love feast of some sort today, even if it involves only a non-alcoholic beverage and a piece of cake.
MacArthur doesn’t go into the revival of the love feast, however, he tells us that Paul told the Corinthians not to hold any more, because they were being selfish about the dishes they brought to the love feast:
You say, “What was the love feast?” Well, the love feast was like a potluck meal, and it was for the purpose of sharing. You had – one of the very basic things of the Christian Church is fellowship, isn’t it? And love. And so the poor people would come, and they couldn’t bring anything, and the people who could would bring enough for the poor people, and they would all share as an expression of love. It was a beautiful sharing. The common meal. And it was followed immediately by the breaking of bread and the celebration of the Lord’s Day. This was the breaking of bread for the Early Church. The agape love feast and communion.
You know, it’s a sad thing to think about, but the agape love feast kind of faded from the scene. You know why? Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Do you know what he said to them in chapter 11? He said, “You really messed up the love feast.” 1 Corinthians 11. Let me just read you a couple of verses. And this is what happened to the love feast. It just deteriorated. He says in verse 20, 1 Corinthians 11, “When you come together therefore into one place, this is not the Lord’s Supper which you eat.” In other words, “You think you’re coming together for the Lord’s Supper, but you’re not. You polluted it. It isn’t His supper.” “For in eating, everyone takes before the other his own supper.”
Can you imagine going to a potluck and have everybody sit in their own corner and eat their own potluck? It’s what was happening. And some of the hungry people who had nothing were coming, and they were going away hungry. And so he says, “One is hungry and another is drunk.” In other words, the people who come and have nothing get nothing. The people who come and have a lot overindulge.
He says, and I think this is important. He says, “Don’t you have houses to eat and drink in?” If that’s all you’re going to do, go home. “Or despise you the Church of God and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. You have literally despised the unity of the Church.” And so that’s what happened, and the whole beautiful commonness of the love feast just faded historically.
Communion
MacArthur takes issue with the way Holy Communion has evolved over the centuries:
… communion also got hit in history. The Catholic Church moved in, and when the Catholic Church dominated the world, before the Reformation, communion stopped being a natural, informal, warm sharing together in the memory of Christ, and it became a mystical priestly ceremony that’s now continuing to go on, known as the mass. And somehow, Protestantism sprang out of that, and we got a little closer to the truth, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. We still think of communion as something that’s performed by a whole lot of ministers, and it has to be done with little silver trays and little – and walking up and down aisles, and organs playing. And I think that’s wrong, too. I think that’s one way to do it, but I think communion is something we all ought to do much more frequently than we do.
Often people will say, “You know, John, I’d like to participate in communion, but I can’t come on Wednesday nights.” That’s no excuse. That’s no excuse.
Communion at home
I’m still digesting MacArthur’s suggestion for home Communion, which follows on from people saying they’re unable to attend his church’s Communion service, but then I come from a theological background wherein a Real Presence is part of consecrated bread and wine.
For MacArthur, Communion seems to be a symbol of the Last Supper, therefore, he says to hold one’s own Communion ceremonies at home:
You can have communion any time you want. The best place I think to teach your children communion is in your home. Teach them the meaning of breaking of bread. You know, some people just go crazy when you talk like this, because they say, “Only ordained ministers can do that.” You can’t find that in the Bible. You can share around the Lord’s Table any time you want, and you should. Jesus said, “Do this until I come, and do it with you in the kingdom.” It’s your responsibility.
There are plenty of occasions. You know, can you imagine when you get together – have you ever gotten together with other Christians and gone home after evening and said, “What a wasted evening. We could have talked about the Lord, and all we did was fool around and talk about Aunt Mary and Mrs. So and So, and how we don’t like this guy and this girl.” Have you ever done that? Sure. And you had a whole _____ thing. How about if you came together three or four couples, and just started out by breaking bread. I think that might change the pattern of your evening. It might even change where you go after you got done, or what you talk about, for sure.
And so I think we need to remember that this is part of the Early Church. It was a common and easy and a natural and a flowing thing, right out of the life that they had and their love for the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s just what they did when they came together. And that’s the way it should be with us. But unfortunately, I think we’ve been victimized by those who have told us that all of these things are to be performed in some kind of a formal, ritualistic manner as well.
Then he says that, along with this, comes edifying, instructive conversation. That I can get on board with:
But the disciples came together to break bread, and here’s the second thing that I want you to notice about the time they met together. Paul preached unto them. They came together for teaching. Whenever the Early Church came together, this was primarily the purpose. Sometimes it was to break bread, and there is no command here as to how frequently. It’s just to be done often. And this time when they came together, they did that. But Paul preached unto them. This became the priority when they met, was preaching and teaching. And the word preaching here is not to preach the Gospel. You don’t need to preach the Gospel at a service of breaking of bread, because everybody’s already a Christian.
Paul taught them, and the word preaching here has to do with dialogue. He answered questions, and there was feedback, and he shared with them. Teaching. That was the priority. The Apostles had earlier said, “We will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word,” Acts 6:4. And Acts 6:7 says, “And the Word multiplied and the Church multiplied.” It says the same thing in Acts 12:24 and Acts 19:20. “The Word of God grew and prevailed.” This is the priority.
Interesting, to say the least.
Agree or disagree, it’s food for thought, especially for those who consider themselves Christians but who no longer attend church because they find many of today’s churches lacking in solemnity and teaching.
That said, an effort should be made to find a good congregation or a good service that you feel comfortable with. Attend now and again to make it a regular habit.
The evening of Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum — ‘three days’ in Latin — the most important days in the Church calendar, which conclude Easter evening.
Find out how Passover was celebrated in Jesus’s time and how important the Last Supper is to Christianity:
John MacArthur on Passover as celebrated at the Last Supper
Passover, the Last Supper and the New Covenant
It is important to know that some Jews held this supper on Thursday and others on Friday, according to John MacArthur (emphases mine):
There actually were two different evenings when the Passover was celebrated. Iâll just leave it at this. The northern people in Galilee celebrated it on Thursday evening while the Judeans, the Sadducees and the people in the south celebrated it on Friday evening. This is perfect, so that Jesus could celebrate the Passover with His friends in Galilee when they celebrated it on Thursday and still die as the Passover lamb on Friday at the time when the southern Judeans were slaughtering their lambs for their Passover. So there are actually two times; on Thursday for those in the north, and on Friday for those in the south. And thatâs an important reckoning because there are texts in Johnâs gospel, in particular, that make it necessary to understand that.
This is because of the difference in the way the two groups of Jews calculated their days:
Study Josephus. Study the Mishnah, the codification of Jewish law and other historical sources. You find that the Jews in the north and the Jewish people in the south, the Galileans say as opposed to the Judeans, had different ways of calculating their days. These chronological aspects have been a wonderful study in anybodyâsâŠanybody who makes an effort to studying this in the New Testament is greatly enriched by it. But in the north, they calculated days from sunrise to sunriseâŠsunrise to sunrise. That was a day. Whereas in the south, they calculated the day from sunset to sunset. So thatâs a very clear distinction. In Galilee, where Jesus and all the disciples except Judas, had grown up, they calculated days from sunrise to sunrise. So the fourteenth of Nissan was sunrise on Thursday to sunrise on Friday. That puts the Passover Thursday night. For the Jews in the south, it was sunset to sunset, so that puts it in late Friday for the southern Jews. Same day calculated two different ways. And that worked well for the Jews.
By the way, the Pharisees tended to go with the northern approach. The Sadducees who were all around Jerusalem tended to go, of course, with the southern approach. What that did was solve a couple of problems. It split the number of animals to be killed into two different periods, Thursday night and Friday night. It also reduced what were called regional clashes cause the southern people didnât think too highly of the northern people. So it just was easier to have them separated.
The posts below are resources for John’s Gospel, which provides the fullest description of the Last Supper and Jesus’s final discourses to the Apostles:
âOne of you will betray Meâ (John 13)
Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper: Jesusâs words of comfort (John 14)
John 17 â the High Priestly Prayer: parts 1, 2 and 3
These posts discuss the words of consecration, which Jesus used at the Last Supper and continue to be part of Christian liturgy today:
Forbidden Bible Verses â Matthew 26:26-29
Forbidden Bible Verses â Mark 14:22-25
Peter’s three denials of Jesus took place after His arrest. Jesus foretold this when He and the Apostles were at the Mount of Olives that night:
Forbidden Bible Verses â Mark 14:26-31
So much happened that day. The Apostles had no idea what would happen on Friday. But Jesus knew full well, which is why He spent hours in prayer while the Twelve slept nearby.
Those looking for resources on Maundy — Holy — Thursday and an explanation of Passover and the Last Supper might find the following posts useful:
âOne of you will betray Meâ
Passover, the Last Supper and the New Covenant
Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper: Jesusâs words of comfort (John 14, mentions Holy Trinity)
John MacArthur on Passover as celebrated at the Last Supper
John 17 â the High Priestly Prayer: parts 1, 2 and 3
(Image credit: Paradoxplace.com)
The Epistle for Maundy Thursday in Year C of the three-year Lectionary is 1 Corinthians 11:23-26:
11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,
11:24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
11:25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
John MacArthur tells us that 1 Corinthians existed before the gospels were written. That makes it:
the first statement of God, in print, regarding the Lordâs Table. For a full understanding of all of it, you need to read the account in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but here is the earliest account of the institution of the Lordâs Supper, and Paul says it was directly from the words of Jesus. He Himself instituted it.
In the preceding verses, Paul took his converts to task for abusing Christ’s body and blood. MacArthur explains that:
they were coming to the Lordâs Supper drunk, gluttonous, that the rich were stuffing themselves in a gluttonous drunken manner and withholding from the poor so that they had nothing to eat in the love feast which proceeded the Lordâs Supper in that era. That they came to the Lordâs Supper hating one another, with factions and divisions and bitternesses and unconfessed sin. And the result of all of it is in verse 20. Paul says, âWhen you come together therefore into one place,â and hereâs the literal Greek, âit is impossible that you should eat the Lordâs Supper.â You may be having something you think is the Lordâs Supper, but thatâs an impossibility because of your attitude. Some of you are drunk. Some of you are deprived. Some of you are gluttonous. Some of you are hating one another. There is bitterness, there is faction, there is division. There are class divisions. There are divisions over theological viewpoints. There are divisions over every conceivable opinion within the church. There is no real communion of the believers. There is no real communion with Christ because of all the sinfulness. You have debauched, desecrated the Lordâs Supper, and what youâre doing is not the Lordâs Supper. Whatever you call it, it is not.
On that subject, 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 sound a warning against receiving Holy Communion unworthily, because doing so can be fatal:
27Â Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28Â Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29Â For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30Â That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.[g] 31Â But if we judged[h] ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32Â But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined[i] so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
The verses in between — this year’s Maundy Thursday epistle — are Paul’s explanation of the importance of remembering and proclaiming the Last Supper until Christ Jesus comes again in glory.
He begins by making it clear that the bread and the cup are God-given, not manmade traditions (verse 23). MacArthur says:
In other words, here is a divine reality.Â
Matthew Henry’s commentary reminds us that Paul was not among the apostles at the Last Supper, however:
He had the knowledge of this matter by revelation from Christ: and what he had received he communicated, without varying from the truth a tittle, without adding or diminishing.
Paul quoted Jesus’s words regarding His body and blood (verses 24,25). We hear our clergy recite them in the prayers of consecration used in Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches. Paul was putting Holy Communion into an historical context for the Corinthians — and us.
Paul wanted his converts and us to know that whenever we come together to partake of this most blessed Sacrament, we proclaim our Lord’s death until He comes again (verse 26).
As with John 13, from which we have the gospel readings for Spy Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, we find the same juxtaposition of historic events and divine love in the epistle of 1 Corinthians 11.
The Last Supper was Jesus’s and the apostles’ commemoration of Passover. Passover recalls God’s mercy and love in delivering His people from bondage in Egypt when each household sacrificed a lamb. Jesus showed His mercy and love by dying on the cross as the once-sufficient sacrifice for our sins, which is why we call Him the Lamb of God. The night before, even though He knew Judas would betray Him, He washed His apostles’ feet and asked them to follow His example in future. He then broke bread and drank wine with them, recalling Passover and transforming those elements into His body and blood.
MacArthur explains:
If you study the gospels with that in mind, you can pick out just about detail by detail what theyâre doing at each point in the Lordâs Supper, the Passover. Somewhere along the line, at the point of unleaven bread being broken before the meal, Jesus took that bread that symbolized the exodus, broke it and said, âThis bread is My,â what? âBody.â After the meal He took that third cup, and we know it was after the meal because it says, âAfter He had supped,â or after He had had supper, it doesnât mean after He had drunk it first, it means after supper. He took that third cup and said, âThis cup which to you has represented the blood of a lamb at the Passover is no longer representative of that; this cup is My blood which is shed for you.â And by that, Jesus transformed the Passover into the Lordâs Supper. And He said, âNow, when you want to remember, you donât want to remember exodus, you donât want to remember Egypt anymore, you donât want to remember Passover when you think of Savior God, when you think of God as deliverer. You want to remember My death. The Passover was a great thing that got you out of Egypt and ultimately into Canaan. My death is going to get you out of bondage to Satan and ultimately into heaven. The Passover provided for you only a physical release. My death will provide for you an eternal and spiritual release.â And when you want a contact point for God as Savior, for God as deliverer, it isnât going to be the Passover feast, itâs going to be the Lordâs Supper.Â
Henry’s commentary tells us:
The things signified by these outward signs; they are Christ’s body and blood, his body broken, his blood shed, together with all the benefits which flow from his death and sacrifice: it is the New Testament in his blood. His blood is the seal and sanction of all the privileges of the new covenant; and worthy receivers take it as such, at this holy ordinance. They have the New Testament, and their own title to all the blessings of the new covenant, confirmed to them by his blood …
Our Saviour, having undertaken to make an offering of himself to God, and procure, by his death, the remission of sins, with all other gospel benefits, for true believers, did, at the institution, deliver his body and blood, with all the benefits procured by his death, to his disciples, and continues to do the same every time the ordinance is administered to the true believers. This is here exhibited, or set forth, as the food of souls. And as food, though ever so wholesome or rich, will yield no nourishment without being eaten, here the communicants are to take and eat, or to receive Christ and feed upon him, his grace and benefits, and by faith convert them into nourishment to their souls. They are to take him as their Lord and life, yield themselves up to him, and live upon him. He is our life, {cf11ul Col 3:4}.
Paul called upon the Corinthians — and us — to partake of the Sacrament frequently with all reverence. It is a remembrance which, as Henry wrote, confers divine grace and eternal life.
This post on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer concludes a study of Church liturgy and Communion polity from the first century through the Reformation.
Past posts — all of which are available on my Christianity/Apologetics page under Church history and miscellany — are as follows:
Church history: early form of liturgy still followed
Church history: Eastern liturgy in the 4th and 5th centuries
Church history: Western liturgy between the 5th and 9th centuries
Church history: how mediaeval Mass led to the Reformation
Church history: early Lutheran liturgy
Church history: Zwingliâs rite in Zurich
Church history: the German rites in Strasbourg (Martin Bucer)
Church history: Calvinâs French rites
Church history: early Reformed rites in Scotland
Unless otherwise indicated, source material is taken from W.D. Maxwellâs 1937 book A History of Christian Worship: An Outline of Its Development and Form, available to read in full online (H/T: Revd P. Aasman). Page references are given below.
Background to Anglican liturgy and practice
The Church of England is a via media — middle way — between Lutheranism and Calvinism (p. 144).
Doctrinally, it is similar to Calvinism. Liturgically, it is closer to Lutheranism.
However, it is less prescriptive and proscriptive than Calvinism. It also has liturgical distinctions all its own.
During Henry VIII’s reign, although the English Church broke with Rome, Mass remained a constant. However, small changes occurred with regard to church services. In 1536, the Mass in Latin was explained to the people so that they understood what was happening in the liturgy. In 1542, the Convocation of Canterbury decreed that all churches in England should have a morning and evening reading — one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament — in English every Sunday and holy day. This included the main Sunday Mass. The litany was first said in English in 1544 (p. 145).
An English liturgy took shape during Edward VI’s reign. The First Book of Homilies, which contained 12 sermons in English, was issued in 1547.
In March 1548, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer issued an English Order of Communion to be incorporated into the Mass (p. 145). These new parts of the liturgy included an exhortation to prayer, fencing the Table, invitation, public confession of sins with absolution, comfortable words (verses from the New Testament) and a prayer of humble access (expressing unworthiness to approach the Lord’s Table).
Cranmer incorporated these rubrics into the first Book of Common Prayer (BCP) which appeared in 1549 (see illustration above, courtesy of Charles Wohlers’s site). He, along with a group of clergymen, including Nicholas Ridley (p. 146) and Martin Bucer, wrote and compiled the prayers.
Maxwell describes the BCP as follows (p. 146):
It preserved a rich treasure of liturgical material, the whole rendered in an English style singularly felicitous, dignified and chaste. The character of the collects was retained, the English style equalling the Latin, while the style of the Canon far surpassed that of the old rite.
Just as important (emphases mine):
The achievement was unique in that the Book of Common Prayer, in contrast with the other vernacular rites of the sixteenth century, survives in use to this day.
The current Church of England service book is Common Worship, issued about 15 years ago, replacing the 1984 Alternative Service Book. Since the mid-1980s, our clergy have been trying to eliminate BCP services. However, vicars who occasionally use the BCP find their churches fuller than when they use the modern liturgy.
Communion policy
Doctrinally, the Church of England forbids either extreme belief about the nature of Communion. Specifically, church members are not allowed to believe in Catholic transubstantiation nor in Zwinglian symbolism (p. 144). We believe in an undefined Real Presence.
Those receiving Communion were to kneel once they approached the Table. However, some early Protestants were concerned how communicants and those in the pews would consider this posture.
Therefore, John Knox’s Black Rubric appeared in the 1552 BCP. It disappeared from the 1559 edition and was reinstated as an advisory notation in the 1662 edition, still used today. It reads as follows:
WHEREAS it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ’s natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ’s natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.
A Communion liturgy was stipulated as being the norm. In the early days of the Reformation, churches mandated that at least some of their congregation receive the Sacrament on every Sunday and holy day (p. 146). In addition to the celebrant, a minimum of three or four persons was required (p. 149). Acknowledging that this might be more difficult at Wednesday and Friday services, the Church directives specified that clergy could truncate the service accordingly, omitting the parts of the Liturgy of the Upper Room which concerned the elements, consecration and Communion.
The reason for mandating that certain members of the congregation receive Communion at each service originated from the requirement to receive the Sacrament at least once a year (p. 150). This was stated in the 1549 BCP. In the next edition, which appeared in 1552, the directive for minimum reception stated that congregations must receive Communion three times a year, one of these occasions being Easter.
The 1662 BCP allowed Morning Prayer to become a standard Sunday and holy day liturgy. In practice, it became the standard as most parishes began to hold a Communion service only three or four times a year (p. 151).
Until the late 20th century, Morning Prayer continued to be the norm on Sundays which did not involve a major Church feast. Today, however, nearly every Church of England service is one of Holy Communion. It is very unusual to find Morning Prayer on a Sunday.
Liturgical highlights
It is difficult to reproduce everything from the 1549 ‘Supper of the Lorde and the holy Communion, commonly called the Masse’ (pp. 147, 148). So much changed in the liturgy between then and 1662. Certain parts were omitted, reinstated and rearranged during that time. My notes follow in italics.
Liturgy of the Word:
– Introit, consisting of a Psalm appointed for the day (replaced by a hymn);
– Lord’s Prayer, said by the celebrant;
– Collect for Purity, said by the celebrant;
– Repetition of the Introit (replaced by either a full responsorial recitation of the Ten Commandments or a truncated summary thereof);
– Kyrie, ninefold (omitted by 1662);
– Gloria (repositioned between the post-Communion prayer and the final blessing);
– Salutation and collect of the day;
– Collect for the King (or Queen);
– Epistle;
– Gospel;
– Nicene Creed;
– Sermon.
Liturgy of the Upper Room:
– Exhortation to receive Communion worthily and with a clear conscience (nowadays no longer read);
– A selection of Scripture verses;
– Offertory and collection of alms;
– Procession of communicants to the sanctuary, men on one side and women on the other (discontinued — people queue and walk to the altar rail when the celebrant is ready to distribute Communion);
– Celebrant prepares the elements;
– Intercessions for the living and dead;
– Comfortable words (New Testament verses);
– Salutation and Sursum corda;
– Prayer of Consecration;
– Lord’s Prayer (moved to post-Communion);
– The Peace (omitted);
– Christ our Pascall Lambe (a version of the Agnus Dei, omitted);
– Invitation to Communion (part of Cranmer’s ‘Order of Communion’, omitted);
– General Confession and Absolution (repositioned to take place after the Intercessions);
– Prayer of Humble Access (repositioned to be recited before the Prayer of Consecration);
– Holy Communion, with clergy and assistants receiving the Sacrament before the congregation, and ‘clerks’ or choir sing the Agnus Dei (Agnus Dei omitted) ;
– Post-Communion Scripture sentences (omitted);
– Salutation and post-Communion thanksgiving (the Gloria follows);
– Peace and blessing (a possible reference to ‘The peace of God which passeth all understanding …’).
21st century developments
The new liturgical book, Common Worship, has a traditional service which has reinstated the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei. The Gloria has been moved to follow the Kyrie. The Prayer of Humble Access is said immediately before Communion.
Sadly, the Peace was restored in the 1980s, which is a shame in the 21st century;Â some churchgoers are, quite frankly, unattentive to hygiene. A Methodist told me that his church’s policy is to allow for a discreet tucking of hands into one’s sleeves to indicate non-participation. Only one person did that in his church, but the congregation respected it.
The new traditional service is a great improvement on the one in the 1984 Alternative Service Book.
However, no liturgy anywhere will ever top that of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. It is a pity so many of today’s Anglican clergy refuse to use it more frequently. Such a refusal can only be considered some of Satan’s finest work.
End of series
My past several posts have looked at the liturgy and Communion from the early days of the Church through to the Reformation.
So far, we have read about early Christian liturgy, that of the East, changes during the Dark Ages, Mass during the Middle Ages, Martin Lutherâs liturgy, Zwingliâs rite in Zurich, the German liturgy in Strasbourg and Calvin’s rites in Strasbourg for the Huguenots and later in Geneva.
Today’s post takes a brief look at John Knox’s Reformed rites for the English speakers in Frankfurt, Geneva and, later, the Scots.
Unless otherwise indicated, source material is taken from W.D. Maxwellâs 1937 book A History of Christian Worship: An Outline of Its Development and Form, available to read in full online (H/T: Revd P. Aasman). Page references are given below.
John Knox in brief
Space prohibits a full account of John Knox’s turbulent life and times.
A few descriptive terms about the man come to mind which I shall suppress.
Knox supporters in North America find it inexplicable why those of us who are not Presbyterians could not admire him. Yet, the facts show that he was contentious and disagreeable from the start. No doubt he was very nice to his family, friends and followers.
However, for the English, he goes against what they appreciate as moderation in spirit and personality.
Even Calvin advised him in Frankfurt to
avoid contention.
Calvin carefully chose his battles — principally about Communion frequency — even if he fell foul of the Geneva city council. However, Geneva invited him to return from Strasbourg in 1541.
Knox, on the other hand, was a firebrand at every opportunity. Sadly, a few lay Presbyterians and their supporters have adopted Knox’s unfortunate manner in their online discourse. Look to Calvin, friends. He was much more measured in his speech and relationships.
Knox’s litany of self-imposed trouble included many episodes.
His first sermon to the garrison at St Andrews pronounced the Pope as the Antichrist.
Two months later in June 1547, Mary of Guise (Queen Mother and Regent to Mary, Queen of Scots) asked the French to intervene at St Andrews. The French took as prisoners a group of Protestants, including Scottish nobles and Knox. They all became galley slaves. Knox was freed in February 1549.
Knox settled in England where he became a chaplain to Edward VI in 1550. Prior to that, as a licensed minister in the Church of England, he was sent to Berwick upon Tweed, where he promptly modified the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) to make it a more Protestant rite. He met his first wife Margery Bowes at this time and, although he married her, he did so without her family’s consent.
Knox’s fiery preaching was highly popular among influential English Protestants. His clerical star continued to rise in subsequent parish appointments in England. When Mary Tudor succeeded Edward VI, Knox’s allies told him to flee the country.
In 1554, he sailed for France and continued his travels until he reached Calvin’s Geneva. Calvin gave non-committal replies to his contentious questions about female and ‘idolatrous’ rulers, referring him to Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich. Bullinger gave him no quarter. Undeterred, Knox published a diatribe in July of that year verbally attacking Mary Tudor, her bishops and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
In September 1554, a group of English exiles invited Knox to Frankfurt to be their minister. Calvin encouraged him to go. Knox found a congregation torn between using the BCP and those who favoured a more Protestant version of it. It was about this controversy that Calvin advised Knox and his colleague William Whittingham to avoid contention. A new group of refugees arrived, including Richard Cox, who had substantial input to the BCP. Cox informed Frankfurt’s authorities of Knox’s pamphlet attacking Charles V. The authorities told Knox to leave the city, which he did on March 26, 1555.
Knox returned to Geneva, where he was put in charge of a new church.
Meanwhile, his mother-in-law wrote him asking him to return to his wife, who was living in Scotland. He went home in August 1555.
Knox’s warm welcome home by Scottish Protestant nobles saw off opposition from the Scottish bishops who found him deeply worrying and arranged a hearing with him in Edinburgh. Accompanied by his powerful allies, he appeared in front of them on May 15, 1556. The bishops cancelled the hearing and granted Knox the freedom to preach in Edinburgh. Knox’s friends among the nobility persuaded him to write to Mary of Guise, the Regent for Mary, Queen of Scots. Knox wrote a letter calling for her support of the Reformation and deposing her bishops. Mary of Guise ignored it.
Meanwhile, his new congregation in Geneva called. They had elected him their pastor on November 1, 1555. He returned to the city in September 1556. This time, he took his wife and mother-in-law with him.
The next two years were blissful for Knox. He felt at home in Geneva. Life and spirituality were unsurpassed.
But that wasn’t good enough.
In the summer of 1558, unbeknownst to Calvin, Knox anonymously published a diatribe called The first blast of the trumpet against the monstruous regiment of women. Even given the general misogyny of the time, Knox went way over the top in attacking women rulers to the point where he could have been charged with sedition. He took strong issue with Mary I of England and Mary of Guise. Wikipedia says:
In calling the “regiment” or rule of women “monstruous”, he meant that it was “unnatural”. The pamphlet has been called a classic of misogyny. Knox states that his purpose was to demonstrate “how abominable before God is the Empire or Rule of a wicked woman, yea, of a traiteresse and bastard”.[55]
A royal proclamation banned the pamphlet in England.
The pamphlet came back to bite him when Elizabeth I ascended to the English throne. Geneva’s English speakers felt comfortable returning home now that they had a Protestant Queen. Knox left Geneva in January 1559 for Scotland. He should have arrived long before May 2 of that year, but Elizabeth I, aware of the pamphlet and deeply offended, refused to give him a passport to travel through England!
Not long afterward, Scottish authorities under Mary of Guise pronounced Knox an outlaw. He and a large group of Protestants travelled to Perth because it was a walled city they could defend in case of a siege. Once there, Knox preached an inflammatory sermon in the Church of St John the Baptist during which a small incident sparked a riot. The result was a gutted church. Not only that, but the mob went on to loot and vandalise two nearby friaries.
Later, safe in St Andrews, Knox preached there. Another riot broke out which resulted in more vandalism and looting.
Knox cannot be personally blamed for the Protestant uprisings occurring all over Scotland that year, but did he ever appeal for calm and godliness? Hmm.
On October 24, 1559, the Scottish nobility deposed Mary of Guise of the Regency. She died in Edinburgh Castle on June 10, 1560. The Treaty of Edinburgh was signed, which resulted in French and English troops returning home.
During the rest of that year the Scottish Parliament, Knox and a handful of fellow clergymen devised the Book of Discipline for the new Protestant church. Knox’s wife Margery died in December 1560. He was left to care for their two little boys.
Mary Queen of Scots returned from exile on August 19, 1561. She and Knox had several personal confrontations over his inciting rebellion, her right to rule as a woman and her impending marriage. He told her he owed her no allegiance. He continued his fiery sermons in the pulpit of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.
On March 26, 1564, Knox married a 17-year old member of the nobility, Margaret Stewart. He was 50 years old. She bore him three daughters.
Near the end of the decade a complex civil war broke out involving nobles from both sides of the religious question. Knox moved around Scotland during this time, although he returned to Edinburgh as and when he could. He wrote his History of the Reformation in Scotland during these years.
In July 1572, he was able to freely preach once again at St Giles. However, he had grown progressively weaker. He died on November 24, 1572, surrounded by his family and friends.
Knox is the founder of Presbyterianism.
Knox’s liturgy
The following is taken from Maxwell’s book and describes a typical Knox liturgy from his book The Forme of Prayers (p. 123, 124).
Knox largely borrowed from Calvin but Maxwell notes a BCP influence as well. As with Calvin’s liturgy, there is no Peace.
The format is as follows for a Communion service, still divided into the Liturgies of the Word and the Upper Room:
– Confession of sins;
– Prayer for pardon;
– Psalm in metre;
– Prayer for illumination;
– Scripture reading (only one, although there were sometimes separate Scottish Readers Services before the Liturgy of the Word which included more Psalms as well as Old and New Testament readings [p. 124]);
– Sermon (lengthy, as was the Scripture reading; together, they could last over an hour [p. 124);
– Collection of alms;
– Thanksgiving and intercessions;
– Lord’s Prayer;
– Apostles’ Creed, spoken;
– Offertory, including presentation and preparation of elements and a sung Psalm;
– Words of Institution;
– Exhortation;
– Prayer of Consecration which included adoration, thanksgiving, anamnesis and Doxology;
– Fraction;
– Ministers’ Communion;
– People’s Communion, apparently given by assistant ministers because the celebrant read the account of the Passion of Christ during this time;
– Post-Communion thanksgiving;
– Psalm 103 in metre;
– Aaronic or Apostolic blessing.
The readings appear to have been through one book of the Bible at a time until concluded — ‘in course’. The sermons were always about the readings given (p. 124).
The Forme of Prayers was never intended to be used as uniformly as England’s BCP was. Knox allowed for local variations on prayers and parts of the rite.
Although Knox sought to abolish kneeling and feasts of the Church calendar, these seem to have continued in some Scottish churches.
Communion policy
Communicants walked to the Lord’s Table where a separate Communion Table with chairs was installed (p. 126).
The people took their places and sat down to receive the Sacrament.
An Act passed by Scotland’s General Assembly in 1562 indicated that the Sacrament was received quarterly in the large towns and less frequently in the countryside (p. 125). Clergy were fewer outside of the former. Furthermore, people at that time were still used to infrequent Communion, perhaps only annually.
This custom of the Communion Table disappeared in the early part of the 19th century, when English Nonconformist procedure was adopted. This is reminiscent of the Zwinglian practice of receiving Communion in the pews, although people remained standing for this in Britain.
Long-lasting liturgy
Introduced to Scotland in 1560, Knox’s The Forme of Prayers — or Book of Common Order — was used for over 80 years, despite attempts to revise it (p. 127). It was replaced in 1645 by the Westminster Directory.
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