Facing Off With the People: The Eastward Position and the Celebration of the Eucharist

Percy was recently asked to advise a parish where renovations of facilities have raised the question of re-orienting the interior of the church itself, from a traditional eastward focus, with altar at that end, to the opposite.

Historically most churches are oriented to the East, i.e., the holy table or altar stands in the east end, typically in a chancel or apse, with the body or nave of the church to its West. Those present for the Holy Communion or for Morning and Evening Prayer are thus facing the East to pray, which is an ancient and widespread custom reflecting faith in the Resurrection.

This is not a universal pattern, however. Some of the earliest Christian Churches were oriented the opposite way; the most famous is St Peter's in Rome, which faces West rather than East . However by the time the Old St Peter's was built in the 4th century, prayer to the East was a Christian norm; so when the Eucharist was celebrated there, originally priest and people faced East - towards the main doors, not away from them - during the Great Thanksgiving. Architectural orientation was therefore less important than physical or personal orientation. It was possible and even likely that the priest would face east, with the people, but not in the East of the church.

Churches in Roman Africa, which unlike those in Europe were ruined rather than remodeled, reveal something similar. Although these ancient churches were often oriented to the East like more recent ones, slots where the marble panels of chancel screens were inserted are visible on the floors of basilicas, not in the East but in the middle, far from the apse where the clergy sat. While an enclosure was created for the (portable) altar, the people gathered around it with the priest, and prayed with him towards the East.

In the Medieval West however, architectural and geographical orientation became more closely tied as the altars migrated to the East end of churches with few exceptions. This was the situation at the time of the English Reformation.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer retains the instruction from its 1552 predecessor that the priest stand on the North side of a table in the body of the church (or in the chancel). It was intended that the altar again become more of a table with the communicants gathered around it; the East was not intended to be a particular focus. However altars had been returned to the East end of English churches before 1662, making this an odd or redundant instruction; and most Anglican priests continued to face East (ad Orientem) with the people, but at some distance from them, in the East end of the church.

In recent centuries, urban spaces have sometimes made geographical eastward orientation impossible when constructing new church buildings; but the liturgical orientation had become fixed to the architecture of the church, rather than floating free from it as in ancient times so as to recognize the actual East. Thus churches might be built of necessity with an "East" that wasn't East at all, but was the direction for prayer simply because it was the direction of chancel and altar in a long narrow space. Melbourne Anglicans may be aware that their St Paul's Cathedral is actually oriented North-South, although a fictive "liturgical" East and West are often mentioned.

Liturgical reform across Christian churches in the twentieth century however saw altars moved away from East walls to allow the priest to face the people (versus populum). This has become normal, but is not well understood, or even generally well practiced.

This move changes the relationship between architectural and human orientation yet again, creating a focus not in the East (either literal or liturgical) but within the assembly, or on the altar itself. The implied sense of space of this practice is more that of a circle with a focus, than of a line pointing outwards to transcendent infinity.

Unfortunately however the implementation of this change has usually been a compromise that balked at the real implications of the intended change, or was simply defeated by the stolidly longitudinal forms of existing buildings. Pulling a distant altar away from an East wall to leave room for a priest behind it creates not a gathered community but a more-distant priest. To add another table just a few meters further along a chancel is visually confusing at best.

So rather than allowing either the traditional emphasis on transcendence or the new focus on immanence to speak clearly, the  versus populum arrangement often creates a sort of axis between clergy on the one hand and people on the other.

Odd as it may seem, versus populum can often be more clericalist than the old way; it emphasizes the personality of the priest (sometimes in highly problematic ways) and can make him or her more a performer to the congregation than a representative of them. Some think it necessary to "channel Jesus" at this point, presenting the words of institution with lots of mawkish eye contact, as though they had momentarily been cast as Jesus at Oberammergau. This is really a highly retrograde sort of clericalism, however much clad in modern vestments - for the priest's job at this point is not to "be Jesus" to the people, but to represent us all in the great act of thanks and praise.

The upshot of the change for church architecture has rarely been given much thought either. If the priest actually faces West at the Great Thanksgiving, the orientation of the Church itself to the East or otherwise is at best irrelevant at that point; it may still be significant for some other purposes such as daily prayer or personal devotions in the building. But if the Eucharist is celebrated in the now-common way, there is little reason to balk at the idea of orienting a church to the West (or any other direction) rather than to the East. There is more reason to wonder whether a Eucharist celebrated versus populum in a space designed for celebration ad orientem is really as good an idea as so many seem to assume. If we are actually to celebrate Christ in the midst, we need to consider how to use spaces and furnishings to affirm that reality, and to focus more on the centre rather than the East.

But, Percy wonders, would it not also be worth some bold liturgical pilgrim experimenting with something quite different? What about a return to the ancient practice of an eastward celebration, not from the distance of an apse but in the midst of the church, such as the ancient Christians knew? In populo, as well as ad orientem. Worth considering?

One bread?

Although Christians celebrate their sacramental meal, the Eucharist or Holy Communion, with bread and wine, the ways they use that food and drink are sometimes distinctly odd. Paper-thin wafers unlike any bread you will find elsewhere, and fortified wine you'd never otherwise drink, are often the order of the day.

Someone has irreverently but tellingly remarked that "the problem isn't believing that they're the body and blood of Christ, it's believing that they're bread and wine". There is more to be said about these forms, and some of it has already been addressed here.

The contemporary Anglican liturgy with which Percy is most familiar cites the words of the apostle Paul at the "fraction" or breaking of the bread at the Eucharist:

"We who are many are one body in Christ, for we all share in the one bread" (1 Cor 10:17).

All eucharistic rites known to the writer have some provision for the breaking of the bread, which is a feature not only of the Last Supper stories understood by Christians as instituting the Eucharist, but also of other feeding stories in the Gospels, such as the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the risen Jesus' meal with disciples at Emmaus. The Acts of the Apostles uses the phrase "the breaking of the bread" as a way of referring to the earliest communal meals celebrated by the Christian community. The great twentieth-century liturgical scholar Gregory Dix saw this as one element of a four-fold pattern characterizing eucharist rites: bread is taken, blessed, broken and distributed.

The participant in the Eucharist may often receive something in their hand that shows no sign of this. Although many worshipping communities have moved to adopt forms of bread that really can be broken, others continue to use individually-stamped wafers which say nothing either about the "one bread" or the meaning of its brokenness. The fraction is then practiced only with the "priest's wafer", a slightly larger bread that allows visual communication of the fact that (some) bread is broken - but then also underlines clerical privilege in a not-too-subtle way.

The apostle's affirmation that we share from the one bread is not a mere liturgical rubric, but an observation about the character of sharing and communion. Participation with others in this one bread is a kind of solidarity with them of a profound and serious kind, with implications for love and justice. Augustine of Hippo commenting on this same text from 1 Cor says, strikingly, "be what you see, receive what you are" (Serm. 272).

These implications are not removed by the failure of our liturgical symbols to convey them adequately, of course. But liturgical practitioners have an obligation to ask whether their practices go beyond mere repetition of accepted custom, or maintenance of a certain sober dignity, to allow adequate reflection of their core message.

Percy is not one of those liturgists of whom it is joked that they, unlike terrorists, do not negotiate. There are more serious matters for the Church than the aesthetics of bread - such as the hunger of many in the world, who have insufficient bread of any kind. However the Church has opportunities to connect its liturgy with the needs of the world, and should take them when it can.

What to do with the bread, then?

Percy suggests a hierarchy of desired elements which might be considered according to the need, capacity and tradition of a congregation.

Ideally, all might eat of literally one bread, as Paul says. A single loaf ("loaf" can be interpreted broadly), from which all can share, represents the ideal most adequately. This could have drawbacks if, say, large crusty pasta dura-style bread were consecrated in one piece and most of it were left over. Percy assumes a sufficiently traditional piety (and respect for the rubrics) to allow reverent consumption of the whole. But not all loaves are as large or as crumbly as others. Many smaller congregations could, for that matter, use the large forms of traditional wafer bread now readily available, or pita-style bread that can readily be broken, shared, and cleaned up without much waste.

Second, whether or not all can realistically share from the one loaf, all could receive broken bread. Use of just a few loaves (including large wafers) does not diminish the symbol too greatly. At least here there is an sign that the body of Christ is something shared.

Last, Percy's intention is not to disparage those who will, for some mixture of practical reasons, maintain the use of individual wafers for the congregation. Perhaps those who maintain this position should be particularly careful to ask whether they otherwise embody the apostle's point. If we really are the body of Christ, we had all better be doing something about it.

Percy does posture, or: Standing up for Jesus?

Some readers (but not all) will remember an Anglicanism in which kneeling was the done thing. The bidding "Let us pray" was instantly and easily understood as an instruction to kneel, and we did. The opening prayers, the Collect, the intercessory prayers (aka "Prayer for the Church Militant"), the whole of the Thanksgiving and Consecration...if in doubt, we knelt.

One of the messages of the liturgical movement that hit the Church in the second half of the twentieth century was that we had been kneeling a bit too much. It was true. The one-sided emphasis on penitence and submission found in much Anglican liturgy was one of those camels we had swallowed from the Medieval Church while straining at sacrificial gnats. The ethos of Christian communal action implied in the New Testament, and lived out in the ancient Church, was less focussed on individual breast-beating than on the collective celebration of God's grace.

The resulting message had one startling central theme: stand up! We had been used to standing only for singing - presumably for practical reasons related to our diaphragms - as well as for the Gloria, the Gospel, and the Creed. These had left a clue behind about the meaning of such a posture. We rediscovered through the sixties the fairly natural coherence between a theology emphasizing the victory of the Resurrection and the liturgical norm of standing. The new texts and orders that were introduced around the Anglican world - Series I-III, Australia '69, '77 etc, A Liturgy for Africa - all implied or stated their alignment with such different understandings of posture.

Of course it was not all about standing. Each of standing, sitting and kneeling had a place in this revised set of understandings about how our bodies reflect our belief. Standing was for corporate prayer, including prayers of intercession and the Great Thanksgiving. Kneeling was only for specifically penitential or reflective and personal elements, such as private prayer and the corporate confession of sin. Sitting was for readings and sermon only, aside from waiting before and after the liturgy.

This was, however, an incomplete revolution. Even where the liturgical movement took deep hold, there was hesitation, or appropriate variation, about some specifics. Many have remained deeply connected to kneeling to receive Communion, for instance. While some clergy were being actively and carefully taught such understandings of the new liturgies, others were less well trained. And those who had become liturgical-movement purists were not thereby necessarily good educators or effective pastors.

The result is a mixed bag. In the Diocese of Melbourne, Australia, where Percy has recent and decades-old experience, the basic news is of back-sliding and mess. Where in the 1980s parishes of progressive Catholic mood were standing more and kneeling less, what is most striking is how often they are sitting. Without sufficient education or leadership, sitting has become a norm for corporate prayer of intercession in particular. There is no good reason for this at all, but a perfectly reasonable explanation: sitting is the flaccid via media for people no longer sure whether or stand or kneel, or why.

A related phenomenon is the disconnect between the posture of ministers and that of congregation. It is increasingly common that at times when kneeling might still be expected or encouraged, ministers actually remain standing. Example is, as always, a powerful teacher; where ministers do not kneel, people see little point.

Sitting does have its place, we have acknowledged. And there may be circumstances where that place is larger - where, for instance, the liturgy is celebrated with a more-than-usual emphasis on the meditative or reflective, as in the ethos connected with the community of Taizé. Yet otherwise Percy suggests sitting is, in the tradition of the Church catholic, intended for listening and waiting.

Liturgy is based on the idea that the physical disposition of objects, space and our own bodies actually does matter. There may be different specific opinions about posture, but the present indifference and confusion evident in the Australian Anglican Church, and some other branches of the Communion, is not a matter for celebration.

God, Gluten-free?

A satirical version of a pew-sheet that has circulated over the past decade offers advice concerning the options available to the contemporary communicant:

To receive an ordinary, unleavened Communion wafer, kindly wink your right eye as the minister approaches. For a certified, organic, whole-grain wafer, wink your left eye. For low-salt, low-fat bread, close both eyes for the remainder of the service. For gluten-free bread, blink both eyes rapidly while looking at the ceiling.

Blinking aside, this isn't so far from reality in some places. Such announcements arise of course from the prevalence of coeliac disease, which is four times more common than fifty years ago, even taking into account different patterns of diagnosis and reporting. The reason for this new prevalence are not certain, but there is real suspicion that the kind of modern hard wheat we now eat in great quantity, and/or the presence of gluten and other wheat derivatives in other products, has triggered the spread of this auto-immune disorder. There are also much more common, if less critical, forms of allergy or intolerance to modern bread wheat found in a fair proportion of the population.

Anglicans can arguably consider gluten-free options for the Eucharist because the Prayer Book rubric states “it shall suffice that the Bread be such as is usual to be eaten” which allows alignment or correlation with cultural change; but it goes on to say “but the best and purest Wheat Bread that conveniently may be gotten”, both urging conscientious attention to the quality of the bread, and privileging use of wheat. What the tradition seems to have in mind is the desire to use what Jesus used at the Last Supper, instituting the Eucharist. The Lambeth Quadrilateral speaks of “unfailing use…of the elements ordained by him”.

Roman Catholics are officially less free about choosing Eucharistic bread. The General Instruction on the Roman Missal (2000) states: “The bread for celebrating the Eucharist must be made only from wheat, must be recently baked, and, according to the ancient tradition of the Latin Church, must be unleavened.”

The insistence that the bread be wheat, noted in both traditions if not held with equal insistence, may well be a historical mistake, if intended as strict imitation of the Last Supper, the accounts of which do not specify of what the bread was made. For that matter, the species of grain known in Jesus’ time are not the same ones we have today; wheat in particular underwent repeated hybridization even in the pre-industrial world, let alone after the more aggressive changes of industrial agriculture and recent plant science, now including genetic modification. So it is not even possible to know exactly what Jesus used, let alone use it.

In slightly later Rabbinic traditions and since, unleavened bread – matzah – is made from the same grains that are otherwise prohibited at Passover, because they create natural yeast cultures and leaven—and hence bread: wheat varieties, including spelt and emmer, as well as barley. In subsequent history, rye and oats have certainly been included in this obligation, although they may not have grown in ancient Judea. Some rabbis included rice. In fact yeast itself is allowed at Passover, since it is involved in the fermentation of wine; but while yeast-derived wine is allowed, grain-derived drinks like beer and whisky are not.

So although it is likely that the bread of Jesus’ Passover would have been made from an ancient wheat variety, it is not stretching things too far to say that other ancient Jews, and hence early Christians also, may have eaten bread made from any of these grains.

Why then the more restrictive view in Roman Catholic circles?

In the Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas argues not only from the superior quality of wheat, and from the awkward ground that Augustine of Hippo had viewed biblical references to barley - which was admittedly cheaper and coarser - as indicating the harshness of the Mosaic Law. This is a little ironic since the insistence on unleavened wheat bread is supposed to reflect the Mosaic Law too!

Thomas' prescriptive advice about wheat apparently carries more wheat weight in Roman Catholicism than the ambiguity of the biblical texts. Anglicans will object that what cannot be established scripturally ought not to be insisted on for all and everywhere, even if customary for some. While wheat may be very appropriate matter for the sacrament, it is dubious to conclude that St Thomas' preferences and St Augustine's attitudes to barley (and to Judaism) should trump provisions at the Eucharist that have their own real claim to historical authenticity, and make sense in the present.

I Don't Believe in Worship (Part 1)

‘Worship’ has become almost a meaningless term in some places; and where it does mean something, it now often has little to do with those distinctive practices whereby the Christian community across history has expressed and renewed its relationship with the God of Jesus Christ.

The problem is most profound in newer Church settings where ‘worship’ is equated with ‘music’, and ‘worship leaders’ are conductors or accompanists, rather than preachers or priests. Yet even Christians who belong to Churches of clearly sacramental character, such as Anglicans, may well see their liturgical actions simply as aesthetic options chosen according to preference for a certain activity or style.

It is then unsurprising if we find ‘worship’ events becoming more akin to sales meetings, arena concerts or whatever other cultural forms are available for adaptation, rather than recognizable forms of Eucharistic celebration or daily prayer.

Even fairly recently the English word ‘worship’ referred to reverence and service (cf. ‘with my body I thee worship’). In present Western Christianity however, this meaning has been lost, and ‘worship’ tends to mean whatever people do in Church on Sundays. Similarly 'service' has lost the earlier meaning of 'divine service', and refers to a meeting rather than a disposition.

So ‘Worship services’ (two vapid words combined in a desperate effort to mean something!) might seem to be constructed just to suit our tastes or passing preferences, rather than as particular activities characteristic of the Christian community across its history.

The possibility that our liturgy might really be ‘worship’ has to do then with how well we integrate it into the whole of life, lived faithfully and authentically – in Church as well as out of it. For Christians that does involve some characteristic patterns and actions.

If instead we make aesthetic preferences or ‘worship needs’ (as one recent publication called them) the determinant of liturgical practice, this certainly contradicts any real ethos of Christian worship; for if ‘needs’ are understood as the pre-existing wants of the participant, rather than either as the imperative to exist or act in a certain relationship to God, or as continuing faithfully in practices founded on Jesus' example and teaching, we are wasting our time or worse.

Of course Christians do and should borrow some elements of newer cultural forms, critically and carefully; Percy is not pleading here for a particular aesthetic of traditional liturgy, but for recognition that liturgy is founded on core actions and patterns, on scripture and bread and wine and prayer.

We can and should adapt forms; but if the core actions of our liturgies are not made more profound and more prominent in the process, then the result is a failure. We therefore need to pay as much or more attention to the real core or substance of specifically Christian liturgy, rather than to the trappings in which it is presented. Here we might have to admit that both traditional and commercialized forms of Christian gathering often fail equally, if differently.

Welcomes

Welcoming those in attendance has become a particular sort of alternative or additional opening to the liturgy. I have written elsewhere about the importance of opening liturgically and theologically, rather with banalities or information focussed exclusively on the community itself, and those comments apply here as well.

There is a particular problem or pitfall with welcomes, however. Not that it is unimportant either that visitors are received warmly, or that the character of God’s gracious hospitality is communicated.

I have come to wonder, however, whether there is an inverse relationship, in Anglican congregations of liturgical and sacramental character, between the likelihood of a pained welcome to visitors by the presider and the likelihood of there actually being any visitors. Welcoming people has often become a shibboleth of inclusiveness for congregations which are not really lively enough to attract or keep newcomers.

To get to the heart of the matter, though: Percy suggests that it is not appropriate for a minister or presider normally to welcome the (other) members of the community to the celebration of the Eucharist. This would be to suggest that the minister(s) are themselves the hosts, and the other participants guests. Doubtless such welcomes are well-intended; but the message conveyed is less hospitable than clericalist. The Eucharist does not belong to the ordained, but to the baptized; the baptized do not need to be welcomed by clergy to what God has already made their own.

Some may object that the clergy—or at least a presiding priest—may be acting in such a way as to represent and communicate God’s continued gracious and open welcome. Percy does not dismiss this idea, or the notion of "priesthood" that it implies, i.e., that the ordained may have the particular calling and charism in the liturgy of representing God and people to one another. However these elements of priesthood are secondary to the more fundamental and biblical sense that the people themselves are a holy priesthood; it is for them to welcome newcomers, seekers and so forth. The ordained priest does so too, but on their behalf.

This does not mean there is no room for expressing warm greeting, or "welcome" to one another in the mutual rather than hierarchical sense being addressed here. And the presider can offer words that express this mutual welcome and the joy of being present. How about:

"The Lord be with you"?

Eucharist

These entries are relevant to the celebration of the Eucharist:

Percy discusses the very opening words of the liturgy at this post.

A more specific reflection about welcoming the congregation is found here.

Some critical notes about the Ministry of the Word are found here.

The orientation of priest, people and altar (ad orientem, versus populum etc.) are discussed here.

In this post Percy reflects on the "one bread" of the Eucharist, fraction and such.

A reflection on the matter of the Eucharist and the necessity (or not) of using wheat bread is found here.

More soon.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

The opening words of the liturgy are crucial. One does not have to think in sophisticated dramaturgical terms to realize how these words set the tone; they express and create the priorities, the atmosphere, the direction of what is to come. The folk at ‘Ship of Fools’ pick this up nicely in their ‘Mystery Worshipper’ reviews, which always note those words.

Percy suggests that it is profoundly important that these words be theological – that they express the commitment of the community, and orient the celebration to God whose service is being performed.

More and more often however we see or hear liturgies that open with reference not to God but to the community itself, or just as likely to the weather, or the time of day. Some will tell a joke, or otherwise "warm up the crowd". At one celebration I attended not long ago, the opening words invoked a trinity of sorts: the absence of the Vicar, the arrival of the locum priest, and the presence of today's presider.

Of course this is a sort of theology too, but it is a kind of insipid idolatry: we exchange the glory of God for banality, and particularly for clerical self-referentiality.

The reasons for this malaise invite some reflection, but space does not allow a complete treatment here. I note that for Australian Anglicans, the form of A Prayer Book for Australia tends to colludes with bad  liturgical theology, insofar as it contains many good texts but offers insufficient guidance on choice and use, at this point above all.

The opening rite of APBA seems caught between the Eastern-style invocation ("Blessed be God..."") borrowed from the Orthodox via the US Episcopal Church, and the more typical Western-style greeting ("The Lord be with you"). These are both potentially profound and appropriate ways of beginning, but they work in different ways. Some celebrations end up using both, but since the book offers no guidance for what is being achieved at this point in the liturgy, it is not surprising that some end up using neither. "Good morning", indeed.

Most of these set words have an actual function which seems frequently to have been forgotten. "The Lord be with you" is a greeting, as is "Good morning". The latter is very often more appropriate, but the Eucharist is not a random encounter in the street or the shops. If and when the set words that serve to greet the congregation (or dismiss it) are used, but framed by chatty or prosaic ones drawn from other kinds of encounter, the set words are being deprived of their significance and function - they are just churchy code-language that we are used to, but serve little real purpose.

There can admittedly be real needs, or at least concerns, which are relatively prosaic but whose acknowledgement at a very early point may allow fuller commitment and participation in the event. Page numbers, locations of children’s activities, even emergency exit arrangements, can in various ways allow or prevent fuller engagement,  or may simply be required.

These can often be dealt with by other means, with a little imagination or common sense. A minister (if one leading the liturgy, not yet vested in stole or at least not in chasuble) can address the congregation before the entrance or the introit. Ushers or welcomers can communicate a lot of this factual information, if they understand their role properly beyond handing out books or leaflets.

And should circumstance or custom require it, the presider can even offer announcements or directions within the liturgy but after the opening words, or at an appropriate early point. This ought not to happen however, before acknowledging and invoking the one who is the real host and guest and centre of our gathering.

Which words, then? Percy does not go so far as to prescribe. Where your liturgical book makes it clear, follow it. Where it does not, as in the case of APBA, use the wisdom of your local and diocesan community - past as well as present - to set a pattern and stick to it (with seasonal variations by all means). But remember - it's not about you.

The Lord be with you.