St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

Eugene, 13th and Pearl

The Instructed Eucharist

Whether you are new to Episcopal worship, or whether you have been attending worship at St. Mary's for longer than you care to remember, the Instructed Eucharist is a wonderful opportunity to think about why we do things the way we do, and to participate in our worship together with greater understanding and renewed meaning.

Of course there is simply an enormous amount of commentary that could be given. The following instruction was given over two Sundays. Part I focused on 'The Liturgy of the Word', that section of the service up until the Peace. Part II beginning with the Offertory focused on 'The Liturgy of the Sacrament.' It is important you know that this was not an attempt to cover everything. Instead we tried to focus on particular aspects of the service, knowing that there was always next year!

There is much that happens in way of preparation before our worship services begin. Members of the congregation prepare themselves at home: readying their offering envelope, putting out food to bring as a donation to our Food Basket; perhaps even fasting or using the Penitential Order from the Prayer Book (Rite 1 p.319; Rite 2 p.351). Once here, we pray, meditate, or review the worship bulletin and read the lessons in advance.

Altar Guild set the stage: vacuuming and dusting the sanctuary, checking the supply of hymnals and prayer books, replacing holy water and the vigil light candle, putting flowers on the altar (except during Advent, and Lent when they also veil all the crosses), and finally changing the altar frontal and pulpit fall to the liturgical color for the season or major Holy Day. The liturgical colors are purple for Advent and Lent, white for Christmas and Easter, red for Palm Sunday and Pentecost, and green for Ordinary Time (Pentecost until Advent, and Epiphany until Lent).

In the Sacristy, they prepare the props: the vested chalice, the wine and water cruets, the wafers in their containers, the candles, the books with the proper lessons marked, the linens, the offering plates, the Sanctus bells, and the missal (altar book) on its stand. Then on Sunday, a half-hour before each service, the Altar Guild crew sets out the props to be used, according to the directions for that service. And after each service, they clean, refill, and otherwise prepare the props for the next service, setting them out again.

When everything is ready, the musical prelude is played to help us make the transition from our personal preparation to our corporate worship. Its purpose is to set the tone for the service to follow. So in Lent, the music is somber, meditative, and thoughtful; just the opposite of what it is like in the Easter season.

Sometimes the prelude is based on a hymn that we sing later in the service, sometimes a solo with a text appropriate for a particular Sunday, is sung. The first act of our corporate worship is to sing together the processional hymn.

Our Eucharistic Liturgy begins with the Word of God. After our processional hymn we respond to an opening greeting, and then a prayer is said asking God to put all of us in the right frame of mind and of heart. The Bible readings are introduced with The Collect (or prayer for the day), which reveals the theme for each particular Sunday.

The readings we have: Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel, follow a seasonal calendar known as the Lectionary. Using this helps to ensure that we hear a wide range of the Bible read to us, and it also joins us with Episcopalians everywhere (and many other Christians) who hear the same scripture on the same day.

The Old Testament is read by a member of the congregation, while the Epistle is read by a lay eucharistic minister and we sit for these. For the Psalm we stand. This is led from the front but we take part together.  Psalms are the hymns of ancient Israel. In the psalms, every mood and emotion of the human heart is given voice. While these texts have survived, sadly the music has not. But we can imagine that the music varied as much as the texts. At our Nine Thirty Family Eucharist we continue the tradition of singing the psalms. While the texts we use are ancient, we give them a new voice with new translations and new music.

For Christians the Old Testament lesson tells the story of God getting the human community ready for Jesus. The Gospel tells the story of Jesus present in the world, and the Epistle (letters sent by the apostles to various churches) tells us how the first Christian communities lived their lives in the light of what Jesus had taught.

The order in which we have our Bible readings is interesting. The early church had the Epistle after the Gospel as in a sense this did the job that the sermon does for us today, helping us to understand and apply Jesus' teaching. Over time however this order changed to put the Gospel last, in the 'place of honor', as it records what Jesus said and did, the most important foundation of our faith.

In fact we honor the Gospel in many ways. First we stand as a mark of respect and the deacon who reads it processes the Gospel into the midst of the congregation.

Then the reader of the Gospel and members of the congregation may make the threefold sign of the cross, on the forehead, lips, and chest, as a symbolic way of saying we are to think about Christ, talk about Christ, and carry Christ in our hearts wherever we go. The Gospel also begins and ends with special words of acclamation, and the Gospel book is raised up high for all to see. When we hear the Gospel read in this way with great honor, it is as if we, like the crowds two thousand years ago, are gathered around Jesus himself to witness his actions and hear his personal words to us. It is also significant that the person who reads the Gospel, the deacon, is the one who dismisses us at the end of the service, exhorting us to live out in our lives (or put into practice) what we have heard.

The Creed comes after the Gospel (and the sermon) and is our chance to respond together. We stand as we declare our renewed faith and trust in God. The word creed comes from the Latin credo which simply meant 'I believe' (its opening words). There are many different Christian creeds which attempt to set out the Christian faith that we hold in common. The particular one we use, the Nicene Creed, is extremely ancient and evolved from the Church Council of Nicea in the year 325 which met to work out a common understanding of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Today it is used by most mainstream churches (both in the East and the West) whenever a Eucharist is said. As such it is one of the core things providing Christian unity. We can also take comfort from the Creed, especially at times when we are doubting or struggling with particular parts of the faith. It is good to be able to lean on other members of our church family and to know that this family stretches right across the world and right back in time to the beginnings of Christianity.

After the Creed we pray together. At some services we kneel for this, at others we stand. When we kneel we are expressing our humility before God and our dependence. We shut our eyes and put our hands together in an attempt to clear our minds of all other distractions and focus on God.

Whichever we use, these set forms help to ensure that our prayers are wide-ranging: always including prayers for Christ's Church, prayers for our government and for our world, prayers for our community and neighborhood, prayers for those who are sick or suffering, and prayers for those who have died and for those who are bereaved.

These set forms also focus our prayers on God's priorities of justice, mercy and peace for all humanity, and they make sure we remember to thank God for all our blessings. Within these set forms we are able to give voice to particular concerns that we have. The leader will include prayers for members of our parish (and others known to us when requested), for things going on at St. Mary's and in the community, and for matters of concern in the world. It is important that our prayers also include times of quiet, allowing members of the congregation to bring their own concerns to God, either aloud or in silence.

For the Confession we always kneel. Through the words we say together we ask God to forgive us for all the things we have done which were wrong, and for choosing not to do all the good things we could have done. We recognize that sin (doing wrong) creates barriers of hurt and anger between ourselves and others, and most importantly that it creates a barrier between us and God. We also recognize that it is only God's forgiveness won for us through Jesus' death on the cross that has the power to remove this barrier and restore us. With God's Spirit helping us we declare our intention to start over and to live as God wants us to live.

As well as saying our confession together, we are also saying it to one another, something the Bible instructs us to do.

The priest joins the congregation in kneeling to acknowledge that all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. For just as Alcoholics Anonymous is a group of people who share the same addiction and a desire to be free from it, so you could say that as Christians we're united in knowing that we are all sinners who have recognized that we need God's help to change. Indeed 'Sinners Anonymous' is a little used but helpful picture of the Church! The Confession ends with the priest declaring God's promise of forgiveness to all who sincerely want to change. The priest makes the sign of the cross as a reminder that it's God's forgiveness won through Christ. Many of the congregation also make the sign of the cross on themselves touching their forehead first. This can also symbolize an 'I' (standing for me or self) crossed out.

We now move on to look at the second part of the Eucharist: The Liturgy of the Sacrament. In doing this we will think in particular about the significance of the Offertory, the special nature of the Sanctuary, and how the deacon sets the altar. Then we will move on to think about the Prayer of Consecration, the Welcome or Invitation, and finally what it means to distribute and receive the bread and wine, the high point of the Eucharist.

The Offertory

In Greece, one regularly hears a familiar word for “thank you” - eucharisto. Saying "thank you" is therefore at the very heart of what we do in this service of Eucharist, which translated means 'The Great Thanksgiving.' Reflecting this, the Liturgy of the Sacrament begins with an offering of money as an act of thanksgiving to God for all God gives to us.

This offering, once collected, is placed on the altar along with the gifts of bread and wine, a sign that we offer all of ourselves to God (our time, our money, and our talents), grateful that God gave all for us in the death of Jesus on the cross.

The symbolism of the Sanctuary

The Sanctuary is the area around the altar. In most churches (like ours) it is slightly elevated and at the east end of the building, facing Jerusalem and the sunrise. Whenever we are in the Sanctuary we should always remember to act reverently. This is because it is the holiest place in the church, the space in which the risen Jesus becomes real to us, and where we are invited to come and meet with him. Which is what the word 'Communion' means, our being together with Jesus. This is also why it is so special for the children to come up and gather around the altar at our Nine Thirty Family Eucharist. They have been wonderful at showing us both the reverence and the joy which all of us should have as we approach the altar or holy table.

Deacon literally means servant. One of their key roles is therefore to set the table for Communion and then to clear it away afterwards. They try to ensure that this is always done with dignity, recognizing that the bread and the wine are enormously precious, becoming for us Christ's body and blood. Incidentally that is why consecrated bread or wine is never thrown away, and it is also why we keep left over bread and wine in a special place in the chapel called the Tabernacle with a candle burning at the side, reminding us of Christ's continual presence with us.

The Chalice is the cup (usually silver of gold) that holds the wine. Water is then mixed with wine and it becomes for us at the Consecration the blood of Christ. The Paten (dish in Latin) is also usually gold or silver, and we use this to hold the bread, which becomes for us Christ's body at the consecration. The bread can come in many forms. At the Last Supper Jesus would have used matzah the traditional unleavened Jewish Passover bread. Some churches use regular bread with yeast in it. This risen bread reminds them of the resurrection. At St. Mary's we use wafers for practical reasons. Like the matzah it is also unleavened. You will often hear people call a wafer, the host, especially when they are referring to the larger priest’s wafer which is symbolically broken at the Fraction for everyone to share. Host is another Latin word. It means victim, reminding us as we share the bread, just what it cost Jesus.

At every Eucharist we think back to the Last Supper when Jesus shared bread and wine with his disciples and friends, commanding them and all who would follow in their footsteps to remember him.

As we remember Jesus it is important that we recall both his death for us on the cross and his rising to new life, offering us forgiveness, healing and hope. Every celebration of the Eucharist recalls that first Easter, indeed in a very real sense it is as if every Sunday is Easter Day!

Every time we say this prayer and share the Eucharist it is wonderful to know that we are doing what Christians have done for nearly two thousand years. Indeed by the time Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth, the tradition was already well founded. He writes (I Corinthians 11: 23-26): “For the tradition I handed on to you came from the Lord himself: that the Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread and, after giving thanks to God, broke it and said: ‘This is my body, which is given for you; do this as a memorial of me.’ In the same way, he took the cup after supper, and said: ‘This cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial to me.’ For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.”

Luke 24:28-35 gives an account of the very first Eucharist. It tells how after walking with them along the road, the risen Jesus broke bread with two distraught and bewildered disciples at a house in Emmaus, and how they finally recognized him and understood that he had risen.

The most wonderful thing of all is that every time we break bread together, through the power of the Spirit, it can be the same for us. We too recognize that Jesus is risen and that he is with us now. We are not just remembering, Jesus becomes present now to us. It is as if the Last Supper, crucifixion, resurrection were just yesterday, and we were there! This is reflected in the way the Eucharistic Prayer is worded, and it is partly why priests and others serving at the altar wear robes. The robes cover the identity of the person, enabling us to 'see' that it is not the priest, deacon, or the lay eucharistic minister who serves us the bread and wine, but Christ himself.

To help us to know this spiritual reality, the Eucharist in its entirety engages all of our different senses. We hear: words of blessing, music of organ and piano, singing, ringing bells. We see: colorful vestments, altar hangings, flowers, stained glass windows, the wooden stations of the cross, as well as liturgical actions which illustrate the words. We touch and taste: the bread, the wine, books and bibles, each other. We even use smell: especially on special occasions when we use incense. During much of the prayer, the priest stands in the traditional Orans position with arms outstretched in openness to God. Pictures of priests presiding in this way have been found in the Roman catacombs dating from the second century. This posture also illustrates the role of the priest in bringing closer what is holy, as if holding open a portal between heaven and earth. Every Eucharist is truly that amazing, that profound, for it is about the incarnation of God; a God you can touch who comes to touch us.

After the Prayer of Consecration we say the Lord's Prayer together, then at the Fraction the bread is broken, and we are invited to come and receive. It is important we remember that the welcome is God's not ours, and that this welcome is through God's grace, not anything we can earn or even fully understand. That is why we welcome children to receive, knowing that God would want us to welcome and include them. Where parents would like them to wait until they are a little older, or where adults do not themselves feel ready to receive communion, they are still included in God's welcome and invitation. Everyone is encouraged to come forward, if not to receive the sacrament, then to receive God's blessing. The only church rule is that people should be baptized before they receive, as baptism marks the entry point into the church family. In the end it comes down to each individual and God. We will always welcome anyone who comes with an open heart seeking a closer relationship with God.

Most priests, deacons and lay eucharistic ministers would say that the greatest privilege in ministry is to distribute the communion bread and wine.

Celtic spirituality speaks about 'thin places' where the sacred and the holy are tangible. Where the veil between heaven and earth, God and creation, almost disappears.  Without doubt, the giving and receiving of Christ's body and blood is one of these 'thin places.' We find that we are suddenly vulnerable, God is at work within us, hard hearts are melted, and we are forgiven, healed, changed, and restored. Many also find the time immediately after receiving communion wonderful for prayer. That is why where possible we try through music or quiet to keep this time protected and special.

The Dismissal

This booklet is an edited copy of two Instructed Eucharists, the first given on Sunday March 16th (Second Sunday in Lent), the second on Sunday May 4th (Third Sunday of Easter), 2003. This instruction was given at our 8:00 am, 9:30 am, and 11:00 am services. Our hope is to carry this forward in subsequent years enabling us to focus in different years on particular aspects of the Eucharist.

In addition to this instruction Sharon Rodgers (our Parish Liturgist) writes an article entitled ‘How We Worship’ for each issue of our parish magazine The Bellringer. These articles, which each month focus on a particular aspect of our worship, look in greater detail at what we do in practice. The article for this month (May, 2003) explores the various styles in which people choose to receive communion, or a blessing, and the considerations that lie behind these. We commend these articles to you hoping shortly to present them together in a booklet which would act as a helpful companion to this one.

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