Friends! I've heard that Anglicans only have services in the morning on Sunday. It was this way with Catholicism before Vatican II, but there are now many evening celebrations of the Mass. In the Anglican Communion generally, are there canons or laws which commit parishes to Sunday morning service, rather than in the evening? Are evening services or the 'main service' allowed to be during the evening on Sunday? Most Anglican times I see are at 11 AM for the 'main' service, and 8:30/9:30 for either traditional or contemporary services, depending on churchmanship and style.
That's funny, because I swear my Catholic friend (who is ecumenically involved with Anglicans) said that "Anglicans just don't have evening services". Maybe she only meant this diocese. I just know that in the Catholic Code of Canon law prior to 1983 or so, Sunday Mass had to be over before 12 PM. Priests just did not celebrate in the evening. Wondering if Anglicans had something similar to that, and kept the 'rule' after the 60s.
Just wondering, would this be because of the ancient tradition of following the Jewish distinction of days - ie Sunday starting on Saturday evening and finishing sunday morning?
Ooooh, of course! Catholicism still insists that the new day (or at least the new ecclesiastical day) begins at 4 PM. That doesn't exactly help us understand why they allow post-4 PM SUNDAY services now, since it's technically Monday. Interestingly, the old Orthodox kathismata, or order of saying the Psalms, has no Psalms said on what would be the vigil of Monday (Sunday evening), because Sunday is too important for any part of it to be made a 'vigil' for the next day.
We have the Holy Eucharist three times on Sunday morning and one Sunday evening (and one at Noon on Thursdays.) Next month, we will have 4 on Sunday morning and one Sunday evening. Adding the 4th morning service is to allow for growth without a major building project.
I work 65 hours a week and I am used to getting up at5:30AM the fact that our Eucharist is at 7AM is great as far as I am concerned, I can go to the Eucharist on Sunday morning a still cuddle up with my beautiful wife on Sunday afternoon/evening. All hail church in the morning........
... The only place which comes close to that here is the RC Cathedral: 7 AM and 10:30 AM. Most Anglican churches here follow the pattern... the big Anglo-Catholic communities (the cathedral and the Round Church from 1810) only have one service on Sunday... the evangelical 1749 St. Paul's on the Parade Square has two: 9:30 and 11 AM. How the heck do you fit three services into one morning... is each one packed? At that rate, I hope they don't have to rush through the holy mysteries. I wonder if the 'rule'/'law' of only having services in the morning is just a tradition so people can recover from the rush, have a nice lunch, and relax all afternoon! That is really very touching and endearing! Since the Anglican tradition has always encouraged marriage (even for monastics and quasi-monastics), it seems a good justification for Sunday-morning-services-only - to encourage family time and rest after the morning, instead of preparing all day for the evening.
Off-hand I'm not aware of English Canons relating to service times, although there are as to what services should be held in Cathedral and Parish churches on Sundays. . The usual English fare for Sunday evening is Evensong or Choral Evensong but evening celebrations of Holy Communion are not unheard of. There are a few churches in my area that have them. I live in a rural area and in more recent years many rural churches have abandoned weekly Sunday evensong. My church now only has occasional evening services which are usually ecumenical gatherings with the local RC, Methodist and United Reformed churches. Attendance at the Sunday Eucharist is good and we've had a slight increase in numbers. In first half of the 20th century the common pattern for Sunday worship in the CofE would have been: 8am Holy Communion (said) 11am Sung Mattins (with sermon and possibly a HC once a month at this time) 6pm Sung Evensong (with sermon) The main corporal act of worship would have been Sung Mattins. The 'Parish Communion Movement' aimed to make Holy Communion the main corporal act of worship on Sunday. This is now the usual form with 11am Mattins being replaced by a Parish Communion, although this is often held earlier at 9.30 or 10.00. The early 8am Holy Communion is often retained, except in small rural parishes which are now often grouped into united benefices and as such may only have one service per church on Sunday.
My parish has the typical 8:00am Rite I and 10:00am Rite II services. Our parish has had evening Eucharist services before, but due to our small size, it only occurs a handful of times a year. Now, in the city closest to us, the Cathedral Church offers the Order of the Evening and Holy Eucharist at 5pm every Sunday.
One thing that i'm noticing in these threads is that those of us who go to a more orthodox Episcopal parish are seeing growth. Even my small parish has seen about a 15% increase in overall church membership, compared to the previous year. Very encouraging!
Sean, This is very encouraging, indeed. We have many young families coming into our Parish and an excellent Catechism program for children and teenagers--as well as Adult Formation. It's good to see so many young people coming into TEC. Anna
WEEKEND LITURGY We have an 8 and 10 at one campus and 9:30 at the other (our "seeker" service). We also have a 5:28 service on Saturday evenings. We have considered adding additional afternoon services. EVENING LITURGY Infrequently, we have celebration of Holy Eucharist on Wednesday evening. ====================================================== When I was a Catholic, we had daily mass on weekdays (some churches even had Saturday morning masses), a Saturday mass, and 2-3 on Sunday. Our deanery "cheated" and had one Sunday evening service (6:30) in the city where I lived. We had 5 Catholic churches. Sunday at 6:30 should have been considered a weekday mass, but wasn't. It certainly met a need for many.
My parish has a 10.30am service for 2 weeks a month, and it used to have a 6.30pm service once a month before the lack of clergy meant they had to stop it and on big occasions it has had and sometimes still does have a service at 3pm. A local church has it on Thursday at 9.30am