ACC Pontifical High Mass & Ordination to Diaconate 9th April 2016

Sorry, typo - meant short mass - 1/2 hour or so on a Thursday morning!

 

My Anglo-Catholic Church refers to its Holy Communion Services as Mass.

 

I will admit I am jealous to see such a glorious church! I wish I was closer to such a parish. My area tends to be extremely casual. I had a chance to attend an TEC Anglo Catholic mass when traveling this year and it has still stuck with me.

 

Generally we don't. Usually we refer to it as the Divine Service, or a Service, but usages sometimes vary.

 

It's very common in the Church of England for Anglo-Catholic Churches to call Eucharist services Mass and non Anglo-Cathokic Churches to call Eucharist services Holy Communion. The term Divine Service is not commonly used in the Church of England - I am not familiar with any Church of England Church that calls the Eucharist service Divine Service, but will see if I can find one!

 

Yes Holy Communion is the other most common title. In the US very few Anglo-Catholics use the term Mass; some, who verge on being Anglo-Papal, may do so but their numbers are very very small.

 

What's AngloPapal?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_Papalism


Anglican Papalism, also referred to as Anglo-Papalism, is a subset of Anglo-Catholicism with adherents manifesting a particularly high degree of influence from, and even identification with, the Roman Catholic Church.

 

Thanks very much to everyone who posted such helpful messages. A couple of months ago I did tell a member of the clergy about it, who said that they wouldn't intervene, as I could handle it by simply sort of backing away from the person, and offering a handshake instead, and he would get the message. I think there's an established social dynamic going on here, and this advice is possibly going to solve it.

Yet, overall, I find I feel reluctant to attend, and am thinking of going to the nearby Presbyterian church instead.

 

Is there an older person in your parish that you would feel safe enough to get advice from, regarding this issue? I pray that all goes well with you and for this gent to repent of his inappropriate behavior. I can imagine how difficult it is to handle this due to the environment where it takes place.

 

Dear Madeline, I am so so sorry you are having to deal with this. More than that, I am shocked and appalled at your priest's response to your report. You are the victim of unwanted and inappropriate touching, and yet he has put the onus on you to correct the situation. Your priest has a responsibility to make sure that parishioners feel safe and respected during church services. If you've made the priest aware, he has a duty to confront and correct the gentleman. I can appreciate that this is an awkward and uncomfortable place for the priest to be in, but it is the gentleman, not you, that put him in this situation and it is the gentleman, not you, that should be told to make a change. It does no good to sweep this under the rug and make it the victim's problem. Even if you stop attending, that's no guarantee the behavior will change. More likely, the gentleman will find someone new to grope--which only exacerbates the problem!

There was no one act that led to the sex abuse that racked the ACC with scandal and led to lawsuits and a bishop's formal apology. It was many many failures to act when action was called for by those who had both a legal and moral obligation to step in and protect the victims of harrasement. As Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

 

Resurrecting this thread, 'Divine Service' is a very Lutheran term. My thought is that it does not point specifically to a eucharist (and, in most Lutheran service books I am familiar with, it can end short of the eucharist with a couple of prayers that would be in keeping with our Anglican service of Morning Prayer). 'Mass' does not at all offend me, but we must understand that it is a loaded word for any evangelical Protestant that might wish to visit our service. We must think of the implications that the term carries in the evangelical culture and how we might respond to their discomfort.

My home parish is intentionally broad-church and refers to the Sunday eucharist as 'Holy Communion,' in keeping with the Prayer Book usage. I would like to elevate the churchmanship but I do not wish to change the designation of the service - Holy Communion carries enough substantial meaning to satisfy me.

 

I've been to a High Anglo Catholic Mass once. It was gorgeous! So beautiful and Holy.

 

It's actually the term used by Anglicans in the past, referring to any kind of public liturgy. Just as in the Eastern Orthodox they use "Divine Liturgy", so we use "Divine Service". It's all over the 1662 BCP and used multiple times in Sparrow's BCP commentary:
http://www.anglican.net/works/anthony-sparrow-a-rationale-upon-the-book-of-common-prayer-1684/

For example, "The Divine Service may be said privately."

Only in recent times have people started using other names, such as that very liberal, 1979-esque, "Holy Eucharist".

That being said, since it includes Matins (Morning Prayer), funeral services etc, it doesn't automatically imply the reception of the Sacrament, just as the EO "divine liturgy" doesn't. The vision here is that our liturgies should encompass every aspect of our lives, and we should use liturgies for everything, whereby obviously the Sacrament wouldn't be received in every instance.

Yes. The main objection to the word mass, despite its venerable historical roots, is that by Trent it came to mean the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus by the priest. In other words it became totally opposite of what a Christian sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving is all about.

However in recent times Rome has largely abandoned this theology, and so you're seeing more Anglicans using the word mass. I'm on fence about it, as on the one hand it doesn't follow our historical usage but on the other hand the old negative meanings are lost.

 

I feel like reformers liked terms like "Divine Service" just because the term "Mass" was more "Romish". Even Zwingli insisted that Christ is not physically present in the Eucharist just because it was "Romish". A lot of reformers took the reformation like the RCC was totally wrong and every doctrine needed to be changed.

 

1661/2 Following the Lord's Prayer
O LORD and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that all we, who are partakers of this holy Communion, may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction. And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.​

There is a distinctive strand in Anglicanism which clearly distinguishes us from much of the continental reformation, and from the Church in communion with Rome. One of the difficulties is that much changed in the period from 1532 to 1661. It is hard to nail down the quintessential bt looking a one moment on the period. 1549 speaks of "The Supper of the Lorde and holy Communion commonly called the Maffe". 1559 speaks of "The ordre for the Administracion of the Lordes Supper or Holy Communion". It is quite likely that some part of this change was a reaction to the reign of Mary and the conduct of the last Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Pole (Son of the plantagenet Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, who was executed without trial).

In 1549 the Morning Office was referred to as 'Mattyns dayly through the yere' and in 1559 it was 'Morning Prayer dayly throughout the yeere'. Neither of those books to my knowledge use the term 'divine service', though the phrase occurs twice in 1661/2 Holy Communion, both times in the rubrics - one after the creed, and once at the end; and in Morning Prayer once, also in a rubric.

I try not to worry so much about the handle that people use. The parish where I worship calls the service 'Eucharist' or 'Communion' interchangeably. There is a number of liturgies around the Diocese described as 'Messy Mass' where the liturgy is aimed at being child friendly, though I wonder about the honouring of the Anglican mantra all things decently and in order!

Jesus said 'do this' and he did not say 'call it this', so to my mind the most important thing is that we do it. Perhaps my one reservation is that if you invited me to Divine Service I may be unsure as to the nature and character of the liturgy (as in office or sacrament). I am probably most comfortable with Eucharist as it has some connection with the early Church, it is specific and is not oversaturated with Romish tendencies.

 

I've been to a high Anglo-Catholic mess once. The celebrant and his crew of acolytes and lay-readers made up times to genuflect and cense most anything. They swung the censer so much that the atmosphere in the little chapel actually became oppressive by the end of the service. And, there was no preaching though it was a high holy day: no, they had to breeze through the readings as if an afterthought to launch into the Canon of the Mass with gusto. They thought I didn't know anything about the Missal but I know it well enough to know what they did was extreme, beyond the rubrics of even that book.