I am a new member from Florida - hence the name! I currently identify as Lutheran, but I have been studying about the Anglican church and am a lapsed Catholic (lapsed in 2014). Returning to the RCC is not an option, so I have been researching my English roots and the Anglican Church. A devotion that I loved from the RCC is Adoration, this of course is not done in Lutheran churches. Is this common in Anglican churches? The few near me do not have Adoration, would attending at a RCC be OK?
Adoration is not something commonly done in the Anglican Tradition unless one finds a very very Anglo Catholic parish and even then I would argue that they are way outside of the Anglican norms. Welcome though.
Adoration, IIRC, involves exposition of the Sacrament and praying to it. Anglicans do not practice this. You might like to read the "39 Articles of Religion" generally observed by Anglican churches worldwide: http://www.crivoice.org/creed39.html Article 28 has something to say on the subject you've raised. (edit) I see now that this is a 2 year old thread, resurrected. "Laza-thread, come forth!"
First, welcome and enjoy this forum. May I enquire what it is about the RCC that prevents your return. I don't expect you to reveal anything personal but I'd be interested in what part of their theology you don't like. The Anglican Church is a broad church and you will find in it many different praxes. You could go into one and think you've entered an Evangelical church. You may go in another and believe you've entered a traditional Roman Catholic church. The Anglican Church has many traditions under her roof. You will find Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Anglican churches that describe themselves as following the Catholic tradition. I am Anglo-Catholic but we don't have it in my parish. This is because my rector time travelled back to the 1970s but got stuck there. So he does things the way the Roman Catholic Church did things in the early years after Vatican II when things like Adoration disappeared from many Catholic churches. Most of the congregation like him ('Father's always right') and we're classed as in-comers so don't have much say, if any, in what goes on.
Thx. We are well versed with the Articles of Religion. Another point of consideration are the ARCIC documents. In the dialogue on the Blessed Sacrament it states that "Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament is practised in both our churches for communion of the sick, the dying and the absent. The fear expressed in the Response that a real consensus between Anglicans and Roman Catholics is lacking concerning the adoration of Christ’s sacramental presence requires careful analysis. Differences in practice do not necessarily imply differences in doctrine, as can be seen in the case of East and West. The difficulty is not with reservation of the sacrament but with the devotions associated with it which have grown up in the Western Church since the twelfth century outside the liturgical celebration of the eucharist. To this day these devotions are not practiced in the Eastern Churches, just as they had not been during the Church’s first thousand years. Nevertheless, the belief concerning Christ’s presence has been and remains the same in East and West. Obviously the distinction between faith and practice is especially pertinent here. We recognized the fact that some Anglicans find difficulty with these devotional practices because it is feared that they obscure the true goal of the sacrament. However, the strong affirmation that “the Christ whom we adore in the Eucharist is Christ glorifying the Father” (Elucidations, 8) clearly shows that in the opinion of the authors of the document there need be no denial of Christ’s presence even for those who are reluctant to endorse the devotional practices associated with the adoration of Christ’s sacramental presence. Provision for the reservation of the Sacrament is found within the Anglican Church according to pastoral circumstances. In the Church of England, for example, this is regulated by the faculty jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop." Let us not forget that it is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer that authoritatively expresses the historic Anglican teaching that the consecrated elements are to be treated with reverence. After communion the rubric instructs the minister to “return to the Lord’s Table, and reverently place upon it what remaineth of the consecrated Elements, covering the same with a fair linen cloth”
I doubt that any Anglican in a congregation where exposition is practised would see or understand the practice in the way that you have expressed it here. Prayer is always offered to God. The Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is an Anglican position. The Thirty Nine Articles counsel against the objectification of that presence, that it might not become a substitute for God. The Holy Eucharist is a sign declaring the Presence of God in our world, and at the same time pointing us to God.
How do you reconcile any exposition of the Sacrament with Art. 25's statement: "The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon or to be carried about..."?
XXV. Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him. There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome effect or operation: but they that receive them unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation, as Saint Paul saith. This of course is exactly the point I was making earlier. England had been quite famous for some fairly gaudy Corpus Christie processions out and about around the Parish. This practice of course stimulated the objectification of the sacrament as an object of worship, an idol, or a palladium. Quite rightly the 39 Articles urges great caution against such practices. The depth of the awareness of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is not against the Article, but an affirmation of it. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was know to say that it was her recognition of the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament that gave her the strength to recognise Christ in the poor the lame and the maimed of the streets of Calcutta.
Yet the substance of bread remains, too. The Article quite specifically forbids us from "gazing upon" the host in the manner which the RCC does during their adoration. So it would be 'out of bounds' for an Anglican parish to expose the host, particularly in a monstrance, to be gazed upon at length. And the only reason I can think of for such gazing would be adoration directed toward the host, so by logical inference such adoration should be 'out of bounds' as well. Because if Jesus is present therein in a spiritual manner, while the substance of bread remains unchanged, the gazing upon and any associated adoration becomes all too similar to the fashioning of a golden calf and saying, "Here is our God!" (Of course, the Israelites might have protested that their prayers were to God and not to the golden object, but God was still mightily displeased.) The bread, like the calf, is an object made by human hands and it must not be idolized. Can you point to any early church writing from the first 500 years which endorses exposing, gazing upon, and/or adoring the host?
I don't really disagree with that, however I have long ago stopped discussing substance and accidents, and I don't think that is a dimension I find helpful, but is rather Thomistic, and given what little I know of your background, I think may be part of your background of understanding, and not mine. I am not especially interested in what the RCC does or does not do in this context. There is not apodictic command in the article, and it is on overreach (in my view at least) to read such a prohibition here. It does however make the point that the primary purpose of the sacraments is to be used. In the case of the Holy Eucharist, I would see that the primary purpose of the Eucharist is to feed the people of God, as they gather at the table set in this world and the next. It is certainly not mandatory, whereas celebrating the Holy Eucharist and communicating the faithful is mandatory, however I don't think that it follows that it is out of bounds. And if that is where you are at, that I would seriously suggest that it would be better for your spiritual wellbeing not to attend while that is happening. I recall on a visit to Paris climbing up the steps to Sacré-Coeur, in conversation with a young priest he assured me that they had the only true relic of the passion. He led me around the Church pointing out many features, I asked about the relic of the passion, and he point to the Sacred Host in monstrance (at that stage I did not know what it was called) and said, this my friend is the only true relic of the passion. No.
I think that’s what the RCs (who created this practice) do it for. They think that Christ is locally present, contrary to what Aquinas himself taught. There truly is no point in praying to the host or incensing it other than to adore the local presence of Jesus, which isn’t there. And if you say they are not praying to the host but to Jesus, they will tell you no, they are praying to Christ who is under the form of bread, so that it’s a sort of optical illusion and it looks like bread but it’s really Jesus. In their mind there is no bread after the consecration, they don’t put that barrier up of “I’m worshipping Christ in the sacrament not the sacrament itself,” because the sacrament is wholly Christ to them. That’s why I think it bothers some people. Not to mention it’s supposed to be the flesh of christ. We are to adore the flesh of christ, as Augustine says, but we do not treat his flesh as if it were God himself.