Friday, June 08, 2007

ALMOSTETH READYETH

Posted by Reverend Ref + at 9:00 AM

Tomorrow is the first of the annual VCPA Victorian Ball's. VC has been doing this for several years and the event got so popular that they had to add a second.

I think I've posted on this before, but just to recap: I was contacted by the organizer to see if we would be willing to have a "period service" that could be done in conjunction with the Ball. If I remember right, one is called the 1864 Ball for Peace, and the other is called the 1865 Celebration for the End of the War -- or something like that.

After doing some checking (like asking bishop for permission), I agreed. So I pulled the communion service from the 1789 BCP, created a service book and started talking it up. The only thing I have left to do is move the altar back against the reredos, and I'll have help with that job today.

So . . . sermon is finished, ordos are printed and folded, priest has run through the service a couple of times so he doesn't look like an idiot on Sunday, the MEN of the church have been given tasks to assist the priest, and the altar will be moved later today.

Yep, almosteth readyeth.

1865 and the 1789 BCP -- here we cometh.

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4 comments:

Ecgbert | 3:09 PM, June 08, 2007  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ecgbert | 9:37 PM, June 08, 2007  

The only thing I have left to do is move the altar back against the reredos, and I'll have help with that job today.

Gaudent angeli. Helped do that once for a friend's RC wedding.

Old Prayer Book, 'eastward-facing' was the first liturgy I ever saw and saw for years afterwards (through the early 1980s!).

Will you be 'facing east' like at a Missal Mass or 'sideways' at the north end?

Wafers or pieces of leavened bread?

Mixed chalice or no (like the Armenian Rite)?

Surplice, black scarf... and academic hood? (Perfectly good choir dress for the offices... parsons wore it for Communion too back then.)

A little history for the benefit of your non-Anglican readers (like the Lutheran pastor who pops in)...

In 1865 only the 'second generation' of Anglo-Catholics after the Tractarians (who didn't do ceremonial different from anybody else) were even starting to 'face east' and possibly use wafers and the mixed chalice. The same was true of coloured stoles and altar crosses and candles, all considered scandalously popish by ACs' enemies.

This (and, surreptitiously, wearing Mass vestments) was starting to happen in a few parts of England and in American cities.

I reckon there weren't that many ACs in Big Sky Country back then.

And... I imagine a parish in 1865 more likely would have had Morning Prayer, Choral Mat(t)ins if they could scare up a decent choir on the frontier, than Communion, and quarterly celebrations were still the norm before everybody started having eight o'clock services.

But I'm the last person who'd discourage a Mass even though I am a history geek. :)

Anyway have fun at the ball... and the service (holy fun that). I don't agree with Cranmer's theology but he was an artist with our language. I'll admit I even like some of his original collects better than the terse ones in the Roman Rite. Your congregation are in for a treat.

Ecgbert | 9:48 PM, June 08, 2007  

Google and ye shall find: from the 1789 American Prayer Book...

The Table, at the Communion-time having a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the Church, or in the Chancel. And the Minister, standing at the right side* of the Table...

*'North side' until 1833.

Reverend Ref + | 12:09 AM, June 09, 2007  

Wow .... okay, here you go:

1) East facing
2) Wafers (it's what we got)
3) No mixed chalice
4) Cassock, surplice, green stole

Should be interesting. I'll give a follow-up report later.

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