Sarx

Continuing with the serialised posting of Rick Fabian’s Worship at St Gregory’s: permission obtained from the author and the publisher.

SHORT Prayerful Silence ends the Communion. After communion the vessels return to the table and are veiled against insects once again. Current fashion favors sending the remaining bread and wine for consumption offstage; but we are not done with them yet! We will shortly set the people’s offerings of money and food for the poor alongside them on the table. Later the people will finish the bread and wine there along with cakes, cookies, coffee and juices — and champagne on occasion — as an extension of the eucharistic feast.

The Presider then recites one of these prophecies as a blessing. THe first is in the longest use at St Gregory’s. The latter two came into use following the turn of the century.

Baruch Prophecy (Baruch 5)
Arise, Jerusalem, and stand on high,
and look about toward the east,
and behold your children
gathered together from the rising to the setting sun,
at the Word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot, led away by enemies;
but the Lord will bring them back to you
riding high in honour,
as children of the Kingdom.
Blessed + be the name of the Lord, henceforth and forevermore.

The concluding verse, from Psalm 113, is used as a blessing in the Chabûrah and in the worship of nearly all churches. This psalm verse once introduced the blessing of the cup following the Chabûrah, and probably migrated here to accompany the distribution of the antidôron when that became the laypeople’s effective communion in most eastern liturgies. Since our worship moves on to dancing and further feasting on coffee and cakes, this blessing serves to end the formal communion and begin a more informal phase — a parallel to its use in eastern rites today. The other two blessings, following, serve parallel roles in the liturgy, as a break between the communion rites and the dancing (etc) that follows.

Wisdom Blessing (Wisdom 6)
Wisdom is brilliant, she never fades.
By those who love her, she is easily seen,
by those who seek her, she is readily found.
She is a breath of God’s power
an image of God’s goodness
the eternal light and mirror of God’s glory.
Now let + Wisdom do all things, renew all things,
and pass into holy souls everywhere
to make them friends of God.

Isaiah Promise (Isaiah 55)
Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters
Come, you who have no food, come and eat
come and buy without money, without price
The Lord has made a covenant with you
to love you faithfully forever.
You shall go out with joy
and be led forth with peace.
This + is the promise the Lord has said it.