I'm sure that people such as EM and myself recognise that. But the unchurched people on the receiving end of either Ashes or Communion wouldn't. (And I suspect that many Christians who were ashed last week regarded it as a quasi-sacramental act).
The baptism ministry of John the Baptizer comes into my head reading this thread (and didn't Jesus's disciples baptise as well?). A kind of non-temple based, half folk/half acceptable custom in the Jewish religion, to signify either a conversion to the Jewish faith, or a new start with God. Not exactly a synagoguey or priestly thing, but used to engage people's response and commitment 'outside'. I bet a lot of folk who weren't orthodox religious believers received that kind of baptism. What the understanding of what they were doing would have been, perhaps rather widely open to interpretation.
Administering ashes isn't a sacrament, so I don't think there should be a danger of pulling Holy Communion into the argument, if that's an anxiety.
The baptism ministry of John the Baptizer comes into my head reading this thread (and didn't Jesus's disciples baptise as well?). A kind of non-temple based, half folk/half acceptable custom in the Jewish religion, to signify either a conversion to the Jewish faith, or a new start with God. Not exactly a synagoguey or priestly thing, but used to engage people's response and commitment 'outside'. I bet a lot of folk who weren't orthodox religious believers received that kind of baptism. What the understanding of what they were doing would have been, perhaps rather widely open to interpretation.
Administering ashes isn't a sacrament, so I don't think there should be a danger of pulling Holy Communion into the argument, if that's an anxiety.
We might make the distinction between what is and what isn't a sacrament but the person on the street may not draw the same conclusions. being ashed will feel/seem to many as receiving a sacrament , ie a God given grace.
(FWIW I believe there's only one sacrament Psalm 24:1. The concept crosses few people's radar including some 9?many) Christians).
The Catholic Encyclopedia has some interesting things to say about the word "sacrament:"
Sacraments are outward signs of inward grace. . . . Almighty God can and does give grace to men . . . without the use of any external sign or ceremony. . . . God is not restricted to the use of material, visible symbols . . . [but] it is known that God has appointed external, visible ceremonies as the means by which certain graces are to be conferred. . . . Taking the word "sacrament" in its broadest sense, as the sign of something sacred and hidden (the Greek word is "mystery"), we can say that the whole world is a vast sacramental system. . . .
If someone feels God's grace flowing into him via the reception of ashes on the forehead, well, then . . . .
... (FWIW I believe there's only one sacrament Psalm 24:1. The concept crosses few people's radar including some 9?many) Christians).
@ExclamationMark you said that before. I nearly took you up on it at the time, but abstained.
I recognise that you're coming from a particular and instinctively anticlerical theological standpoint. However, your point only works if you take the line that "sacrament" doesn't have the meaning it normally has (see @Rossweisse's last comment), which as a semantic concept, doesn't work.
An "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," innit?
That's a sacrament, but a sacramental (noun, not the adjective of sacrament) is a ceremony which transmits grace but one created by the church rather than by Christ. So while Madame and I cannot normally receive communion at Mass, we are able to cross ourselves from the stoop in a Catholic church, or ashing on Ash Wednesday,and so forth.
... (FWIW I believe there's only one sacrament Psalm 24:1. The concept crosses few people's radar including some 9?many) Christians).
@ExclamationMark you said that before. I nearly took you up on it at the time, but abstained.
I recognise that you're coming from a particular and instinctively anticlerical theological standpoint. However, your point only works if you take the line that "sacrament" doesn't have the meaning it normally has (see @Rossweisse's last comment), which as a semantic concept, doesn't work.
Depends whose semantics we are working from (laughs).
I guess this is a subject on which we can (in Christian Love, of course!) agree to differ....
I'll be interested to see if, how, and when, Father NewPriest takes 'Church' to the street. He's keen on walking about the parish and its environs, talking to people he meets etc., although (as I think I've said somewhere) the busy High Street isn't actually on our patch...
It's largely pedestrianized, with railway station at one end, and bus stops at the other, and has the usual UPA selection of 'shops'...including a W. H. Smi*h's, outside which emporium is a useful open space for Christian Gatherings e.g. Good Friday and Christmas.
Our 95-year old Devoted Old Gent, Uncle H, was accosted by some Yoof a while ago, in their attempt to steal the £££ he'd just collected from the nearby Po Stoffis. He saw them off in fine style......
*sings*
'Glory to God in the Igh Street, and peace to Is people on Erff....'
We might make the distinction between what is and what isn't a sacrament but the person on the street may not draw the same conclusions. being ashed will feel/seem to many as receiving a sacrament , ie a God given grace.
(FWIW I believe there's only one sacrament Psalm 24:1. The concept crosses few people's radar including some 9?many) Christians).
I imagine the person on the street would not be thinking the word 'sacrament' at all, when receiving ashes. Maybe more along the lines of 'something churchy happening'. And I'm not being patronising (I hope!). Most church goers I know would think along those lines, too!
Look it is not up to the person on the street to police what or what they do not get. That is the responsibility of the Church. It is not up to the church to tell them how they understand what they receive from the church. The Church can only let them know how it understands it. So I am going to address what is possible for the church to do.
The suggestion is that Ashes on the go will automatically lead to communion on the go. However as I said, who is able to receive sacraments is for the church to decide. Most religious communities will draw a distinction between who can participate in what they hold to be most sacred and who can participate in lesser ceremonies. The line has changed in churches over the ages. The open table policy of many churches today is a twentieth century phenomena. It is not universal even now. Therefore the church does change its practices with admittance to the sacred over time. The present direction is towards more openness. That said the lesser ceremonies such as blessing, ashing or praying with someone have never been as closely fenced within the church as the official sacraments. Traditionally they have been open to all including nonbelievers.
I am therefore slightly puzzled by the suggestion that somehow offering a lower ritual such as ashing in the streets will automatically lead to giving eucharist on the go to. The churches doing it controls who gets and the churches doing ashes tend to be those that have a higher status for Eucharist, in that these are the traditions that have historically practiced ashing. While ashing has always been open to anyone who attends church in these traditions, Eucharist normally isn't*. Eucharist is also marked as separate and outside the profane sphere in a number of other ways as well. I do not see any suggestion that there should be any lowering of this separation. The logic that Eucharist is next in line is therefore to ignore the dynamics and distinctions made in those churches. If those churches do not offer it on the go then people on the street cannot eat it unworthily.
Maybe I am being obtuse here but I think people are getting their knickers in a twist about a possible unicorn.
*Technically even in the most liberal CofE churches you need to be baptised.
*Technically even in the most liberal CofE churches you need to be baptised.
Technically. But in this wing of the Anglican communion, far from the C of E, many of us prefer not to ask questiuons - and to make it clear that we don't ask questions. However ... back to Ashes, and not of the kind at Lords.
*Technically even in the most liberal CofE churches you need to be baptised.
Technically. But in this wing of the Anglican communion, far from the C of E, many of us prefer not to ask questions - and to make it clear that we don't ask questions. However ... back to Ashes, and not of the kind at Lords.
Does anyone ever ask? I can't recall it ever being made clear at any service I've attended in any denomination (and I was in Anglican Churches for over 10 years). Is it possible that at is meant is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? (ie that you believe).
Being dependent on some kind of act involving water suggests a works based entry to me which sits very uncomfortably with what the Eucharist is all about. ("We do not presume etc…")
Maybe I am being obtuse here but I think people are getting their knickers in a twist about a possible unicorn.
I have no inherent objection to either ashes or communion on the go. I do wonder at explanation and how we do it without seeking to say "get this magic, dude"
Which is the issue I have. By the way, the rules (at least in the Diocese of London) as to "who may receive Communion" are really simple (ahem!): https://tinyurl.com/y3jjo3nm.
O dear. How we get entangled with our respective denominations' Rules and Regulations.
Yes, they exist, for the edification of the Faithful of those denominations, but in this post-Christian, post-Modern world, who really cares?
Our Place is already considering how best we might contribute to the C of E Archbishops' 'Thy Kingdom Come' thingy between Ascension Day and Pentecost.
We may well end up with some form of street 'Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament' outside our local ASDA supermarket.....in accordance with the exceedingly-elastic provisions of Common Worship 2000.....
We do have a Café in the parish, so there's a thought....
Seriously, though, we may josh each other In Christian Love, being from different traditions, but there might just be some mileage in This Sort Of Thing. YMMV, of course, but I'm inclined (being from a family of Actors) to give it a try, and see what transpires.....
I'm not too keen on the Ashes thing (you may have realised that by now), but there certainly is mileage in trying to create a Point of Interest and engage with people.
Which is the issue I have. By the way, the rules (at least in the Diocese of London) as to "who may receive Communion" are really simple (ahem!): https://tinyurl.com/y3jjo3nm.
It doesn't allow for those who have been baptised by immersion (without confirmation) to receive communion. In other words technically a closed table but who checks? I doubt that anyone asks for proof but leaves it up to the individual perhaps on the basis of eating and drinking unworthily?
Mind you, I've never heard it explained other than a welcome to all who know and love Christ. I certainly have not heard it said that baptism and/or confirmation is needed - the only exception being at an RCC Funeral Mass where it was put out very specifically that anyone other than a catholic was impaired and couldn't partake. Fantastic pastoral sensitivity but that's another matter.
I think Ashes to Go is a great idea. I'd be less sanguine about anything sacramental.
Just my point --- any act in God's name must be sacramental. We just seem to me to be applying double standards here.
On the go looks a bit like a fashionable craze to me ... something we do for time strapped millennials or hipsters who won't make time step back and into a worshipping community (which the street is not). ISTM hat this perpetuates individualism when the gospel speaks of gathering and community.
It's a bigger picture but it reflects for me the church's increasing desire to accommodate people rather than proclaim Christ.
On the go looks a bit like a fashionable craze to me ... something we do for time strapped millennials or hipsters who won't make time step back and into a worshipping community (which the street is not). ISTM hat this perpetuates individualism when the gospel speaks of gathering and community.
Mind you, I've never heard it explained other than a welcome to all who know and love Christ. I certainly have not heard it said that baptism and/or confirmation is needed . . . .
I have, with some regularity. The norm in Episcopal (Anglican) churches in these parts is a notation in the bulletin that “all baptized Christians” are welcome to commune. I’ve encountered similar indications in Presbyterian and Methodist churches.
Just my point --- any act in God's name must be sacramental. We just seem to me to be applying double standards here.
I don’t see it so much as a double standard; it seems to me to be using different definitions of “sacrament” and “sacramental” (as an adjective, not in the RC usage of certain things as “sacramentals”). The suggestion that any act in God’s name must be sacramental doesn’t seem related to any definition of “sacrament” I encounter in churches that actually refer to certain acts of worship as “sacraments.”
Which is the issue I have. By the way, the rules (at least in the Diocese of London) as to "who may receive Communion" are really simple (ahem!): https://tinyurl.com/y3jjo3nm.
It doesn't allow for those who have been baptised by immersion (without confirmation) to receive communion. In other words technically a closed table but who checks? I doubt that anyone asks for proof but leaves it up to the individual perhaps on the basis of eating and drinking unworthily?
Mind you, I've never heard it explained other than a welcome to all who know and love Christ. I certainly have not heard it said that baptism and/or confirmation is needed - the only exception being at an RCC Funeral Mass where it was put out very specifically that anyone other than a catholic was impaired and couldn't partake. Fantastic pastoral sensitivity but that's another matter.
I presume by immersion you mean credo-baptism rather than simply immersion. Babies can be baptised by full immersion and traditionally were; Mozart was. The assumption made by paedobaptist churches is that credobaptism automatically includes confirmation, in that it involves taking responsibility for your participation in the Baptismal Covenant. Indeed for Credobaptism only traditions, the objection they raise to paedobaptism that an infant cannot understand Baptism is a sign that this is indeed the case in their understanding.
Exclamation Mark mentions 'fantastic pastoral sensitivity' at an RC funeral Mass. Not sure what is meant by these words, nor whether the word 'impaired' was actually used. It does, however, make this absolutely clear that one should be in 'full' and not 'impaired' communion in order to receive the sacrament. If one sincerely believes that one is in 'full' communion, and,of course for Catholics they will know that one believes that one is in a state of grace,then one should approach the sacrament. If one is quite clear that one is not and does not wish to be in 'full' communion with the RC church,then one is right not to receive.
That is indeed 'fantastic pastoral sensitivity' in making this clear.
The words I'm used to hearing/seeing are "all those in good standing with their church are invited to take communion, all others are invited to come up to be blessed" with instructions to bring the service booklet if coming to be blessed.
Because in the CofE some churches allow children to receive communion, others don't, reformed churches do not have a tradition of confirmation, others do.
The norm in Episcopal (Anglican) churches in these parts is a notation in the bulletin that “all baptized Christians” are welcome to commune.
That's what we print in our (TEC) bulletins, and of course what our rules are. Typically what the priest says on those occasions when there are a significant number of visitors is rather less precise.
Exclamation Mark mentions 'fantastic pastoral sensitivity' at an RC funeral Mass. Not sure what is meant by these words, nor whether the word 'impaired' was actually used. It does, however, make this absolutely clear that one should be in 'full' and not 'impaired' communion in order to receive the sacrament. If one sincerely believes that one is in 'full' communion, and,of course for Catholics they will know that one believes that one is in a state of grace,then one should approach the sacrament. If one is quite clear that one is not and does not wish to be in 'full' communion with the RC church,then one is right not to receive.
That is indeed 'fantastic pastoral sensitivity' in making this clear.
It was ironic as no there was no sensitivity. Why use the funeral of a 18 year old boy killed with 2 others in a car crash to get your own wonky theology across a church filled with grieving young people? You've rejected them when they are looking for answers. And yes, the word "impaired" was most certainly used.
I don't - and didn't believe - I am impaired. As a confirmed Anglican (Ascension Day 1977) why couldn't I receive as I was and am in grace?
The words I'm used to hearing/seeing are "all those in good standing with their church are invited to take communion, all others are invited to come up to be blessed" with instructions to bring the service booklet if coming to be blessed.
Does that mean if you come to be blessed you aren't in good standing with your church (and hence with others)? If so argghhh. If not, then perhaps I am reading your words wrong.
Mind you what does "in good standing" mean? Church speak to me.
Which is the issue I have. By the way, the rules (at least in the Diocese of London) as to "who may receive Communion" are really simple (ahem!): https://tinyurl.com/y3jjo3nm.
It doesn't allow for those who have been baptised by immersion (without confirmation) to receive communion. In other words technically a closed table but who checks? I doubt that anyone asks for proof but leaves it up to the individual perhaps on the basis of eating and drinking unworthily?
Mind you, I've never heard it explained other than a welcome to all who know and love Christ. I certainly have not heard it said that baptism and/or confirmation is needed - the only exception being at an RCC Funeral Mass where it was put out very specifically that anyone other than a catholic was impaired and couldn't partake. Fantastic pastoral sensitivity but that's another matter.
I presume by immersion you mean credo-baptism rather than simply immersion. Babies can be baptised by full immersion and traditionally were; Mozart was. The assumption made by paedobaptist churches is that credobaptism automatically includes confirmation, in that it involves taking responsibility for your participation in the Baptismal Covenant. Indeed for Credobaptism only traditions, the objection they raise to paedobaptism that an infant cannot understand Baptism is a sign that this is indeed the case in their understanding.
Yep I take your point in that promises at full immersion baptism and at confirmation are pretty identical (at least in the form I use)
Mind you, I've never heard it explained other than a welcome to all who know and love Christ. I certainly have not heard it said that baptism and/or confirmation is needed . . . .
1. I have, with some regularity. The norm in Episcopal (Anglican) churches in these parts is a notation in the bulletin that “all baptized Christians” are welcome to commune. I’ve encountered similar indications in Presbyterian and Methodist churches.
Just my point --- any act in God's name must be sacramental. We just seem to me to be applying double standards here.
I don’t see it so much as a double standard; it seems to me to be using different definitions of “sacrament” and “sacramental” (as an adjective, not in the RC usage of certain things as “sacramentals”). The suggestion that any act in God’s name must be sacramental doesn’t seem related to any definition of “sacrament” I encounter in churches that actually refer to certain acts of worship as “sacraments.”
1. I have never seen this is 40 years in UK churches across denominations. Do I need to get out more?
2. ISTM we're p[laying with words here. Sacrament and sacramental both involve an expression and an impartation of Grace. Therefore no difference in effect.
1. I have never seen this is 40 years in UK churches across denominations. Do I need to get out more?
Or maybe across The Pond. I can't speak for what does or doesn't get said (or printed in bulletins) in the UK. What I described is common in my experience in the US.
2. ISTM we're p[laying with words here. Sacrament and sacramental both involve an expression and an impartation of Grace. Therefore no difference in effect.
Playing with words, or acknowledging that words have meaning. Different traditions understand sacraments in different ways. At least in my tradition, expression and impartation of grace would only be part of the understanding of "sacrament," and not, I think, the defining one. And I can assure you that my tradition, at least, would see a huge difference in effect (if "effect" is the right word) between baptism and communion on one hand and imposition of ashes on the other.
Your statement to which I was responding—"any act in God's name must be sacramental"—seems to me to impose a definition of "sacrament" that is so loose as to be almost meaningless, and that is only tenuously connected to most church's understanding of that word.
ExclamationMark, picking up on some of your points.
Worthiness - are you in grace? I know that I can never be worthy enough to receive communion, but still He admits me to his table. Think back to the Last Supper - He knew that Peter would betray him "thrice before the cock crows: and that the others were no more worthy than Peter. Yet still he gave them the bread and the cup. As the translation of the Mass in use here says: Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
Closed table - Would you walk into Friday prayers in a mosque and expect to be allowed fully to participate? I would not. Indeed, I respect the teaching there that I should not enter. The same at Mass. Today is St Joseph's Day. There's no Anglican church within cooee of here where it will be observed. Indeed, the number of mid-week services in Anglican churches in Sydney is very low. Now we're retired, we shall walk to a nearby Catholic Church, where we shall be welcomed. Strictly speaking we could take communion there knowing that we would be welcome. But rather than run the risk of getting the priest into even the slightest difficulty, we shall simply go forward for a blessing. He and the rest of the congregation know where we're coming from.
Terminology - Nick Tamen has pointed out clearly that all other posters here ae using sacrament and sacramental in a technical sense. You can use it in your broad sense if you wish but don't attack others for their usage.
EM It is not for me to have decided on the funeral rites for an 18 year old killed in a car crash. Whoever was responsible for the organization of the funeral rites must have felt that the theology was not too wonky, if they asked for those rites to be celebrated. Certainly in our diocese here Catholic funeral rites can only be carried out in public if the relatives responsible for the funeral have specifically asked for them.
If you feel that you are indeed in full and not impaired communion with the Catholic church, if you feel that you share to the full the faith of your Catholic brothers and sisters, then you should have gone and received Holy Communion, irrespective of what the priest may have said.
I would hope that the grieving young people were given some comfort by the fact that the grieving relatives of the deceased would have derived some comfort from the celebration of the Requiem Mass and also according to the 'wonky theology' of the Catholic church the soul of the deceased would also have derived comfort. The rites of the Church are equally with the liturgy of the eucharist, the liturgy of the Word of God and perhaps some of the grieving non-Catholic mourners were comforted in their sorrow by the powerful Word of God.
If, as I think, you are indicating, that the majority of the young mourners were not Catholic, then I fail to see how particularly they would have benefited from participating intimately in a rite with which they were not familiar and the significance of which they were not fully aware.
EM will speak for himself, of course, but I took him to mean that it was the manner in which the question of non-Communion was explained that seemed pastorally insensitive, at that time, and in that situation.
EM will speak for himself, of course, but I took him to mean that it was the manner in which the question of non-Communion was explained that seemed pastorally insensitive, at that time, and in that situation.
As I said ,I was not present at the funeral Mass,so can make no comment on the manner in which the rules of the Catholic Church were explained. For those who are involved in church circles,the general teachings of the Church on the sanctity of the eucharist are fairly well known and that whether one agrees with them or not.
As you know ,there can be times at funerals when many of the people present will have little or no church connection. Such people can sometimes feel uncomfortable within a church setting, be that church a Catholic church, an Anglican church or any other Christian church or indeed any other house of worship of any faith community.
One can ask why indeed are they there ? The answer would normally be - I think - to honour the deceased, to show solidarity with the deceased's relatives and share in their grief..
Is it ,in general ,pastorally sensitive to ask such people to enter fully and intimately into the very heart of Catholic worship,if they have no understanding of what they are doing ?
Now I am aware that there are some fellow Christians who for various reasons are separated from the Apostolic See and who feel keenly that separation when they are present at a Catholic Mass which may be very similar to their own forms of worship. The pain of that separation is felt also by their Catholic brothers and sisters and we have to try to work together.
For myself I try to look upon this in as positive a light as possible.I rarely hear of fellow 'Western' Christians complaining about being excluded from Communion in Orthodox churches.Probably that is because they have little contact with Orthodox rites or would feel strange if present at them. 50 years ago few non-Catholics would have attended or indeed understood Catholic rites and that has now changed. Catholics also attend the rites of other Christian communities and that is good.
To go to the OP I cannot imagine 'Ashes on the go' being done in Scotland as most people would have little idea of what was on offer. There are some Presbyterian churches which mark 'Ash Wednesday' and Lent in some way, but it is not generally on the radar.
Comments
Administering ashes isn't a sacrament, so I don't think there should be a danger of pulling Holy Communion into the argument, if that's an anxiety.
We might make the distinction between what is and what isn't a sacrament but the person on the street may not draw the same conclusions. being ashed will feel/seem to many as receiving a sacrament , ie a God given grace.
(FWIW I believe there's only one sacrament Psalm 24:1. The concept crosses few people's radar including some 9?many) Christians).
If someone feels God's grace flowing into him via the reception of ashes on the forehead, well, then . . . .
Exactly, Miss Amanda. How anyone could view that as a problem is beyond me.
Not a sacrament but a sacramental. So anyone can licitly go into a Catholic church and be ashed, without the restriction in taking mass.
I recognise that you're coming from a particular and instinctively anticlerical theological standpoint. However, your point only works if you take the line that "sacrament" doesn't have the meaning it normally has (see @Rossweisse's last comment), which as a semantic concept, doesn't work.
That's a sacrament, but a sacramental (noun, not the adjective of sacrament) is a ceremony which transmits grace but one created by the church rather than by Christ. So while Madame and I cannot normally receive communion at Mass, we are able to cross ourselves from the stoop in a Catholic church, or ashing on Ash Wednesday,and so forth.
Depends whose semantics we are working from (laughs).
I'll be interested to see if, how, and when, Father NewPriest takes 'Church' to the street. He's keen on walking about the parish and its environs, talking to people he meets etc., although (as I think I've said somewhere) the busy High Street isn't actually on our patch...
It's largely pedestrianized, with railway station at one end, and bus stops at the other, and has the usual UPA selection of 'shops'...including a W. H. Smi*h's, outside which emporium is a useful open space for Christian Gatherings e.g. Good Friday and Christmas.
Our 95-year old Devoted Old Gent, Uncle H, was accosted by some Yoof a while ago, in their attempt to steal the £££ he'd just collected from the nearby Po Stoffis. He saw them off in fine style......
*sings*
'Glory to God in the Igh Street, and peace to Is people on Erff....'
I imagine the person on the street would not be thinking the word 'sacrament' at all, when receiving ashes. Maybe more along the lines of 'something churchy happening'. And I'm not being patronising (I hope!). Most church goers I know would think along those lines, too!
The suggestion is that Ashes on the go will automatically lead to communion on the go. However as I said, who is able to receive sacraments is for the church to decide. Most religious communities will draw a distinction between who can participate in what they hold to be most sacred and who can participate in lesser ceremonies. The line has changed in churches over the ages. The open table policy of many churches today is a twentieth century phenomena. It is not universal even now. Therefore the church does change its practices with admittance to the sacred over time. The present direction is towards more openness. That said the lesser ceremonies such as blessing, ashing or praying with someone have never been as closely fenced within the church as the official sacraments. Traditionally they have been open to all including nonbelievers.
I am therefore slightly puzzled by the suggestion that somehow offering a lower ritual such as ashing in the streets will automatically lead to giving eucharist on the go to. The churches doing it controls who gets and the churches doing ashes tend to be those that have a higher status for Eucharist, in that these are the traditions that have historically practiced ashing. While ashing has always been open to anyone who attends church in these traditions, Eucharist normally isn't*. Eucharist is also marked as separate and outside the profane sphere in a number of other ways as well. I do not see any suggestion that there should be any lowering of this separation. The logic that Eucharist is next in line is therefore to ignore the dynamics and distinctions made in those churches. If those churches do not offer it on the go then people on the street cannot eat it unworthily.
Maybe I am being obtuse here but I think people are getting their knickers in a twist about a possible unicorn.
*Technically even in the most liberal CofE churches you need to be baptised.
Technically. But in this wing of the Anglican communion, far from the C of E, many of us prefer not to ask questiuons - and to make it clear that we don't ask questions. However ... back to Ashes, and not of the kind at Lords.
They are if it's like ours 200 yards from a football ground
Does anyone ever ask? I can't recall it ever being made clear at any service I've attended in any denomination (and I was in Anglican Churches for over 10 years). Is it possible that at is meant is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? (ie that you believe).
Being dependent on some kind of act involving water suggests a works based entry to me which sits very uncomfortably with what the Eucharist is all about. ("We do not presume etc…")
Yes, they exist, for the edification of the Faithful of those denominations, but in this post-Christian, post-Modern world, who really cares?
Our Place is already considering how best we might contribute to the C of E Archbishops' 'Thy Kingdom Come' thingy between Ascension Day and Pentecost.
We may well end up with some form of street 'Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament' outside our local ASDA supermarket.....in accordance with the exceedingly-elastic provisions of Common Worship 2000.....
We do have a Café in the parish, so there's a thought....
Seriously, though, we may josh each other In Christian Love, being from different traditions, but there might just be some mileage in This Sort Of Thing. YMMV, of course, but I'm inclined (being from a family of Actors) to give it a try, and see what transpires.....
It doesn't allow for those who have been baptised by immersion (without confirmation) to receive communion. In other words technically a closed table but who checks? I doubt that anyone asks for proof but leaves it up to the individual perhaps on the basis of eating and drinking unworthily?
Mind you, I've never heard it explained other than a welcome to all who know and love Christ. I certainly have not heard it said that baptism and/or confirmation is needed - the only exception being at an RCC Funeral Mass where it was put out very specifically that anyone other than a catholic was impaired and couldn't partake. Fantastic pastoral sensitivity but that's another matter.
Just my point --- any act in God's name must be sacramental. We just seem to me to be applying double standards here.
On the go looks a bit like a fashionable craze to me ... something we do for time strapped millennials or hipsters who won't make time step back and into a worshipping community (which the street is not). ISTM hat this perpetuates individualism when the gospel speaks of gathering and community.
It's a bigger picture but it reflects for me the church's increasing desire to accommodate people rather than proclaim Christ.
I don’t see it so much as a double standard; it seems to me to be using different definitions of “sacrament” and “sacramental” (as an adjective, not in the RC usage of certain things as “sacramentals”). The suggestion that any act in God’s name must be sacramental doesn’t seem related to any definition of “sacrament” I encounter in churches that actually refer to certain acts of worship as “sacraments.”
I presume by immersion you mean credo-baptism rather than simply immersion. Babies can be baptised by full immersion and traditionally were; Mozart was. The assumption made by paedobaptist churches is that credobaptism automatically includes confirmation, in that it involves taking responsibility for your participation in the Baptismal Covenant. Indeed for Credobaptism only traditions, the objection they raise to paedobaptism that an infant cannot understand Baptism is a sign that this is indeed the case in their understanding.
That is indeed 'fantastic pastoral sensitivity' in making this clear.
Because in the CofE some churches allow children to receive communion, others don't, reformed churches do not have a tradition of confirmation, others do.
That's what we print in our (TEC) bulletins, and of course what our rules are. Typically what the priest says on those occasions when there are a significant number of visitors is rather less precise.
It was ironic as no there was no sensitivity. Why use the funeral of a 18 year old boy killed with 2 others in a car crash to get your own wonky theology across a church filled with grieving young people? You've rejected them when they are looking for answers. And yes, the word "impaired" was most certainly used.
I don't - and didn't believe - I am impaired. As a confirmed Anglican (Ascension Day 1977) why couldn't I receive as I was and am in grace?
Mind you what does "in good standing" mean? Church speak to me.
Yep I take your point in that promises at full immersion baptism and at confirmation are pretty identical (at least in the form I use)
1. I have never seen this is 40 years in UK churches across denominations. Do I need to get out more?
2. ISTM we're p[laying with words here. Sacrament and sacramental both involve an expression and an impartation of Grace. Therefore no difference in effect.
Playing with words, or acknowledging that words have meaning. Different traditions understand sacraments in different ways. At least in my tradition, expression and impartation of grace would only be part of the understanding of "sacrament," and not, I think, the defining one. And I can assure you that my tradition, at least, would see a huge difference in effect (if "effect" is the right word) between baptism and communion on one hand and imposition of ashes on the other.
Your statement to which I was responding—"any act in God's name must be sacramental"—seems to me to impose a definition of "sacrament" that is so loose as to be almost meaningless, and that is only tenuously connected to most church's understanding of that word.
Worthiness - are you in grace? I know that I can never be worthy enough to receive communion, but still He admits me to his table. Think back to the Last Supper - He knew that Peter would betray him "thrice before the cock crows: and that the others were no more worthy than Peter. Yet still he gave them the bread and the cup. As the translation of the Mass in use here says: Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
Closed table - Would you walk into Friday prayers in a mosque and expect to be allowed fully to participate? I would not. Indeed, I respect the teaching there that I should not enter. The same at Mass. Today is St Joseph's Day. There's no Anglican church within cooee of here where it will be observed. Indeed, the number of mid-week services in Anglican churches in Sydney is very low. Now we're retired, we shall walk to a nearby Catholic Church, where we shall be welcomed. Strictly speaking we could take communion there knowing that we would be welcome. But rather than run the risk of getting the priest into even the slightest difficulty, we shall simply go forward for a blessing. He and the rest of the congregation know where we're coming from.
Terminology - Nick Tamen has pointed out clearly that all other posters here ae using sacrament and sacramental in a technical sense. You can use it in your broad sense if you wish but don't attack others for their usage.
If you feel that you are indeed in full and not impaired communion with the Catholic church, if you feel that you share to the full the faith of your Catholic brothers and sisters, then you should have gone and received Holy Communion, irrespective of what the priest may have said.
I would hope that the grieving young people were given some comfort by the fact that the grieving relatives of the deceased would have derived some comfort from the celebration of the Requiem Mass and also according to the 'wonky theology' of the Catholic church the soul of the deceased would also have derived comfort. The rites of the Church are equally with the liturgy of the eucharist, the liturgy of the Word of God and perhaps some of the grieving non-Catholic mourners were comforted in their sorrow by the powerful Word of God.
If, as I think, you are indicating, that the majority of the young mourners were not Catholic, then I fail to see how particularly they would have benefited from participating intimately in a rite with which they were not familiar and the significance of which they were not fully aware.
Yep that's it
As you know ,there can be times at funerals when many of the people present will have little or no church connection. Such people can sometimes feel uncomfortable within a church setting, be that church a Catholic church, an Anglican church or any other Christian church or indeed any other house of worship of any faith community.
One can ask why indeed are they there ? The answer would normally be - I think - to honour the deceased, to show solidarity with the deceased's relatives and share in their grief..
Is it ,in general ,pastorally sensitive to ask such people to enter fully and intimately into the very heart of Catholic worship,if they have no understanding of what they are doing ?
Now I am aware that there are some fellow Christians who for various reasons are separated from the Apostolic See and who feel keenly that separation when they are present at a Catholic Mass which may be very similar to their own forms of worship. The pain of that separation is felt also by their Catholic brothers and sisters and we have to try to work together.
For myself I try to look upon this in as positive a light as possible.I rarely hear of fellow 'Western' Christians complaining about being excluded from Communion in Orthodox churches.Probably that is because they have little contact with Orthodox rites or would feel strange if present at them. 50 years ago few non-Catholics would have attended or indeed understood Catholic rites and that has now changed. Catholics also attend the rites of other Christian communities and that is good.
To go to the OP I cannot imagine 'Ashes on the go' being done in Scotland as most people would have little idea of what was on offer. There are some Presbyterian churches which mark 'Ash Wednesday' and Lent in some way, but it is not generally on the radar.