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Ship of Fools: St Mary on Paddington Green, Little Venice, London
The Mystery Worshipper
Shipmate
Ship of Fools: St Mary on Paddington Green, Little Venice, London
Sermon a useful spiritual tool in a restless worship atmosphere
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Comments
[Edited link to go directly to YouTube clip. ABR]
BTW, did you pretty little Polly Perkins in the congregation?
AIUI most clergy do in fact consecrate some wine, but consume it themselves.
It's good that the church has children in its congregation - ours are still missing IYSWIM, and haven't yet returned...
The return of Sunday school is on a par with the return of congregational singing for bringing life back to our worship.
Indeed. I look forward to the day - maybe this summer?
A few of our younger folks have been in evidence from time to time, but with nothing like the former regularity or numbers...
Re Paddington Green, an attendance of 60 in these straitened times - and at silly o'clock in the morning! - is not bad at all.
Thank you for all that. For some time now, we've been able to consecrate a cup for the presiding priest, and mini-cups for everyone else. Not the ideal of course, but at least it's available and is safe.
A new infection has led to changes in a range of rules here. The infected man had been at a wide range of locations and then there's the flow-on effect. It looks as if singing is now banned again.
BTW, St Mary's sister church - St Saviour, Warwick Avenue - is an interesting contrast architecturally, being a 1970s replacement of a great Gothic barn.
Yes, my mind was blown too.
In the pre-covid days, we'd sometimes go to a weekday service in a church where mini-cups were available for any who wished to take them. They too had been on the altar for the Great Thanksgiving and consecration. One communicant always took one, but when the cup was offered to her , she'd tap her mini-cup against it. Not in any rubric I know of.
“ It’s not a big church, and there were quite a few in the gallery, so I would say 60 in all, if you include those children who took communion”
Why would children not be included? They are still part of the congregation regardless of age and regardless of whether they receive communion.
Any more than I would doubt the same for those congregations at the other end of the spectrum which you would be hard put to identify as Anglican - unless you are very observant and astute to see the tell-tail signs like the minister being referred to as the vicar.
But I do wonder how the tourist/visitor/seeker who is looking for recognisably Anglican worship is supposed to fare. Are we now the ultimate ecumenical church? (I fear this comment may be considered by some to be inappropriate - but is it?)
It does sound like they were using the Missal, which is Very Naughty Indeed imo. I do largely agree with you - and I would say that there is already plenty of precedent for using rites other than Novus Ordo within the RCC and the wider Catholic Church, so an A-C church does not need to use Novus Ordo to be part of that.
It follows Common Worship Order One quite closely, but inserts one or two of the more Carflick bits (such as *Pray, my brothers and sisters...* ) which are AIUI allowed to be used.
(They also publish a *Mass* booklet, which is the RCC service pure and simple, for those Anglican parishes which have decided to be Naughty).
IIRC, +Chartres of London decreed at one time that only the C of E service, with some small additions, was to be used in his Diocese, so I wonder if, in fact, St Mary's is being obedient?
Oh I believe I have come across that first booklet being used at Christ Church in Eastbourne. It was, as you say, pretty much Common Worship but just with some extra 'other words [that] may be used'. It was recognisably Common Worship and not the Roman Missal, which is good enough for me - I wonder if it's indicative of the more flexible/liberal end of Trad A-Cs. Christ Church would certainly fall under that category (and is a church well worth being Mystery Worshipped in its own right if anyone is nearby - when I visited the walls were stacked with crates of food for their food bank right up to the Stations of the Cross, which made for a poignant image).
@Amanda B Reckondwyth
Lead Editor, Mystery Worship