Your
answers
The service of holy communion in the Book of Common
Prayer is accompanied by two rubrics indicating that the Lord's
Supper should not be celebrated unless there are some persons
present to communicate with the priest. What are the current
guidelines, if any, regarding the minimum number of communicants
for the services of holy communion in Common
Worship?
At Christmas 1998, I was the only communicant at a low mass
(Alternative Service Book 1980) conducted by the then Dean at
Southwell Minster. We spoke about it afterwards.
In 2005, I was the only person present at a similar service,
this time Common Worship, at Canterbury Cathedral,
conducted by a woman Canon Residentiary. As a loyal Anglican
traditionalist, I did not communicate; there were no other
communicants besides her.
Methinks that, whatever the modern rubrics determine, they are
not enforced - or enforceable.
Rodney Wolfe Coe
Ashford, Kent
[The first rubric in the Book of Common Prayer order for holy
communion speaks of a "convenient number" to communicate with the
priest, according to his discretion; the second of "four (or three
at the least)". There is no comparable rubric or note for the
communion services in Common Worship. Canon B12 requires
that the celebrant shall communicate.
As Mark Hill notes in his book Ecclesiastical Law (3rd
edition, 2007), when the 1662 rubrics were drawn up,
"non-communicating masses were considered undesirable." It seems
unlikely that the intention is ever that there should no other
communicants; and in some churches, the presence of a server may be
pre-arranged, and there is a reluctance to cancel the celebration
when no one else turns up. Editor]
Your questions
Neither the Church's legal officers nor Roman Catholic
clergy wear academic hoods when robed. Why do Anglican clergy do
so, irrespective of faculty? Is it an anachronism reflecting the
time when an Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin degree was the accepted
requirement for ordin-ation? A. H.
In a discussion with some Methodist friends, the
question arose: why is the Sunday after Easter called Low
Sunday? S. M.
When I first attended choral evensong in the local
cathedral in 1959, and for decades afterwards, the stalls reserved
for canons residentiary, minor, and emeriti were full of those
clergy entitled to sit therein. In recent years, these categories
have been joined by canons provincial and lay - some 80-plus, in
total. Yet it is as rare as a Preston Guild to find any canons
apart from those in residence and the minor canon, who is
precentor, occupying those stalls. Is this true of other
cathedrals? If people accept these trinkets with their
entitlements, why do they not honour them? R. W.
C.
What is the origin of the term "Duke of Wellington
Christians", used by Bishop Hetley Price, I think, in a Ripon synod
address? J. B.
Why do some bishops wear mitres of the same colour as
their cope, and other wear plain mitres of white or gold
material? S. J.
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