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Greater and lesser

by
07 October 2016

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Write, if you any answers to the questions listed at the end of this section, or to add to the answers given below.

 

Your answers 
Why does Common Worship, in its naming of combined services, place the emphasis on lesser sacraments: for example, “Confirmation within a Celebration of Holy Communion” rather than “Holy Communion with Confirmation”?

 

I expect the reason that Common Worship calls the service “Confirmation within a Celebration of Holy Communion” is that it is included in the volume Christian Initiation, which provides the alternatives “Baptism and Confirmation within a Celebration of Holy Communion” and “Baptism and Confirmation apart from a Celebration of Holy Communion”.

Common Worship: Christian Initiation is about baptism and confirmation (among other things), not holy communion, and is providing different options for how those rites of initiation can be celebrated.

I can’t imagine that the editors ever expected anyone to reproduce those names on the cover of a service booklet, where, as the questioner suggested, something like “Solemn Eucharist with Confirmation” would seem more appropriate.
(The Revd) Daniel Trott London SE19

 

The Alternative Service Book 1980 had set a precedent with “The Marriage Service with Holy Communion” and “Confirmation with Holy Communion”, reflecting, perhaps, the sequential order (as probably also with “Morning Prayer with Holy Communion”). “Within a Celebration of” seems to be a CW phrase, hinting at a concern that the eucharist is not an add-on. “Confirmation without Holy Communion” (ASB), a title that, taken at face value, looks odd, implied to the initiated that a eucharistic context was the norm. It did not survive into CW. Editor

 

Your questions
As I brought my eight-year-old granddaughter home from school, we listened to Choral Evensong. The music was wonderful, but the NT lesson included Matthew 18.1-9. She was horrified and found Jesus a great turn-off. Should the Church not be more careful about the passages put out to the public in this way without explanation?
B. P.

 

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