I’ve casually mentioned my plans this week to several people and almost every time I’ve been asked what I mean by Maundy Thursday. It’s today. It is the anniversary of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. And so it is the anniversary of the giving of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrament or ordinance. It’s… Continue reading “Maundy”?
Category: Sacraments
Secular goods for church: Back Oblaten?
This one might be more for my Independent Catholic/Independent Sacramental readers than Unitarian Universalists (or Quakers). I found these Back Oblaten — baking wafers — at a specialty store over the weekend. They’re used to keep cookies from sticking to a pan. A Christmas favorite is lebkutchen — a kind of light gingerbread — cookies… Continue reading Secular goods for church: Back Oblaten?
It is like a dear home meal…
It is like a dear home-meal, a family supper, where the Elder and the younger brothers meet around their Father’s table. It is like a farewell meal just before a dear one goes away from home on a perilous journey. The breaking of bread together, the cup of wine together, the beautiful words of remembrance… Continue reading It is like a dear home meal…
An open table is — or was — the law
Pivoting from the Unitarians, and looking forward to Maundy Thursday. I’ll go into the Universalist laws of fellowship (and how they changed) later, but suffice it to say now that state conventions, parishes and ministers were subject to them or risk losing their standing. For a few decades, at least, one of these laws concerned… Continue reading An open table is — or was — the law
Reading list update, January 12
I’ve finished two more books — not on my list — since I last checked in. Relatively shorter and less difficult than what (I think) appeals to me, so I read them without discouragement! William L. Barclay. The Lord’s Supper. (2001, of 1965 ed.) Brief review of the history and meaning of the sacrament, useful… Continue reading Reading list update, January 12
If you don’t have millions to buy a Bay Psalm Book
This week one of the eleven surviving copies of the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in English North America, sold at auction. The owner was Old South Church, Boston, and the sale reminded me of all the old Unitarian communion plate that was sold to keep the staff paid, the furnace stoked… Continue reading If you don’t have millions to buy a Bay Psalm Book
Bowen’s parting thought on the Lord’s Supper
Last month I read Unitarian biblical scholar Clayton R. Bowen’s “The Last Supper and the Lord’s Supper” “a lecture given at the Meadville Summer Institute on June 29, 1914.” … Jesus be remembered, that the unswerving faith, the boundless hope, the sure hope, the boundless love, that made him our supreme Master and our supreme… Continue reading Bowen’s parting thought on the Lord’s Supper
“Wholly symbolic” communion?
In the joint Unitarian and Universalist 1937 Hymns of the Spirit the shorter communion service has a provision where “there is to be no distribution of the elements” “the communion being wholly symbolic.” I’ve never seen this ever done myself; has anyone?
Happy communion Sunday for the Hungarian Unitarians
Autumn Thanksgiving Day, keyed to Michaelmas, is one of the four times a year the Hungarian Unitarian have communion, and that’s today. Let us remember them in prayer, and see this video (from the same festival five years ago) which demostrates how it is distributed. The use of two cups in tandem and the refilling… Continue reading Happy communion Sunday for the Hungarian Unitarians
Woodworking plans for communion trays?
Years ago, at a prayer breakfast, I received communion with others at our table, the bread and wine (juice, of course) from handmade trays. These were “smaller than a breadbox”. The individual cups rested in dimples in the base. A handle ran lengthwise, padded feet under the base and a groove through the base allowed… Continue reading Woodworking plans for communion trays?