Easter
"Christ is risen indeed!", as we all affirmed this morning, and as Alaskans and Hawaiians are still affirming as I write.
This morning, while I was in the shower having my normal morning fret session about all of the difficult and terrible things I have to do in life, it struck me that I'm happy to be an Anglican on most Sunday mornings, and particularly around Easter. The value of church worship gatherings for me these days centers on the sense of unity that it provides with my fellow human beings. "We who are many are one body, because we all share the one bread and the one cup" essentially sums it up. Whatever its shortcomings (what about the people who don't share the bread and the cup?), the Eucharistic gathering--of which Easter is the "highest"--always functions for me as a sort of icon of solidarity with humanity, and with creation as a whole. We Anglicans keep the Eucharist where it belongs, I think, in the center of every worship service.
The catholic Anglican body too, with its international "communion" structure, always functions as a symbol of human unity for me too, and I'm reminded of that clearly on holidays when I reflect that folks in all corners of the world are going through the same rituals, saying similar words, and affirming the same inherent unity.
Tomorrow it will probably be back to bitching and moaning about our disunity--the fact that some people believe that "we who are many are one body" a little more than others, the way in which Eucharistic participation and administration is restricted in our church, and the recognition that our little physical Anglican icon of communion is breaking apart--but today I'm going to sit here, drink a beer, and bask in the memory of the warm glow of my priest's golden albs as she passed "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven", reflecting on the fact that millions of other people will be doing the same.
This morning, while I was in the shower having my normal morning fret session about all of the difficult and terrible things I have to do in life, it struck me that I'm happy to be an Anglican on most Sunday mornings, and particularly around Easter. The value of church worship gatherings for me these days centers on the sense of unity that it provides with my fellow human beings. "We who are many are one body, because we all share the one bread and the one cup" essentially sums it up. Whatever its shortcomings (what about the people who don't share the bread and the cup?), the Eucharistic gathering--of which Easter is the "highest"--always functions for me as a sort of icon of solidarity with humanity, and with creation as a whole. We Anglicans keep the Eucharist where it belongs, I think, in the center of every worship service.
The catholic Anglican body too, with its international "communion" structure, always functions as a symbol of human unity for me too, and I'm reminded of that clearly on holidays when I reflect that folks in all corners of the world are going through the same rituals, saying similar words, and affirming the same inherent unity.
Tomorrow it will probably be back to bitching and moaning about our disunity--the fact that some people believe that "we who are many are one body" a little more than others, the way in which Eucharistic participation and administration is restricted in our church, and the recognition that our little physical Anglican icon of communion is breaking apart--but today I'm going to sit here, drink a beer, and bask in the memory of the warm glow of my priest's golden albs as she passed "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven", reflecting on the fact that millions of other people will be doing the same.
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