Three Threads on Our Recent Discussions on Eucharist
Eucharist - Three Threads
By Anne Dixon
As we continue our focus on Eucharist in this time, there are three intertwining threads running through our discussions, which I wanted to summarise for all those who have taken part and shared their thoughts:
The first concerns the experience of our members. It is a common observation that the celebration of the Eucharist in a CPW setting is a joyous, inclusive, creative experience in which participants feel included, heard and valued. This is sometimes (but not always) at contrast with some people’s home parish experience. During the current pandemic we have had the additional dimension of ‘Zoom’, ‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’ masses where responses from our members have varied from complete involvement (as in Mike Campbells article in September) to complete rejection. There is even the added complication of hybrid situations where a partial congregation is present and others attend ‘online’. What are we to make of this situation?
The second thread belongs to a small group of our members who form the team for the prophesy weekend planned for March 2021; they are, Teresa Saunders as Chair, Tom Dawkes as organiser and Nicholas Postlethwaite as chaplain. Originally planned as a live event at Penmaenmawr in North Wales in 2021, the team are currently in the process of transforming the weekend into an online event. In attempting to create an event as near to the ‘real thing’ as possible they are wondering how they might celebrate the Eucharist in the most meaningful and inclusive way for participants, or if this is should even be attempted.
The third thread involves CPW in a larger conversation. We have been enriched by the scholarship of Professor Thomas O’Loughlin since his delivery of the Dora Turbin lecture a few years ago. Nicholas Postlethwaite recently initiated a wider conversation between Professor O’Loughlin, the Scottish Laity Network (represented by Robert Burnett), Fr James Siemens and CPW (represented by me), in response to a sense that we were nearing a tipping point in our understanding and practice. In a recent call Nicholas referred to the ‘tectonic plates of our current culture beginning to shift’ and the Church, meaning all of us, being affected too.
The threads intertwine because we need to hear your individual thoughts and experiences in order to respond through our event teams to enable authentic, life-giving worship, using the means available to us in these strange times. Beyond that, we are invited to take our collective CPW experience into a wider conversation with other communities of faith so that we might enrich and empower each other’s understanding.
I want to thank all of you who joined me for an initial discussion last Wednesday evening and those of you who have written to me subsequently with further thoughts. If only we could be together to tease this out! I ask only your patience as we continue to work with the ideas. We are in a creative space and that is, by definition, a little bit messy. It may even look a little disorganised, but we will move forward in faith and trust in God’s love for us. There is much more to be said. We need time to structure our ongoing explorations of this theme.
Please pray for all our CPW teams preparing for 2021 - they are CPW pioneers!