During Lent and in response to requests, I thought I would walk us through the Rite of Holy Eucharist, a kind of “instructed Eucharist” in slow motion, day by day. The goals are to deepen our understanding of what our Prayer Book tradition intends and to provide some insight into the riches our worship offers us – sometimes in very subtle and beautiful ways. Let me know what you think of this idea.

We Gather for Worship

In my growing-up years, it was customary to enter the church, kneel in prayer, acknowledging God's presence in "God's House," the church building. The time before corporate worship was spent in quiet and preparation for the encounter with God that is about to occur. I agree with Annie Dillard who has said, "Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." What we often encounter, however, is something more like a preview of Coffee Hour, full of chatter and pleasantries -- not bad things in themselves, but certainly a missed opportunity to open one's heart and soul and mind to the mystery we have come to experience. At the very least, the chatter that could easily be conducted in the many other nearby places makes it difficult for those who might like to be present to God in reverent quiet.

We Begin Our Worship

Following a hymn chosen to gather us as one people united in voice and in intention, our Eucharistic worship during Lent will begin with The Penitential Order (Book of Common Prayer (BCP), page 351). This is an optional way to begin our worship with confession and the assurance of God’s unconditional love. It is an especially appropriate way to begin in the penitential season of Lent.

Having gathered as the People of God, we begin by saying these words:

Celebrant Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.
People His mercy endures for ever.

We “bless” water at baptism. We “bless” crosses to worn on neckchains. We “bless” God’s people at the end of each Eucharist, but what does it mean to “bless” God? The world “bless” has many meanings. In its Hebrew origins the word “bless” comes from the verb meaning “to kneel down (in adoration). The idea of blessing people or objects is a secondary meaning derived from the first. So, we begin our worship by “blessing” God – adoring God, ascribing all worth to God. (The word “worship” is derived from “worth-ship,” that is ascribing worth, value to something or some one.)

We begin our worship by adoring God and ascribing to God all “worth-ship.” God is valuable and worthy above all else, and we bless – kneel our hearts before – God.