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From: "Anglo-Catholic Practices During
Mass"
This booklet is on the practices of
the baptized person during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist that
you are likely to experience in Anglo-Catholic parishes. You will also
find some of these practices, but rarely all, used by people in other
parishes. Anglo–Catholic parishes are likely to have more people using
the practices and using them consistently.
Some Practices Common
in Anglo–Catholic Parishes
Genuflecting
(bending
the knee)
We genuflect to honor the
presence of Christ in the Eucharist. A genuflection is an action stared
from a standing position in which a person moves his or her right foot
back a step, drops the right knee briefly to the floor, and then stands
upright again. Some hold onto the pew or chair when lowering
themselves.
People genuflect in churches where the
Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the sanctuary, usually done in a
tabernacle or ambry and indicated by a candle that is always left
burning. People also genuflect after the bread and wine have been
consecrated and they are going forward to receive communion.
A genuflection is directed to the
presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, not toward the altar or to
the cross or to any icon behind the altar.
Half-hearted genuflections look like
curtseys and lack the dignity of a full genuflection. If a person is not
able to do full genuflection (and some may not be able to do this) it’s
best to substitute a solemn bow for a genuflection (see below).
How to do it:
Move the right foot back a step, drop
the right knee briefly to the floor, and then stand upright again.
Don’t lean
forward while genuflecting as there is a danger of losing your balance.
If necessary, hold onto the pew
or a chair to steady the body when genuflecting.
Appropriate times to genuflect include:
It’s not appropriate to genuflect
when:
-
The Sacrament is not
present on the altar or in the ambry (at the conclusion of the
Maundy Thursday liturgy; Good Friday and the first part of the
Easter Vigil).
-
When in a liturgical
role you are carrying one of the consecrated elements (though you
may genuflect after placing the elements on the altar or credence
table).
§
Some people do not
genuflect when returning to their seat after receiving communion as an
acknowledgement of Christ within.
For Anglo-Catholics there is a long
history of remembering the connection between the various “bodies of
Christ” – In Jesus, in the Church, in the Sacrament, and of seeing that
in relationship to social justice.
“If you are Christians then your
Jesus is one and the same: Jesus on the Throne of his glory, Jesus in
the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus received into your hearts in Communion,
Jesus with you mystically as you pray, and Jesus enthroned in the hearts
and bodies of his brothers and sisters up and down this country. And it
is folly—it is madness—to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the
Sacraments and Jesus on the Throne of glory, when you are sweating him
in the souls and bodies of his children. It cannot be done.
There then, as I conceive it, is
your present duty … Now go out into the highways and hedges where not
even the Bishops will try to hinder you. Go out and look for Jesus in
the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who
have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for
Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to
wash their feet.”
“Our
Present Duty”
Concluding Address,
Anglo-Catholic Congress, 1923, Frank Weston, Bishop of Zanzibar |