Holy Communion, Part 1

Holy Communion, part 1 - The Preparation

In this new three-part series, we explore the liturgy of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer. As we walk through the the liturgy part by part, we will also stop occasionally to look at the ceremonial we use to adorn the liturgy in its exercise at Holy Trinity.

In our first lesson, we explored first a few contextual matters:

• Thomas Cranmer, our Prayer Book's Reformation-era author
• Vestments, where they come from, and what they mean
• The shape and mechanics of the liturgy in general

In this last section, we explored how the liturgy of Holy Communion can be broken down into three major parts:

• Service of the Word, centered around the Scriptures, designed to prepare us to come to the Lord's Holy Table by kindling faith in us by God's holy Word
• Service of Offering, centered around the offering of bread and wine for Communion, designed to guide our approach to the Holy Table
• Service of the Sacrament, centered around the reception of Holy Communion, whereby we directly encounter the divine

For these three weeks, we will refer to these three parts as 

• The Preparation (Word)
• The Approach (Offertory)
• The Embrace (Sacrament)

We concluded our first week by looking more closely at the Service of the Word

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