The Many True Churches

As promised, I got up at the crack of dawn and went to Morning Prayer at another Anglo-Catholic curch in the area. It was a beautiful experience. For one thing, the officiant was a nun. Also it was good to finally do "common" prayer in common. I could go back to saying:

V: The Lord be with you.
R: And also with you.

Instead of:

V: Lord, hear my prayer.
R: And let my cry come to you.

The latter, of course, being more appropriate for solitary devotions. But most importantly, all the "we's" and "our's" made sense, not to mention the whole feeling of "when two or three of you are gathered in my name," etc. On the board where the hymns are indicated, they instead had the Morning Prayer psalm and the canticles! It was great. Oh, and the congregation included nuns in habit. Wow. It was fantastic.

This brings up a point. The One True Church has many churches under its roof. Or, more specifically, the Anglican Church allows for astonishing diversity within it. My Tuesday night fellowship group has been talking about some of these similarities and differences and we decided to stealthily observe other churches to see what's up outside of the home parish. (We'll be the ones in funny glasses.) In the last two days I ended up going to mass at two churches, kind of by accident. (I attended mass this morning because it came directly after Morning Prayer.)

Last night's church felt very Protestant... maybe they would recoil to hear me say that; maybe not. But the homily was way more like old fashioned "preaching," with the preacher practically holding a Bible and walking around back and forth a lot. The Eucharist was de-mystified somewhat. Not any less valid, but certaionly shorter and quicker. Things were left out, such as the penetential rite. And the language was strictly Eucharistic Prayer B from the Book of Common Prayer. So no "Lord I am not worthy to recieve you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." Also, the priest alone officiated without an acolyte. An interesting experience.

Today, it was full-blown Anglo-Catholic; they even said the Angelus at the conclusion of Morning Prayer. And the text of the Angelus has been pasted in to the inside back over of every Prayer Book in the church! There is also a Lady Shrine, but not as pretty as the one at home. Anyway, enough for now lest I ramble. I'll just say that saying common prayer in common is a great way to start the day.