IB World Religions 3.2.2. Public and Private Worship: Eucharist, Prayer and the Ministers Notes

3.2.2. Public and Private Worship: Eucharist, Prayer and the Ministers

Shapes of public worship

1. Christian public worship divides broadly into liturgical and non-liturgical styles, and the difference is whether the words are set in advance or chosen at the time.
2. Liturgy means the public work of the people, and liturgical churches follow a fixed order printed in a book and repeated across a whole tradition.
3. The Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is largely sung, runs to about two hours, and is celebrated at an altar screened by an iconostasis.
4. The Roman Catholic Mass follows a fixed order in two halves, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and since the Second Vatican Council it is usually in the local language.
5. Anglican and Lutheran services keep a similar shape, while Reformed, Baptist and independent churches build the service around the sermon with no set text.
6. The Society of Friends sits in silence in its unprogrammed meetings, with anyone free to speak when moved, which is the furthest point from a fixed liturgy.

The Eucharist and its names

1. The Eucharist is the central act of worship for most of the world's Christians, and each of its many names carries an emphasis. Eucharist means thanksgiving, Mass comes from the dismissal at the end of the Latin rite, and Holy Communion stresses sharing.
2. The Lord's Supper and the breaking of bread recall the meal itself, while Divine Liturgy is the term used across the Orthodox churches.
3. Christians trace it to the Last Supper, where the Gospels and 1 Corinthians 11 record Jesus taking bread and wine and telling his followers to do this in remembrance.
4. The shape is remarkably stable across traditions: gathering, scripture and sermon, prayers, the bringing of bread and wine, a long thanksgiving, and the sharing.
5. That prayer is called the anaphora or eucharistic prayer, and it contains the epiclesis, the calling down of the Holy Spirit, which Orthodox theology treats as the decisive moment.
6. Frequency varies widely. Catholic and Orthodox parishes celebrate weekly or daily, while some Reformed and Baptist congregations hold it monthly or quarterly.
7. Churches differ over who may receive. Catholic and Orthodox practice is normally closed communion, restricted to members in good standing, while many Protestant churches practise open communion.

Presence in the elements

1. Churches agree that Christ is given in the Eucharist and disagree about how, and this was one of the sharpest disputes of the Reformation.
2. Roman Catholic teaching uses transubstantiation, named at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and confirmed at Trent: the substance becomes the body and blood while the appearances remain.
3. Eastern Orthodox churches affirm a real change and decline to explain it in those philosophical terms, preferring to call it a mystery.
4. Martin Luther taught a real presence in, with and under the bread and wine, rejecting transubstantiation while keeping the bodily presence.
5. John Calvin and the Reformed tradition teach a real but spiritual presence received by faith, with the Holy Spirit lifting the believer to Christ rather than bringing Christ down.
6. Huldrych Zwingli taught that the rite is a memorial, and most Baptist and independent churches follow him, calling it an ordinance.
7. Practice follows belief visibly, in the tabernacle reserved in Catholic churches, and in the individual cups that memorialist churches clear away without ceremony.

Non-liturgical and charismatic worship

1. Non-liturgical worship takes its shape from the sermon rather than a book, and it grew from the Reformation conviction that the preached word is the main event.
2. A typical free church service moves through songs, prayer in the leader's own words, Bible reading, a sermon of thirty minutes or more, and notices.
3. Revival and camp meeting traditions added the altar call, an invitation to respond publicly at the end, still used across evangelical churches.
4. Pentecostal worship began with the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906, and it added glossolalia (speaking in tongues), prophecy and prayer for healing to the service.
5. Charismatic worship brought those practices into older denominations from the 1960s, and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has official Vatican recognition.
6. Music carries much of the weight, and songs sung for twenty minutes with a band work as the equivalent of a liturgy in many congregations.
7. African Initiated Churches and Pentecostal congregations across Africa, Latin America and East Asia have made this the fastest growing style of worship in the world.

Private prayer and devotion

1. Prayer is communication with God, and Christian teaching describes it as adoration, confession, thanksgiving and petition rather than as asking alone.
2. The model is the Lord's Prayer, given by Jesus in Matthew 6 and Luke 11 and prayed daily by Christians of every denomination.
3. Catholic and Anglican clergy and many lay people pray the Liturgy of the Hours, or daily office, at set times, so private prayer follows a public timetable.
4. Orthodox Christians repeat the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, on a knotted prayer rope until it runs by itself.
5. Roman Catholics pray the rosary, meditating on events in the lives of Jesus and Mary while repeating set prayers on beads.
6. Bible reading is private worship for Protestants above all, as a daily quiet time or a reading plan, and Catholics pray a passage slowly in lectio divina.
7. Fasting remains widespread. Orthodox Christians keep four fasting seasons, Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent, and many evangelical Christians fast privately before a decision.

The ministers

1. Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches keep the threefold order of bishop, priest and deacon, with ordination by a bishop understood to run back to the apostles.
2. The pope, as bishop of Rome, heads the Roman Catholic Church, while Orthodox churches are self governing under patriarchs, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople being first among equals.
3. A parish priest in England may be called a vicar or a rector, historical titles about who once received the parish income rather than about different work.
4. Presbyterian churches are governed by elders meeting in courts, while Baptist and independent churches are congregational and call a pastor by a vote of the members.
5. Lay ministers, readers and churchwardens carry much of the work everywhere, and the priesthood of all believers is the principle usually cited for it.
6. Some bodies keep no clergy at all. The Society of Friends has none, and the Salvation Army commissions officers who hold military ranks instead.