2/11/08

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REPLIES

Fr. David Moore - 3/11/08

My reply would be that one should either quietly leave the church building after the Ministry of the Word or stay and refrain from communicating.

5/11/08 - Alan Sabey

A friend, who is of our persuasion, and I were at a church in Mansfield last year. We had checked the board the night before and the Priest was George someone.
When we got there we spotted a visiting woman clergyperson (I wll not use the term Priest about her). We were in some doubt as to what to do (we could hardly leave!). When it came to the Consecration she did it with George standing beside her, so we did not take Holy Communion that day but remained in our seats. The sidesperson realised what had happened and George the Priest spoke with us over coffee and recognised our concerns.
Alan Sabey
The Holy Rood, Ealing, West London

5/11/08 - Brian Goodyear

Dear Peter,
If/when I have been involved in the same situation, I have still carried out my serving duties but when it came to the administration I have blended into the background and have not received the sacrament on those occasions.
Brian Goodyear
Coventry Chapter

5/11/08 - S

Whoever draws up the clergy rota really should publish the names in advance. Not to do so is most unreasonable, in my opinion.
In the circumstances which you describe I would not receive communion.
S.

5/11/08 - John

As for lady celebrants, if you can’t be doing with them, and there is any likelihood of one being the celebrant, keep away. If you don’t mind them, go there. Easy as that.

Best wishes,

John.

6/11/08

I should perhaps ask the Vicar / Rector to produce a rota for celebrants which could be displayed at the back of all churches within your group of Parishes if you have a problem, with this issue.
Women priests are with us to stay and we cannot change this issue.
Perhaps a less confrontational approach could be to attend the Eucharist. You could go forward to make your communion then or not as the case may be.
We are a church of two integrity's and as such we work together to serve our Lord.
We do of course eventually have to face up to the the question "If the C of E has made the decision to ordain women priests and eventually bishops, a church which we call ourselves members, do we support the C of E and go along with it? Or if not ... then perhaps we have to move from it".

Derek Albert - 6/11/08

The latest unnamed correspondent seems to be trying to be putting the cat amongst the pigeons over this matter, and I guess his comments have already ruffled quite a few feathers !
A woman presiding would make the Eucharist meaningless ,so there would be no point in attending. And yes, it would be more respectful to the parishioners if a rota was displayed on the outside notice board, stating quite clearly who the Celebrant would be for any given service. Why should any parishioner have to be subjected to what could be an uncomfortable moment of having to leave the church building once the service had started, when they saw that it was a woman leading the service.

Those of the traditional Catholic faith have already faced up to the question about women’s ordination, it’s invalid. Working together ? I suggest that this statement be put to the more liberal wing of the C of E. who would like nothing better than to see us disappear, which, unfortunately for them, just ain’t going to happen. Just look at the attitudes displayed towards the ‘traditionalists’ at the last Synod. Is that their version of ‘working together’. As I stated before, ’we ain’t going nowhere’, so they’d better start thinking again.
Derek Albert

Eddie Bestwick - 6/11/08

In reply to Bro. Derek.. It is difficult for me when attending a Eucharist celebrated by a woman priest to deny her calling from God to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments or to deny the presence of God in that gathering of the faithful. We have had in this team ministry both a woman curate and a team vicar and rejoicingly a lady member in our congregation ..the first in living memory of either gender as an ordinand! Alleluia! we have actually had someone called out and come forward and devoted her life in the sacred ministry. She was recently ordained and is now a curate in a neighbouring Parish.
It is God who invites us to His Table, not the priest. It is God who gives us His Presence...it is Jesus' promise .. not the priest's whoever that might be. Indeed, Jesus said that 'when two or three are gathered in My Name I am in the midst of them'...so, I could not walk out in such a situation because that community of faith is meeting in His Name. Jesus did not add a caveat that his presence was only conditional if men were present or celebrating.
I believe that the Church Catholic needs to rethink its position... but so do many Catholics in the Church of England. Their home really is with the See of Peter. I do not say that uncharitably, but because I believe that that eventually is where my pilgrimage of faith may lead me, if not to the Orthodox Church, but in due course I believe that as the Spirit renews the Church these matters will be resolved and indeed so will the issues of human sexuality and the Church will then devote all its attention to those God given priorities ..the poor and the suffering.
Meanwhile, whatever its faults and deficiencies I will always acknowledge that I learned the Catholic faith in the Church of England and am thankful for that. (My wife of over 33 years has been a practicing Roman Catholic all her life and so the unity of our two churches is important to me, too.)
So, I would say to Brethren challenged by these matters ...ask yourself 'where does God want me to be?'
Eddie Bestwick, Leicestershire.

Terry - 7/11/08

We are back with the problem Women Clergy whether we are Catholic or Evangelical. If you have been brought up in the Catholic Faith the church must respect the earlier teachings that we have been brought up with, These cannot be changed by a synod that does not really represent the majority of the Church of England. I remember on one occasion where a Women Bishop in the USA insisted on saying Mass on Sunday and the congregation stayed away and the only member of the congregation was the incumbent.

Personally one has problem saying The Creed as the church, as it is today, does not represent the majority of congregations.

Regards
Terry
Suffolk

Andrew Mays - 9/11/08

Fr David seems to express views similar to my own which are.

A "Eucharist" "celebrated" by a woman is in all truth a Church Service that has as a part the distribution of a wafer and a sip of wine.

Personally I would treat this as an act of worship, similar to the offices of Mattins or Evensong which can be lead by a Lay Person.

Unless I was put in a very awkward position I would not receive the wafer or the sip of wine. BUT if I needed to receive I would only be TRUTHFULLY receiving a wafer and a sip of wine, NOT THE HOLY AND BLESSED SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR.

As I said on many times when I was Group Councillor for PG21, a female in Priest's clothing is just as entitled to attend a Guild service as any other LAY person because that is exactly what they are, a LAY person.

Andrew R Mays

David Jones -  10/11/08

Dear GSS,

I am SO sorry to rain on the parade - but do we REALLY want to create situations like the one in Jerusalem, today, where monks of different parts of the Christian Church were fighting over some aspect of liturgy which nobody but they understands.

Moreover, I have just received a copy of a sermon, preached by a (now long deceased) minister of the United Church of Christ, who marched for civil rights at Selma, Alabama, in the sixties, when (a) they were attending the funeral of a brother minister who had been shot dead by the uniformed Alabama police who were keeping - if you will pardon the expression - law and order(!), just a few days previously and (b) they (a group including Rev. Martin Luther King) had needed to get permission from a Federal judge to march, at all. This minister, and another male minister, had to walk either side of a black lady civil rights worker, to protect her from police beatings! Or worse!

I am very sorry, but this kind of thing does not endear me to the cause, against lady priests, however earnestly and sincerely expressed. I cannot imagine, moreover, that Our Lord would approve of what is being done in His Name, to exclude the ladies from his teams of helpers at the Eucharist. Imagine, for example, His Holy Mother, Mary, (The Mother of God!) not being "allowed" to be a priest. Or Blessed Mary Magdelene, one of his closest followers and companions!

It is NOT, after all, the Celebrants who consecrate. It is our Lord, at their humble hands. Moreover, as anyone knows, who has ever administered the Blessed Sacrament, at the moment of administration, one is "the least of these HIS brethren (or sisterhood)" who acts, as humbly as possible, as a direct channel, only, between God and Man!

Last Sunday, as a Lay Eucharistic Minister, I was honoured to administer the Holy Communion to an Episcopal Priest (of our own, Anglican Communion) who stood, from the congregation, at the altar rail, holding his infant son. What made it even more wonderful, for me, was that the Body and Blood of Christ had just been consecrated by his wife, our Associate Rector, who was the Celebrant of that particular Eucharist. Even more wonderful, still, this lady is a priest whom, in my opinion, has one of the greatest respects for the Liturgy that I have ever observed, even as the last surviving MC of Father E.C.R. Lamburn (Ritual Notes!). It is an honour to serve her and to share her dignity and grace.

The Peace of the Lord be Always With You and, moreover, among WE, the least of those, His Brethren and His Sisterhood.

With Universal Love, Support and Respect,

David C. Jones (Age 73)
Lay Eucharistic Minister, Lector and Intercessor
Church of the Good Shepherd
Burke, Virginia. USA.
(Former GSS Member, Isle of Wight Chapter)

Gareth -  13/11/08

I am a member of GSS and also happen to accept that the decision to ordain women to the Priesthood was the right decision! However, I accept that this is not true for everybody (after all the beauty of the C of E is its flexibility) the logical thing to do is publish the names of celebrants and I am sure few women priests would mind this. Please, please however, do not get up and leave the Church. Remain and pray in unity with your brother and sister Christians; if you cannot receive fair enough – just don’t. The comment that a Eucharist celebrated by a woman is meaningless in an earlier response is very wrong. The rights and wrongs of women’s orders aside what is happening is an act of worship where people are giving thanks and praise to their creator – surely this cannot be meaningless. It is this sort of attitude which makes me shake my head about some Anglo-Catholics who harp on about fundamentalist evangelical Bible-bashers but are little better themselves! All this aside, I wish all my brothers and sisters who sit on the other side of the fence on this issue all the best and I hope a way can be found for us all to remain in the Church we all love so much.

Gareth
Norwich
 

David Todd -  14/11/08

I was saddened to read the wide variation of responses to this "simple" question as I had still held the fond notion that of all the catholic groupings in the C of E the GSS held firm to the true faith. The most honest answer was that of Fr David which will avoid embarrassment to both parties while not compromising the person involved. Those of you in the UK are lucky to have options mostly not too far away from your own parish if it allows the (occasional) lady at the altar. You should try living as a traditional Anglican catholic in New Zealand ! My most difficult situation was a couple of months back when I was rostered as thurifer and the overnight unavailability of either the P.P. or another male substitute had a very pleasant lady turn up to preside. There was no way of retreating without upsetting the service ( which would "normally" be a Solemn Sung Mass.......) so I carried on as if she was a deacon with all the censings due to a person of that rank. However I stood aside during the "consecration" to avoid censing the elevated bread and cup. Nor did I receive the elements. After the service she became aware of my position and thanked me for not causing offence. Nevertheless I do not want to be put in this situation ever again as I felt guilty at my pretence and discourteous to the presider. The "walk quietly out" option would have been mine in any non-serving role.

David Todd
S. Barnabas, Roseneath, Wellington N.Z.

Mary Pike -  24/11/08

I happened on this forum quite by accident while Googling "thurible" and find it fascinating! I suppose as a woman and a convinced supporter of women's ordination it is only natural that I have no hang ups re. the subject under discussion. I am not a member of GSS (are women allowed to join?) but have been a server and Eucharistic assistant at my church for many years. What I'd really like to express from a female point of view is the joy that at last the church- or at least the Anglican bit of it- has recognised that women as well as men are made in the image of God and that it is our essential humanity, not our gender, that is the important thing. The reason for my Google search is that I am getting to swing a thurible next Sunday for the first time and I needed alittle information on the best way to do it. This is some thing I have wanted to participate in since I was a very small child; of course girls were not allowed to then, more than fifty years ago.It was bad enough being excluded from this merely on account of gender- how much worse to have a vocation- a calling from God- to the priesthood denied for the same reason. I have found the ministry of women a relief and a joy. Thank you to all out there in support, and thank you also to those who are not and follow their principles quietly if the occasion arises.
By the way, I hadn't noticed that women priests were confined to rural ministries!
Mary Pike 
Halesowen, West Midlands

David Jones -  28/11/08

Dear Mary,

Please accept some humble guidance from the only surviving MC - and formerly thurifer - of Father ECR Lamburn, the author of Ritual Notes.

Hold the thurible in your right hand and the incense boat in your left. A boat boy is not necessary, except in two circumstances: 1. for a procession and 2. to provide a serving treat for a young and enthusiastic prospective server, who may be too young to begin his proper duties. I was inducted thus at St. Faith Cowes, where, at about 8 years old, I was a boat boy for a procession at Easter Solemn Evensong.

Hold - do not swing - the thurible, except for processions and - gently - whilst the deacon of High Mass is singing the gospel. There is no purpose in getting the church overwhelmed with smoke and there is NO competition to see who can make the most smoke. Much of the censing of others is done by others: the deacon at High Mass and (possibly) the MC at Sung Mass. You will cense the servers, the choir and the congregation after the censing of the altar and oblations at the offertory. You will also cense the elevations at the Consecration of the Body and Blood - unless the subdeacon does this at the (modernized) High Mass.

I am on the same wavelength as you, regarding women priests. Please see my message to that effect under Woman Celebrant.

Indeed, I was, today, a Lay Eucharistic Minister for a woman priest who is on a home visit from a missionary task in Southern Sudan. A very tough job, I might add! No job for a woman priest, Eh! Seems that she spends half her time under house arrest!

In the course of my duties, I also gave Holy Communion to the Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia. It is Thanksgiving Day, here in America and - when he is "off-duty" - this is his local congregation, where he sat, quietly, with his wife and family, in civies! I was, for a moment, a bit overwhelmed! But I just did the Lord's work, with no bother! He was our former rector and is a personal friend.

Please write if you have specific questions. Or consult Ritual Notes.

The Peace of the Lord be Always With You and, moreover, among WE, the least of those, His Brethren and His Sisterhood.

With Universal Love, Support and Respect,

David C. Jones (Age 73)
Lay Eucharistic Minister, Lector and Intercessor
Church of the Good Shepherd
Burke, Virginia. USA.
(Former GSS Member, Isle of Wight Chapter)

3/1/09

On woman priests and servers

1. I was taught, as a Roman Catholic, that anyone (male, female, hermaphrodite, ordained, lay) can in extremis or other grave situation celebrate the Eucharist. The example given to me was that nuns did so in the all female concentration camps. (My teachers naturally said that a man would be better but since there were no men...) They emphasised that it was Christ who did the consecration not one of us fallen. I have never understood why, if the sacrament is valid when consecrated using a woman's hands and voice in extremis, it isn't valid when consecrated using a woman's hands and voice not in extremis.

2. I worked for a while with couples who could not have children. As our ability to examine their genetic make-up improved it became abundantly clear that far more people than anyone realises are not nice and clearly male or female but somewhere in between. I encountered men (with all their 'bits' apparently working) who had two XX chromosomes and women with XY chromosomes. Others had XXY or XYY or other combinations. Few of them showed any obvious sign of being different. This being so how do we know what 'sex' anyone, who has not had children - like RC priests, is without a DNA test? Even Jesus? When Paul said in Christ there was no male or female perhaps he meant it literally?

3. I am now an Anglican - I cannot be a Roman Catholic because they will not yet accept the ordination of women. We hear quite a lot about Anglicans going to Rome but nothing about the other way and I know quite a few who have done so. If the Anglican Communion had not started ordaining women I would sadly have had to consider some other church even though they are less sacramental than I believe right.

4. I now serve in my local church with a woman priest. We are building a good team of servers including children and we would love to join an Association or Guild which supports our ministry and might offer some training scheme (like the RSCM does for choristers) but we are completely committed to a Catholic faith that endorses the priesthood of women as well as men. 

Colin Limming - 2/3//09

Whatever we say or do women priests are here to stay. We have a women curate in our Church who has proved to be caring and compassionate and our congregations and groups associated with the Church have increased in
membership and activity with young families coming. If a GSS member cannot accept the situation then they should act according to their consciences although it may be very difficult in these days to find a church nearby that
does not have a woman on the staff.
Whilst we bicker and argue the ranks of Islam continue to grow and we also have to contend with dwindling Church membership. These are subjects we
should be addressing!

Colin Limming.

Revd Judith Morgan - 20/4/09

I happened upon this forum quite by accident this afternoon. What an interesting and diverse set of posts!

First, I should say that I am a woman priest, ordained by the Church of England and currently serving as incumbent in a parish in the north east of England. 

I was brought up in a parish which was opposed to women priests and which passed resolutions A and B. My then Rector - whom I regard to this day as my spiritual father - spearheaded the opposition to the ordination of women in the Diocese of Carlisle and eventually expressed the view that it was evidence of our Lord's sense of humour which saw him, in over 30 years of ministry, have only two candidates for ordination come forward from among his congregations - both of them women!

I completely respect the fact that the Church of England has 'two integrities' and have amongst some of my closest friends those who would never accept my orders as a priest. However, the Love of Christ which binds us together enables us to celebrate the Eucharist separately whilst remaining part of the same worldwide communion. It seems to me that this is grace in action. 

As a curate I was once asked to step in at less than a week's notice to preside at a Eucharist in a neighbouring parish on Pentecost Sunday. It was embarrassing, but nonetheless (I believe) necessary, that I pointed out to my then incumbent that some members of that church would not accept the Eucharist from me and that I felt it unfair for me to go there on a principal feast day without them having some forewarning. A male priest was found to cover the service there and I presided in one of the churches in which I was serving my title and where there was no opposition to my doing so.

I applaud your forum on the range of opinions offered and on the fact that, although there are clearly differences of opinion, you are at least still talking to one another.

May God bless us all.

Rev'd Judith Morgan (Sunderland, Tyne and Wear) 

Glyn Tutt - 28/4/09

Soon after the decision in 1992 to allow the Ordination of Women Preists within the C of E, I happened to be having a conversation with the then Rt. Hon. Lord Bishop Timothy Bavin OSG, the then Bishop of Portsmouth.  In this discussion (bearing in mind that for well over two years he remained in his office despite his opposition to the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood) he asked me how I would sum up the 'feeling' that the original question at the top of this forum kind of presents us with.  I replied that I would feel warm inside "with respect and love" and approach the altar with humility and openness.

The hands of the Priest are the hands of God.  As already mentioned, it is God through Jesus' promise which consecrates the elements and the hands that administer may be lay or ordained, black or white, male or female.  For this reason I pray a little bit harder during Mass and ask that God's will be done and then take communion without handling the Blesséd Sacrament or Chalice (which in itself is often a surprise for the Celebrant as invariably they have been poorly taught the finer details of the communion rite).

The strength of the C of E is that it is indeed a broad Church, the responses to this question are fantastic when you think that all of the colours of the rainbow are present in terms of churchmanship, tradition, Christian upbringing and geography.  Perhaps the General Synod should read these discussions a little more to understand what is really felt, thought and understood in the broader Anglican Communion.

As a server I'd directly respond to the question, by saying be honest with the Celebrant if you do not wish to partake in the Eucharist and give good service where you feel that you are able to do so.

If you are in the congregation, stay seated (or preferably kneeling) and offer your concerns and feelings to the Lord.

… and keep on giving and receiving Respect and Love - even though others may not understand.

Glyn Tutt
Server, Thurifer, Ringing Master etc.
St. Andrew's Church, Witham-On-the-Hill.
Lincolnshire, UK.