JSFMACLJR wrote:
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> A recent inovation has worked its way into the Sunday liturgy at the parish...
> We have two priests, and the new practice involves one of them (usually the
> one who preaches) to preside from the opening acclamation, through the
> liturgy of the Word, up to the Pax. The other priest, who has ducked out to
> lead a Sunday School worship service, then enters at the Pax, and proceeds to
> preside at the Great Thanksgiving, and for the rest of the Mass.
One of the more obvious, though less useful, reasons is that it is
against the ASB instructions, which identify a president for various
parts of the eucharistic liturgy. There is no provision for having
multiple presidents, and so the one who presides in the beginning ought
to preside throughout and take the specifically presidential parts.
That said, the instructions are less than satisfactory for many of us,
in that they don't make any provision for the liturgical role of
deacon. Moreover, the instructions are widely (and unwisely, I think)
flouted whenever Readers preside for the first part of the liturgy.
Legalities aside, one of the chief reasons for maintaining a single
presider is that it helps to preserve the unity of the Eucharist. That
single-unity-whole includes various parts, all of which form a unity,
and without which the whole suffers. So not to emphasise the unity
between the proclamation and unravelling of the Word and the invitation
to discipleship in the communion seems to me to risk separating the
historical from the cultic. In other words, the proclamation of the
Gospel in the context of other biblical readings is part of what puts
flesh on the invitation to discipleship that is sealed in the rest of
the communion rite. To separate them is to miss what I think is
essential about presiding: namely forging the links between the various
bits and drawing the congregation ever more deeply into the overall
movement of the liturgy. I suppose the same could be said about the
unity of the other parts, including the penitiential rite (though
opinions are divided about whether it should be part of the litrugy
proper), the pax, and so on.
I hope that helps. My own experience suggests that you'll have a hard
time convincing anyone who thought up this pattern in the first place...
Joe Cassidy
Principal
St Chad's College
University of Durham
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