In the end I wrote that these gestures are ‘visual, bodily invitations’ to prayer and to worship.  So let’s translate one of the most-used invitations, the ‘orans position’:

Christian artwork from the 4th c. in the catacombs under Rome

The ‘orans’ is an ancient posture of prayer (‘orans’ is Latin for ‘prayer’), with hands lifted up toward God.  You’ll see the celebrant return to this position throughout the service, especially during the Eucharist.

A similar position to the ‘orans’ is, of course, already familiar to those of us from many Christian backgrounds as a posture for passionately expressive worship:

So why do we do this, whether we call it ‘orans’ or ‘lifting up our hands’?

The most concrete answer is that by lifting up our hands, we are living into a posture of prayer and worship found in Scripture.  Psalm 134, among other Scriptures calls to us, “Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD!”

Of course, I don’t think most of us who have raised our hands in worship have regularly thought of it as an act of obedience to Scriptural prescriptions for worship.  The more powerful force at work may be that we have been created to worship God, and that one primal, gut response to our knowledge of the presence of God is to use our bodies to offer praise.

The orans reminds us that when we worship and when we pray, we are reaching our hands up to a Father who delights in us as beloved children.  Luke 11:1-13, for one example, tells us that as we learn to pray to God, we are also learning how deeply God loves us.  In this brief passage, Jesus’ teaching the disciples how to pray (The Lord’s Prayer) is back-to-back with his teaching that the Father delights to pour out the gift of the Spirit.

The orans is a gesture of child-like eagerness, of expectancy that truly God loves us and desires to inhabit our praises, of offering ourselves to God (the child who wants to be picked up and held), and of readiness to receive.  When the celebrant raises hands in the orans, it reminds us that we are in the presence of God, that we are being invited to pray and to worship.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Nick Jordan

Dear E,

Thanks so much for emailing us.  These are important and huge questions for any of us worshiping at All Saints.  Because it’s a big question, I’m going to be breaking it down into several parts.  This first post is about the theory, and the later posts are more about the practical.  To begin…

Early in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters (now for sale in both normal and awesome versions), in an imagined series of letters from an experienced demon to a younger one giving advice on how to trip up a new Christian, the experienced demon writes that one very important way to cause people to stumble is to get them to assume that their bodies don’t matter for their lives in God:

At the very least, they [both Christians and humans in general] can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever they do with their bodies do affects their souls.

There are, of course, plenty of applications for what our bodily actions have to do with our souls, but I want to lift up one point: God created us with bodies and called this creation good, very good in fact.  God desires us to worship not only with our hearts, not only with our minds, not only with our spirits, but with our bodies as well.

And so we come to the short answer to your question: The hand gestures used by the celebrant are visual, bodily invitations to worship God with our whole selves.  The Christian act of crossing oneself is to participate in worshiping God with our whole selves.

Until the next post on this topic, it might be fruitful to think about the gestures and actions that already are familiar parts of worship for most Christians, liturgical or not.  Like this one, for instance:

Check back soon as this series continues, or add us to your Google Reader.

Peace in Christ,

Rev. Nick Jordan

I know that when we were at Creekside, what elements of the Eucharist were not consumed by parishioners were fully consumed by the clergy and/or deacon, so that the Body and Blood would not be thrown away after it had been consecrated. I’ve noticed that that practice doesn’t happen anymore. What happens to the leftovers, and what is the theological reasoning behind not consuming it all?

From J

Thanks for the question, J.  You’re correct in observing that we do not consume the elements immediately after communion, but as a matter of fact, we rarely did that at Creekside as well.  While occasionally they are consumed after the service is completed by members of the Altar Guild and the lay eucharistic minsters, most often we commit them to the natural world.  What I mean by that is this: it is permissible, rather than consuming the elements, to commit them to nature — to pour the consecrated wine on the ground so that it is soaked up in the soil and to place the consecrated bread in a place where birds can eat it.  The idea is that it is a holy use of the elements to give them to the natural world.

Of course that is certainly not the only way to deal with unused elements: in many churches they are consumed immediately following communion.  If we can find a practical way to consume the elements so that one or two people are not responsible for consuming a large portion of unused bread and wine, or if it can be done unobtrusively, so that it does not impact the flow of the service at the conclusion of communion, we might change our practice.

Thanks for the good question!  Steve Breedlove

Great question! Our foundational Prayer Book (in the AMiA) is 1662. We are free to use any other prayer book as long as it conforms theologically to the 1662. (Of course, the 39 articles, and the creeds “trump” any Prayer Book and form the foundational core of our doctrinal statement.) As you know, the 1979 BCP was birthed in some controversy; but it is our conviction that accurate theology and elegant liturgy was guarded in the vast majority of the services, in fact as well as in other recent Prayer Books. While we have to be alert to theological issues that may arise in the 1979 BCP, we have found concerns in only a tiny percentage of the liturgy, and they are easy to spot. Otherwise we find the 1979 to be effective, clear and true to its roots, and in many ways as closely reflective of the 1662 as the 1928. Beyond that our bishop (and others in the AMiA) encourage us to be creative in the use of other liturgies (such as the Kenyan liturgy) that are faithful to the doctrines and practices of the Anglican Church. We are grateful because this approach has given us a strong tether as “Prayer Book Anglicans” who nevertheless have freedom to receive direction from faithful Anglicans throughout the communion.

There are several 1928 Pray Book churches in our area, including St Benedicts in Chapel Hill and St George’s Anglican (a parish of the Anglican Province of Christ the King) in Raleigh. Other churches in central and eastern NC using the 1928 Prayer Book are: All Soul’s Church (Anglican Province of America) in Asheboro and All Saints’ Church (also APA) in Wilmington.  Thank you for your question.

Steve Breedlove

Thanks for the question.  The basic thought is “come comfortable for connecting with God and with people.”  For some, that means “coat and tie”; for others, it’s shorts and sandals.  We cover the waterfront, so to speak, in the people who attend All Saints and what they wear.  Overall,  you’d have to call it clearly casual, or “business casual.”  Wisdom says “Don’t call attention to yourself — worship is a time to give our attention to God, to listening to him and giving him the honor due his name!

Pray for him, and for the whole staff, okay?

Steve Breedlove

Responses and discussions will be moderated to ensure healthy and helpful conversation.

Email your questions to gladyouasked@allsaints-chd.org. A response will be posted soon after.

Because of Christ,
All Saints Church Staff and Vestry