Worship
Rooted in the word made flesh we encounter God through speaking and listening, eating and drinking. Singing a new song while drawing on the past, we strive to be relevant but not trendy, contemplative but not comatose.
Weekly Ecumenical Eucharist at Sundays, 5 pm at St John’s Church in Northampton, 48 Elm St (on the Smith Campus near the bus stop). Please note this is outdoors! Dress warmly! For more info see www.cathedralinthenight.org
On the first Wednesday of every month we also have a Taize service at St. John’s church near the Smith Campus. This is an extended period for prayer through singing and meditation. For more on the Taize community check out: taize.fr/en Sunday services at most Episcopal churches have two parts – the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
If you did not grow up in a church that celebrated weekly communion or even if you did you may be curious about what goes on
The Liturgy of the Word is an act of worship through thinking and reflecting on “the word” of God as it shows up in the literal words of the Bible, in our minds as we think about the meaning of these words, and in our hearts as we offer prayers to God.
The Liturgy of the Eucharist, or Communion, is literally a “Liturgy of Thanksgiving” – when we experience God’s presence in our midst, in the bread and wine, in our own need to be fed and nourished. It is a Eucharist – a Thanksgiving – because God’s presence – the nourishment God gives us – is overwhelming, overflowing into our lives.
It’s hard to really believe this sometimes! The reality of God’s presence is the kind of reality that is almost too clear to ever really see. But nobody who gathers around the table of the Eucharist has God all figured out, is meeting God with absolute confidence and absolute understanding. If you are looking around at all these confident-looking people and think you’re the only one who has no idea what is going on, rest assured that confidence has nothing to do with being at the table or eating the bread. Eating this bread is not about knowing God, not about having our relationship with God all figured out, but about wanting to be fed by God. Nothing else! God, who made the universe and everything in it, is big enough to accept us with our doubts and our confusion.
God is not remote. God is human enough to be here with us because God, in Jesus, has lived a human life. The stuff on the table at the Eucharist – bread, wine, water, prayer – is human stuff, everyday stuff from life, stuff that we can literally take into ourselves on a human level. At the same time, it’s the stuff of God – holy things and human things, together in one place. This is who Jesus is – fully human, fully God. When Jesus shared bread with his disciples at the Last Supper, he was taking an everyday act and making it both supremely everyday and supremely holy.