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Sacrament of Reconciliation The sacrament of penance, officially called “The Reconciliation of a Penitent” is in The Book of Common Prayer (page 447). Father Miller is available to hear confessions by appointment.
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What follows is an article by Father John Bauerschmidt. I have had it in my files for eight years. He speaks plainly and powerfully to the question of why worship on Sundays is so important in the Christian tradition. Enjoy!
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE: Sunday, known from earliest times as “the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), is the day of Jesus’ resurrection; it is the first day of the week, the day on which God began the creation of the heavens and the earth. Christians have met together on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist, the “breaking of the bread,” from apostolic times (Act 20:7). Since then, the Lord’s Day, the day of Christ’s victory over sin and death, has been the occasion for gathering together to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ. The early Christians were persecuted by the Roman authorities, not because they believed Jesus was Lord, but precisely because they believed and worshipped him at the weekly assembly on the Lord’s Day. The authorities knew that it was at the weekly assembly the Christians drew their strength; they confiscated the paraphernalia of worship and arrested the clergy because they knew it would paralyze common worship. Roman officialdom would have been quite content for Christians to believe anything they wished to, as long as it did not manifest itself in common prayer, the open acknowledgment that Jesus (and not the Emperor) was the only Lord. Our spiritual forebears literally risked their lives and property in order to gather for worship on Sunday. Why? Because they knew, as well as the Romans did, that belief without practice is quite harmless; even more, as Dom Gregory Dix put it, “To the [early] Church, belief which did not express itself in worship would have seemed both pointless and fruitless.” The gathering on Sunday was when Christians were fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation; through the Eucharist they were assured of the salvation won for them by Christ. No doubt our forebears believed it was a gift worth some inconvenience or even embarrassment. The Episcopal Church continues in this same tradition when it reminds its members that it is the duty of all Christians, unless hindered by illness or infirmity, “to come together week by week for corporate worship” (BCP, p. 856). Our tradition of weekly worship on the Lord’s Day is not the product of some mindless legalism or block-headed authoritarianism, but the distilled expression over centuries of our deepest spiritual experience that Jesus is Lord.
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