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Course 11 · Lesson 7.4

Liturgy, word and table, and the church year

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 11 outline

Module 1: What the Church Is

  1. Biblical images of the church: body, people, temple and bride
  2. One, holy, catholic and apostolic: the four marks
  3. The mission of the church
  4. The visible and invisible church in Augustine, the Reformers and the East

Module 2: Ministry and Apostolic Succession

  1. Ministry in the New Testament: apostles, elders, overseers and deacons
  2. The bishop in the early church: Clement, Ignatius and Irenaeus
  3. Apostolic succession: three meanings (a line of bishops, the teaching, the mission)
  4. Ordination in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions

Module 3: Scripture, Tradition and Church Authority

  1. Scripture and tradition in the early church
  2. The Catholic account: Scripture, tradition and the magisterium
  3. The Orthodox account: the living tradition of the church
  4. The Reformation and the question of sola scriptura

Module 4: Three Systems of Authority

  1. The bishop of Rome in early history
  2. Papal primacy and infallibility in Catholic teaching
  3. Orthodox conciliarity and the role of the patriarchs
  4. Protestant principles of authority: Scripture, confessions and the priesthood of believers
  5. The strongest objections each tradition raises against the others

Module 5: Sacramental Theology

  1. Mystery and sacrament: the words and their history
  2. Augustine and the definition of a sacrament
  3. How many sacraments? Seven, two, or none
  4. Validity, efficacy and the role of faith

Module 6: Baptism and the Eucharist

  1. Baptism in Scripture and the early church
  2. Infant baptism and believers baptism
  3. The Eucharist in the early church
  4. Real presence: transubstantiation, the Orthodox mystery, Lutheran, Reformed and memorial views

Module 7: Reconciliation and Liturgical Worship

  1. The forgiveness of sins in Scripture
  2. Confession and penance in the history of the church
  3. Confession across the traditions: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed practice
  4. Liturgy, word and table, and the church year
  5. Worship without a fixed liturgy and its principles

Module 8: Schism and Christian Unity

  1. Early schisms: the Donatists and the churches after Chalcedon
  2. East and West: the long division and the events of 1054
  3. The Reformation divisions
  4. Ecumenism and the prospects for unity

All courses

Program / Course 11: Church, Sacraments, and Authority / Lesson 7.4

What you will learn

  • Define liturgy and describe the basic shape of Christian worship as word and table.
  • Describe the main liturgies of the East and West and the Reformation reforms.
  • Outline the church year and the major seasons in Western and Eastern practice.
  • Explain why Christians in liturgical traditions value fixed forms and how others view them.

The big idea

Liturgy means the public worship of the church, and in liturgical traditions it follows a set order. The most ancient pattern has two parts: the service of the word, with Scripture, preaching and prayer, and the service of the table, with the Eucharist. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans use fixed liturgies and keep a church year that retells the life of Christ through seasons such as Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. Reformed and free churches have reduced or dropped some of these forms, and give priority to preaching.

Key terms

Liturgy
From the Greek leitourgia, public service. The church’s official, ordered public worship.
Liturgy of the Word
The first part of the service, with readings from Scripture, a sermon and prayers.
Liturgy of the Eucharist (or the table)
The second part, with the offering of bread and wine, the great thanksgiving and communion.
Liturgical year
The yearly cycle of seasons and feasts that commemorates the events of Christ’s life and the saints.
Lectionary
A schedule of Scripture readings assigned to the days of the church year.
Divine Liturgy
The Eastern name for the Eucharistic service, most often the liturgy attributed to John Chrysostom.
Book of Common Prayer
The Anglican service book, first issued in English under Thomas Cranmer in 1549.

Background

The first Christians were Jews who worshiped in synagogue and temple, and they brought elements of Jewish prayer, psalmody and Scripture reading into their gatherings. They added the meal Jesus commanded, and the preaching of the gospel. By the middle of the second century, as Justin Martyr’s description shows, the Sunday gathering already had a recognizable shape: readings, a sermon, prayers, bringing of the bread and wine, a prayer of thanksgiving, communion and gifts for the poor.

Over the following centuries local churches developed fuller liturgies, with set prayers, hymns and ceremonial. Major families formed around the great centers: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople. This lesson describes the common structure and then looks at how each tradition keeps worship and marks time.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The shape of the liturgy

Despite their diversity, most traditional liturgies share the same movement. The gathering begins with entrance, praise and penitence. The Liturgy of the Word follows, with readings from the Old Testament, the Epistles and the Gospel, a sermon or homily, and the Creed and prayers of the people. The Liturgy of the Table follows, with the bringing of the gifts, the great prayer of thanksgiving, the Lord’s Prayer, the breaking of the bread and communion. The service ends with a blessing and dismissal.

The pattern follows two places in the life of Christ: the teaching of Jesus and the table at which he gave himself. Luke 24 is often cited as a model. The risen Lord explains the Scriptures to two disciples on the road and then is known in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:27, 30-31). Many writers see in the story the shape of the whole service.

Step 2: Eastern liturgies

The Orthodox Church uses mainly the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom, attributed to the fourth-century archbishop of Constantinople in its tradition, though the text took its present form later. On certain days, the liturgy of Basil the Great is used, and in Lent the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Worship is sung, with incense, icons, processions and prayers addressed to the Holy Trinity, to Mary and to the saints. The faithful stand for most of the service in many places.

The Orthodox Church also has daily cycles of prayer, vespers and matins, which sanctify the hours. The Eastern churches that did not accept the Council of Chalcedon, and the Eastern Catholic churches, have their own liturgies, such as the Coptic, Armenian, Syriac and Ethiopian. Eastern Christians often describe the liturgy as heaven on earth, in which the church joins the worship of angels and saints.

Step 3: Western liturgies and the Reformation

The Roman Mass developed in the West from the fourth century and was standardized for the Latin church after the Council of Trent in 1570. After the Second Vatican Council, the Mass was reformed, and since 1970 it has been celebrated in local languages, with an expanded lectionary and greater participation by the people. The older Latin form has been permitted in limited ways at different times, and its status remains debated among Catholics.

The Reformers revised the Mass. Luther kept much of the structure, in his German Mass of 1526, but removed the language of sacrifice and brought in congregational hymns. Lutheran churches generally have a Divine Service similar in outline to the older Mass. Thomas Cranmer produced the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and 1552, which gave England worship in the vernacular and shaped Anglican life. Calvin and the Reformed churches adopted simpler services focusing on preaching, psalm singing, prayers and the Lord’s Supper held less often than weekly in many places.

Step 4: The church year

The church year organizes time around the life of Christ. In Western churches it begins with Advent, four weeks of preparation for Christ’s coming, followed by Christmas, which lasts twelve days, and Epiphany on 6 January, which recalls the visit of the wise men and in the East the baptism of Christ. Lent, forty days before Easter, begins on Ash Wednesday in Western churches. Holy Week includes Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Easter, the center of the year, begins a fifty-day season ending on Pentecost. The long season after Pentecost is called Ordinary Time in the Catholic and some Protestant calendars.

The Orthodox year begins on 1 September and is built around Pascha, the Resurrection, and twelve Great Feasts, including the Nativity, Theophany, Annunciation, Transfiguration and Dormition of the Virgin. The Great Fast before Pascha begins on Clean Monday. Orthodox churches differ in calendar: some use the Julian calendar, which in the present century runs thirteen days behind the civil calendar, and others use a revised calendar for fixed feasts, so that Christmas falls on different days. Most Orthodox calculate Easter by the Julian reckoning, which means that Western and Eastern Easter often fall on different dates.

Step 5: Strengths and criticisms

Supporters of fixed liturgy say it forms believers by repetition, carries the church’s faith in its prayers, joins them to Christians of all ages, and places Scripture and the sacrament at the center. They note that the lectionary gives the congregation a wide range of Scripture. Critics, especially in Reformed and free church traditions, argue that set forms can become empty routine and that Scripture does not command particular rites or seasons. Puritans in England rejected the church year apart from Sunday.

In recent decades, many churches have moved toward each other. The Revised Common Lectionary of 1992 is used by many Protestants and Catholics. Some evangelical churches have recovered Advent and Lent, and some liturgical churches have introduced contemporary music. A student can note that the question is not whether worship has a form, since every church has a pattern, but how fixed and how ancient it is.

  1. What are the two main parts of the service, and what happens in each?
  2. Which texts and prayers are the same from week to week, and which change?
  3. What is the role of the congregation in the liturgy?
  4. How does the church year shape the readings and themes?
  5. Why does this tradition value or avoid fixed forms?
  6. What is the place of the sermon, the Eucharist and the saints?

Examples

Luke 24 and the service

Two disciples walk to Emmaus and the risen Jesus opens the Scriptures to them. At table he takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and they recognize him. Liturgical churches see this as the pattern of word and table. The story is also cited by many Protestants as showing the central place of Scripture and of the meal.

Pascha at midnight

In an Orthodox parish, on the night of Pascha, the church is dark, a priest brings out a lit candle and chants Christ is risen, and the congregation lights candles from the flame. After a procession around the church, the Divine Liturgy begins and ends with a meal. The service lasts several hours and is attended by many who rarely come at other times.

A Baptist service

A Baptist congregation sings hymns, prays, hears Scripture read, listens to a sermon and sings again. The Lord’s Supper is observed monthly or quarterly. There is no fixed text for the prayers, but the service follows a regular order from week to week. A visitor from a liturgical church might recognize the same elements in a different form.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The liturgy is the summit and source of the church’s life, according to Vatican II. The Mass is the central act of worship, and the Liturgy of the Hours and the liturgical year sanctify time. The church holds that liturgy is not the creation of any individual but the prayer of the whole church.

Orthodox

The liturgy is an entry into the heavenly worship, and the whole church year centers on the Resurrection. Orthodox writers such as Alexander Schmemann describe liturgy as the church’s way of being the church. The service is sung and involves the whole person with the senses and the body.

Protestant

Lutherans and Anglicans keep ordered liturgies and the church year with revision. Reformed churches have simpler services, based on the regulative principle that worship should be what Scripture commands, and many free churches follow a pattern that is less formal. Protestants agree on the centrality of the Word.

Scholarly view

Liturgical historians note that early Christian worship was more varied and less fixed than later rites, and that much of the standard shape emerged only from the fourth century. They also note the strong convergence among churches in recent times, as the twentieth-century liturgical movement affected Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and others.

Why it matters

Worship is the way that most Christians encounter their faith week by week. The structure of word and table, and the rhythm of the church year, are shared by most of the world’s Christians even where they disagree about doctrine. Understanding these helps a student to follow services in unfamiliar churches and to see the common ground.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Liturgical worship is not based on Scripture.

Correction: Liturgies are full of Scripture, including psalms, readings and prayers drawn from biblical language. Their critics question whether set forms are required, not whether they use Scripture.

Misunderstanding: Churches without a set liturgy have no order.

Correction: Almost all churches follow a regular pattern of songs, prayer, readings and preaching. The difference is in how fixed the words are.

Misunderstanding: The Orthodox and Catholic Easter dates differ because of a doctrinal dispute.

Correction: The difference arises from the use of the Julian calendar by most Orthodox churches and the Gregorian calendar in the West. The dates sometimes coincide, and efforts to agree on a common date continue.

Misunderstanding: The Reformers abolished the liturgy.

Correction: Lutherans and Anglicans reformed it and kept much of its structure. Reformed churches simplified it. Some radical groups dropped set forms.

Knowledge check

Describe the basic shape of the traditional liturgy.

It has two main parts. The Liturgy of the Word includes readings, a sermon, the creed and prayers. The Liturgy of the Table includes the offering of gifts, the great thanksgiving, the Lord’s Prayer, communion and dismissal. This shape is found in Justin Martyr in the second century.

Name the major seasons of the Western church year.

Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost, followed by Ordinary Time. Easter is the center. Lent runs forty days before Easter. The Orthodox year also centers on Pascha and has twelve Great Feasts.

How did Luther and Cranmer reform the liturgy?

Luther kept the order of the Mass but removed the language of sacrifice and introduced vernacular hymns and a German Mass. Cranmer produced the Book of Common Prayer in English in 1549 and 1552. Both kept much of the traditional structure while changing doctrine and language.

Why do some Protestants criticize fixed liturgies and the church year?

They argue that Scripture does not command particular rites or seasons, and that set forms may become formal or empty. Puritans in England rejected the church year apart from Sunday. Supporters reply that fixed forms teach the faith and join worshipers to the church across time.

Think it through

  1. What is gained by having the same prayers and readings as Christians elsewhere?
  2. What is lost when a service has no fixed form?
  3. Why might the church year matter for those who have never thought about it?
  4. Which part of the service is the center in your own tradition, if you have one, and why?

Independent assignment

Two services compared

In your notebook, describe the order of one liturgical service (for example the Roman Mass, the Orthodox Divine Liturgy or the Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion) and one non-liturgical service, using a published order or a visit if you can. List the elements in order. Then write 250 to 350 words comparing the two, noting shared elements and differences in the role of Scripture, preaching, the Eucharist and the congregation. Keep the work in your notebook.

Further study