A number of Christian house groups (house churches, base communities etc) celebrate what they call ‘table liturgies’ together and CCC has groups today that do this too. What are they?
Well, they are not house Masses or Eucharists presided over by an ordained priest, whether or not wearing a stole or some other vestment indicating his special status, and following the text of the Roman Mass. They are the spontaneous celebrations of lay Christians who wish to re-create the open table-fellowship of Jesus.
The feeding of the five thousand is a prime example of Jesus’ practice of wanting to share a meal with all comers. This is quite different from the current discipline in the RC Church where admission to the Eucharist is permitted, except in rare cases, (Pope Benedict XVI has publicly given communion to the Protestant Brother Roger of Taizé for example) only to those who pass certain tests: being in formal communion with the Holy See, belief in the Real Presence, freedom from unabsolved serious sin. Jesus on the other hand was accused of eating not only with the ritually impure, but also with public unrepentant sinners – lumped together by the gospels as ‘prostitutes and tax-collectors’.
The authorities of the Roman Catholic Church insist that the Eucharists of the Catholic Church, and indeed those of other churches with an apostolic ministry valid in its eyes, are more than meals. They effect the very presence of Jesus on the altar as a sign that the Christian community is to be Jesus’ presence in the world, the mystical Body of Christ – which the sacrament makes a reality. This is a central teaching of the Church that cannot surely be denied by traditional and faithful Catholics.
On the other hand, it would be unbalanced to ignore the actual practice of Jesus, his open table fellowship – that climaxed in the Last Supper and developed into the Christian Eucharist. The Baptist John Henson and the Catholic Sister Miriam Therese Winter have both published interesting books examining this tradition (see below). In the early Church it developed into the Agape (Acts 2:44-47 &c), a meal which probably included a formal Eucharist but later became quite distinct.
For forty years members of CCC have been gathering regularly in small groups in people’s houses and occasionally at conferences to celebrate such Table Liturgies. A collection of these was published by SCM-Canterbury Press in 1968 (see below). Although this book is now out of print, copies are available from the CCC Secretariat at £8.99 plus postage.
Such celebrations do not require the presence of an ordained priest and although they usually involve the sharing of bread and wine, in terms of Canon Law they are not Eucharists. They can be ecumenical and include for example Catholics officially banned from communion such as priests who have married without a dispensation, those who have contracted a second marriage after the breakdown of their first and Catholics enduring severe doubts about their commitment to the Church. The Vatican Book of Blessings published in 1988 and issued in an English-language form by the US bishops as Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers, (USCC, Washington, 1988) contains one example (reprinted as No 13 in Take, Bless, Break, Share, see below).
It has to be admitted, however, that the term ‘table liturgy’ is also used for celebrations which are clearly viewed by the participants as Eucharists, even if no ‘validly’ ordained man is present and the texts used do not come from the Roman Lectionary and Missal. One hears of such celebrations particularly among some religious sisters who do not wish to invite a strange man into their community to validate their Eucharists. Such celebrations are in clear breach of Canon Law and for that reason alone may be putting participants beyond the pale, ecclesiastically speaking.
Simon Bryden-Brook
Some useful books:
John Henson, Other Communions of Jesus – Eating and Drinking the Good News Way! O Books, Winchester, 2006
Miriam Therese Winter, eucharist with a small ‘e’, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 2005