Take one large choir, 32 communion stations with commemorative chalice and paten sets crafted by area potters, a series of hand-made banners decorating one large hockey rink (it doesn’t get any more Canadian than that) and you have a church service with enough pomp and pageantry to mark an important milestone on two national churches’ ecumenical journey.
The Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada are both meeting for their national gatherings in July on neighbouring university campuses in Kitchener-Waterloo. Each is expected to vote in favour of full communion between the two churches, and the two will celebrate the event in a joint service at the Waterloo Recreation Complex, at 10 a.m., Sunday, July 8, 2001.
Organizers of the massive eucharistic celebration are inviting anyone who wants to come to attend the service, which will feature music from the massed choir drawn from local Lutheran and Anglican parishes.
The Lutheran church’s presiding bishop, Telmor Sartison, will preside at the liturgy, already being planned by an Anglican-Lutheran liturgical team, and the Anglican Primate, Archbishop Michael Peers will preach. Representatives of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Lutheran World Federation as well as ecumenical partners are expected to added a worldly flavour to the celebration, a sign, say organizers “of the wider communion that we share as members of Christ’s body.”
Loving Source of all creation, in Jesus Christ you have united heaven and earth. Grant that we who share in the first fruits of that union may work for its fulfillment in the power of the Holy Spirit. We ask this in the name of the Incarnate Word, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns now and for ever. Amen
(Collect of the Day for July 8)