Word: communion
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...Church in Maidstone, a small town in southeast England. She baptizes babies, conducts funerals, comforts the sick in their homes and in hospital beds, and leads her congregation in prayer in the small, modern brick church. But as a woman, she is forbidden to celebrate the rite of Holy Communion for her flock of 40 parishioners. That central act of worship can be performed only by male clerics in the Church of England, who occasionally neglect even to show up for services. Says Williams: "If I don't have someone there on Sundays to celebrate Communion...
Such disappointments may soon end for Williams and the 700 other deaconesses, or nonordained ministers, serving in the 27 million-member Church of England, the "mother church" of the worldwide Anglican Communion. On Feb. 6 the church's bishops issued a report endorsing the ordination of women. The study's purpose: to simplify the complicated and divisive process that may authorize female clergy for the Church of England by the early 1990s and to soften any disruptions in church life that such an action would cause...
...account the bishops' support for female ordination, approval is virtually certain. The move would further fuel a controversy that has raged in the church since the campaign for women priests began gathering strength twelve years ago. Seven of the 28 provinces that form the 70 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, including churches in the U.S. and Canada, have opened the ranks of the priesthood to women, but the parent church has so far been reluctant to take that step...
Despite the kudos her work has won, Fisher's subject is still considered by many people to be lower literary ground. To such a criticism she had an early answer: "There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk. And that is my answer when people ask me, Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love...
...choir, from the foundation of Buswell's subdued bass on up to the surging descants of the soprano line. The 22-note "Amen" dances down like the leaves in the streets outside. For a few moments, it is possible to feel ordinary people lift themselves up into the communion of saints and the cloud of witnesses...