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IT WILL REALLY BE HAPPENING

Canon Mark Bonney, Treasurer (Monday 1st June 2009)

At the beginning of the year some 80 people gathered in the Cathedral School to hear the Precentor and I talk about the plans for an experiment with a spire crossing altar, and we explained the theological and liturgical background to this. Timescales and design issues then got the better of us and our planned start and experiment was delayed – but it really will be happening at the end of this month.

I am very grateful to our architect Michael Drury and the Works Department in particular who have created a design and framework that we will trial. The basic shape of the platform mirrors the cruciform shape of the new font, thus linking in a design and architectural way the two primary sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. One of the reasons that we are considering such an arrangement is to see whether we can find a satisfactory way of presenting the Eucharist as the community of the baptised gathered around one altar in one room. On top of the cruciform base there will be a more moveable tiered platform for the altar; there may be occasions when this is moved (eg concerts), but it is going to be the principal altar for the Sunday 10.30 Eucharist during the experimental period, and congregational seating will be in the nave and transepts. There will be no change to the place of Evensong or midweek Sung Eucharists.

The new arrangement will be used for the first time for the Ordination of Priests on Saturday 27 June, and it will be in place until the end of September when we will assess the experiment.

One of the most common injunctions in the Bible is that which begins the inscription around the font “Do not fear”; words that were also said to Mary at the conception of Jesus, and by the risen Christ on more than one occasion. Change is one of the things that can make us fearful and this worship arrangement will be a change from the familiar and the regular – but do not fear, nothing is set in stone and the processes of change within the Church of England (and the Cathedral) tend not to be as dramatic and fast as the Conception or the Resurrection (too many committees!). So please experiment boldly and we will see, together, what happens.

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