Morning Prayer and Agape Meal
When: Sunday May 31st at 9:30 a.m.
Where: Your table and your phone and or computer or smart phone.
Who: Your family and others in the online CHT community
What you need: time, space, food to eat
On Sunday, to deepen our celebration of the major Feast Day of Pentecost, we will hold an online Agape meal as part of our Morning Prayer gathering. Agape is the Greek word to describe the deepest kind of spiritual love. An Agape meal is a “love feast” that brings us together in one community gathered in the Holy Spirit.
This custom originated in gatherings of the early church after Pentecost. According to various historians, the Early Church met in homes for a common meal. After the meal (or sometimes before), the baptized Christians would withdraw from the rest of the meal’s attendees to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in private. Agape meals lost popularity around the 6th century, but were resuscitated in the early 18th century by Moravians and Methodists. An Agape Feast in included in our Book of Occasional Services and is most typically done on Maundy Thursday.
An Agape meal does not replace Holy Eucharist, but it serves as a unique fellowship meal for us on this significant Feast Day of Pentecost. Customarily, we would all be around tables singing hymns, hearing God’s Word, and offering prayers. Our liturgy this Sunday is different, as most all things are in these COVID days, as we gather at our own tables and come together digitally.
The most important aspect of the Agape meal doesn’t change, however, and that is to be aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit that connects us all to each other and to our one God.
The Church of the Holy Trinity 