The style of worship in St. Matthew's is in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, employing much rich symbolism to remind us continually of the central truths of our Faith.
The church building contains many beautiful features , each filled with meaning . Although basically a shelter for Christian worship church buildings have developed over the centuries into " a sermon in stone", to help our minds rise to God, to remember the Life of Christ and His Saints in stained glass and other ornaments, and to be an offering to God expressing the best and most beautiful efforts of our human art and architecture.
Several of our windows depict scenes from our Lord's life and may be a useful aid to meditation. Pictures around the walls at each of the "Stations of the Cross" can help us to think of how Jesus suffered for our sins.
The many crucifixes and the shape of the building should focus our thoughts on the fact that Jesus died for each one of us - "God so loved the world".
The liturgy in particular is full of meaning. If you are unfamiliar with our style of worship, ask for one of the large red mass books. These contain notes on the mass, which we hope will help to explain some of it.
St. Matthew's is a Forward in Faith Parish.
The Mass is in two great parts:-
The Liturgy of the Word, which contains our prayers of penitence and praise, the reading of Scripture and preaching of the Christian message.
The Liturgy of the Eucharist. The next great work ("liturgy" means "work" in Greek) is to repeat what Jesus told us to do at the Last Supper when he instituted the Sacrament of Holy Communion. We do, step by step, what Jesus did and told us to keep on doing as his special memorial.
Taking bread and wine, thanking God the Father, breaking the bread and sharing it amongst the faithful are the four parts of this action which we repeat.
"Eucharist" means "thanksgiving", so we are offering our all, "ourselves, our souls and bodies" in thanksgiving to God through the self-sacrifice of Jesus. St. Paul tells us that as often as we do this " we show forth the Lord's death till he comes".
We repeat, as Jesus told us to, his actions which would find their completion the next day, Good Friday, in Christ's self-sacrifice on the Cross. This sacrifice is present to us each time we celebrate the Eucharist, so the Altar is the focus of our Christian encounter with our Lord.
The main Sunday Mass is usually a "Solemn High Mass". Some of the notes in the mass book apply specifically to this.
The Mass is celebrated each day. Usually this is a simpler form called a "Low Mass", when the Celebrant often has no assistants.
When the Mass is celebrated at weddings and funerals there are, of course, additional parts of the service specific to those occasions.
