The 2019 BCP’s introductory text helpfully explains the meaning and purpose behind several Lenten, Passiontide, and Good Friday traditions regarding the appearance and sound of the church. In line with unbroken tradition through Patristic, Medieval, Reformation, and even modern piety, we are invited to remember our own role in the suffering and agony of Christ. The Lord’s Supper, after all, is a “participation” or “communion” in the body and blood of Christ, so its larger liturgical context marks our participation or communion in the larger gospel events. God’s people in every age and every place are therefore invited and enabled to join him at his table on Thursday, follow him to his Cross today, keep watch outside his tomb tomorrow, and partake of his resurrection as midnight (and Sunday) approach. Knowing this full scope ahead of time, unlike the disciples some two thousand years ago, the worshiper today is able to recognize the Cross as “a sign of life, in the midst of death” and celebrate it accordingly.
The Entrance
Apart from the Daily Office of Morning Prayer, the church has been silent since the Stripping of the Altar the night before, save the whispering of night watches or vigils being kept by the faithful few. The entrance of the ministers in silence respects that watchful tone, and their kneeling for silent prayer marks their joining of the congregation in that pious vigil. Silence is also intensely personal, which part of what makes it so difficult to maintain in public worship: the only sounds to be heard are the prayers, questions, and distractions in each person’s own head! But that is a particular charism of the Triduum liturgy – all are invited to invest themselves in these critical gospel moments and consider deeply their participation and responses to every word and deed of Christ.
The silence is broken either with the iconic penitential words of Isaiah or with the simple bidding “Let us pray.”
The Collect of the Day
The petition of this prayer is deceptively simple: we ask God to “behold” us. In the context of this service, following a potential all-night vigil kept mostly in silence, asking God to look at us, to see us, to behold or take notice of us, is a deeply emotion-laden plea. The Officiant would do well to read this collect slowly, allowing the gravity of its significance time to land in the hearts and minds of all who are gathered. For further commentary on this collect, see the Collects for the Christian Year.
The Lessons
Two options for the Old Testament are provided. They are listed in canonical order, which is not necessarily an order of precedence, so there are several means by which worship planners may choose between them. One consideration is that the reading from Isaiah will have been read five days earlier on Palm Sunday, so to read it again here would give it a particular emphasis, or to read from Genesis 22 instead would be to provide a wider range of scriptural content to Holy Week. It is worth noting, further, that both of these lessons are strongly represented through the history of the Daily Office Lectionary in the Prayer Book tradition.
All three of these Psalm readings were first appointed in the 1979 Prayer Book, and may be most simply used in rotation in line with the three-year lectionary.
Hebrews 10:1-25 is the traditional Epistle lesson for this day, addressing the subject of priestly sacrifice and the sprinkling of the faithful with the blood of the covenant for their cleansing. This provides a theological context for the Passion of Christ as well as directions for a personal devotional response to it – the worshiper is invited to consider the “good” provided in the events of Good Friday.
The long option for the Gospel lesson is in line with the tradition of medieval practice and the first Prayer Books, whereas the shorter option is in line with Anglican practice since 1662.
The omission of the congregation responses before and after this reading is a return both to classical Prayer Book practice and to pre-Reformation custom. This leaves the congregation once again with moments of silence surrounding the Passion of Saint John.
The rubrics regarding the manner of reading the Passion Gospel and the congregation’s sitting, standing, and kneeling at different points throughout are the same as in the Palm Sunday service. Historically, the three-voice chanting of the Passion Gospel was practiced with all four accounts (Matthew’s on Sunday, Mark’s on Tuesday, Luke’s on Wednesday, and John’s on Friday). The stark solemnity of this day, compared to Palm Sunday, better befits the simple chanting or reading of the Gospel by the reader, Deacon, and Priest, rather than the more elaborate affairs now commonly practiced on Palm Sunday.
The Sermon
The option to sing a hymn after the sermon is an opportunity to provide more active congregational participation. This enables another opportunity to sing one of the many excellent Passiontide songs in Christian hymnody – opportunities which are in relative short supply in this worship service – as well as gives the people a break from the silence.
The Solemn Collects
From the angle of devotion and piety, Good Friday has many avenues to explore: sorrow and penitence for our sins, Christ’s triumph over death through death, creation’s participation and redemption in Christ through the Cross and other natural and supernatural phenomena during the crucifixion, and the work of God to bring salvation to a world otherwise condemned. It is the latter direction that is taken up now as the officiant announces the call to prayer.
In Early Church and Medieval practice, the Deacon would direct the people to kneel for silent prayer after each bidding, and then to rise for each collect. The rubric provided here simplifies that, allowing for any appropriate combination of standing or kneeling during this portion of the liturgy.
The first intercession: for the church
This bidding sets forth a vision of the Church not often considered in the modern evangelical imagination: not only are we to pray for her preservation in unity, peace, and safety, but also that the Church is the context in which God makes all powers and principalities subject to himself (1 Corinthians 15:27-28, Ephesians 6:12, 1 Peter 3:22). The resulting goal is peace, or tranquilitas, a term frequently used in the history of Christian devotion to refer to a sense of quiet, wholeness, and unfettered access and attention between the soul and God. This is thus both an eternal heavenly state to look forward to as well as a temporal state to be glimpsed within one’s own life and experience.
Archbishop Laud’s collect, then, meticulously covers several angles by which one might pray for the Church, dealing with its proclamation of the truth, its corruption, error, perverseness, rightness, need, and division.
The second intercession: for the Bishops
As in the Prayers of the People, these prayers move from the general to the particular. The people are invited to pray for their Bishop and Archbishop, representing the “governance of God’s holy people.” This is, therefore, a time of prayer specifically for the church’s leadership; prayer for its ministry and work will come next.
The collect answers this bidding by acknowledging God’s judgment over all creation and Christ’s role as the true Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, and praying for those aspects of his work and ministry to be carried out rightly by his appointed Bishops. Our own “fruit of righteousness” is named as the goal of a well-ordered and rightly-governed Church, which then leads the way to the next intercession.
The third intercession: for all the clergy
Now all orders of the Church are named. There were several “minor orders” also named in the ancient version of this Office, but as those have been discontinued they are no longer named here.
This collect was better known in the 1979 Prayer Book as one of the Prayers for Mission in Morning Prayer. While terms such as “vocation and ministry” are most typically used to refer to members of the clergy, they may also be rightly used to describe the work and calling of all Christians.
The fourth intercession: for the state
Similar to the first set of prayers for the Church, prayer for a national government is also directed toward the glory of God and his eternal purposes. We are bid, here, to pray that our leaders would realize their fealty to God and to seek his honor and glory, so that we can honor them with faithful obedience as God’s Word directs us to do.
The prayer, then, contrasts our brief earthly kingdoms with God’s everlasting kingdom and infinite power. We pray for the safety of our country and its leaders, as well as for the spiritual gifts necessary for right governance and for their adherence to God’s calling upon their lives to be public servants operating in the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. Like the Prayers of the People in the Communion rites (and unlike the ancient versions of these prayers), this collect does not assume that the President, Prime Minister, Sovereign, or other sort of governor is a Christian. Rather, we pray for Christ’s direction in their lives either in line with their professed faith or in spite of their lack of faith in him.
The fifth intercession: for those preparing for Holy Baptism
It is highly likely that many congregations will not have any catechumens or converts preparing for Baptism or Confirmation on any given Good Friday. Thus this intercession helps pull the worshiper (and entire congregation) out of their own local context and into the global, Catholic, context of the whole Church. We pray for open hearts, so that the “washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5) may bring such persons not only the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38) but also to a state of faithful servanthood (Matthew 25:19-23).
The collect repeats most of what the bidding contains, but using different terms: “open their hearts” becomes “gifts of faith and understanding”, God’s “grace and mercy” become instruction in his “holy Word”, the “washing of regeneration” becomes “born again”, and “faithful servants” become “adopted children.”
The sixth intercession: for deliverance from all evils
In terms of the Prayers of the People and the Great Litany, this is parallel to the prayers for “all those who are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.” The scope of this intercession, however, is made even wider in naming such natural disasters as pestilence and famine. The earliest forms of this bidding also included those on pilgrimages and those traveling by ship at sea, but since long-distance travel is normally much safer today, those concerns have been truncated to a single phrase here.
As God specially hears the “deep sighing of the poor” in Psalm 12:5 and of the oppressed in Exodus 22:27, and mirroring the expression “let my cry come to you” in several other psalms, this Solemn Collect recognizes the privilege that the prayers of those in need have before the Lord. Not only that, but our own strength to serve them and relieve their needs is also a subject of prayer for divine aid (cf. Matthew 25:31-40).
The seventh intercession: for those in heresy or schism
Even from the earliest centuries of Christianity, the Church has been sadly plagued with heresy and riven with schismatic movements. This bidding to prayer puts one in mind of the error and division of Christianity’s many denominations in our day, as well as the countless sects and religions that have been created falsely claiming the name of Christ. On a more personal level, this bidding refers us not only to churches and assemblies but also to individuals – people known to the congregation who are walking (or have walked) away from the Christian faith to some degree or another.
The collect begins with the familiar phraseology of the Ash Wednesday Collect and petitions God’s mercy on those who have been deceived. The Church’s desire, as God’s, is that none should perish by that all should be saved by being restored in the wisdom and way of Christ and his bride, the Church.
The eighth intercession: for the Jewish people
The early Christian vision of the world saw three people in three categories: Christian, Jewish, and Pagan. Christians, of course, hold the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Jews hold a partial revelation of God but reject the truth to which it points; Pagans hold no special revelation and have only the natural law to guide them. Thus it was traditional to pray for Jews and Pagans in different ways, according to their respective situations. Where the ancient version of this intercession was more negative, emphasizing the need to remove darkness (or veil) under which the Jewish religion exists, this bidding is more positive, asking for God’s grace to bring them to know the Lord Jesus as the object of their as-yet-unfulfilled faith.
The collect, likewise, looks back to God’s covenant with Abraham, on which both the Jewish and Christian conceptions of covenantal union with God are based (cf. Romans 4). We recognize that the world was blessed through the Jews (John 4:22), and pray that they will receive that same blessing of salvation themselves.
The ninth intercession: for all unbelievers
Where the ancient liturgy prayed for “pagans” we now pray for nonbelievers without attempting to label them, thus acknowledging the broad religious (and non-religious) scope of the world around us without resorting to generalizations or oversimplification. Whatever strands of truth a given religion, sect, or philosophy might rightly grasp, the basic issue is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ – in whose name alone one may be saved (Acts 4:12) – is not believed among these people. Thus we are called upon to pray for their enlightenment.
The collect is similarly phrased to encompass all non-believers fairly and accurately. These are “all who do not know you as you are revealed in your Son” and we pray for the Gospel’s grace and power to be present in their midst (Acts 6:8). We pray for hearts to be turned, for the lost to return home, and for the unity of the human race in one flock under one Shepherd (John 10:16).
The tenth intercession: for the resurrection
As the Prayers of the People and Great Litany conclude with prayers for the departed and our share with them in eternity, so too does our version of the Solemn Collects conclude with an eye toward the life to come. We pray not simply for holy lives for the present’s sake, but for lives of faith that lead to a state of worthiness to enter into the joy of our Lord (Matthew 25:21, 23). And by naming the departed in this prayer, we are reminded that they also have not yet reached that blessed state of eternal bliss
The collect provides further context for the scope of our salvation: the Church is a mystery (Ephesians 5:32) in which God sovereignly works out his plan of salvation (Ephesians 1:10). Specifically, this prayer describes “things which were cast down” as “being raised up”, which not only echoes the Magnificat and the Canticle of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10) but also poetically recasts Saint Paul’s teachings on redemption by recapitulation in Christ (Romans 5:12-21). Thus we see the Christian life and reality as one of restoration and reconciliation rather than simply death and resurrection.
Devotions Before the Cross
The use of a wooden (and not metal or stone) cross for the purposes of adoration is significant, and this is reflected in the words of the antiphon: “Behold the wood…” While on one hand the symbol of the Cross itself is hugely significant in Christian art and iconography, the particular subject of this devotional practice since the Early Church is concerned with the Cross as a “tree” (cf. the apostolic preaching in Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29, and 1 Peter 2:24, with their various Old Testament types). Likened to a tree, the Cross can be said to bear fruit (namely, Christ, and the blood and water from his side whence flows our salvation). Furthermore, and perhaps more fundamentally, this imagery also establishes the Cross as nature’s own participation in the Gospel of our salvation. Just as the stones would cry out if no one sang Christ’s praise (Luke 19:40), the Cross was Christ’s most faithful companion through his crucifixion. Meditations such as these arose early in the English Christian imagination, resulting in great poems such as the Old English masterpiece The Dream of the Rood, or “Vision of the Cross.” The most explicit liturgical expression of this line of devotional insight is found in the hymn endorsed in the rubric on the bottom of BCP page 574, Sing my tongue the glorious battle. That ancient hymn contains the following stanzas:
Faithful cross! above all other / One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom, / None in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron! / Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory! / Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor / That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty / On thy bosom gently tend!
These words, emerging from the biblical-liturgical mindset of the Early Church and written by a 6th-century hymnist, metaphorically call upon the powerful Tree of the Cross to suspend and relax its natural roughness and strength so as to embrace the crucified Lord more gently and lovingly. Together, Christ and Cross form a faithful duo at the most critical moment of human history. The arms of the Cross upheld the arms of the Savior interceding for all mankind, like Aaron and Hur upholding the arms of Moses (Exodus 17:12).
The Reproaches
These devotions do something quite rare in Western practice: they form a dialogue between Christ and the congregation. Few songs and hymns venture to put words into the mouth of God, and devotional writings that do so tend to reveal themselves to be unhinged from biblical fidelity and contrary to Christian orthodoxy (literally, “right worship”). Through the course of the Church’s history, only the most venerable of mystics have ventured to pen such dialogues with the divine, and even these typically remain best-suited for the monastic context in which they were conceived, generally inaccessible to ordinary Christian piety. The few dialogues that do stand out in Christian devotion survive because (1) they have stood the test of time through the centuries and (2) they stick closely to the language of Scripture, and these Solemn Reproaches tick both of those boxes.
This devotion contains six stanzas, each with the Trisagion as a responsory refrain. Each stanza is a set of questions or accusations (hence “reproaches”) from the mouth of Christ, and the Trisagion is our only response, knowing our own guilt.
The first stanza opens with the question that will repeat several times: “what have I done… how have I wearied you?” This question is drawn from Micah 6:3, and 6:4 contains the first part of God’s testimony (he brought us forth from Egypt). This, with a reference to the crossing of the Red Sea, is contrasted with sinful humanity’s response of preparing a Cross for him.
The second stanza evokes the account of Exodus 16 and its later reflection in Psalm 105, along with the arrival in the Promised Land, again contrasting this with the crucifixion.
The third stanza draws from the words of Moses and Samuel, prompting us to consider what God has done for us (Deuteronomy 10:21, 1 Samuel 12:24). The image of God’s people as a vineyard (cf. Isaiah 5 and Ezekiel 19) is contrasted with the vinegar offered back to Christ (cf. Psalm 69:22 and all four Passion narratives).
The fourth stanza contrasts the deliverance of Israel from the tenth plague of Egypt with the deliverance of Jesus over to death (Matthew 20:19, et al), and the “leadership” of the cloudy pillar with Gabbatha (Exodus 13:21-22 and John 19:13).
The fifth stanza turns to pairs of striking down enemies and crowning kings: pitting Psalm 135:10-11 against Matthew 27:30, and Exodus 19:6 against Mark 15:17.
Finally, the Reproaches reach their climax with the images of opening-and-pouring-out and lifting-up-on-high. Christ provided water from the rock in the wilderness and was himself opened up on the Cross by a spear (Exodus 17 and John 19:34).
In all this, the worshiper is invited to consider God asking “what I have done to you to deserve this? How have I wearied you? Testify against (or answer!) me.” At each accusation or indictment, we are directed to recognize and own our complicity with sin, making no excuses before our Lord, and instead asking in reply only for his mercy. Although solemn, grave, and deeply penitential, these are no morbid or hopeless pleas. The Trisagion is not so much a confession of guilt as it is a confession of faith: yes, God is holy, mighty, and immortal, yet it is his property (or character) always to have mercy, and therefore we still have the ability to ask “have mercy upon us.” If God did not love the sinner and seek out the lost, then such prayers as these would be unwarranted and impossible.
The Anthems
As if in answer to the Reproaches, the antiphons of both of these anthems direct the worshiper back to a posture of praise and adoration. Even though the death of Christ on the Cross was a horrible evil for which all of mankind shares guilt, that death was also his glory as the Savior, and becomes our glory and joy as we are found in him.
The words of Psalm 67, furthermore, celebrate and pray for the furtherance of God’s mercy among all the nations of the earth, anticipating a future where God receives praise from all peoples.
The second anthem instead takes an expression of praise from a normally-didactic text, providing the Psalm’s Old Testament prophetic perspective with a New Testament clarification: death with Christ yields life with Christ and eternal blessing thereafter.
Distribution of Communion
In line with early, medieval, Roman, and Eastern practice, the full Communion service is not used on Good Friday. This navigates a tricky dilemma: from the perspective of heightened solemnity, discipline, and self-denial, it is inappropriate for the Church to rehearse the joy-filled prayers that comprise the celebration of Holy Communion; while from the perspective of Holy Friday being Good Friday, the very day on which our Lord performed his saving sacrifice it is eminently appropriate that the Church should partake of the sacrifice of her redemption. The reservation and redistribution of Holy Communion from a previous service (Palm Sunday in Eastern practice, Maundy Thursday in the West) became the solution to Good Friday’s conundrum.
However, not all Anglican churches are prepared to bear the logistics of consecrating and reserving bread and wine. Indeed, some reject the practice, as did many of the Anglican divines of the 17th century. The solution to this issue, therefore, is not to serve Communion at all on Good Friday, as the second rubric describes.
For those following the ancient practice as retrieved in this Prayer Book (as well as the 1979 Book and similar modern worship resources), the Good Friday service continues with the Confession and Absolution of Sin. Although the two Communion rites allow for their respective prayers of confession to be swapped interchangeably, the default recommendation provided here is the confession of the Anglican Standard Text. It is longer, more thorough, and more grave in tone, befitting Good Friday more profoundly than its counterpart from the 20th century. For similar reasons, only the longer bidding to confession is provided beforehand.
No Comfortable Words follow the Absolution. This, too, is a nod to the solemnity of Good Friday – all elements of joy and comfort are muted in order to keep the worshipers focused on the gravity of their sins, the Cross, and the Passion of Christ our Lord. The lack of doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer accords with the same logic.
Of the two usual Invitations spoken by the celebrant, only one is provided. Where “the gifts of God for the people of God” may be the more commonly-used, the Invitation taken from John 1:29 is far more appropriate. That very Lamb of God, or sacrifice made upon the Cross, is now offered to the people to “Behold,” and then to eat and drink.
While music during the distribution of Holy Communion is customary in many places, the spirit of the Good Friday service is such that the distribution is best ministered in silence. Note that the ministers’ words to the recipients are not provided here – even these standard speeches are silenced! That said, a hymn or anthem may be selected for this point in the service if great care is taken to choose a song that maintains the solemnity and gravity of the moment, rather than undercutting it with a sudden tonal shift.
To conclude the service, the Post-Communion prayer, blessing, and recessional hymn are neither appointed nor appropriate. Just as the bulk of the eucharistic prayers were traditionally deemed too celebratory for Good Friday, so are these usual features of the end of the Communion service unadvisable in this rite. Instead, there is provided a special Concluding Prayer. It is addressed to Jesus, which is relatively uncommon amongst liturgical prayers. The primary petition is that he would set the Cross – his suffering and death – in between our sinful souls and his righteous judgment. This is the Gospel of the Cross in a nutshell! Christ has interposed his own Passion between the sharp sword of his mouth and our souls which would be pierced by it (Isaiah 49:2, Hebrews 4:12). We pray for this intervention both “today” (Psalm 95:8, Hebrews 3:7-4:10) and in our hour of death (one’s last chance to make amends before God and men). Beyond ourselves and individuals, we then pray for all believers: the living, the dead, the Church in her perfection, and us sinners in our need.
The direction to depart in silence signifies that the liturgy is not truly concluded, but is once again only pausing, waiting to continue on the next day. As on Maundy Thursday, people may be tacitly invited to remain for silent prayer and devotion. And, as the introductory text noted, other public devotions may soon follow, such as Stations of the Cross or the Seven Last Words. Whatever the specific schedule of events, the unfinished feeling of this service should point people to the liturgical reality that the story is not over yet: ahead remains yet Christ’s burial and repose in the tomb, and only after that the vigil of his resurrection.
The Saint Aelfric Customary 