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Praying Amidst an Impeachment Inquiry

I am not one known for being particularly #woke.  Following the news is (for me) a low-priority necessary evil.  There’s a lot of distraction out there, far too much commentary posing as facts, and let’s not even talk about the Comment Sections on news-related websites and social media.  Except this blog; comments here are pretty sparse and polite… thanks for that!  For the politeness I mean, I wouldn’t mind if they were less sparse.  Not that I’m begging.

Anyway, it did not escape my notice that a formal call to investigate the President of the United States of America and his conduct regarding foreign relations and electoral procedures, with an eye toward an impeachment inquiry, has been issued.  I had a few emotional knee-jerk reactions deep down inside, and I’m sure lots of people are going to have much stronger, and more public, reactions to this news also.  So I thought this would be a good thing to address in the realm of liturgy and prayer.

To a large extent, liturgical intercessory prayer is a matter of fill-in-the-blank.  We have a standard collection of prayers that we offer for the state, for society, and for leaders in particular.  On that level, our prayers for the nation do not change just because the word “impeachment” is officially on the table in Washington D.C.  We must not, on the one hand, devolve into that silly “sports fan” scenario of prayer, pray that we crush the Angry Orange Man of Doom.  Nor must we, on the other hand, devolve into that nationalism-over-faith sort of idolatry that we’ve seen from certain health-wealth and pentecostal extremes lately, and pray The Lord’s Anointed will be protected from such a demonic assault.  No, the President is still the President, and the inquiry is a perfectly legal procedure, whatever our personal opinions may be about either.  And so on one level we must continue to pray as we always pray:

We pray that you will lead the nations of the world in the way of righteousness; and so guide and direct their leaders, especially Donald Trump, our President, that your people may enjoy the blessings of freedom and peace.  Grant that our leaders may impartially administer justice, uphold integrity and truth, restrain wickedness and vice, and protect true religion and virtue.

2019 BCP, page 110

What does change is the context of our prayers, rather than the content.  With this new inquiry in mind, we must be sure we heartily pray for:

  1. “impartially administer[ed] justice” – that these proceedings will go forward wisely, without assumption of guilt without evidence, and without scorn of evidence without analysis;
  2. “uphold[ing] integrity and truth” – that all involved will proceed with due dignity and gravity of the task before them, without bombast or frivolity, and earnestly seeking the truth of the matter;
  3. “restrain[ment of] wickedness and vice” – if the President is guilty of crimes that he will be held accountable for them; that the proceedings will not be sullied by ad hominem tactics, and our observation will not be an occasion for sin;
  4. and the “protect[ion of] true religion and virtue” – referencing James 1:27 as well as the general plea for clear heads and pure hearts to prevail.

These are four of the major purposes of earthly governments, as we understand the teaching in the Scriptures, and we ought to keep these in mind as we pray.  Whether you want to see Trump out of the White House for good, or whether you want him to remain there, in prayer we learn to set our political preferences aside and come before the Father with a more pure request: to fulfill his Word, to mete out judgement in his own time and on his own terms, and to deliver each of us from temptation and evil in the midst of all this.

We’ve also got Occasional Prayers #29, 30, 33, 37, 38, and 39 on pages 654-7 to help spell this out further.  Resist the temptation to go on internet rampages; take it to the Lord in prayer.

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Your Own Commemorations

I recently read a reflection on the Church’s calendar, in which the author says: “The church year means that we don’t accidentally exclude a truth or event that is important for the life of our souls.”  What a clear and simple way to explain such a profound truth!

There are a number of truths and events that are important to our individual lives, too: birthdays, wedding anniversaries, baptism and confirmation anniversaries, graduations, new jobs, new homes, and so forth.  Dates and events like these form the skeleton of a Family Calendar that helps dictate the liturgy of your ordinary life.  It’s quite a neat comparison to how the Church Calendar sets up the framework for the liturgy of worship.

But there are a few spots where the Family Calendar and the Church Calendar might, and in a way should, intersect.  Just as there was once a tradition of a Family Bible with the names, birthdays, and death days and so forth, we can do the same with our Prayer Books.  Every Prayer Book has a calendar of commemorations, sometimes called “black-letter days”.  These calendars vary from book to book, and since they’re all technically optional, an implicit suggestion is that local churches can add to (or ignore) this calendar as is appropriate for their context.  The addition of St. Aelfric in this Customary is an example of that.

In that spirit, it can be a good idea for individuals to add in their own special commemorations in their own prayer books – not frivolous occasions, but ones that can and should be remembered in prayer somehow, such as deaths of family members and friends.  If you’re a parish priest, the death dates of members of your flock may be worth recording too.  It can help with the grieving process, it can help us remember the departed in an appropriate context, and even remind us to reach out to others who may be grieving more long-term.  I’ve already got seven names in my book, two of them are this month:

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The distinction between Anglican and Ecumenical commemorations may be somewhat irrelevant for this purpose; this is more a third, “Personal”, category anyway.

Also keep in mind that the Prayers of the People in the Anglican Standard Text (on page 111) has a fill-in-the-blank spot in which the names of the departed may be remembered.  One tradition is to name the departed on or close to their death date (sometimes called their obit), and another tradition is to name all of them at the All Soul’s Day service (which for most of us Anglicans actually will probably be All Saints’ Sunday).  Whatever you do or don’t do, remember that your copy of the Prayer Book is your copy; invest your spiritual life into it!

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Blessings Despite Sin

Since we’re reading Haggai in Evening Prayer, let’s go for a sermon on part of chapter 2.

Index Outline:

  •  00:00 The story of Haggai 2:10-19
  •  05:13 Lesson #1 Grow in faith
  •  07:20 Lesson #2 Sin is contagious
  •  10:20 Lesson #3 Receive God’s holiness 
  •  12:20 Lesson #4 Recognize God’s blessings 
  •  15:15 Concluding thoughts & prayer

The short book of Haggai is one with which I’m particularly familiar, having preached through it a few years ago.  If you want to explore any part of this book in depth, feel free to check out these sermons and articles:

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The Comfortable Words

After the Confession and Absolution in the Service of Holy Communion follow The Comfortable Words.  In my planning notes, this entry was to be entitled “The Comfortable Words (old & new)” which I can only assume was a joke to myself, as the comfortable words are always the same four quotes from Scripture.  Both their function and their content are the same in the classical Prayer Books and in the 2019 Prayer Book.  All that differs are what the rubrics say.  Also, for the many people who are used to the Roman Rite, or the 1979 book, or similar liturgical revisions, the Comfortable Words may be a “new” feature of the liturgy to them.

This lovely graphic explanation of the Comfortable Words made the rounds on Facebook last month, and it’s worth sharing here:

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I’ll let the commentary there stand for itself.  What we can explore from a liturgical perspective is the question of what these “words” do, and how we use them.

Classically, all four of these statements were read by the priest after the Absolution, and were introduced individually: “Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith… hear also what what St. Paul saith… hear also what St. John saith…”  But in the 2019 there is one introduction: “Hear the Word of God to all who truly turn to him.”  This is matched with a rubric that states The Celebrant may then say one or more of the following sentences.  Basically, this means that the rubrics allow us to skip any or all of these Words.

It is the recommendation of this Customary that you go all-or-nothing on this.  The Comfortable Words have always been the same group of four ever since Thomas Cranmer first appointed them in 1549, and the logical progression they form together makes the omission of one or more a loss to overall coherence.  Besides, if you just read one, then it runs the risk of just being a “random Scripture reading” floating out there, whereas if you read all four it makes a more bold and clear statement about the forgiveness of sins.  The liturgy will survive without them, so either embrace them as a whole or leave them be entirely.

Their function is to stand as a sort of reassurance of pardon.  Beyond the Anglicans and the Lutherans (the only two Protestant traditions that retain any sense of sacramentality of Absolution from a minister) an “assurance of pardon” is about all a minister can give, after a confession, and quoting the Bible is the best way to go about it.  For us, then, who do have an Absolution pronounced, the Comfortable Words serve as a sort of biblical seal upon the priest’s word of absolution.  This emphasizes that the ministry of the Church is grounded upon the authority of the Word of God written.

Priest, if your congregation already has a high view of Scripture, and a clear understanding that your ministry is derived therefrom, then the function of the Comfortable Words has been fulfilled whether you read them or not.  This does not make them extraneous, however.  The Word of God is living and active, arguably even more alive and active than you are.  Therefore we should not treat the Comfortable Words as “extra add-ons”, but words of great significance and comfort.  The rubrics permit us to skip them, but tradition and wisdom together exhort us to make regular use of them.

Anecdotally, I find myself using them throughout Advent, Lent, and Easter, and only occasionally reading them through the rest of the year.  Like many priests, I feel pressed for time: so-and-so wants to get home on time for the Patriots game, the kids only have so much attention span left, and wasn’t the sermon already long enough?  Perhaps there are good reasons for omitting the Comfortable Words from time to time.  But as a norm, we probably ought to be reading them far more often than we omit them.

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The Confession at Communion

After the Prayers of the People and the Exhortation comes the general confession of sins.  As Anglicans we may take this for granted… very few evangelical churches out there have any regular confession of sin in their worship services.  And the Roman Catholics only kinda-sorta do, at best.

In the old days, there was the confiteor, a prayer of confession, said during the “Fore-Mass”, which I believe was said at the bottom of the steps before approaching the altar during the Introit, and that was the Roman Catholic pattern until the 1960’s. Pope Benedict XVI’s revisions may have brought that back a little bit, but for the most part Roman piety traditionally expected people to make their confession in private the day before coming to Mass.  The English Reformation de-emphasized private confession (though despite what some say, we never abolished it!) and favored a corporate public confession within the Communion liturgy itself.  If private confession is needed, one of the Exhortations encourages people to go make that happen before coming to Communion next week.

The confession we’ve got in the Anglican Standard Text on pages 112-113 is a modern rendition of the traditional Anglican confession prayer for this liturgy.  The confession in the Renewed Ancient Text on page 130 is the “economy class” prayer from the 1979 Prayer Book – shorter, simpler, but arguably cheap.  So we’re going to leave that prayer be, and focus on where the 2019 Prayer Book is in line with Anglican tradition, rather than out of line.

2019: Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker and judge of us all:
1662: Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men:

We’ve trimmed it down a bit here, doing away with the language of “men” in favor of something more gender-neutral by contemporary standards.  We’ve exchanged the Maker of all things for the maker of us, which takes away from the cosmic scope of things.  Fortunately, there’s plenty of other imagery in this prayer, so the loss of that little detail shouldn’t make a big difference overall.

2019: We acknowledge and lament our many sins and offenses, which we have committed by thought, word, and deed, against your divine majesty, provoking most justly your righteous anger against us.
1662: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we from time to time most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.

Again our trend to streamline and trim the language down a little.  “Bewail” has become “lament”, which is conceptually is a toning down of our response to sin, but “bewail” runs the risk of sounding melodramatic today, given it’s a word that we don’t really use anywhere else anymore.  The phrase “from time to time” has been removed without replacement, largely because the implication of that phrase today is “occasionally” rather than the original sense “from moment to moment”, and that would be too unwieldy to say. Other phrases, “most grievously” and “wrath and indignation” are also simplified.  It was a common feature of English liturgical language (and likely rhetoric and poetry in general) to produce strings of pairs: “this and this, that and that”, which sometimes we keep for sake of aesthetic, but sometimes we simplify so it doesn’t get too cumbersome.

2019: We are deeply sorry for these our transgressions; the burden of them is more than we can bear.
1662: We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.

It is curious, now that I look at this closely, that in all our streamlining, “repent” is not a word we kept.  This really is the heart of the confession prayer – the previous lines lead to this statement, and the remainder of the prayer grows out from here.  The language of our sins being a “burden” though, is good to note, as it brings us to the biblical language of Christ bearing our sins for us on the Cross.  For us, sin is an “intolerable” burden, or “more than we can bear”; only Christ can bear that sin, and bear it on the Cross he did.  Thus, though the Cross is not explicitly named, the Cross remains at the heart of our confession of sin.  Yes we have this sacramental moment in the liturgy, complete with an absolution from a priest, but it is the Cross of Christ where that absolution ultimately originates.

2019: Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father;
1662: Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father;

Why, in the final draft of the 2019, did we bring back this full phrase?  Why not simply “Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father”?  This is an ancient piece of prayer.  The three-fold miserere (appeal for mercy) is traditionally where the priest (and people?) beat their breast three times, with the word “mercy.”  When you pray this, whether you make that gesture or not, make sure you’re saying it slowly enough that you could be striking your breast at each “mercy.”  The point is not to hurt yourself, as if this were an aggressive penitential discipline; it’s an expression of penitence and humility, which can be found mentioned throughout the biblical narrative.

2019: for your Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may evermore serve and please you in newness of life, to the honor and glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
1662: For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please thee In newness of life, To the honour and glory of thy Name; Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The phrase “ever hereafter” has become “evermore”.  Otherwise, we’re praying the same way Anglicans have been praying for centuries, here.

All in all, there is an extra layer of richness and beauty, as well as theological profundity, if you dig into the classical prayer books.  What we’ve got here in the 2019 Prayer Book is the same prayer in essence, but there are a few nuances that got streamlined out of the picture.  (Whereas the confession from the “Renewed Ancient Text” is barely the faintest echo of Anglican penitential piety.)  So we can pray this with confidence that we are praying in communion with our millions of forebears, drinking of the same fountain as those great divines of centuries past.  Just, I encourage you, dip into the classical language from time to time.  It’s not just historical interest, or liturgical legacy or context, but actually an enriching worship that has inspired and informed the entire English-speaking world.

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An Apt Prayer for a Friday

Since the first century, Fridays have been a day of special devotion and discipline in Christian tradition.  You can see this spelled out in the Didache – Wednesday and Friday are put forth as the two normal weekly fast days for Christians, as opposed to the Jewish Monday and Thursday.  The Prayer Book tradition receives, upholds, and passes along to us the practice of a regular Friday fast with few exceptions.  (Modern prayer books like the 2019 tend to be pretty soft on this this point, but if the 1662 is our liturgical standard, we should take note that the modern language “day of special discipline” really ought to be understood as “fast day”.)

The particular reason for Friday to be one of the regular fast days (or the primary one, as Wednesday seems to be seen as a ‘lesser’ fast than Friday) is linked to why we worship together on Sundays: as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord on the Lord’s Day, we observe the death of our Lord with a fast on Friday.  It is the part of the weekly rhythm of the Christian spiritual life: fasting and penitence upon our Lord’s death, sabbath rest on the day of his repose, and gathering with joy to worship the risen Lord on his resurrection day.

Imagine if that’s what you thought of first when someone mentioned “the weekend”.  Wow.

Anyway, what I thought might be nice to observe together today is one of the Collects for Evening Prayer that is suggested for Fridays.  This is not one of the historic Daily Office Collects, but an addition in the 1979 Prayer Book that has been retained in the 2019.  You don’t have  to use this Collect on Fridays; the rubrics allow you to stick with the traditional two (for Peace and for Aid Against Perils) if you like.  But the prayer suggested for Friday is very appropriate for the penitential tenor of this day of the week.

A COLLECT FOR FAITH

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies’ sake.  Amen.

In the scheme of “every Sunday an Easter” and “every Friday a Good Friday”, this prayer directs us right to the death of Christ, celebrating the victory Jesus wrought thereby, referencing Hosea 13:14 and/or 1 Corinthians 15:56.  We then turn to the reality of our own death – we pray that we would die a “peaceful” (that is, prepared-for and accepting) death, faithfully following Jesus through death toward our own resurrection unto glory.  It is an eschatological prayer, looking ahead to the end of all things, through and beyond even death itself.

Is this prayer traditional?  Not strictly speaking; only 40 years of the past 470 have seen this prayer in the Office.  But is this prayer appropriate?  Absolutely.

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The celebrant may then say the Exhortation.

When was the last time you heard the Exhortation read in your church?  Or if you’re a priest, when was the last time you read the Exhortation to your flock?  Or when was the last time you read the Exhortation at all?  Do you even know what the Exhortation is?  I’ve resisted the urge to give this entry a click-bait title, but I have a sinking feeling that a lot of people are grossly unfamiliar with this uniquely Anglican feature of the Communion liturgy.

The main reason the Exhortation is almost completely gone from the modern Anglican landscape is because the 1928 Prayer Book (and other books since) almost completely buried the Exhortation.  It’s still there, and there are rubrics to direct its location within the liturgy, but the primary text of the liturgy itself makes no mention of it.  It’s a dinosaur, a relic of ages past, preserved in the liturgical appendix to appease the grumpy old traditionalists.

In the 2019 Prayer Book however both our Communion rites have this rubric between the Prayers of the People and the Confession:

The celebrant may then say the Exhortation.

You then have to turn to pages 139-40 for its suggested uses: it can be part of a special “Penitential Order” at the beginning of the Communion liturgy (for those who want the service to be more Lutheran I guess) and that it “is traditionally read on the First Sunday of Advent, the First Sunday in Lent, and Trinity Sunday.”  This is an appeal to the precedent of (at least) the 1928 Prayer Book which requires the Exhortation to be said on those three Sundays at least (though again you have to find the Exhortation and its rubrics after the conclusion of the Communion liturgy).

So what is the Exhortation?

You can read it on pages 147-8 of the 2019 Prayer Book.  Originally there were three Exhortations: one for the Communion Service itself, one for the Antecommunion when the Communion is coming up (next week or so), and another one for the second setting with a particular emphasis on calling people to receive the Sacrament when they have been “negligent to come.”  Now that weekly Communion is almost universally normalized, the latter two aren’t really useful anymore; only first remains.

If you haven’t read it yet, please do so.  Like, literally, now.  Grab your prayer book, click the link, whatever.

Read it?

Seriously, don’t think you can fool me; I may technically still be a young priest but I’m that naive anymore.

Okay, great, let’s continue.

The Exhortation as found in the 2019 Prayer Book is pretty similar to its traditional form, though you will find that it incorporates elements of all three.  (The 1979 version was re-written to emphasize a fairly liberal agenda regarding the love of God and downplaying the judgment of God, so don’t bother digging that one up anymore.)  Rather than one giant block of text it is spaced into six more readable paragraphs.

The first paragraph gets you started on the right foot: if you intend to receive Communion today, make sure you follow the scriptural mandate to approach with penitence and faith.  The benefits and dangers are great, appealing to 1 Corinthians 11.  The second paragraph continues the same line of scriptural reference, honing in on the call to “judge yourselves lest you be judged by the Lord,” including full confession and restitution as much as is possible.  The third paragraph is drawn from the “Communion is next week, guys!” speech, and that shows because it’s kind of too late to make the invitation to private confession to the priest not five minutes before the celebration of Holy Communion begins.  Nevertheless, the offer is there, and in this day of cheap grace and faux-forgiveness I think our congregations need to know that private confession to a priest is a real ministry that is available to them.

The remaining three, shorter, paragraphs, take a more cheerful tack – “above all, each of us should give humble and hearty thanks to God…. Because of his exceedingly great love for us…”  The facts of the Gospel surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus are summarized as a show of great love, which he desires to communicate to us in “these holy mysteries” of bread and wine.  We are called to love and to joy in submitting to Christ, and that is the last word before the call to confessing our sins.

If you are familiar with the eucharistic canon of the Anglican Standard Text, or any pre-1979 prayer book, you will find several echoes of language between the Exhortation and the Communion prayers.  Because of the close similarity in language, I would highly recommend using the “Anglican Standard” instead of the “Renewed Ancient Text” whenever giving the Exhortation.

As for the dates, our rubric only recommends Advent 1, Lent 1, and Trinity Sunday.  For the most part, I’ve adhered to that pattern in my church since Advent 2013.  The freedom afforded us in this rubric, though, should not be taken as a wholesale opt-out option, but rather, to choose different Sundays or more Sundays to read the Exhortation.  People need to know why we celebrate Communion, and how to prepare for it – especially those many who have come into Anglicanism from an evangelical background where the Sacraments hardly played a role in their spiritual life at all.  I find that Advent 1 is often a low-attendance week due to post-Thanksgiving-Day travel, so sometimes I save the Exhortation for Advent 2 when they’re all back.  Sometimes Trinity Sunday also has that beginning-of-summer slump, too, so I might move the Exhortation up to Pentecost instead.  Use your freedom on this part of the liturgy responsibly, not as an excuse to be lazy.

Is it wordy?  Yes.  Can it be boring?  Yes.  Is it difficult to read if you’re not used to it?  Yes.  But don’t let that stop you.  This is a valuable piece of liturgy, and the more you expose your congregation to it, the more of it will sink in.  Use it in Sunday School or Confirmation preparation when teaching on the Sacraments!  Maybe dedicate a Maundy Thursday sermon to exposit its text; it’s basically a sermon on 1 Corinthians 11 anyway.

If you’re a priest, learn to love the Exhortation.  It is a valuable tool, ally, and resource, and it’s right there in the liturgy.  You don’t have to go full 1662-style and use it every single service, but it’s too good to let it fall into obscurity forever.

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Book Review: Saint Joseph Continuous Sunday Missal

Welcome to Saturday Book Review time!  On most of the Saturdays this year we’re looking at a liturgy-related book noting (as applicable) its accessibility, devotional usefulness, and reference value.  Or, how easy it is to read, the prayer life it engenders, and how much it can teach you.

The next few books we’re going to look at are from liturgical traditions other than our own.  Obviously it is important to well-grounded in who we are and what we believe and where we stand, but it is also important to understand that we don’t stand in a vacuum, but as a part of the greater whole of Western Catholicism, and further, universal Christianity.  So today we’re going to go with one of the more random entries on my liturgy shelf: the Saint Joseph Continuous Sunday Missal, from 1963.

As you probably know, the 1960’s was a hotbed of liturgical changes in the Roman Church, and the vast majority of the Protestant world was about to follow suit.  The council known as Vatican II ran from 1962 to 1965, and one of its earliest reforms was for the liturgy in the local vernacular.  This Sunday Missal from 1963 represents a brief slice of Roman liturgical reform where it’s all in English, but most of the “novus ordo” (new order) stuff hasn’t been introduced.  It’s a precious snapshot of the Tridentine liturgy in English, something that’s almost completely lost today.  Under Benedict XVI, Roman Catholics got their Latin Mass back, but I’m not sure they got back their historic liturgy in the English language.  Their situation is something like Anglicans having to choose between the 1662 Prayer Book with zero changes and the 1979 Prayer Book – super traditional to the point of liturgical fetishism, or super modern to the ire of traditionalists everywhere.

So, apart from historical reference, in a tradition not even our own, what use is this book to an Anglican today?  Well, if you’re one of those crypto-Papist versions of Anglo-Catholic, then I suppose this book is pretty close to your view of an ideal liturgy in English.  It may help inform how you use the Anglican Missal, or whatever other Prayer Book supplement you prefer.  But most of us, I hazard to say, are more interested in Anglican liturgy and spirituality; what does this Roman book have to offer?

When I spent three years with my church in the classical prayer book lectionary, I learned a lot about how the liturgy used to be structured.  Remember that the historic Sunday Eucharistic lectionary has just two readings: an Epistle (usually) and a Gospel.  The Prayer Book tradition appoints a Collect for each Sunday and Holy Day to go with those two readings, but that’s it.  But what I eventually discovered was that there are more “propers” to draw upon if one so chooses.  There’s also the Introit and the Gradual – short pieces, usually chanted, usually from the Psalms, that are said near the start of the liturgy and between the Epistle and Gospel, respectively.  But what are those texts, and how are they used?  That’s where this book came in handy for me: by spelling out the full text of the Roman Mass for each Sunday of the year, it showed me how they did the Introit and Gradual, giving me insight into how those two additional propers could be put into the our liturgy.

First you can see the Introit, between the “Foremass” confession and the Kyrie, functioning in essentially the same way as our Opening Acclamation today.

Introit

After the Kyrie and Gloria comes their Collect of the Day, and then we turn the page to find the Epistle, Gradual, and Gospel.  Notice how both the Introit and Gradual use an Antiphon-Verse-Antiphon pattern, though slightly differently.  The Gradual functions similarly to our (responsory) Psalm in modern liturgy.

gradual

Then we get through the Creed, Sermon, and arrive at the Offertory.  It’s interesting to note that they appointed particular Offertory Sentences to particular Sundays, whereas the Prayer Book tradition just throws a 2-3 page list at you to choose from.

offertory

And then finally, after 8 pages of Communion prayers, we get to an oft-overlooked piece of liturgy, the Communion Sentence.  As far as I’ve noticed, the Prayer Book tradition has always authorized this little piece of liturgy, but seldom (if ever) gave instructions on how to do it.  Notice here that it’s said after the sacrament has been distributed and the vessels cleaned.

communion

The Post-Communion Prayer follows the Communion Sentence – it’s almost as if that little Scripture verse is there to re-direct everyone’s attention to the reception of the Sacrament after the sometimes-lengthy process of communicating everyone, getting everyone back on track to pray the Post-Communion together.

I share this in detail partly because I think it’s interesting, but also because it sheds some slight on how certain elements of our own liturgy, old and new, work in similar tradition to our own.  For example, I’ve only ever heard a Communion Sentence uttered at one church I’ve visited, and only tried saying one myself at my church once or twice.  Perhaps old resources like this one can inspire us to look at our own liturgy with fresh eyes.

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 5/5
If this book represented the way a church worships today, it would be incredibly useful.  It’s easy to follow, the whole Mass through.  It’s got a picture at the beginning of each Sunday Mass to give a visual sense of the day’s theme.  Everything is clearly labeled.  The book is long (over 1,000 pages) but not large.  It’s got explanations of the calendar and the parts of the Mass, with color pictures, at the beginning.  The whole point of this book was to help church-goers follow and understand the Roman Mass easily.

Devotional Usefulness: 1/5
As noted previously, this book represents a form of the liturgy that probably doesn’t exist anywhere anymore.  And it’s very Roman, so the theological content of its eucharistic prayers is not entirely agreeable with the Prayer Book tradition.  And although it does have some other prayer resources in the back, this book just isn’t really “for us”.

Reference Value: 3/5
If you’re interested in how various elements of traditional Western liturgy can/did/”should” look in English, this book, or another like it, is extremely handy.  Its usefulness is pretty narrow, though.

If you chance upon a book like this at a yard sale or an estate sale, like I did, it’s totally worth shelling $5 to save it from the rubbish heap.  It’s a book cool to explore, and it looks really pretty on your shelf, too!  There’s a lot to be said for elegant, simple, beauty.

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Prayers of the People (Old & New)

One of the primary improvements found in the 2019 Prayer Book over its predecessor in 1979 is the restoration of a great of deal of classical prayer book content that was displaced, obscured, or even omitted in ’79.  The “Prayers of the People” in the Communion service was once of the hardest-hit features of classical liturgy in the ’79 which is substantially restored in the 2019’s Anglican Standard Text.

The classical approach was to read through all those prayers, straight through, and the 2019 puts in congregational responses – “Lord in your mercy / Hear our prayer” – which is hardly more than a cosmetic update to help people keep focused.  A few changes of wording have been made, and at least one new addition made (namely the petition for the advancement and spread of the Gospel), and one slightly-controversial line in the final petition pointing back toward the 1549 Prayer Book’s approach to handling prayers for the departed. A sober and attentive article on this subject can be found here, in case you’re curious or concerned.

What we’re going to look at today though is not so much the content of the prayers (I dare say the above paragraph and link are a sufficient headstart into your own comparison if you really want to do that), but instead the function of the prayers.  In modern liturgy, the Prayers of the People are a sort of thing unto itself.  The Sermon has been delivered and the Creed has been said, and now it’s time to pray for a little while.  When we’re done we move on to the Confession, absolution, and Offertory.  It all fits together into a logical progression: intercede, confess, receive absolution, and celebrate with offering.  It’s logical and sensible, but it’s not particularly profound; as far as I understand it thus far, this is primarily a functional progression of liturgy.

The classical prayer book order was more, for lack of a better term, mystical about the Prayers.  Until the 1979 book changed things up, the Sermon was followed by the Offertory, and the monetary gifts would be brought up front along with the bread and wine for Holy Communion, and then the “Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church” began, read by the Celebrant (rather than a Deacon or lay reader).  These prayers included an optional line for God to “accept our alms and oblations”, referencing the Offertory gifts, and in a sense anticipating Holy Communion itself.

In a way, the “Prayers of the People” were like the preparation for Communion itself!  As the people got ready to approach the throne of grace, their intercessions were sent ahead, along with the very elements that God would provide to feed them.  These Prayers would then be followed by an Exhortation, the Confession & absolution, and then the Communion prayers would follow immediately.  This is probably the most-changed part of the liturgy from old to new in terms of “order of service.”

If you find this appeals to you, and you want to capture this sense of eucharistic anticipation in the Prayers of the People in the 2019 book’s liturgy, there are things you can do.  You can go all out and use the instructions in the Additional Directions to re-structure the entire liturgy to the “1662 Order.”  *SEE FOOTNOTE*  But if that’s too radical a change for your context (or you prefer the 1928-informed order of the eucharistic canon over the 1662 order), there are three things you should do to help tie the Prayers of the People more clearly to the celebration of Holy Communion:

  1. Do not hold announcements after the Peace.
  2. Always appoint a Communion Hymn at the Offertory.
  3. Have the bread and wine brought up to the altar at the same time as the monetary gifts.

In most cases, those are the two things that separate the Prayers of the People from the Communion.  The Peace already easily turns into a greet-everyone-in-the-room moment, and when it’s followed by the weekly parish announcements the flow of the liturgy is basically dead at that point, only to be revived with the Offertory – but almost as if a second worship service is starting.  If you want the Prayers of the People to reclaim any semblance of Eucharistic preparation, you’ve got to hold those announcements somewhere else (the old order called for them after the Creed and before the Sermon).  And then you have to follow that up with Communion-themed offertory music, lest that anthem also break the link.  The bread and wine, too, need to be involved in the Offertory (as was its traditional purpose anyway), so it’s clearer that the money is secondary and the sacrament is primary.

If none of this interests you, or strikes you as necessary, that’s fine.  The modern liturgical order clearly has a different logic to it, and it’s not always easy or reasonable to use one prayer book and pretend it’s a different one.  But, as always, it’s important to know and understand how classical Anglican liturgy worked, so we can at least be honest about when we’re following it and when we’re doing something new.  And the opportunities for teaching and spiritual formation in our congregations, too, can be greatly enriched by such perspective!

 

** UPDATE **
It turns out that we do in fact have the option to conform the liturgy of the Anglican Standard Text not only to the 1662 Order, but to any subsequent book.  This permission is spelled both on pages 7 and 104, and a member of the ACNA liturgy committee confirmed that this is the intention of those rubrics.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Reading Colossians

We’ve been reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians this week, in the 2019 Prayer Book’s daily lectionary, and I wanted to single out this little book for further reflection today.  The Revised Common Lectionary (including the 2019 version) also just took us through much of this epistle back in July and early August, and some of us may even have preached on those lessons, making this read-through all the more fruitful now.

There are, of course, many commentaries and study guides out there, but one I would recommend is Fullness and Freedom by R. C. Lucas, an evangelical Anglican with a prolific ministry at St. Helen’s in London.  He was my parents’ first pastor, quite a few years ago, and (like J. I. Packer) is miraculously still alive and rocking the world for the Kingdom.  My church’s Facebook page has shared a number of photo clips from his book on Colossians and Philemon, which you may enjoy perusing.

Otherwise, perhaps you won’t mind my rambling: