Texts for Common Prayer at First Glance: Holy Communion

On the Texts for Common Prayer page of the ACNA website Liturgy and Common Worship Taskforce chair, William A. Thompson, offers a number of explanations for the proposed liturgies, which may be downloaded on that page. These explanations consist of what is described as “answers to anticipated questions.” They form a section of the page titled “FAQ” (frequently asked questions). In this article I am going to take a look at the first twelve of Thompson’s explanations and the features of the proposed ACNA eucharistic rites to which they pertain.

In Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today the GAFCON Theological Resource Group notes:

The 1662 Prayer Book provides a standard by which other liturgies may be tested and measured. One key principle of revision is that new liturgies must be seen in continuity with the Book of Common Prayer….

A second key principle of revision should be that of mutual accountability within the Anglican Communion. The further removed a proposed liturgy may be from the 1662 Prayer Book, the more is should be subject to widespread evaluation throughout the Communion

In examining Thompson’s explanations and the pertinent features of the proposed eucharistic rite I will be keeping these two principles in mind.

In his introduction to the FAQ section Thompson makes this claim:

They [the proposed liturgies] are more "old" than "new," since they closely follow the traditional theology of the BCP 1662.

However, a close examination of the proposed eucharistic rites shows that the rites makes a number of significant departures from the doctrine and liturgical practices of the 1662 Communion Service.

This is hardly surprising in the light of the ACNA Fundamental Declarations and the ACNA “theological lens.” These documents guided the Liturgy and Common Prayer Taskforce in its work.

In its Fundamental Declarations the ACNA adopted a broad standard of worship embracing not just the 1662 Prayer Book but every service book that preceded it, including the medieval Mass books.

The ACNA “theological lens” was compiled by the Liturgy and Common Prayer Taskforce and adopted by the College of Bishops. Both bodies are dominated by traditionalist and convergentist Anglo-Catholics. The ACNA “theological lens” gives greater weight to the doctrine and liturgical practices of the partially reformed 1549 Prayer Book, the retrograde 1928 Prayer Book, and the ecumenicist-influenced, modernist 1979 Prayer Book than it does the doctrine and liturgical practices of the classic Anglican Prayer Book and the reformed 1552 Prayer Book upon which it is based.

The proposed ACNA eucharistic rites adopt what is sometimes referred to as the “ecumenical” pattern, rather than that of the 1662 Communion Service. This is the pattern used in the 1979 eucharistic rites. Indeed the “long form” bears a strong resemblance to Rite I. The main difference is that Rite I uses traditional language; the “long form”, contemporary. The “long form” also incorporates elements from the so-called Anglican missals.

Space does not permit me to give Thompson’s explanations in their entirety. They may be found here.

Acclamation. The practice of saying or singing an acclamation at the beginning of the Eucharist was first introduced into the American Prayer Book with the 1979 Prayer Book and the Canadian Prayer Book with the Book of Alternative Services 1985. It is not a part of the 1662 Communion Service. The 1662 Communion Service begins with the Lord’s Prayer, which the 1662 rubrics direct that the people should recite with the minister “wheresoever … it is used in Divine Service.”

Summary of the Law/Decalogue: In the 1662 Communion Service the Decalogue is recited every Sunday. Later Communion Services added the option of substituting the Summary of the Law for the Decalogue provided the Decalogue was recited at least once on Sunday and on the major feast days or at least once a month when there was a celebration of Holy Communion. The proposed eucharistic liturgies make the recitation of the Summary of the Law mandatory and the recitation of the Decalogue optional. Thompson offers no explanation for this change.

Every addition and alteration to a liturgy affects its theology. Cranmer’s incorporation of the Decalogue into the Communion Service is consistent with Biblical and reformed theology. In the reformed 1552 Communion Service and the 1662 Communion Service, which is based on it, the people hear God’s Commandments, praying after each Commandment that God would be merciful to them and incline their hearts to keep the Commandment. Having heard the Law, they go on to hear the Gospel. Through hearing the Law they become aware of the depth of their own sinfulness and their desperate need for a Savior. The recitation of the Summary of the Law does not have this effect. It is a concession to liberal theology.

Kyrie: According to the rubrics of the proposed eucharistic rites the use of the Kyrie is optional, not mandatory as Thompson suggests. The use of a litany with the Kyrie as the response after each petition at the beginning of the Eucharist was also not adopted by the Western Church until the fifth century.

The Collect for Purity: This prayer was not originally a part of the liturgy but of the priest’s preparation as was the Lord’s Prayer. Cranmer incorporated both into the 1552 Communion Service, upon which the 1662 Communion Service is based. With the Prayer Book revision of the last 50 odd years, the prayer has been made a part of the whole congregation’s preparation in a number of Anglican service books. Some liturgies permit its omission and/or the substitution of another prayer of preparation, for example, Our Modern Services (2002, 2003) of the Anglican Church of Kenya.

Collect of the Day: In his explanation of why the proposed eucharistic rites change the response to the greeting before the Collect of the Day, Thompson neglects to mention that Cranmer dropped the greeting “The Lord be with thee” and the response “And with thy spirit” from the reformed 1552 Communion Service because of its association with the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation. They were not included in the 1559, 1604, and 1662 Communion Services and the 1789 and 1892 American Communion Services for this reason.

A traditionalist Anglo-Catholic priest offered me this explanation of how Anglo-Catholics interpret the response “And with thy (or your) spirit:

‘And with your (singular) spirit,’ which essentially means that the people are praying that the Lord may dwell in the soul of the priest, sanctifying him and enabling him to do the work of his office. For it is through him that the Holy Spirit works to affect the miracle of the Eucharist, and of Baptismal regeneration. So while ‘And also with you’ is a nice salutation, it does not convey the Spirit-filled holiness of the moment.

In An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) the late Peter Toon offers a similar explanation. He describes the greeting and the response as being "more like a prayer, where the presence of the Lord with his people is being affirmed by the Minister, and in turn, the people pray that the spiritual gift is given to him in ordination will be aroused, so that the Celebration will be in spirit and in truth, and thus acceptable to the Lord."

Neither view is consistent with the doctrine of the 1662 Prayer Book or the teaching of the Bible. A more in-depth discussion of the use of the response, “And with your spirit,” may be found here. The response,” And also with you,” is not only Scriptural but it also does not carry this kind of theological freight.

Lessons: To his explanation Thompson might have added that the liturgy of the word in the Eucharist in the Western Church originally had an Old Testament lesson and Psalms between the lessons. Cranmer was only familiar with the late medieval Sarum eucharistic lectionary, which was a two-lesson lectionary. The inclusion of an Old Testament Lesson and one or more Psalms adds to Biblical content of the Eucharist. It gives expression to an important doctrine articulated in Article 7 of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion:

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New Testament. In the Old as well as the New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind through Christ; that is because as both God and man, he is the one Mediator between God and man.

The addition of an Old Testament Lesson and one or more Psalm are also edifying to the congregation, an important New Testament principle (1 Corinthians 14:26). Without an Old Testament Lesson and one or more Psalms a congregation is likely to develop a Marcionist view of the Bible.

Nicene Creed: The Church of England’s Common Worship (2000) contains liturgical material from the 1662 Prayer Book, both in traditional and contemporary English. However, it is not an adaptation of the 1662 Prayer Book. All the material in Common Worship is not consistent with the teaching of the Bible or the doctrine of the 1662 Prayer Book as a number of conservative evangelicals have pointed out in their writings. Some contemporary Anglican service books give congregations the option of using “I believe” or “we believe” with the Nicene Creed.

Long Form of the Prayer of Consecration: Neither the Consecration Prayer of the 1928 Communion Service or the 1962 Canadian Communion Service “closely conform” to that of the 1662 Communion Service. The 1928 Consecration Prayer is modeled on the 1764 Scottish Non-Juror Consecration Prayer. The Non-Jurors sought to reform Anglican worship after the pattern of Medieval worship, and reintroduced practices and doctrines that the Church of England had rejected at the Reformation. The 1962 Canadian Consecration Prayer, like the 1928 prayer, has an oblation but does not have a full-blown epiclesis like the 1928 prayer. Rather it has a petition imploring God that by the power of the Holy Spirit, all who are partakers of the holy communion may be fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction. The 1928 rubrics and the 1962 Canadian rubrics permit the use of the Benedictus after the Sanctus. Both Communion Services place the Prayer of Humble Access after the Prayer of Consecration. The long form of the Prayer of Consecration in the proposed eucharistic rites may be described as a contemporary language revision of the 1928 prayer.

The 1662 Prayer of Consecration, on the other hand, has a fairly muted epiclesis in which God is implored to grant those receiving the bread and wine to be partakers of Christ’s Body and Blood. There is no permission to use the Benedictus after the Sanctus. The Prayer Humble Access is a part of the prayer, following the Sanctus. There is no oblation. Like the 1552 Consecration Prayer, the 1662 prayer is purged of elements associated with the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation. Of the three prayers, the 1662 Consecration Prayer is the most consistent with the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the teaching of the Bible.

Invocation: In the Bible we find no support for the blessing of inanimate objects, much less invoking God’s Holy Spirit upon such objects. The Biblical practice is to ask God’s blessing upon people. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, he gave thanks to God over a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. For this reason and because of its associations with the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation Archbishop Cranmer did not include in the reformed 1552 Consecration Prayer the kind of epiclesis found in the 1549 prayer, the 1764 Scottish Non-Juror prayer, and the 1928 prayer. The 1662 prayer with some minor changes is the 1552 prayer. The Sarum rite also did not have this kind of epiclesis.

Fraction: Anglicans do not agree that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is “an ongoing, living reality.” This is a doctrine found in the 1979 Prayer Book but is not peculiar to that book. The New Testament, on the other hand, teaches that Christ offered himself once for all. After he offered himself for our sins, he “sat down,” signifying that his sacrificial activity had been completed. This is what the 1662 Prayer Book affirms. For an in-depth discussion of what the Thirty-Nine Articles and Bible have to say on this matter, see J. I Packer’s The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today.

The 1979 “Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” is also open to interpretation as teaching the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation.

In the 1662 Communion Service the distribution of the bread and wine immediately follows the Prayer of Consecration. The priest breaks the bread when he says the Words of Institution.

The 1549 Prayer Book was a transitional service book and was only partially reformed in its theological content. The text “Christ our Passover” was not included in the reformed 1552 Prayer Book, which represents Cranmer’s mature theology, and is the Prayer Book upon which the classic Anglican Prayer Book is based. Among the reasons it was dropped was that it was, as worded in the 1549 Communion Service, open to interpretation as teaching the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation.

Prayer of Humble Access: One of the Puritans’ criticisms of the parallelism in the 1604 text of the Prayer of Humble Access was that it conveyed the unbiblical idea that Christ’s body cleanses our bodies and Christ’s blood washes our souls. This was and still is a valid criticism. However, the Restoration bishops stubbornly refused to alter the prayer. Subsequent revisers of the Prayer Book have recognized the validity of this criticism and have changed the language of the prayer to make it more consistent with the teaching of the Bible.

Ministration of Communion: As I have already noted, the 1549 Prayer Book was a transitional service book and was only partially reformed in its theological content. Text, “Behold the Lamb of God…,” was not used in the reformed 1552 Prayer Book because of its associations with the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation and the belief in Christ’s substantive presence under forms of bread and wine in the Holy Communion. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is essentially the 1552 Prayer Book. The so-called Anglican missals, however, reintroduced the use of the text as an invitation to communion in the nineteenth century. These manuals sought to transform the Anglican Communion Service into the Roman Catholic Mass. Their theology is inconsistent with the doctrine of the Anglican formularies and the teaching of the Bible. The text is also used in the service of Holy Communion in The Book of Common Prayer 2011, which is decidedly Anglo-Catholic in its theology and liturgical practices.

Thompson’s explanations give the impression that he has not studied the history, doctrine, and liturgical practices of the 1662 Prayer Book. Alternatively he is deliberately trying to exploit Americans’ lack of familiarity with the classic Anglican Prayer Book to mislead them into believing that the proposed eucharistic liturgies closely follow the Biblical and reformed theology of the 1662 Prayer Book. This is far from the case. The proposed ACNA eucharistic rites exhibit the same Anglo-Catholic and liberal tendencies of the North American Church that produced the 1928 and 1979 Prayer Books. Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group, identifies in its commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration as being the two major challenges to the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies in the global Anglican Church today.