Holy Communon in the Book of Common Prayer 4

ST PETER, MANEY

 LENT 2010

Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer

Five sermons

 4

 ‘most easy and plain for the understanding’: hearing and participating in the service

The Prayer Book then

The BCP was, for the people of England, a revolutionary book. To use modern jargon, it was intended to be, and in many ways succeeded in being, a means of empowerment for lay Christians.  Alongside the publication of the English Bible (in various editions from the ‘Great Bible’ of 1538 onwards) it put into the hands of the congregation the whole possession of their faith and liturgy. Uniquely, for Anglicans the Prayer Book became our most important ‘charter document’ and the common standard of our identity. It is quite a neat volume, containing, as it does, everything from the means to calculate the date of Easter for the foreseeable future to the 39 Articles of Religion, as well as all the principal services of the Church. It was also a notable stimulus to the emergence of a literate, learned laity.

The brevity of the Book was the result of massive simplification. This meant an end to seasonal variations in services, to special antiphons and responses to mark different occasions. It meant fixing on one collect and two readings for every Sunday of the year. So it also meant a great deal of repetition. No wonder the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has no less than thirteen full pages of citations from the BCP (behind only the Bible and Shakespeare in number).  Even today, novelists use its phrases for their titles: it is one of the landmarks of our language

The prayer Book now

However, our language and our habits have moved on.  Amazingly, the first serious attempt to modify the BCP was made as recently as in the nineteen-twenties, with the production of what became known as the 1928 Book. Modest as its changes were, the book was voted down in Parliament and effective liturgical renewal was postponed until the nineteen-seventies.

The version of the Order for Holy Communion we now use is varied in these ways from the 1662 Book: First, there are small changes in language—in the Our Father, ‘who’ for ‘which’ etc.

and in the Prayer for the Church—’impartial’ for ‘indifferent’

and ‘Bishops, Priests and Deacons’, for ‘Bishops and Curates’

There are, too, the omissions mentioned last week. Then there is the use of a different lectionary—one in which the readings are chosen on a three-year cycle and include the option of Old Testament readings.  Now that so few lay people attend morning and evening prayer, this is the only way, in the liturgy, that many can encounter the Old Testament. 

All this amounts to an attempt to reduce unnecessary obscurity in the service, to enrich the diet of Scripture and to offer the order of service in a form more accessible to newcomers.

An undemanding host

To attend this service is like coming to a meal with an undemanding host—one who does not ply you with questions or urge you to play party games with the other guests. But with such a host, you need to come prepared.

First we need to consider what to bring with us: not just our weekly envelope or collection, but those matters for prayer and thanksgiving which we are invited, but not compelled, to put before God here.

Second, we need to adjust our pace, to slow down—both in relation to the expansive, stately pace of the spoken service, and in relation to our mental state. This service gives the chance for meditation, but until the mind is stilled, that will not be meditation but fugitive, wandering thoughts.

We need, too, to be mindful of one another. Where there is no exchanging of the peace, no handshake or looking each other in the eye, there is greater need to pray for each other and to listen together. Like choir members we are to speak with one voice, as ‘very members incorporate in the mystical body’ of Christ..

And finally, we need to ‘draw near with faith’ as those who look to meet with Christ, the real host at this table. The few physical steps it takes to come to the rail are the outward sign of an inward journey, begun, maybe last night, continued in quiet before the service and culminating in the act of Communion itself. ‘Come unto me’, he says, ’and I will refresh you.’