The new ACNA eucharistic rites on closer inspection (Part 2)

By Robin G. Jordan

The new ACNA eucharistic rites consists of two forms—a “long” form and “short” form. Both forms adopt the ecumenical pattern of the Holy Eucharist, endorsed by the 1958 Lambeth Conference. The rubrics of both forms permit the use of a modified 1928 pattern of the Communion Service as an optional alternative.

The 1928 pattern of the Communion Service is not the same pattern as the 1662 pattern of the Communion Service. In the 1662 pattern the Prayer of Humble Access follows the Preface and the Sanctus, the Prayer of Consecration contains no Oblation—either of the bread and wine or of the Church; and the Lord’s Prayer, a Prayer of Thanksgiving, a Prayer of Oblation, and the Gloria in Excelsis follow the Communion. These four elements form the Church’s response to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross commemorated in the Lord’s Supper and to the grace Christ gives to those who partake of the Lord’s Supper “worthily” – “rightly, worthily, and with faith” (Articles 25, 28). Like the 1552 Communion Service, the 1662 Communion Service gives liturgical expression to the New Testament and Reformation doctrine of justification by grace by faith alone in Christ alone.

The entrance rite of both forms of the new ACNA eucharistic rites is identical. It bears a striking resemblence to the entrance rite of the Holy Eucharist, Rites I and II, of the 1979 Prayer Book. There are, however, several differences. The rubrics of the new ACNA eucharistic rites require the recitation of the Summary of the Law at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The new ACNA eucharistic rites are the first eucharistic liturgies that I have examined which have this rubrical requirement (and I have studied a number of such liturgies). It is one of a number of oddities or peculiarities in Texts for Common Prayer. The recitation of the Summary of the Law is typically an optional alternative to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments may also be optional.

The rubrics of the Holy Eucharist, Rites I and II, require the recitation of the Kyries or Trisagion at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist when the Gloria in Excelsis or another song of praise is not sung. These are the rubrical requirement about that Bishop Thompson must have been thinking when he wrote in FAQ section of the ACNA website’s Liturgy page that the Kyries must be sung at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The rubrics of the new ACNA eucharistic rites permit the recitation of the Kyries or the Trisagion at celebrations of the Holy Eucharist at which the Gloria in Excelsis or another song of praise is sung.

As Byron Stuhlman notes in Prayer Book Rubrics Expanded, the entrance is one of three parts of the Holy Eucharist that tends to attract “clutter.” This clutter distorts the shape and meaning of the rite. In the new ACNA eucharistic rites the Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force has produced two forms in which the entrance is particularly susceptible to this tendency.

Stuhlman also note:

The original entrance rite in the Western tradition consists of entrance song (introit psalm), greeting (salutation), and prayer (collect). In the course of history, this rite (whose purpose is to assemble the people in God’s name for worship and to constitute them as the Church) has become encumbered with doublets of these elements and other devotional material, so that the whole shape of the liturgy became distorted and lost its proper proportions (the readings were shortened as the entrance grew longer).

Both forms of the new ACNA eucharistic rites invite the development of a lengthy entrance and the subsequent distortion of the shape of the liturgy and loss of its proper proportions.

From the perspective of someone who has been involved in church planting for the past twelve years (and previously for ten years in the 1980s and 1990s), the entrance rite of the new ACNA eucharistic rites is poorly designed as far as new church plants and other small churches are concerned. It lacks the kind of flexibility that the mission field demands. It also invites small churches to attempt the copy the worship of cathedrals and other large churches, something that they cannot pull off with their limited musical resources and which is out of place in the types of settings in which they worship. As we shall see, these observations also apply to not just to the entrance rite of both forms but to the entire service.

The liturgy of the word of both forms of the new ACNA eucharistic rites is almost identical. Both forms promote the use of the salutation, or greeting, “The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.” Archbishop Cranmer omitted this salutation from the 1552 Communion Service due to its long association with the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation. It was also omitted from the 1662 Communion Service. It is open to interpretation as a prayer for the priest for the arousal of the spiritual gift or grace that Anglo-Catholics hold is given to the priest through the laying on of hands at ordination. This spiritual or grace, Anglo-Catholics believe, enables the priest to confect the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood and to infuse the water in baptismal font with the power of regeneration. Anglicans who uphold the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the classic Anglican formularies reject this belief as did Archbishop Cranmer and the English Reformers.

The General Instructions that are found at the end of the long form permit the use of the salutation “The Lord be with you. And also with you.” This rubric should have been placed immediately after the salutation and before the Collect of the Day and not have been relegated to a place where it might not be noticed.

The rubrics for the Lessons are identical to those in the Holy Eucharist, Rites I and II, except that the new ACNA eucharistic rites substitute “one or more readings, as appointed…” for “one or two readings, as appointed….” As in Rites I and II the Sermon immediately follows the Gospel. There is no rubric permitting the recitation of the Nicene Creed before the Sermon. The version of the Nicene Creed used in the new ACNA eucharistic rites is also identical to the version used in Rite II. A note at the bottom of the page states:

The filioque [and the Son] is not in the original Greek text. Nevertheless, in the Western Church the filioque [and the Son] is customary at worship and is used for the explication of doctrine [39 Articles of Religion]. The operative resolution of the College of Bishops concerning use of the filioque is printed with the General Instructions at the end of the Holy Communion, Long Form.

The Prayers of the People, the Exhortation, the Confession of Sin, the Absolution, the Comfortable Words, the Peace, and the Offertory follow the Nicene Creed.

Where the liturgy of the word of the two forms differs from each other is the Prayers of the People and the Confession of Sin. The form for the Prayers of the People in the long form is a contemporary language adaptation of the form used in the 1928 Communion Service and the Rite I Holy Eucharist—the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church. So is the form for the Prayers of the People in the short form. They simply are different contemporary language versions of the same prayer.

The Confession of Sin in the long form is a contemporary language version of the Confession of Sin in the 1928 Communion Service and of the first Confession of Sin in the Rite I Holy Eucharist. The Confession of Sin in the short form is taken from the Rite II Holy Eucharist. They are the two Confessions of Sin found in traditional language versions in the Rite I Holy Eucharist.

A rubric permits the optional alternative placement of the Prayers of the People, the Exhortation, the Confession of Sin, the Absolution, and the Peace after the Offertory. The Exhortation and the Comfortable Words are optional and may be omitted.

The Peace is a contemporary language version of the Peace in the 1549 Communion Service and the Rite I Holy Eucharist. It is also the version of the Peace used in the new English translation of the third edition of the The Roman Missal, in use as of November 27, 2011.  (In the Roman Catholic Mass the Peace follows the Lord's Prayer in the Communion Rite as in the 1549 Communion Service.) No provision is made for substitution of the response “And also with you” for the response “With your spirit” as in the case of the salutation. No explanation is offered in the FAQ section of the ACNA website’s Liturgy page for this omission.

While it might be argued that the 1549 Communion Service uses this particular wording of the Peace, such an argument is spurious. The 1549 Prayer Book was only partially reformed. Its doctrine and liturgical practices do not represent the mature thinking of Archbishop Cranmer. Both the Roman Catholic Bishop Stephen Gardiner and the Reformed theologian Martin Bucer pointed out in their writings how unreformed the rites of the 1549 Prayer Book were. While Anglo-Catholics may prefer the insufficiently reformed 1549 Prayer Book to the more thoroughly reformed 1552 Prayer Book, it is the 1552 Prayer Book in its 1662 edition that is a classic formulary of authentic historic Anglicanism, not the 1549 Prayer Book.

The rubrics of the new ACNA eucharistic rites makes no provision for the omission of the Peace. The Peace is not a part of the 1662 Prayer Book tradition as the late Peter Toon pointed out in a number of articles. Archbishop Cranmer dropped the Peace from the 1552 Prayer Book. The Episcopal Church would reintroduce the Peace with the 1979 Prayer Book.

I have included the offertory in my examination of the liturgy of the word of the new ACNA eucharistic rites because the rubrics of the new rites permit the placement of the offertory immediately after the Sermon and before the Prayers of the People as in the 1928 Prayer Book. The offertory, like the entrance, is an ancillary (or secondary ) rite. It is also one of those parts of the service that tends to attract “clutter” which distorts the shape and meaning of the rite. Both forms of the new ACNA eucharistic rites contributes to this tendency with a rubric that permits the use of 1 Chronicles 29:11, 14 as an offertory prayer. The kinds of devotions that the offertory tends to attract overemphasize the offertory and give worship a Pelagian cast. When the offertory is given too much emphasis, it can overshadow the more important parts of the service, particularly the reception of communion.

In the third part of this article I will examine the liturgy of the table, the communion rite, and the concluding rites of the two forms of the new ACNA eucharistic rites.

Also see
The new ACNA eucharistic rites on closer inspection (Part 1)