By Robin G. Jordan
In Texts for Common
Prayer the ACNA’s liturgical commission adopts the 1979 order of Morning
and Evening Prayer for these offices for the Anglican Church in North America.
Indeed, Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts
for Common Prayer is so closely modeled upon Morning and Evening Prayer in
the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that they are almost indistinguishable. The
former Episcopalians who comprise the liturgical commission have not been able
to make a complete break with the worship patterns of their former
denomination.
The 1979 revision of the American Prayer Book changed the
order of Morning and Evening Prayer after the Collect of the Day and added a
number of so-called enrichments to the two offices. These changes were consistent with the 1979
revision’s emphasis of the Holy Eucharist as the central act of worship on
Sundays. They effectively eliminated the use of Morning and Evening Prayer as
regular services of public worship in the Episcopal Church and reduced Morning
and Evening Prayer to forms for the use of clergy and pious laity in their
private devotions. The services of Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1928
Prayer Book, patterned on the services of Morning and Evening Prayer in the
1662 Prayer Book, were much better suited for use as regular services of public
worship and were used for that purpose as late as the early 1970s.
The ACNA’s liturgical commission took A Prayer for the Clergy
and People and sacrificed it on the Procrustean bed of the 1979 order of
Morning and Evening Prayer. This collect originally came from the Sacramentary
of Gelatious (A.D. 492), and is found in the Old English Primers. It was placed
at the end of the first English version of the Litany published in 1544, and
was inserted in the Prayer Book at the end of the Litany in 1559. It was placed
after A Prayer for the Queen’s Majesty in 1662 and in the American Prayer Book
after A Prayer for the President of the United States and All in Civil
Authority in 1789. It occupied this position in the American Prayer Book until
the revision of the 1979.
In the 1979 order of Morning and Evening Prayer seven daily
collects and three mission prayers follow the Collect of the Day. Those using
the offices may read one or more of the daily collects and one of the mission
prayers. The liturgical commission has altered A Prayer for the Clergy and
People, added the words, “and ignite in them a zealous love of your Gospel,” and
turned it into one of the mission prayers.
The liturgical commission would have done better to have
returned to the 1928 order of Morning and Evening Prayer. This would have provided the Anglican Church
in North America with another form of service for use as a regular service of
public worship on Sundays. The 1979 form of Morning and Evening Prayer is not
suited to this purpose. The form of
Morning and Evening Prayer in the Anglican Church of Canada’s 1985 Book of
Alternative Services is much better suited to the use of Morning or Evening
Prayer as a regular service of public worship on Sundays. A sermon can be
preached after the readings and before the creed,familiar hymns can be
substituted for the canticles, and a simple litany form can be used for the
prayers. Congregations are not treated to the rapid fire recitation of a long
string of poorly-chosen collects that adds nothing to their worship experience.
The flexibility of the 1985 Canadian form of Morning and Evening Prayer make it
particularly suitable for the use of small congregations and home groups.
To its credit the liturgical commission does make provision
for the preaching of sermon after the readings and the substitution of songs of
praise for the canticles. Unfortunately the liturgical commission did not
include permission to use metrical versions of the Venite, the Jubilate, the
Easter Anthems, the Phos Hilaran, and the other canticles in place of the prose
versions.
Except for the utterance of the spontaneous intercessions
and thanksgivings of the people and recitation of the Litany and the General
Thanksgiving, the liturgical commission makes no provision for intercession and
thanksgiving at Morning and Evening Prayer. The officiant is not given
permission to read a selection of occasional prayers and thanksgiving. Nor may
the officiant substitute a less cumbersome form of prayer for the Litany. The
liturgy commission makes no provision for the omission of the Lord’s Prayer,
the Suffrages, and the Collects if the Litany is used, a provision found in a
number of the newer Anglican service books but not the 1979 Prayer Book.
The Litany is not the best choice for use with a
congregation that contains a large number of people who have no previous
experience of the Christian community at prayer. In the 1979 Prayer Book the
Litany is four pages in length. The Litany, in addition to the Lord’s Prayer,
the Suffrages, and the Collects, is even a poorer choice. When the Litany is
used, these elements are redundant. The Litany also normally ends with the
Lord’s Prayer.
The lack of a provision to omit everything after the Creed
and to substitute for the Lord’s Prayer, the Suffrages, and Collects a form of
prayer more suitable for a modern day service of public worship is one of the
reasons that the 1979 form of Morning and Evening Prayer is poorly suited for
use as a regular service of public worship on Sundays. In closely following the
1979 form, Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts
for Common Prayer suffers from the same defect.
The rubrics permit the reading of one or more lessons. They
note that “normally” a canticle is sung or said after each lesson. The choice
of language infers that the canticle may be omitted after a lesson—a feature of
the shortened forms of Morning and Evening Prayer found in a number of the more
recent Anglican service books and designed for use in private devotions.
Since the rubrics do not limit the number of readings to
two—one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, the same choice of language can be interpreted
to mean that a canticle should follow each lesson—three lessons, three
canticles; four lessons, four canticles; and so on. The rubrics, while offering
suggestions, leave what canticles are used and where to the officiant.
Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer gives the strong impression of being
designed for use in seminary chapels, at conferences, and in private devotions
but not as a regular service of public worship. These situations, I suspect,
are the only situations in which the members of the liturgical commission have
taken part in Morning and Evening Prayer. Consequently they have no idea of how
Morning and Evening Prayer should be designed to make them usable as regular
services of public worship. They have limited experience of non-sacramental
worship if they have any experience of that type of worship at all.
If the Anglican Church in North America is committed to the
fulfilling the great commission, it needs to put more tools in the local
church’s worship tool box. The ACNA also needs to put the right tools in that
tool box. A single eucharistic rite for use on Sundays and feast days, a
shortened form of the same rite for use on weekdays, a provision for deacons’ Masses, and forms of
Morning and Evening Prayer for use in seminary chapels, at conferences, and as
private devotions is an inadequate set of tools to say the least.
It suggests that the Anglican Church in North America is not
really serious about taking the gospel to unreached and lightly reached people
groups in North America, making disciples, and enfolding them into churches. It
further suggests that the present members of the ACNA’s liturgical commission
may be wrong people to be putting together such an important tool box.
It also prompts a number of questions about the leadership
of the ACNA’s College of Bishops. Does the College of Bishops understand what the
local church needs in its worship tool box to reach the lost? Is College of Bishops satisfied to give the
nod to whatever the liturgical commission comes up with because two of its
members are colleagues? These are reasonable questions to ask.
A number of Anglican provinces and at least one Anglican
diocese have produced service books that equip the local church with more
tools. They have not only made the services of Morning and Evening Prayer and
Holy Communion more flexible but have added new forms of service to the worship
toolbox of the local church. The Church of England has produced a Service of
the Word, which may be used with a celebration of Holy Communion or
separately. The Church of Ireland has
also adopted a similar pattern of worship for use when the services of Morning
and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion do not meet the needs of a particular
congregation. The Anglican Church of Australia in its two most recent service
books, An Australian Prayer Book
(1978) and A Prayer Book for Australia (1999),
provides a number of non-sacramental options for Sunday services. So does the Diocese of Sydney in Sunday Services (2000) and Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped
Gatherings (2012).
While the Anglican Church of Kenya’s most recent service
book has only three options for Sunday services—Morning Worship, Evening
Worship, and the Service of Holy Communion, the first two options are designed
to be used as regular services of public worship on Sundays. They are not forms
that are not intended for that use but which may be put to that use under
special circumstances. The compilers of the 1979 Prayer Book did not envision
the use of Morning and Evening Prayer as regular services of worship on
Sundays. Nor do the compilers of Texts
for Common Prayer. However, the compilers of Our Modern Services (2002, 2003) did
envision the use of Morning and Evening Worship as Sunday services. Morning and
Evening Worship are not only designed for use as regular services of public
worship on Sundays but also they are particularly suited to the cultural
setting in which they are used. They have permitted the Anglican Church of
Kenya to make extensive use of evangelists and lay readers to spread the
gospel, plant new churches, and care for new Christians.
If the Anglican Church in North America does not give its
local churches more tools and the right tools for fulfilling the great
commission, the ACNA will become another Continuing Anglican Church in North
America. The ACNA will go the way that the existing Continuing Anglican
Churches have gone. They neglected the gospel. They did not make disciples and
enfold them into churches. They are withering as their base withers.
Also see
The Story behind Alternative Forms of Service (2009)
Three Contemporary English Services of Holy Communion for North American Anglicans
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