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By Robin G. Jordan
The services of Morning and Evening Prayer originated as
regular services of public worship. With the rise of monasticism in the fourth
century the dawn office of Lauds and the dusk office of Vespers were
appropriated by monastic communities as a part of their daily cycle of prayer.
By the Middle Ages the practice of the main church in a community beginning the
day with Lauds and ending it with Vespers fell into abeyance. The monastic
offices would displace the cathedral or popular offices.
With the rise of mendicant orders of religious like the
Franciscans in the thirteenth century the offices underwent another change. Rather
than being sung in community, they were said privately. By the time of the
English Reformation in the sixteenth century they had largely become the preserve
of the clergy and the religious. The more pious laity used primers and similar
manuals in their devotions.
At the time of the English Reformation Archbishop Cranmer sought
to establish the public reading of Scriptures for “…the setting forth of God’s
honor and glory and …the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly
living.” He saw the reform of the monastic offices as a means to this end. He
translated the monastic offices into the vernacular and conflated them into the
services of Matins and Evensong in The Book of Common Prayer. In every parish
church the curate ministering in the parish church was directed to cause a bell
to be tolled at “convenient time” before he began each service to summon the
people to hear God’s word and to pray with him. What Cranmer did
unintentionally was to restore the cathedral or popular offices.
Until the nineteenth century the typical pattern in Anglican
parishes was Morning Prayer, Litany, and Ante-Communion. A sermon was preached
at Ante-Communion. In many parishes Holy Communion was celebrated only on the
four “Sacrament Sundays” of Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and Harvest. The Evangelicals would introduce the more
frequent celebration of the Holy Communion in their parishes in the eighteenth
century.
The nineteenth century saw the enactment of legislation that
permitted the separation of Morning Prayer from Litany and Holy Communion and
the preaching of a sermon at Morning Prayer. This led to a number of
developments. Morning Prayer would become the principal service in Evangelical
parishes. These parishes would also have an early celebration of Holy
Communion. Holy Communion would become the principal service in Tractarian
parishes. Non-communicating celebrations of Holy Communion would become the
practice in Post-Tractarian parishes. In these parishes Mass was celebrated on
weekdays as well as Sundays and feast days.
In Tractarian and Post-Tractarian parishes Morning and
Evening Prayer were subordinated to Holy Communion. In Post-Tractarian parishes
were daily non-communicating celebrations of Mass were the practice, Morning
and Evening Prayer once more became the preserve of the clergy and the religious.
The nineteenth century also saw a revival of religious orders in the Anglican
Church.
The practice of weekly celebrations of Holy Communion at
which the baptized or confirmed regularly received communion was a twentieth
century development. In the Episcopal Church this development may be attributed
to the Liturgical Movement and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. In the Church of
England it is attributable to the Parish Communion movement.
The forms of Morning and Evening Prayer adopted in the 1979
Prayer Book were not particularly suitable for use as regular services of
public worship. This appears to have been the intent of the compilers of the
book. They wished to emphasize the celebration of Holy Communion as the central
act of Christian worship on Sundays and feast days.
The Additional Directions in the 1979 Prayer Book do permit
the use of all that appointed through the Prayers of the People if there is no
communion. They also permit the singing of a hymn or anthem and the taking of a
collection and the conclusion of the service with the Lord’s Prayer and the
Grace or a blessing or the exchange of the Peace. The service may be led by a
deacon or a lay reader in the absence of a priest.
I am not aware of any Episcopal churches that have taken
advantage of this permission. If the regular priest is absent for any reason
and a supply priest cannot be secured, an Episcopal church is likely to use
Morning Prayer in place of its usual celebration of Holy Communion.
The disappearance of Morning Prayer as a viable option for
the Sunday service in the Episcopal Church has contributed to the present
situation in that denomination. Sacramental worship with its ceremonial and
pageantry and its weekly reception of communion has become a substitute for the
proclamation of the gospel and sound Biblical teaching. It soothes and lulls the
consciences of Episcopalians to the point that they do not question what they
hear from the pulpit or in the classroom. They have the familiar ritual and the
sacrament. Sacramental worship is their opiate.
Sacramental worship paved the way for the ascendancy of
liberalism in the Episcopal Church. It provides a guise under which all kinds
of false teaching might be introduced to Episcopal congregations.
Sacramental worship shifted the focus on Sunday mornings.
Episcopal congregations became less concerned with hearing Bible truths and
principles and their application to the life of a Christian. They became more
concerned with receiving the sacrament.
Sacramental worship has made the Episcopal Church priest-centered
as well as sacrament-focused. Without a priest Episcopal congregations
flounder. They are deprived of a critical element in their congregational
life—their life as a sacramental community.
This overdependence upon the sacramental ministry of a priest makes them
all too willing to accept false teachers and “wicked ministers.”
Sacramental worship has hampered the ability of the
Episcopal Church to start new congregations and to maintain existing ones. It
has hindered the denomination’s ability to reach a broader segment of the
population as well as to regain lost ground. What new congregations are started
are organized around the sacramental ministry of a priest. Existing
congregations that can no longer support a priest and to which the diocese can
no longer provide a priest wither away.
The growth of the Episcopal Church is tied to the growth of
its base. As its base shrinks, the denomination shrinks. A characteristic of
the Episcopal Church’s base is its attraction to sacramental worship. The
denomination lost a part of its base when it alienated conservative elements in
its base with its growing social activism and theological liberalism. The same
factors—sacramental worship, social activism, and theological liberalism—interfere
with the denomination’s ability to expand its base.
Before the liturgical revision of the late 1970s the
Episcopal Church was able to start new congregations and maintain existing
ones, using deacons and lay readers and the service of Morning Prayer. This is
no longer a viable strategy.
This state of affairs is not particular to the Episcopal
Church. It also exists in the Anglican Church in North America. As in the
Episcopal Church from which the ACNA broke away, sacramental worship is the
dominant form of worship in that body. The ACNA’s penchant for sacramental
worship is evident not only in its “theological lens,” its ordinal, and Texts
for Common Prayer, but also on the websites of ACNA churches.
The prevalence of sacramental worship in the Anglican Church
in North America is attributable in part to the sacramentalism of the
conservative traditionalist Anglo-Catholic element that forms a part of its
base. It is also attributable in part to the influence of the Ancient Future
worship renewal movement upon other elements forming that base.
The Ancient Future worship renewal movement with its emphasis
upon sacramental worship is an expression of the convergence movement. It is one
of the expressions of the convergence movement with which congregations and
clergy in the Anglican Church in North America are most familiar.
The Ancient Future worship renewal movement was also
influential in the Episcopal Church before the AMiA and the ACNA broke away
from that body. The Ancient Future worship renewal movement was popular with
the faculty and students of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. TESM is
still one of its centers of influence.
The convergence movement is an outgrowth of the charismatic
movement and shares a number of its characteristics. It is interested in
reanimating inherited doctrinal and devotional traditions. It is prone to
emphasize subjective experience and feeling. Its commitment to revealed truth
in Scripture has been described as not particularly strong or vigorous.
As long as sacramental worship dominates the worship of the
Anglican Church in North America, the ACNA will not be effective in carrying
out the great commission. New church starts led by deacons or lay catechists or
readers and using the forms for Morning and Evening Prayer from the 1979 Book
of Common Prayer in their worship gatherings are using forms not designed for
use as regular services of public worship.
The forms for Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer are no improvement.
They are closely modeled on the forms in the 1979 Prayer Book. See the
accompanying article, “Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer: Tools to Fulfill the GreatCommission?” The Anglican Church in North America has not learned from the experience
of the Episcopal Church and is set on repeating its mistakes.
Photo: Pro Terra Sancta
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