Morning and Evening Prayer – Public Worship or Private Devotions?

iBreviary

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