By Robin G. Jordan
Among the distinguishing characters of the two eucharistic
prayers that may be used in the Holy Communion, Second Order, in A Prayer Book for North America is that,
like the 1552-1662 Prayer of Consecration, they are centered on Jesus’
institution of the Lord’s Supper and his suffering and death on the cross and
the redemption he purchased there by his blood—what the Lord’s Supper,
according to the New Testament accounts, was inaugurated to commemorate. While
all kinds of additional interpretations of the Lord’s Supper have become
attached to the ordinance over the centuries, this understanding is the New
Testament understanding of the ordinance. It is the understanding that Cranmer restores
in the second Prayer Book of Edward VI—the reformed Prayer Book of 1552, peeling
away the various reinterpretations of the Lord’s Supper that had overlaid it.
What we have seen since the nineteenth century is a pronounced tendency to once
more overlay that understanding not only with past misinterpretations of the
ordinance but also new ones as well.
Both prayers have dual anamneses. The primary anamnesis is
the Post-Sanctus and the Words of Institution. They recall Jesus’ saving work
on the cross and the Lord’s Supper’s inauguration. The secondary anamnesis
follows the Memorial Acclamation that concludes the Words of Institution. It
introduces the second epiclesis in which the minister in his role as the tongue
of the worshiping assembly asks God by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue
his sanctifying work in the communicants. The minister is not asking God to
work through the medium of the consecrated elements but through the Holy Spirit.
Both prayers also have dual epiclesis. The first epiclesis
humbly asks God to grant that those
eating the bread and drinking the wine in obedience to Jesus’ command, in
remembrance of him, will be participants in the body and blood of Christ. They
will receive the benefits of his saving work on the cross. The minister is not
asking that the communicants receive these benefits through the medium of the
consecrated elements. The elements do not convey their virtue in some mystical
way (virtualism) any more than they are transformed into the substance of
Christ’s body and blood (transubstantiation) or infused spiritually with his
body and blood (consubstantiation). Rather in eating the bread and drinking the
cup, the believer’s spiritual feeding upon Christ is made tangible to him. This
feeding is continual. It is not confined to the Lord’s Supper. However, the
consumption of the symbols and tokens of Christ’s love for his people, makes it
palpable to the believer. His faith is aroused, confirmed, and strengthened. It
is by faith that he appropriates the benefits of Christ’s saving work. This was
Cranmer’s mature understanding of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It is the
sacramental theology of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571 and The Book of Common Prayer in its 1552,
1559, 1604, and 1662 editions.
What is also notable about the two prayers is that they
include no petition invoking the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the elements
of bread and wine. While the Canon of the partially-reformed First Prayer Book
of Edward VI, the Prayer Book of 1549, contained such an invocation, Cranmer
dropped it from the Prayer of Consecration of the 1552 book. His reason was
three-fold. First, it suggested that Christ was in some way present in the
elements themselves after their consecration, a view which Cranmer regarded as
contrary to Scripture. After having instituted the Lord’s Supper, Jesus refers
to as wine the contents of the cup which he had previously described as the
blood of the New Covenant, showing that he was speaking figuratively. Second, throughout
the Bible the Holy Spirit descends upon people, not inanimate objects. Invoking
the Holy Spirit’s descent upon bread and wine was not a practice agreeable to
the teaching of the Bible. Third, throughout the Bible the invocation of God’s
blessing is reserved for people, not inanimate objects. Where the New Testament
accounts refer to Jesus’ blessing of bread, they are referring to the Jewish
practice of giving thanks over bread by blessing God. These accounts use
blessing and giving thanks interchangeably.
The two prayers contain no oblation of the bread and wine
either before or after the Words of Institution. In the Western tradition the moment
of consecration was believed to occur during the Words of Institution. Like the
1552-1662 Prayer of Consecration they contain nothing suggestive of the
medieval doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice. They also contain nothing
suggestive of the 1958 Lambeth doctrine which maintains that the eucharist is a
participation in Christ’s ongoing sacrificial activity. Both doctrines have
been shown to be contrary to God’s Word.
The two prayers also contain no oblation of “our bodies and
souls.” Cranmer moved this oblation to a position after the distribution of the
communion where it is a fitting response not only to Christ’s saving work on
the cross but also to Christ’s offering of himself as spiritual nourishment to
the believer, symbolized and made tangible in the meal of the Lord’s Supper.
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