By Robin G. Jordan
The Entrance Rite
With the 2019 Proposed Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) almost completed and slated for authorization next year, I thought that I revisit and reevaluate the Communion Office of the 2003 Book of Common Prayer of the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) and its Modern Language Version. I also plan to revisit and reevaluate the Daily Offices for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer and a selection of other rites and services in these two Reformed Episcopal service books. I think that now is a good time to take a fresh look at these two books since we have not only the older Anglican service books for comparison but also the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book.
I must admit that how I see the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book has changed to some extent from when I first evaluated it. However, my view of its Modern Language Version has not changed greatly and I’ll explain why in a separate article. Briefly the main problem with the 2003 Reformed Episcoapal Prayer Book’s Modern Language Version is that the new book is not so much a translation of the older book into modern-day English as it is a revision of the older book and the alterations and additions to the new book depart from the doctrine and liturgical usages of the older book. The compilers of the new book could not resist the temptation to make additions and alterations to the book when they were rendering it into modern-day English.
In this article series I am going look at how the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office stacks up to the 1662 Communion Office. I will examine its strengths as well as its weaknesses and suggests ways of making its use more effective on the North American mission field.
While it is not entirely inaccurate to say that the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is based on the 1662 Communion Office, this claim requires qualification. The basic structure of the Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is that of the 1662 Communion Office. The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office also contains texts that are also found in the 1662 Communion Office. As we shall, however, these texts are often used differently and the way that they are used affects the doctrine of the office.
As in the 1926 Irish Prayer Book, the 1928 Prayer Book, the 1959 Japanese Prayer Book, and the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book, the Communion Office in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book has been moved to a position before the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels. This repositioning of the Communion Office places it into closer proximity to the Daily Offices, the Occasional Prayers and Thanksgiving, and the Litany. It is a much more logical position for the Communion Office than that of the 1662 Prayer Book, placing the Communion Office nearer to the front of the Prayer Book. It is consistent with the renewed emphasis upon the Holy Communion as the central service of Sunday.
In today’s article I am going to look at the entrance rite of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. The entrance rite is also called the gathering rite or the opening rite. In the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book it is called the Introduction.
With the exception of the requirement that the Table have a fair linen cloth on it, none of the rubrics on page 85 of the Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book are found in the 1662 Prayer Book. There is no permission to omit the initial Lord’s Prayer, much less permission to sing a hymn, psalm, or anthem, say a sentence of Scripture, or introduce the Collect for Purity with the Salutation, “The Lord be with thee; and with thy spirit.”
I am not saying that omitting the initial Lord’s Prayer is a bad thing or that we should not sing a hymn or other song at the beginning of the service. Streamlining the liturgy is desirable in this day of declining attendance in our churches. Congregational singing at the beginning of the liturgy has a way of drawing together a loose aggregate of people into a worshiping assembly and focusing their attention on God.
A number of the features that I mentioned above do not appear to come from the Prayer Books that preceded or followed the 1662 Prayer Book. They appear to come from one of the Anglican Missals, whose rubrics direct that the Salutation should be said between the Introit, a selection of verses from the Book of Psalms, and the Collect for Purity. The entrance rites of the Anglican Missals are modeled upon the elaborate entrance that the pope formerly made into the churches of Rome. They embody a theology and an ecclesiology at odds with what Anglicans have historically believed.
The Holy Communion, First Order, in An Australian Prayer Book (1978) has an optional greeting and optional sentence of Scripture in its entrance rite but the optional greeting, "The Lord be with you; And also with you" does not carry the same theological freight as the Salutation. The optional sentence of Scripture also follows the optional greeting. What is also noteworthy about the entrance rite of that Communion Office is that the Collect for Purity is introduced with a simple invitation to prayer, "Let us pray," and the Collect for Purity is said by the priest or the priest and people together. If the rubric of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office permitting the reading of a sentence of Scripture and the introduction of the Collect for Purity with the Salutation was based upon the rubrics of the Australian entrance rite, the change in order and language of the two elements resulted in a change in theology, bringing it in line with that of the entrance rites of the Anglican Missals.
The entrance rite has, like two other parts of the Communion Office—the offertory and the closing rite, a tendency to gather liturgical clutter—extraneous elements that are not essential to its function. Even the entrance rite of the 1662 Communion Office is cluttered when compared to the bare simplicity of the ancient entrance rite—a song and an opening prayer.
The initial Lord’s Prayer and the Collect for Purity were originally the private prayer of the officiating priest. The reading of the Decalogue was adopted during the reign of Edward VI, apparently from the Strasbourg Liturgy of Pullain, which was published in London during the closing years of his brief reign. Evan Daniel describes its recitation at the beginning of the Communion Office as peculiar to the Anglican Church. Each successive revision of The Book of Common Prayer since 1662 has added to the clutter.
The 1789 Prayer Book added the Summary of the Law and the Collect of the Commandments. The 1892 Prayer Book added the Kyries. The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book adds a sentence of Scripture and the Salutation.
While it may be argued that most of these elements are optional, rare is the priest who is sparing in their use. The importance of the liturgical principle “less is more” and the desirability of a noble simplicity in our rites and services, two concepts that our Roman Catholic brethren borrowed from us and which characterize Anglican worship at its best is lost on many of our clergy. They make use of far more elements than is necessary or desirable as a constant practice. A few carefully selected elements done well will enrich our worship far more than the unthinking habitual use of every option that the Prayer Book offers. We should not wonder why first time guests do not return or why they tell other people how tedious our services are.
Each addition and alteration to a Prayer Book also changes the doctrine of the Prayer Book, even those elements that are optional. For example, the Salutation, “The Lord be with thee; and with thy spirit,” has a long association with a particular Catholic Revivalist view of the sacraments. In the case of the Holy Communion it is associated with the unreformed Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, tactual succession and the tactual transmission of grace. When the doctrine of a Prayer Book is evaluated, all of its elements must be considered in the evaluation, the optional along with the mandatory.
The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office does show a greater affinity to the 1662 Communion Office in its recognition of the Decalogue as the default option in the entrance rite of the Anglican Prayer Book than does the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book. This is a check in the plus column for the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. The 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office in both its long form and its short form ignores the longstanding use of the Decalogue in that entrance rite and makes the Summary of the Law the default option and the Decalogue the optional alternative.
If the entrance rite of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is reduced to a hymn or metrical psalm, the Collect for Purity, the Decalogue or the Summary of the Law and the Kyries, and the Collect of the Day, it will be much less wearisome to regular attendees as well as first time guests. It will make the service much more attractive to individuals and families who have little or no experience of liturgical worship. While it does not approach the simplicity of the ancient entrance rite, it takes a step in the right direction. It will also make the service appear not quite so out of place in the various non-traditional settings that Anglicans worship in the twenty-first century.
It is noteworthy that the rubric requiring the priest to face the Table when he says the initial Lord’s Prayer and the Collect for Purity does not preclude the priest facing the congregation across a free-standing altar or communion table because he is still technically facing the Table. This rubric permits both the East-ward Position and the West-ward Position. It also does not rule out the priest standing at the north side of the Table, the position enjoined by the rubrics of the 1662 Communion Office, as long as he is facing the Table.
It is unfortunate that the rubrics of the Reformed Episcopal Communion Office do not give the congregation the option of joining the priest in saying the Collect for Purity. With the exception of the younger children, the members of most Anglican congregations are fairly literate so there is no need for a priest to say every prayer on their behalf. A number of recent Anglican service books permit the congregation to join with the priest in this prayer.
Even young children can learn a prayer like the Collect for Purity by heart. One young girl of my acquaintance memorized all the prayers of the liturgy, including the Eucharistic Prayer, and would recite them with the priest until one busybody who should have minded her own business stopped her. The priest himself had not objected to her recitation of these prayers from memory. She was actively participating in the liturgy far more than many of the adults in the congregation.
It is also unfortunate that the singing of a hymn, psalm, or anthem in the entrance rite of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is tied to the entrance of the priest. The rubric in question confuses the Processional--a hymn, anthem, or psalm sung during a procession, with the Introit--a hymn, anthem, or psalm sung before the commencement of a service. A number of congregations meet in non-traditional setting where a formal entrance procession is incongruous if not impractical. In this type setting it is much more reasonable for the priest to take his place unobtrusively and then announce the opening song. This rubric appears to have been adapted from a rubric in the entrance rite of The Holy Communion, First Order, of An Australian Prayer Book (1978): "A psalm, hymn, or anthem may be sung when the ministers enter, or after the sentence of Scripture." The original rubric appears to have been written with the Australian bush churches in mind, the small churches in the remoter areas of Australia, as well as the larger churches in urban areas. It makes allowances for congregations that meet in non-traditional settings.
I have been involved in pioneering new churches for more than 30 years and have worshipped in a number of these settings—a fellowship hall, a tennis club house, a storefront, a school gymnasium, a conference room, picnic shelters, a fire station, a café, a banquet hall, a student center ballroom, an indoor stadium, and private houses, so I speak from experience.
Worshiping in non-traditional settings is not a new experience for Anglicans and Episcopalians. During the Interregnum when the use of The Book of Common Prayer was outlawed, some Anglicans risked imprisonment and penal servitude and worshipped secretly in private houses.
In the late seventeenth century and for much of the eighteenth century Non-Juring Scottish Episcopalians who were loyal to the Stuarts were prohibited from meeting in groups of more than four people. They circumvented the penal laws by worshiping in private houses, four people to a room. Houses were modified to permit these small gatherings to hear the service while keeping them physically separated from each other.
Nineteenth century Bishop J. C. Ryle built neighborhood church halls rather than new parish churches in the Diocese of Liverpool. When I was an infant, my mother and my grandparents attended a mission church that met in a corrugated steel Nissen hut left over from World War II.
Anglicans who are faithful to the Great Commission will continue to gather in non-traditional settings for worship for the foreseeable future—I suspect until our Lord returns. Those tasked with the revision of a Prayer Book do them a great disservice when they design its rites and services primarily for use in the setting of a cathedral, college chapel, or parish church. It is a challenge to tailor these rites and services to the mission field.
In the next article I will look at the Ministry of the Word of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. I may also look at the Offertory and the Intercession (the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church) if space permits.
Image: St. Barnabas Anglican Church, Bellville, Texas
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