The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office Revisited: A Reevaluation—Part 4

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

By Robin G. Jordan

The Celebration of  Holy Communion

The idea of having two forms for the celebration of  Holy Communion is not original to the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. This approach was adopted in the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book and the 1929 Scottish Prayer Book. It was also adopted in An Australian Prayer Book (1978). It is not, however, the approach that was adopted in the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book.

This approach seeks to comprehend two different theological and liturgical schools of thought or Prayer Book traditions in the same book. In the case of the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book it sought to comprehend in one book members of the Church of England who were satisfied with its existing liturgy and those who wished to revise the liturgy in the direction of the 1549 Prayer Book and make other additions and alterations to The Book of Common Prayer. The 1929 Scottish Prayer Book sought to comprehend the Scottish Prayer Book tradition and the English Prayer Book tradition in a single book. An Australian Prayer Book (1978) sought to comprehend Australians who wanted a modern language liturgy based on the 1662 Communion Office and those who wanted a modern language liturgy that was based on the recommendations for the revision of the liturgy made by the 1958 Lambeth Conference. On the other hand, the two forms that were published in the ACNA’s Texts for Common Prayer were not intended to comprehend different theological and liturgical views but were designed for different times of the week, one for Sundays and the other for weekdays.

The strongest critics of this approach were (and still are) those who want the Prayer Book to reflect their particular school of thought or Prayer Book tradition. They do not want to compromise with the other school of thought or Prayer Book tradition.

Among the drawbacks of this approach is one school of thought or Prayer Book tradition will push for changes that the other school of thought or Prayer Book tradition is not open to, and will not compromise on the changes for which it is pushing. One school of thought or Prayer Book tradition will press the other to make concessions but will not make concessions of its own. It may make token compromises but no substantial ones.

While this approach was not adopted in the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book, this is what has been going on in the process of compiling the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book. The result is a book that is Catholic Revivalist (or unreformed Catholic) in doctrine and liturgical usages. It is not a book that is representative of the theological and liturgical views of the different schools of thought represented in the Anglican Church of North America.

The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office seeks to comprehend the English Prayer Book tradition and the Scottish-American Prayer Book tradition. The first form of the Celebration of  Holy Communion is to some extent modeled on the 1662 Communion Office from the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church Triumphant on. The second form, “The Alternative Form for the Celebration of  Holy Communion,” is modeled to a much larger extent on the 1928 Communion Service, also from the Intercession on. In this article I am going to take a fresh look at the first form. I will reevaluate the second form in a separate article.

Among the things at which I will be looking is how each form successfully replicates the Communion Office upon which it is modeled. A constant temptation in Prayer Book revision is to make additions, alterations, and omissions that change the doctrine and liturgical usages of the model. As we shall see making additions, alterations, and omissions that are departures from the model is not necessarily a bad thing so long as the doctrine of the model is preserved.

Among the influences that shaped the 1662 and 1928 Prayer Books were the cultural, economic, geographical, political, social, technological, and theological environments of their times. The world has changed vastly in a number of ways since the seventeenth century and even the early twentieth century. What may have admirably served English congregations in the seventeenth and later centuries and American congregations well into the mid-twentieth century may not serve North American congregations as well in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

God places us in a particular time and place to serve him in that time and place. While we might like to hop on a time machine and return to the past, if it had been God’s will for us to serve us in the past, he would have placed us there. With this thought in mind let us proceed to the examination of the Celebration of  Holy Communion in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office.

The directions that are titled “Concerning the Communion” and which precede The Celebration of Holy Communion (as the Liturgy of the Table is called in 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office) are adapted from the 1979 Communion Office.

The Celebration of  Holy Communion begins with an Invitation to the Table. The invitation is brief and is addressed to all believers.

Our fellow Christians of other branches of Christ’s Church, and all who love our Divine Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in sincerity, are affectionately invited to the Lord’s Table.

This invitation has been included in every edition of the Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book. It has no equivalent in the 1662 Prayer Book or the 1928 Prayer Book. It is an integral part of the Reformed Episcopal Church’s evangelical heritage and its longstanding commitment to an open table at which all believers are welcome. The Intercession follows this invitation.

The rubric that precedes the Intercession comes from the 1928 Prayer Book. It includes provision for the priest to ask the secret intercession of the congregation for anyone who desires the prayer of the church. More recent Prayer Books also include provision for the priest to solicit last minute prayer requests from the congregation. Such provision allows for unexpected prayer needs that may arise, as well as circumstances which prevent anyone who desires the church’s prayer from notifying the priest ahead of the service. In this day of near instantaneous communication it is not entirely unusual for a prayer need to come to the attention of a member of the congregation after the service has started.

The Intercession itself comes from the 1662 Prayer Book.

It is noteworthy that the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office, like the 1662 and 1928 Communion Offices, assigns the reading of the Intercession to the priest. This is a late Medieval development from the days when chantry priests said the Mass for the dead, each at his own altar on a side aisle of a cathedral or parish church. In Seely Suffolk, or Holy Suffolk, where I lived as a child, churches were often built and endowed solely for this purpose in the Middle Ages. The county was called Seely Suffolk because had so many churches.

One of the consequences of this development was that the priest usurped an important duty of the deacon—to read the Prayers of the Faithful in the liturgy. Both in the Western and Eastern Churches the reading of the Intercession has been the duty of the deacon since ancient times—since the fourth or fifth century in the West. With the revision of its Prayer Book the Reformed Episcopal Church missed an opportunity to restore this ancient practice in its churches.

The Reformed Episcopal Church also missed an opportunity to permit the congregation to make an appropriate response such as “O Lord, hear our prayer” or “We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord” after each paragraph of the Intercession, and thereby to give the congregation a larger role in the liturgy.

These additions, while they would affect the liturgical usages of the model for this form of the Celebration of the Holy Communion—the 1662 Communion Office, would not substantially change its doctrine. They would involve more people in the liturgy which, after all, is the work of the people. They would also make the liturgy more participative and congregational and most importantly more engaging to young people.

One of the drawbacks of the traditional Anglican Communion Office, whether the 1662 or the 1928, is that it contains long segments of unrelieved text that the priest reads while the congregation kneels. First-time guests experience these parts of the service as boring. They are not accustomed to kneeling for long periods of time. They see no benefit in reading the texts silently to themselves while the priest reads them aloud. They have not been taught to “assist” the priest in this fashion and their attention is apt to wander. They may check their cell phones and adopt other strategies to relieve the monotony. They may doze off. A few may get up and walk out.

Bored people are not engaged people. While the object of our church services is not to entertain people, it is also not to bore them. Their purpose is to engage people in the worship of God. This means that they must attract and hold the interest of those attending them. For younger people, it means that they must provide lots of opportunities to actively participate. This involves building such opportunities into the liturgy and into our church services.

Adding appropriate responses that people can make after the paragraphs of a prayer is not new. The litany form is very ancient. The Kyries that we sing at the beginning of the liturgy were once a full-blown litany.

The use of short litanies in Anglican worship is not new either. It predates the 1979 Prayer Book and the trial services that preceded it. As early as 1929 the Scottish Episcopal Church adopted a “Shorter Litany” as an optional alternative to the Prayer for the State of Christ’s Church in its Scottish Communion Office. After each petition of this Shorter Litany the congregation responds, “Lord have mercy.” Three years earlier the Church of Ireland had, in its 1926 revision of the Irish Prayer Book, made provision for a General Supplication for use with the first Alternative Form of Evening Prayer. This short litany was one of two sets of prayers that could be used with this form.

The compilers of An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), which was a joint effort of the Prayer Book Society of the USA and the Anglican Mission in America, made provision for a locally-composed litany for use as an alternative to the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church in its Communion Office. This litany consisted of a series of biddings, each bidding concluding with the versicle and response, “Lord in your mercy; hear our prayer.”

The Intercession itself would also have benefited from the addition of the petition, “Prosper, we pray thee, all those who proclaim the Gospel of thy kingdom among the nations” or a similar petition. This petition follows the words, “Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and specially to thy servant N. our Bishop, that they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and living Word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments” in the 1962 Canadian version of the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church Militant. The addition of this petition would have helped the congregation to become more mission-minded and outward-looking.

The rubric that follows the Intercession is adapted from the 1928 Prayer Book. The Exhortation is also taken from that book. It is a shortened version of the third Exhortation of the 1662 Communion Office and has been a feature of the American Communion Office from 1789 on. In the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office it occupies the position that the First Exhortation occupies in the 1662 Communion Office—after the Intercession. Omitted from this abbreviated version of the third Exhortation is the reference to spiritually eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood and the description of consequences of receiving the sacrament unworthily. Their omission dilutes the doctrine of the third Exhortation and makes room for doctrinal views that are at odds with its doctrine.

I have not determined the source of the note following the rubric that precedes the Invitation to Confession. The rubric itself is adapted from the 1928 Communion Office. The note may have been composed particularly for 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. The Invitation to Confession is taken from the 1928 Communion Office and is a slightly altered version of the Invitation to Confession in the 1662 Communion Office, “devoutly kneeling” replacing “meekly kneeling upon your knees.” This version of the Invitation to Confession was a feature of the American Prayer Book from 1789 on.

The General Confession, the Absolution, and the Comfortable Words are taken from the 1662 Communion Office. The rubric that precedes each of these three elements is adapted from the corresponding rubric in the 1928 Communion Office.

The rubric preceding the Sursum Corda is adapted from the 1662 Communion Office. It substitutes “presbyter” for “priest,” which is also done throughout the entire Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. The Sursum Corda is taken from the 1662 Communion Office. It is also a feature of the 1928 Communion Office.

The rubric preceding the Preface is also adapted from the 1662 Communion Office. The Preface is taken from the 1928 Communion Office. The 1662 Preface has an asterisk in front of the words “Holy Father” snd a side note that states, “*These words [Holy Father] must be omitted on Trinity-Sunday.”

The rubric preceding the Proper Prefaces is adapted from the 1928 Communion Office, as is the rubric preceding the Ter-Sanctus. The Proper Prefaces are taken from the 1928 Communion Office. The text of the Ter-Sanctus, the thrice-Holy, is the same as the text of the Ter-Sanctus in the 1662 and 1928 Communion Offices.

The rubric preceding the Prayer of Humble Access is adapted from the 1662 Communion Office. The Prayer of Humble Access is taken from the 1662 Communion Office.

As in the case of the Intercession the Reformed Episcopal Church missed an opportunity here to make the liturgy more engaging. The practice of those who are going to receive the Holy Communion to join with the priest in the Prayer of Humble Access has become a common practice in Anglican churches. A number of the more recent Anglican service books such as An Australian Prayer Book (1978), An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), and A Prayer Book for Australia (1999) have regularized the practice. They permit the priest to say the prayer the name of all who are to receive the communion or all to join with him in the prayer.

When few people were able to read and fewer people owned books, it made sense for the priest to carry the weight of the service with the help of one assistant—the parish clerk. But in the twenty-first century when the bulk of the North American population is literate and many people have access to whole libraries of books through electronic hand-held devices, it no longer makes sense. The Scriptures teach that we only need one mediator with God and that mediator is Jesus Christ himself, God’s only Son who shares his divine nature. The priest may offer prayers on the behalf of a congregation but he does not offer these prayers as a mediator, which would be to usurp the mediatorship of our Savior and Lord, but as the “tongue” of the worshiping assembly. When he speaks, it is the assembly speaking. This concept of the role of the priest was known to the early Church fathers.

Tradition assigns certain prayers of the liturgy to the priest, chiefly the Collect of the Day, the Absolution, the Prayer of Consecration, and the Blessing. Different members of the assembly may offer the other prayers of the liturgy or the whole assembly may offer them. We no longer live in an age in which these prayers must be memorized (albeit it would not hurt us to commit them to memory.)

If we remember our church history lessons, it was not our Anglicans forefathers who enveighed against the participation of the congregation in services of public worship, it was the Puritans. It was the Puritans who called for the abolition of The Book of Common Prayer. It was the Puritans who insisted that the role of the minister was to pray, read the Scriptures, and preach and the role of the congregation was to listen, to add their Amen to the prayers, and to sing Psalms. It was also the Puritans who spoke and wrote against the practices of lay baptism and of one of the communicants making the general confession in the name of the other communicants and caused their removal from The Book of Common Prayer. Both practices had precedence in the Bible and in primitive Catholic practice. The Puritans maintained that baptizing infants and adults and making the general confession in the name of the communicants were the prerogative of the clergy.

The rubric that precedes the Prayer of Consecration is adapted from the 1662 Communion Office. As well as substituting “presbyter” for “priest,” it also uses contemporary language as do the other rubrics in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book.

The exordium, “All glory be to thee…,” that begins the Post-Sanctus of the Prayer of Consecration is not a feature of the 1662 Consecration Prayer. It is traceable to the Scottish Non-Juror Prayer Book of 1755. It is has been a longstanding feature of the American Prayer of Consecration since 1789 when the Protestant Episcopal Church adopted a modified version of the Scottish Non-Juror Consecration Prayer of 1764. The 1662 Prayer of Consecration begins with the words, “Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption….”

This exordium does smooth the transition from the Sanctus to the Post-Sanctus and was incorporated into the contemporary language versions of 1662 Consecration Prayer in The Holy Communion, First Order in An Australian Prayer Book (1978) and A Prayer for Australia (1999). The remainder of the Prayer of Consecration, including the rubrics for the Manual Acts and the concluding Amen is taken from the 1662 Consecration Prayer. “Presbyter” is substituted for “priest” in the rubrics for the Manual Acts.

Among the features of the 1662 Prayer of Consecration is that it does not include the Invocation of the Holy Spirit’s descent upon the elements, an oblation of the elements, and the Prayer of Oblation, which are features of the 1928 Consecration Prayer and the 1764 Scottish Non-Juror prayer on which it is based. With some minor changes—the addition of the title, “The Prayer of Consecration,” the Manual Acts, and the concluding Amen, the 1662 Prayer of Consecration is essentially the 1552 Consecration Prayer, which was also used in the 1559 Elizabethan Prayer Book and its 1604 Jacobean revision.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer omitted the Invocation and the Prayer of Oblation from the 1552 prayer because he had come to the conclusion that the Invocation was not Scriptural and also suggested a change in the substance of the bread and wine. He also concluded that the Prayer of Oblation might be misinterpreted as teaching the medieval doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass. This is how Bishop Stephen Gardiner interpreted these features of the 1549 Canon in his critique of the 1549 Communion Office.

The oblation of the elements had been previously omitted from the 1549 Canon due to its long association with the medieval doctrines of Transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass.  The rubrics of the 1549 Order of Holy Communion also prohibit the priest from elevating the consecrated Host or showing it to the congregation for that reason, as well as the association of these practices with the adoration of the sacramental species.

One of the criticisms leveled at the 1662 Prayer of Consecration is that it contains no Epiclesis. But this criticism is unfounded. While the 1662 Consecration Prayer does not contain a full-blown Epiclesis of the Eastern variety, it does contain an Epiclesis:

Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood.

An Epiclesis in most primitive form is simply a petition addressed to God, calling upon God to perform a specific action. An examination of the 1552, 1559, and 1604 Baptismal Offices show that the Prayer over the Water in the Font in these rites contains a similarly worded Epiclesis, asking that those baptized in the water may receive the fullness of God’s grace and remain in the number of his faithful and election children for ever. The Noah’s Ark Prayer earlier in these rites maintains that God has sanctified all water for the purposes of baptism through the baptism of his Son, Jesus Christ, in the water of the River Jordan. For this reason the prayer contains no petition for God to sanctify the water in the font. Such a petition was added to the 1662 Baptismal Offices in imitation of the 1637 Scottish rites but it was unnecessary. It asked God to sanctify what he had already sanctified.

The rubric immediately following the Prayer of Consecration in the Celebration of Holy Communion in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Church is taken from the 1928 Communion Office. It has been a feature of the American Communion Office since 1789. A hymn that was included in the early hymnals of the Protestant Episcopal Church for use at this juncture in the service was Isaac Watt’s “Come, let us join our cheerful songs,” a metrical version of the Dignus es, a canticle taken from the Revelation to John.

According to Edward Lambe Parsons and Bayard Hale Jones in The American Prayer Book: Its Origins and Principles this rubric gives “some color of liturgical authorization” to the practice of singing the Agnus Dei at this juncture as the Agnus Dei may be described as a “hymn.” However, the practice of singing a hymn, much less the Agnus Dei, is not consistent with the spirit of the 1662 Communion Office, which like the 1552, 1559, and 1604 Communion Offices proceeds immediately to the Distribution of Communion with no intervening devotions between the consecration of the elements and their distribution.

Cranmer’s removal of such devotions from the 1552 Communion Office was intentional. They suggested that Christ was substantively present in the consecrated elements. If it was the intention of the compilers of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book that the Celebration of  Holy Communion in the Communion Office was to fully embody the doctrine of the 1662 Communion Office and its reformed predecessors, this rubric should have been omitted.

As I noted in my previous article, where hymns and anthems are used in the 1662 Communion Office is largely determined by custom. When the Agnes Dei is sung in that office, it is usually sung during the distribution of the consecrated elements as a communion hymn or anthem, not before their distribution.The origin of this practice can be traced to the rubrics of the 1549 Communion Office which direct that "in the Communion tyme the Clarkes shall syng" the Agnes Die. 

It is also worthy of note that the 1928 rubric permitting the singing of a hymn after the Prayer of Consecration and before the Distribution of the Communion does not lend any color of liturgical authorization to the practice of reciting the Agnes Dei immediately after the Prayer of Consecration.

While the Words of Distribution are taken from the 1662 Communion Office, the rubric that precedes them is adapted from the 1928 Prayer Book, substituting “presbyter” for “priest.” What is noteworthy about these rubrics is that they restrict the distribution of the consecrated elements to the priest. The 1662 rubrics use the term “minister” which has historically been interpreted to include deacons and more recently licensed lay readers. These ministers are licensed to administer the chalice while the priest distributes the Bread.

The first two rubrics that follow the Distribution of the Communion are adapted from the 1662 Communion Office.

The 1662 form for consecrating more bread and wine has been criticized by liturologists who favor a full-blown Epiclesis of the Eastern variety for appearing to adopt the late medieval view that the Words of Institution consecrate the communion elements. They do not mention that the Sarum Rite has an implicit Epiclesis and ignore the Lutheran practice of using the bare Votum—Words of Institution—in place of a Prayer of Consecration. The historic Anglican view, however, is that the whole prayer, indeed the entire service, consecrates the elements and not just the Words of Institution.

In the opinion of these critics of the 1662 Prayer of Consecration, the prayer is defective because it lacks an oblation of the elements and a Prayer of Oblation as well as the type of Epiclesis that they favor.

Among these critics were the eighteenth century Scottish Usager Non-Jurors who believed that our Lord offered himself for the sins of the world not on the cross but at the Last Supper, viewed the Eucharist as a reiteration or representation of Christ’s sacrifice and not as a commemoration of that sacrifice, and maintained that without an Epiclesis invoking the Holy Spirit’s descent upon the bread and wine, the consecration of the elements was not valid. It is to this tiny sect that the origin of the American Prayer of Consecration tradition may be traced. It was a modified version of their Prayer of Consecration that the Protestant Episcopal Church adopted in 1789. In the American version of their Consecration Prayer the word “there” in the phrase “made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world” is restored and the words “we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood” are substituted for the words “they may become the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son.”

Defenders of the 1662 Consecration Prayer have countered that our Lord did not instruct the disciples at the Last Supper to offer the bread and cup to God but to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of him. Where the Scriptures refer to Jesus as blessing the bread and cup, he was giving thanks to God as can be seen from a comparison of the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul’s accounts of the Last Supper. He was observing the Jewish custom of blessing God as a form of thanksgiving over the bread at the beginning of the meal and over the cup toward the end of the meal. While we find many instances in the Bible of biblical figures asking God’s blessing on people, we find no examples of them asking God’s blessing on inanimate objects. While the Bible records several occasions when the Holy Spirit descended upon people, it records none when the Holy Spirit descended upon an inanimate object.

For the foregoing reasons a Prayer of Consecration, if the prayer does include an invocation of the descent of the Holy Spirit, it should be upon the communicants, not the communion elements. A notable example of such an invocation is found in the Kenyan Prayer of Consecration in Our Modern Services (2008). For the same reasons the 1662 Canadian Prayer of Consecration contains this phrase “And we pray that by the power of thy Holy Spirit, all we who are partakers of this holy Communion may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction” rather than a petition invoking the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the elements.

I may be wrong but the third rubric following the Distribution of the Communion appears to have been written specifically for the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. The words that the priest uses to introduce the Lord’s Prayer are taken from the 1928 Communion Office.

The rubrics that accompany the two Post-Communion Thanksgivings are particular to the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Office. The first rubric describes the first thanksgiving as “the Prayer of Oblation.” The second rubric requires the priest to say the second thanksgiving as well as the first. Both rubrics are noteworthy departure from the 1662 rubrics.

Evan Daniels in his 1878 edition of The Prayer Book: Its History, Language and Contents takes the view that the first form of thanksgiving in the 1549, Scottish, and American liturgies is the conclusion of the Prayer of Oblation. The second form, he notes, was composed in 1549 and is derived partially from Hermann’s Consultation. He further notes:

In the first we show our gratitude by the dedication of our souls and bodies, now newly cleansed from sin, to the service of God; in the second, by praying that we may continue faithful members of that mystical body into which we have been incorporated, and of whose holy fellowship we have just had such a blessed experience.

In his 1901 edition of the same book he offers a different view of the first thanksgiving but by then he had come under the influence of the Scottish-American view of this prayer. But at the time of his 1878 edition of the book his view of the two thanksgivings was in line with what was regarded as the received understanding of these two prayers.

Charles Neil and J.M. Willoughby in the 1913 edition of The Tutorial Prayer Book refer to the two forms as the “first alternative thanksgiving” and the “second alternative thanksgiving.” In their discussion of the first thanksgiving they note:

This Prayer formed a part of the Canon in 1549, and opened with a sentence stating that “we do…celebrate and make here… the memorial” the word “oblation” being carefully avoided, as applicable to the “one oblation once offered.” In 1552 this whole sentence was omitted, the remainder of the Prayer being made the first alternative Thanksgiving.

Neil and Willoughby further note:

SL [Scottish Liturgy] restored the 1549 wording and position, calling the Prayer in a Rubric “this memorial or prayer of oblation,” but the example was not followed in 1662.

In its description of the first thanksgiving as “the Prayer of Oblation” the first rubric shows the influence of the Scottish-American liturgy and not the English.

The 1662 rubrics give the priest the option of saying one or the other of the two thanksgiving as did the 1552, 1559, and 1604 rubrics. So do the rubrics of the Communion Office in the 1918 Canadian Prayer Book, the Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion (1662) in the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book, the Communion Office in the 1958 Free Church of England Prayer Book, and the Holy Communion, Order Two, in Common Worship (2000). The Holy Communion, Order Two, is substantially the 1662 Communion Office.

The rubrics of the Communion Office in the 1926 Irish Prayer Book and the Holy Communion, First Order in An Australian Prayer Book (1978) give the priest the option of saying one of the two thanksgiving or both. The rubrics of the Holy Communion, First Order, in A Prayer Book for Australia (1992), however, return to the 1662 rubrics and give the priest the option of saying one or the other but not both.

It is not an uncommon practice for congregations to join with the priest in these Post-Communion Thanksgivings. Several Anglican service books have regularized this practice. The rubrics of The Prayer Book of the Church of England in South Africa (1992) direct the priest and the people to say the Lord’s Prayer and one of these thanksgivings together. The rubrics for The Order for Holy Communion, “English” Order 1662, in An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) give the “minister” the option of saying one or both of these thanksgivings alone or with the congregation. Its predecessor, Services in Contemporary English from The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 (2006), gave the minister the option of saying one or both of the thanksgivings and the congregation the option of joining in the first thanksgiving at the word, “Here we offer…,”and the second thanksgiving at the words, “As we humbly ask….”

Saying both Post-Communion Thanksgivings drags out the service which should move to a rapid conclusion after the Distribution of the Communion. What I wrote earlier about long segments of unrelieved text is applicable here. Judging from the length of the exhortations and prayers contained in their liturgies, kneeling for long periods of time must not have caused the eighteenth century Non-Jurors to wince with pain from leg cramps but the young people that we may be hoping to attract to our churches may not be made of as stern a stuff as these dilettantes of the long service. Today’s younger generations have shorter attention spans than past younger generations. Nor would they take kindly to a church-warden cuffing them when their attention wandered as might have happened in the eighteenth century. The longer our services are the less likely they are to return for a second visit. Many older Anglicans who attend our services also have joints problems and a number of them have undergone hip or knee replacement surgery.

My earlier comments about making the service more engaging are also applicable. With the two Post-Communion Thanksgivings the Reformed Episcopal Church missed another opportunity.

It would be interesting to know what was the thinking behind the decision to require the priest to say both thanksgivings and how much the Scottish-American view of the first thanksgiving as a prayer of oblation influenced that thinking. In any case this requirement injects into the 1662 Liturgy of the Table a theology that is different from that of the 1662 Prayer Book. The result is a Liturgy of the Table that has the structure of the 1662 and contains material from the 1662 but does not fully embody the doctrine of that rite.

The rubric that precedes the Gloria in Excelsis is adapted from the 1928 Prayer Book and permits the singing of “some suitable hymn” as an alternative to the Gloria. This permission has been a feature of the American Prayer Book from the 1789 book on. Cranmer moved the Gloria to a position after the Post-Communion Thanksgivings in the 1552 Communion Office apparently in the imitation of the hallel Psalm that Jesus and the disciples sung at the conclusion of the Last Supper. The Restoration bishops retained the Gloria in this position in the 1662 Communion Office. “The provision of a Hymn as a substitute for the Gloria in Excelsis,” Parsons and Jones note, “was introduced in 1789 because of the frequent difficulty of getting the Gloria sung under pioneering conditions.” This alternative is particularly useful in small churches which do not have a choir and struggle to sing the Gloria without its leadership. It enables these churches to sing a metrical version of the Gloria or some other suitable hymn of praise at this juncture. If the church has not sung the Doxology at the offertory, it can sing the Doxology as an alternative to the Gloria. The Doxology is one of the suggested alternatives in The Hymnal (1940). Singing a hymn is preferable to the dismissal practice of reciting the Gloria. While the rubric may represent a departure from the original wording of the 1662 rubric, it retains the spirit of the 1662 rubric, which is to conclude the Liturgy of the Table on a note of joyful praise.

The rubric preceding the parting blessing is adapted from the 1928 Communion Office. The 1662 rubric does not direct the people to kneel. A far more ancient custom than kneeling for the parting blessing is the custom of bowing the head. The deacon would direct the people to bow their heads for God’s blessing and then the bishop would intone the blessing with a hand outstretched toward the people. The practice of making the sign of the cross is a later one. The parting blessing serves as the dismissal of the people, and except perhaps for a final hymn as a recessional any devotions after the blessing are inappropriate. The rubric that immediately follows the parting blessing permits the singing of such a hymn. Neither the 1662 Communion Office nor the 1928 Communion Office has a corresponding rubric. As I have previously noted, custom largely determines where hymns are sung in the 1662 Communion Office.

The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Church, unlike the 1662 and 1928 Prayer Books, makes no provision for Ante-Communion, and the Collects that follow the1662 Communion Office are omitted. So are the rubrics which follow that office. The only exception is the 1662 adaptation of the rubric on kneeling, sometimes called the “Black Rubric.” While its language is not as strong as the original rubric on kneeling, it denies that Christ is substantively present in the consecrated Bread and Wine and maintains that the communicants, in kneeling to receive the consecrated elements, do not adore the sacramental species.

This view is consistent with the historic Anglican doctrine that at their consecration the substance of the bread and wine are not changed; the bread remains bread and the wine, wine. While Christ is not substantively present in the consecrated elements, he is present spiritual in the hearts, the innermost selves, of the communicants. He is truly present there. His presence is not imagined. It is real. When the communicants receive the Bread and the Cup, they feed upon Christ in their hearts. This feeding is spiritual and the means by which it is accomplished is faith. The act of receiving the elements invigorates and strengthens the communicant’s faith, thereby enabling him to receive spiritual nourishment from Christ and to appropriate the benefits of Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross.

A communicant who lacks a vital faith in Christ may eat the Bread and drink the Cup but he receives no benefit from doing so. The critical spiritual transaction that accompanies the eating and drinking is missing. Rather he eats the Bread and drinks the Cup to his own damnation. For this reason Anglicans have placed a strong emphasis upon worthy reception of the Holy Communion. The requirements for such reception are summarized in the Invitation to Communion:

Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort….

As can be seen from this examination of the Celebration of  Holy Communion in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office, it does not fully comprehend the English Prayer Book tradition but incorporates numerous features from the Scottish-American Prayer Book tradition. Some of the additions, alterations, and omissions are minor; others are not. Any church using this option in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is not using the Celebration of Holy Communion from the 1662 Communion Office but a revision of that Liturgy of the Table strongly influenced by the Scottish-American Prayer Book tradition, particularly the 1928 Communion Office. It is a revision that has a number of weaknesses that I have, for the most part, identified. As the same time it is still closer to the 1662 Communion Office’s Liturgy of the Table than the Liturgy of the Table in the long and short forms of the 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office. With some judicious tweaking it might serve the Anglican Church in North America as well as the Reformed Episcopal Church far better than the 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office’s Liturgy of the Table. The two forms for the Liturgy of the Table in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office are certainly more comprehensive than the Liturgy of the Table in the long and short forms of the 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office. The latter decidedly leans toward the Liturgy of the Table of the Roman Rite.

Image: The Church of the Holy Trinity, Houston, Texas