Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
By Robin G. Jordan
The Alternate Form for the Celebration of Holy Communion
The second form for the Celebration of Holy Communion in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is substantially the Liturgy of the Table from the 1928 Communion Office from the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church on with some modifications. It is titled “The Alternate Form for the Celebration of Holy Communion.”
One of the modifications is the substitution of “presbyter” for “priest” in the rubrics. The 1637 Scottish Prayer Book was the first Prayer Book to replace “priest” with “presbyter,” a concession to the reformed-minded Calvinist Presbyterians in the Scotland. This choice of wording did not mollify them. They reacted with outrage to that ill-fated book. While the book was never widely used in Scotland, it would influence subsequent Scottish Prayer Books and through the Scottish Usager Non-Juror Communion Office of 1764 the American Prayer Book. The substitution of “presbyter” for priest” might be described as a throwback to the early days of the Scottish-American Prayer Book tradition. Perhaps its adoption in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Church, like its adoption in the 1637 Scottish Prayer Book, was intended to make the book more palatable.
Like the Celebration of Holy Communion, the second form begins the Liturgy of the Table with an Invitation to the Table that has been a longstanding feature of the Reformed Episcopal Communion Office:
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 goes back to the earliest days of the Reformed Episcopal Church when Bishop George David Cummins and other members of the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Evangelical wing broke with that church over the growing influence of Ritualism in the church. Among the practices of these Evangelical Episcopalians was to welcome their fellow Evangelicals from non-Episcopal churches to their celebrations of Holy Communion and to preach and concelebrate at celebrations of Holy Communion in the churches of these Evangelicals. The Ritualists in the Protestant Episcopal Church took a dim view of these practices and would enact legislation in the General Convention, which unchurched Evangelical churches lacking the episcopate and banned the practices on those grounds.
The Evangelicals who founded the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Ritualists were divided on a number of issues. Among these issues were prayers for the dead. The Reformed Episcopal Church’s adoption of the 1928 version of the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church with its petition for the departed represents a departure from the long-held position of the Reformed Episcopal Church:
And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our only Mediator and Advocate.I am not going to discuss the arguments for and against the inclusion of this petition but only note that its inclusion represents a shift in the doctrine of the Reformed Episcopal Church. One of the risks that is associated with the adoption of liturgical material from another ecclesial tradition is that of importing into our liturgy doctrine that is at odds with longstanding doctrine in our own ecclesial tradition. This doctrine can ride piggyback on the liturgical material that we adopt. Or the liturgical material can act as a Trojan horse in which doctrine that is not agreeable to Scripture or to our tradition or both is hiding.
As in the case of the rubric before the Intercession in the first form, the corresponding rubric in the second form is horribly outdated. Handing a note to the rector before the service may have sufficed in the 1920s but not in these days of near instantaneous communication. The Reformed Episcopal Church passed up an opportunity to make the Intercession more pastoral by allowing members of the congregation to voice prayer requests immediately before the Intercession.
One option is to provide the congregation with a phone number to which they can text prayer requests before the Intercession and to give the phone to whoever is authorized to read the Intercession. The reader of the Intercession would check the phone for prayer requests before the Intercession and ask for the congregation’s prayers for these requests. The texts would serve as a digital version of the note that was used in the early twentieth century. This would make the time of the Intercession more interactive as would allowing the congregation to voice prayer requests.
In the Alternate Form for the Celebration of Holy Communion the Reformed Episcopal Church also passed up an opportunity to make the Intercession more engaging and more mission-oriented as it did in the first form. Today’s younger generations that are drawn to liturgical worship want to take an active part in the liturgy just as they want to take an active part in the life and ministry of the church. If they are not presented with opportunities to participate in the liturgy as liturgical ministers as well as in the prayers, with opportunities to lead the church, to serve the community, to make a difference, they are not going to stay. They will go where these opportunities are available to them.
I have posted dozens of articles and podcasts on church planting, church revitalization, mission, and evangelism on Anglicans Ablaze. A recurrent theme in these articles and podcasts is, if you want your congregation to become more mission-minded and outward-look, the first step is prayer, prayer in public services of worship as well as in private.
A new church that is not mission-minded and outward-looking will not thrive. It will die. A growing number of Reformed Episcopal and Continuing Anglican churches that were born without evangelism and mission in their DNA are discovering this painful truth to their dismay. They are facing the prospect of closing their doors.
An insertion of a petition like the following petition from the 1962 Canadian Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church Triumphant in the Intercession is one way a denomination can help keep its churches focused on mission:
Prosper, we pray thee, all those who proclaim the Gospel of thy kingdom among the nations….Locally the reader of the Intercession, when asking for the prayers of the congregation for those whose prayer is desired, can regularly ask the congregation to pray for the unchurched and unsaved in the community in which the church is located and elsewhere. The reader of the Intercession can also ask the congregation to pray for the individual or family in which each member of the congregation is investing to build a relationship with them, to engage them in gospel conversations, to invite them to church or to a small group, to minister to them in other ways, and to show to them the love of Jesus for them. This is a helpful reminder of the importance of prayer when we reach out to and engage the unchurched and the unsaved.
The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office, unlike the 1928 Communion Office does not have a rubric directing that any special prayer should be said before the Sermon. This oversight, if it was an oversight, should not be lamented. A Prayer for Mission said before the Sermon, while it may be appropriate on some occasions, adds to the clutter (announcements, marriage bans, etc.) before the Sermon. The attention of the congregation will be quickly taken up by the Sermon (at least we hope it will).
When the focus of the service is mission, a more appropriate place for a Prayer for Mission may be following the Collect of the Day.
In The Middle Way: Suggestions for a Practicable Ceremonial Latta Griswold makes this salient point:
Despite the fact that the Prayer Book has provided us with a needlessly long and not too happily-expressed post-communion in the Thanksgiving, there are several advantages in using a Collect before the Blessing, although the rubric does not require this. Such a prayer gives opportunity to reiterate the note of the day commemorated (to which there has been no reference since the Gospel except when there happens to be a Proper Preface), or it serves to point the moral of the sermon, if it be carefully chosen in advance with this in view….Before the Blessing is also an excellent place for a Prayer for Mission. A Prayer for Mission at this juncture reminds the members of the congregation of their calling to be missionaries in the community in which God has placed them as well as in the larger world just before they are dismissed to go back into the community and the larger world.
The rubrics of the 1929 South African Prayer Book makes provision for the saying of a Collect after the Collect of the Day or before the Blessing. A selection of Collects is provided as well as permission to use addition Collects authorized by the Bishop.
Collects which may be said after the Collect of the Day, or before the Blessing. Other Collects may also be sanctioned by the Bishop as need require.It is better to say a Prayer for Mission here, announced with a suitable bidding, “Let us pray for the Mission of the Church,” than after the recessional has concluded and the minds of the congregation and the choir are on collecting the baby or toddler from the nursery and beating the Baptists and the Methodists to the Picadilly cafeteria or the local family restaurant.
The second form, like the first form, prints the shortened third Exhortation in the service itself instead after the service as in the 1928 Communion Office. This is a feature of the earlier American Communion Offices and the 1930 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office. The rubrics of the latter permit the minister to further shorten the Exhortation and omit the section beginning "above all things, ye must give most humble and hearty thanks to God," except at the first Communion in Advent, in Lent, and after Whitsunday.
The rubric of the first form and the second form require the use of the entire shortened version of the third Exhortation except when it is not used. The rubric that follows the Exhortation appears to have been written specifically for the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office as I noted in my previous article.
A modification to the Liturgy of the Table of the 1928 Communion Office that was not adopted in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office but which I recommend is a feature of the Preparation in An Alternative Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion in the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book. This order is also known by the shorter title as the “Alternative Order of the Communion.” After the Absolution and the Comfortable Words, the priest kneels and says the Prayer of Humble Access in the name of those who are going to receive the Holy Communion. This practice was incorporated into the Preparation in Holy Communion Two in the 2004 Irish Prayer Book except all say the Prayer of Humble Access.
The Prayer of Humble Access fits well into the sequence of liturgical elements that comprises the Preparation:
- Invitation to confession
- Confession of sin
- Declaration of God’s forgiveness
- Assurance of pardon
- Prayer for worthy reception
Rather than delay the distribution of the Communion elements with a string of devotions, it is far more preferable to greet our risen and ascended Lord present in our midst with simple hymns and songs during the distribution itself. The Communion time becomes a joyous occasion in which Christ’s people go forward with the words of praise and adoration on their lips and love in their hearts to meet their Lord. It is a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb. Weddings in the New Testament are joyful celebrations—times of feasting, singing, dancing, and laughter. It is a time for joy, not sadness. He who died is now alive and with us always.
As I noted in my previous article, it has become customary in a number of Anglican churches for the congregation to join in the Prayer of Humble Access and a number of Anglican service books have regularized the practice. In my own church which uses the 1928 Prayer Book, the congregation joins the priest in the Prayer of Humble Access and the Post-Communion Thanksgiving. Most of the members of the congregation are former Episcopalians. One couple lived in Australia for a number of years. The rubrics of the Holy Eucharist, Rite I, in the 1979 Prayer Book and rubrics the Holy Communion, First Order, in An Australian Prayer Book (1978) permit the congregation to join with the priest in the Prayer of Humble Access. The rubrics of Rite I also permit the congregation to join with the priest in the Post-Communion Thanksgiving. These rubrics regularized what had become a common practice in American and Australian churches.
Liturgies are living things. We cannot fossilize them, preserve them in amber, and expect them to resonate with the younger generations. If we want our liturgy to become meaningful and important to young people, to affect or appeal to them in a deep emotional way, we must make the liturgy far more engaging than it presently is.
From the Consecration through the Thanksgiving, the Alternate Form of the Communion adheres fairly closely to the 1928 Communion Office. The titles of the various parts of the Liturgy of the Table that I am using in this article are taken from the Alternative Order of the Communion in the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book. The Consecration contains the Sursum Corda, the Preface the Ter-Sanctus, the Proper Prefaces, the Prayer of Consecration, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Prayer of Humble Access. The Communion of the Priest and People contains the Words of Distribution and the Form for the Consecration of More Bread or Wine. The Thanksgiving contains the Post-Communion Thanksgiving, the Gloria in Excelsis (or “some suitable hymn”), and the Blessing.
Like the 1549 Communion Office, the Consecration in the Alternate Form of the Celebration of Communion positions the Prayer of Humble Access after the Lord’s Prayer, creates a lengthy delay between the consecration of the bread and wine and their distribution. It contains no provision for the congregation to join with the priest in the Prayer of Humble Access.
Like the 1928 Communion Office, the Alternate Form of Celebration of Holy Communion permits the singing of a hymn after the Prayer of Humble Access. Unless the hymn accompanies the Communion procession, the procession of the faithful as they go forward to the Communion rail, it tends to further delay the distribution of the Communion elements.
Howard Galley suggests the division of small congregations into two groups as way of singing a Communion hymn. One group sings the hymn while the other group goes to the Communion rail. When the first group returns from the Communion rail, it takes up the hymn while the second group goes to the rail.
I have found that hymns or songs in which the choir, a small ensemble, or a cantor sings the verses and the congregation sings the refrain also work. So do simple repetitive songs such as “Let all that is within me cry holy (worthy, glory, Jesus, etc.)” and the “Eight-fold Alleluia.”
A soloist singing a Communion song during the Communion draws attention away from this high point of the liturgy and focuses it upon the soloist. If the congregation cannot join in the song, it is best to play instrumental music during the Communion.
Choir anthems and instrumental music unfortunately reinforce the notion that our communion with Christ is exclusively a private experience rather than a communal experience that we share with each other as the Body of Christ. Christ is not just present to the individual believer; he is present to the whole gathering of believers.
An image from one of the books in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles illustrates this horizontal dimension of the Communion. Aslan makes an appearance and all the Talking Cats rush to greet him, weaving around his feet, rubbing up against him, touching him with their noses, and drawing strength from his presence. The cats are interacting with Aslan both individually and collectively. Their experience is both personal and shared.
When we have communion with our Lord, it is not in isolation from each other but as a part of his gathered people. The disciples shared the Last Supper with Jesus together. When he addressed them, he was not just addressing them as individuals but as a community, a community with whom he had shared his life and ministry.
This important horizontal dimension of the Communion was lost in the Middle Ages first with the withdrawal of the cup from the people and then with the introduction of non-communicating Masses. Except for the clergy, the frequency of Communion was reduced to once a year, in one kind only, and then after private confession and absolution, outside the Mass.
The Communion of the Priest and People would have benefited from an optional Invitation to Communion like the following invitation from the Alternative Order of the Communion in the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book:
Draw near and receive the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for you, and his Blood which was shed for you. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.The wording of this Invitation to Communion is taken from the 1549 and 1552 Words of Distribution unlike the wording of one of optional Invitations to Communion in the 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office which is taken from the Roman Rite and is associated with the practice of Roman Catholic priests showing the consecrated Host and chalice to the congregation for adoration before the Communion. The wording of the other of these Invitations to Communion incorporates the Sancta sanctis, “the Gifts of God for the People of God,” which originated in the early Eastern Orthodox liturgies and is also associated with the showing of the Sacrament to the people. A rubric of the 1549 Communion Office prohibits the elevation or showing of the Sacrament to the people. It is an inconvenient rubric that those who are eager to remodel the liturgy on the 1549 Communion Office invariably ignore. Too often the motive behind the use of this particular Communion Office as a model for a revised liturgy is the desire to go back further than the reforms of 1549 and incorporate the unreformed doctrine and practices of the pre-Reformation Western Church and the Eastern Church into the liturgy. Remodeling the liturgy on the 1549 Communion Office is simply a cover for introducing these doctrines and practices. The 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office is a good example of how the 1549 Communion Office has been used in this fashion.
The Form for the Consecration of More Bread or Wine is identical to the form in the 1928 Communion Office except for the substitution of “presbyter” for “priest.” It uses the Post-Sanctus, the Words of Institution, the Oblation, and the Invocation of the Prayer of Consecration, correcting what the critics of the 1662 form viewed as its major defects.
The rubrics of the Thanksgiving make no provision for the congregation to join with the priest in the Post-Communion Thanksgiving, which is taken from the 1928 Communion Office. As to the importance of making the liturgy far more engaging, I refer readers to my earlier discussion of the subject in this article and my previous article. Latta Griswold whom I quoted earlier in this article viewed the 1928 Post-Communion Thanksgiving as “needlessly long and not too happily-expressed.” Having done some further research into why the rubrics of the Celebration of Holy Communion require the priest to say both thanksgivings in that form in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office, I am prompted to wonder how Griswold would have reacted to the 1930 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office whose rubrics require the minister to say one or more of three post-communions prayers. I suspect that the influence of the rubrics of that Communion Office may have been a factor behind the unhappy rubric directing the priest to say both thanksgivings.
As I noted in my previous article, the provision of a hymn as an alternative to the Gloria in Excelsis enables small congregations to sing a metrical version of the Gloria or some other hymn of praise rather than lamely reciting the Gloria. A number of hymns work well as alternatives to the Gloria. The 2017 Book of Common Praise contains following the hymns.
Hymn 331 All glory be to God on high
Hymn 277 Come with us, O blessed Jesus
Hymn 294 For the bread that thou hast broken
Hymn 351 From all that dwell below the skies
Hymn 202 Give thanks with a grateful heart
Hymn 354 Give to our God immortal praise
Hymn 424 Hail, thou once despised Jesus
Hymn 523 King of glory, King of peace
Hymn 380 Let us with a gladsome mind
Hymn 200, 201 Now thanks we all our God
Hymn 31 Now yield we thanks and praise (Christmas)
Hymn 208 Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Hymn 205 Thank you, you Lord
Hymn 406 What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
This list is not exhaustive.
The Blessing serves as the dismissal in both forms as it does in the 1928 Communion Office. Except for a recessional, any devotions following the Blessing are inappropriate. If a closing prayer is desired, the appropriate place for it is before the Blessing. See my earlier discussion of the best place for a Prayer for Mission.
The rubric permitting the singing of a hymn after the Blessing is redundant. The first rubric on page xiv of the Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book under the heading “Hymns and Anthems” states:
Hymns set forth and allowed by the authority of this Church, and Anthems in the words of Holy Scripture or of the Book of Common Prayer, may be sung before and after any Office in this Book, and also before and after Sermons….This rubric grants permission to sing hymns and anthems before and after any office, including the Communion Office, making the rubric permitting a hymn after the Blessing completely unnecessary. The 1928 Communion Office has no rubric that corresponds to the rubric permitting the singing of a hymn after the Blessing. Its compilers did not think such a rubric was necessary since the 1928 Prayer Book, like the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book, authorizes the singing of hymns and anthems before and after any office.
The General Rubrics at the end of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office are adapted from the 1928 Communion Office. They omit the first two rubrics of the 1928 General Rubrics that permit a deacon to read the service through the Gospel in the absence of a priest and which permit a priest on Sundays and holy days, when there is no sermon or communion, to read the service though the Gospel, concluding with a Blessing. These two omissions reduce the types of services that may be used in Reformed Episcopal churches on Sundays and feast days to two—the Daily Offices and Holy Communion.
The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book makes no provision for an alternative service of the Word to Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion at a time when Anglican churches around the world have been adding one or more forms for such an alternative service of the Word to the array of resources in their service books. These churches recognize the pressing need for this type of service when Morning and Evening Prayer does not meet the needs of a congregation in its particular circumstances and when a church does not have a full-time priest of its own and must share a priest with several other churches.
This same need definitely exists on the North American mission field. Only one of three Anglican churches in the area where my church is located has a priest. The priest in question is bi-vocational. The area’s Lutheran church also has no pastor. The area is largely rural. The congregations are small and cannot support a full-time stipendiary priest or pastor. They limp along the best they can with weekly services of Morning Prayer or its Lutheran equivalent and lay preachers.
Morning Prayer with its versicles and responses, psalms, lessons, canticles, and collects is not the type of service to which the churchgoing population and the unchurched population that may have attended a church at one time are accustomed. They are used to the more freeform services that are found in the area’s Baptist, Church of Christ, Cumberland Presbyterian, Methodist and Pentecostal churches.
In these churches lay preachers do not face the handicaps they face in the area’s Anglican churches. They can prepare and preach their own sermons which can take into account their congregation and their community. Anglican lay preachers, unless they have a license to preach from their bishop, must read homilies written by clergy who are unacquainted with the congregation and the community.
At the top of the list of what attracts people to a particular church in the area is the content of the sermon and the quality of the preaching. Due to the restraints on their lay preachers as well as the more formal structure of their services Anglican churches are at a disadvantage in attracting new members.
These challenges are not new ones. They have faced Anglican churches in North America since colonial times. They account for the slow growth of the Episcopal Church in comparison to other denominations, and more recently the slow growth of the Continuing Anglican Churches. An underlying cause is the propensity of Anglican churches to put tradition before mission. Tradition is not a bad thing when it serves mission. It is problematic, however, when it interferes with mission.
These two omission not only rule out services of Ante-Communion but also they rule out “Deacons’ Masses” or “Masses of the Pre-Sanctified”—what is also known as “Communion by Extension.” They are celebrations of Communion with previously consecrated Communion elements in a modified Communion Service without a Prayer of Consecration. A bishop can authorize a deacon to conduct such celebrations between a church’s regular celebrations of the Holy Communion, administering the Communion elements that the church’s supply priest has consecrated at one of the church’s regular Holy Communion celebrations. Considering the shift in the Reformed Episcopal Church’s position on the reservation of the Sacrament embodied in the first rubric in the General Rubrics in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office, these two omissions are surprising.
As well as authorizing the reservation of the consecrated Bread and Wine for the Communion of the Sick, the first rubric in the General Rubrics in the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office also authorizes the consumption of the any leftover Communion elements in the Roman position after the Communion of the people as well as the Anglican position after the Blessing.
The second and third rubrics in the General Rubrics of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office are taken word for word from the corresponding rubrics in the General Rubrics in the 1928 Communion Office.
It is noteworthy that, while the rubric on kneeling is found only at the end of the Celebration of Holy Communion and not the Alternate Form for the Celebration of Holy Communion, it applies to both forms. Every text, rubric, doctrinal statement, and liturgical usage of a Prayer Book must be considered in an evaluation of the overall doctrine of that book. While the book may provide two different forms for use at a celebration of Holy Communion, their doctrine cannot be compartmentalized. The doctrine of one applies to the other and vise versa. While, for example, the rubric on kneeling permits a range of views of the sacrament of the Holy Communion, it does not permit Transubstantiation, the view that the bread and the wine undergo a change in substance while retaining the appearance of bread and wine.
In addition to the General Rubric at its end, the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office also has two Exhortations. The first Exhortation is an extremely abbreviated version of the first Exhortation from the 1662 Communion Office. It omits the larger part of that exhortation including the last paragraph that advises those who have an unquiet conscience to go to their minister or “some other discreet and learned Minister of God’s Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.” This is not a reference to the practice of auricular confession as Dyson Hague, John Stott, and others have shown. Perhaps this abbreviated version of the first 1662 Exhortation is preferable to the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book’s redrafting of that exhortation so that it does encourage the practice of auricular confession.
The second Exhortation is a shortened version of the 1662 second Exhortation. It omits the closing section describing the consequences for “willfully abstaining from the Lord’s Table.” Presumably the compilers of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office no longer consider the neglect of the Lord’s Supper the problem that it once was.
What may be the problem today is that people take the Holy Communion too lightly, believing that everyone who receives the Communion will receive a blessing. They may simply view the Holy Communion as a familiar ritual without which church does not feel like church. Christians will treat others, including their fellow Christians, in what I was taught as child are unchristian ways, go to church on Sunday, recite the General Confession, and receive Communion and then go back to treating others in the same ways as they have been treating them. I do not see how these people are benefiting from receiving Communion unless they think that receiving Communion absolves them of any guilt that they might incur from their mistreatment of others. Repentance, faith, and love for others are so closely tied to each other that if one is missing, it is not unreasonable to believe that the other two are also absent.
Most of the drawbacks of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office are common to a number of the older Communion Offices. They were compiled for another time and in some cases, another place. A number of the newer Communion Offices suffer from similar drawbacks. They do not make the necessary allowances for the differences between sixteenth century and seventeenth century England, eighteenth century Scotland, twentieth century United States, and twenty-first century North America. A couple of decades can make a big difference, five centuries even more so.
I am not suggesting that we abandon the old simply because it is old. I agree with Archbishop Cranmer that the old should be retained where it may be well-used. But I also recognize that what Cranmer wrote is all too frequently used as justification to cling to outdated rubrics and the like, which do not upon close analysis meet his criterion.
While a number of the texts that we use in our liturgies may have a timeless quality, the rubrics often do not. The way seventeenth century Anglicans celebrated the Holy Communion may not work in this century. We may be able to use the same texts but not the same rubrics.
Twenty-first century celebrations of the Holy Communion require a much higher degree of congregational involvement than in the past. Prayers that were once said by the priest alone should be said by all, for example, the Collect for Purity, the Prayer of Humble Access, and the Post-Communion Thanksgiving. The people should be given an opportunity to make an appropriate response after each petition of longer prayers like the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church. Other liturgical ministers beside the priest should be given an opportunity to read such prayers. Shorter litanies should be provided as alternatives to the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church.
The day when the priest said almost all of the prayers is a thing of the past. Older Anglicans may prefer to worship this way but their preference is keeping younger people away. Churches that should be beacons of light in their communities, reaching out and engaging the unchurched and the unsaved, are stagnant and dying. A vibrant liturgy that engages worshipers of all ages may not by itself reverse this trend but it certainly will be a factor in the revitalization of such a church.
In my estimation the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office is far truer to the Anglican tradition in terms of doctrine and liturgical usages than is the 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office. It does attempt to comprehend the two Prayer Book traditions found in the Anglican Church with a measure of success. On the other hand, the ACNA’s Liturgy Task Force did not even try to comprehend the various theological and liturgical schools of thought represented in the Anglican Church in North America. The Anglican Network in Canada’s Communion Office, modeled on the 1552 Communion Office, is an independent endeavor. The departures of the 2019 Proposed ACNA Communion Office from the widely-recognized norm of the 1662 Communion Office, a standard that the Global Anglican Future Conference affirmed in its Jerusalem Declaration, are also far greater than those of the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office.
A part of the heritage that Reformed Episcopalians enjoy is a longstanding tradition of Prayer Book revision. A revised Prayer Book was a rallying cry of the founders of the Reformed Episcopal Church. With some judicious tweaking where I have suggested the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Communion Office in contemporary and traditional language could serve the Reformed Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Church in North America for perhaps another fifteen years.
The life of a modern day Anglican service book, after all, is much shorter than the Prayer Books of the past. Our world is changing rapidly. The challenges that we face tomorrow will be different from the challenges we face today. In the future we can expect more and more congregations to be meeting in non-traditional settings. A Prayer Book designed for the soaring cathedrals, red brick chapels, and wood frame Gothic churches is not going to serve a small congregation of the faithful gathered in a member’s apartment. In such circumstances our love of enrichment must give way to the need for brevity, flexibility, and simplicity.
Image: Covenant Reformed Episcopal Church, Roanoke, Virginia
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