By Robin G. Jordan
I drafted the following eucharistic prayer over the weekend, largely using wording taken from three sources: An Australian Prayer Book (1978), A Prayer Book for Australia (1995), and Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings (2012). The eucharistic prayer is part of a complete service of Holy Communion that I will be posting on Exploring an Anglican Prayer Book when I have completed the service. Working without a desktop or laptop of my own I must first write out everything by hand and then upload what I have written out at the university library. It is a time consuming process.
What I have done is take the eucharistic prayer of The Lord’s Supper, Form I from Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings (2012) and recast it into a form which may be more familiar to US Anglicans from the eucharistic prayer of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and Eucharist Prayer I of Rite I and Eucharistic Prayer A of Rite II of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
H. Boone Porter drafted Eucharistic Prayer A as a modern adaptation of the eucharistic prayers of the previous American Prayer Books and Eucharistic Prayer I of Rite I. Where this eucharistic prayer differs from these prayers, beside wording, is that the oblation and any other language suggestive of eucharistic sacrifice have been omitted. The invocation of the Holy Spirit has also been dropped. As in Eucharistic Prayer A a widely-used memorial acclamation, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” follows the words of institution. The anamnesis has been reworded and follows the memorial acclamation. The epiclesis follows the anamnesis. It is modeled on the epliceses of the 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1662 Prayer Books. It is a simple petition to the effect that those receiving the outward sign of the sacrament also receive its inward grace.
These changes make the prayer shorter. The addition of the memorial acclamation makes it more participatory. The omission of the oblation and any other sacrificial language and the substitution of the 1552-1662 epiclesis for the 1789-1928 epiclesis move the prayer closer to the English Prayer Book tradition without entirely removing it from the Scottish-American Prayer Book tradition. Most importantly they make the prayer more Scriptural.
The final petition, which ask God to accept the congregation’s heart-felt thanks and praise concludes with a doxology.
This eucharistic prayer was also written to take advantage of existing settings of the Sanctus; the memorial acclamation, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again;” and the Great Amen such Richard Proulx’s New Plain Song and Land of Rest Acclamations, the Danish Amen, and other service music in current use in Anglican and Episcopal Churches. It also provides opportunities for church musicians to compose new settings.
Eucharistic Prayer A is the most widely-used eucharistic prayer in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It has been the work horse of the Holy Eucharist in Episcopal parishes for the past 40 years. It has stood up well to repeated use. It is also simple enough for a child to memorize. One of the children in my former parish knew it by heart. While a number of new eucharistic prayers have been published for use in the Episcopal Church, they are what I call special interest prayers. They reflect the interests of various groups in the Episcopal Church and might be used on special occasions but they are not the kind of prayer that can be used Sunday after Sunday.
The ACNA’s Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force’s Anglican Standard Eucharistic Prayer and Ancient Eucharistic Prayer are also special interest prayers. The Standard Anglican Eucharistic Prayer reflects the interests of Anglo-Catholic traditionalists. Arnold Klukas who drafted the Standard Anglican Eucharistic Prayer is a professor of liturgics and ascetical theology at Nashotah House. Nashotah House is a bastion of Anglo-Catholic traditionalism. Professor Klukas would have benefited from reading Bishop Charles Lewis Slattery’s 1922 press release on the work the joint Prayer Book revision commission. The joint Prayer Book revision commission produced the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Bishop Slattery wrote:
We are trying to avoid…such length of prayer or praise in anyone part of any service that the mind become numb and the worship of the heart ceases…. Everyone ought to ask if he would not be a more collected worshipper if the Prayer of Consecration in the Holy Communion were much shorter than it is. (William Sydnor, The Story of the Real Prayer Book, Morehouse Publishing, 1978, p. 74)As William Sydnor notes in his book this aim was not achieved until 50 years later with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
The Standard Anglican Eucharist Prayer is tediously long and dry as dust. While it might be used at denominational gatherings, it is too long for use on the twenty-first century North American mission field.
The Ancient Eucharistic Prayer reflects the influence of the Liturgical Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. During that time a number of denominations produced modern adaptations of the Anaphora of the Apostles, also known as the Anaphora of Hippolytus. It was something of an ecclesiastical fad. Among these prayers was one in the Episcopal Church’s Services for Trial Use (1970). It was conflated with another prayer from Services for Trial Use (1970) into Rite II’s Eucharistic Prayer B in the 1979 Prayer Book. Eucharistic Prayer II of the Missal of Pope Paul VI was also based on this Anaphora. In “The Composition of the Second Eucharistic Prayer” Daniel J. Castellano writes:
Our Second Eucharistic Prayer is partially based on the liturgical scholar Dom Botte's reconstruction of the Canon of St. Hippolytus. In some places the text has been deliberately rearranged to match the ordering of the traditional Roman Canon, and several phrases from the Roman Canon have been added in order to complete the liturgy. The Second Eucharistic Prayer, therefore, is largely a composite of the Canon of St. Hippolytus and the Roman Canon of St. Gregory the Great, with few original additions.The Ancient Eucharistic Prayer bears a noticeable resemblance to Eucharistic Prayer II. Both the eucharistic prayer from Services for Trial Use (1970) and Eucharistic Prayer II may have influenced the Ancient Eucharistic Prayer. While some scholars date the composition of the Anaphora of the Apostles to the third century; others believe that it was composed at a later date. A number of scholars believe that it was actually never used.
Like the Standard Anglican Eucharistic Prayer, the Ancient Eucharistic Prayer caters to a particular group in the Anglican Church in North America. It appears to have been included in The Book of Common Prayer 2019 to make it more palatable to ACNA’ers influenced by Robert Webber and the worship renewal movement of the last 30 years. It is less prolix and ponderous than the Standard Anglican Eucharistic Prayer and consequently may see more use.
The ACNA’s Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force has not produced anything like Eucharistic Prayer A, the kind of eucharistic prayer that ACNA clergy and congregations sorely need, the kind of prayer which is equally at home in small celebrations of the Eucharist as it is large one. It is hoped that this eucharistic prayer will go part-way toward meeting this need.
[The Lord be with you
And also with you]
Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Always and everywhere, it is right for us to praise you, Lord, holy Father, mighty Creator and eternal God.
On certain days a special preface (see below) is said here.
Therefore, with all those gathered around your throne in heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, in words of never-ending praise:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
[Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
Hosanna in the highest.]
Special prefaces for Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity:
Christmas
We praise you for giving your only Son Jesus Christ to be made man for us. By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the virgin Mary his mother, without sin, to make us free from all sin.
or
We praise you that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Easter
We praise you especially for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the true Passover lamb who was offered for us and has taken away the sin of the world. By his death he has destroyed death; by his rising to life again he has restored to us eternal life.
Ascension
We praise you through Jesus Christ our ascended Lord, who was seen by his disciples after his resurrection and in their sight went into heaven to sit at your right hand and prepare a place for us, that where he is we might also be and reign with him in glory.
Pentecost
We praise you through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whose sure promise the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles to teach them and lead them into all truth, giving them boldness and fervent zeal to preach the gospel to all nations. By that gospel we have been brought out of darkness and error into the true knowledge of you and of your Son Jesus Christ.
Trinity
You are one God, one Lord, not one person but three persons. For all that we believe of your glory, Father, we believe also of the glory of your Son and of the Holy Spirit. We worship you, one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.
All Saints
We praise you through Jesus Christ our Lord for the saints in whom you have given us an example of godly living, that rejoicing in their fellowship, we may run with perseverance the race that is set before us, and with them receive the unfading crown of glory.
After the special preface the priest and people continue with the words “Therefore, with all those gathered….”
Standing at the table, the priest continues to give thanks
We thank you, heavenly Father, that in your great love and mercy you gave your only Son to die on the cross for our salvation.
By this offering of himself once and for all time, Jesus made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world and commanded us to continue a remembrance of his precious death until his coming again.
The priest takes the bread into his hands and says
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and, when he had given thanks, he broke it, then gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’
The priest takes the cup into his hand and says
In the same way after the meal, Jesus took the cup and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
[Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.]
Christ has died
Christ is risen
Christ will come again
With this bread and this cup we commemorate and proclaim his saving death, as our Savior commanded, recalling his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension and looking for his coming again.
Hear us, merciful Father, and grant that we who receive these gifts of your creation, this bread and this wine, according to our Savior’s command in remembrance of his suffering and death, may be partakers of his body and blood.
Accept this our heart-felt thanks and praise through your Son Jesus Christ. Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, gracious Father, for ever and ever, Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer may be said here or after the communion if it has not been used earlier in the service.
The priest breaks the bread in the sight of the people.
Silence is kept.
Then may be said
[Though we are many, we are one body,
because we all share in one bread.]
The priest may say
Come let us eat and drink in remembrance that Christ died for us, and feed on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving.
The priest and people receive communion.
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