The Book of Common
Prayer: Repent, Believe, Follow
Tonight I am going to talk to you about the Book of
Common Prayer, and I am going to do this in two ways.
First, I will say a few words about the Prayer Book in
the context of the greater and historical church–
specifically as the source of Anglican identity, and how
that loss of that distinctive identity is precisely what
has led to the disintegration of Anglicanism from
within.
And
then, following from that, I would like to take a look,
in particular, at the Communion service as exemplifying
Anglican doctrine.
So
first, a kind of apologetic for the Prayer Book. The
intentions of the English reformers was to build up a
church of faithful people who could read and understand
the Bible in their own language, and could participate
with their own minds and wills in the worship of God,
conducted in their own language. It was to be a Church
that held to the tradition of apostolic teaching, and
the creeds and decisions of the Ecumenical councils, but
which also embodied the reformed theology of sin and
grace, of justification and sanctification. Now that is
just a fancy way of saying that we, as individuals, know
ourselves as sinners before God, saved by the atoning
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, justified by his
righteousness (that is, not by our works and deeds,
which are never sufficient, but by God’s freely given
grace), and through God’s continued grace and his Holy
Spirit working in us, moving ever closer to God – by
knowing Him and loving Him and obeying his will.
In
doing this the English reformers firmly rejected two
things.
They rejected the claim of the Roman Church that "The
task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has
been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church,
that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion
with him." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed.
1997, pt. 1, sect. 1, ch. 2, art. 2, III #100.)
Instead, the articles of religion declare that in some
matters “the Church of Rome hath erred” (Art. XIX),
particularly in introducing, as necessary to salvation,
doctrines that cannot be proven from scripture. “Holy
Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation:
so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be
proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that
it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be
thought requisite and necessary to salvation” (Art. VI).
This brings me to the second thing: they also rejected
the notion that the truth of scripture should be, or
even can be, divorced from a tradition of
interpretation. The consequence of the position of sola
scriptura, held by many Protestants (that the Bible is
the only authority) has been the continuing break-up and
divisions of those churches, because they cannot agree
on what the Bible says. To quote Fr. Crouse, the
principle of sola scriptura produces “the chaos of
fluctuating opinion”. (R.D. Crouse, The Thirty-nine
Articles Today) Again quoting Fr. Crouse: “There is a
distance between Word [the divine Word of God] and
words, which involves an activity of understanding and
interpretation, for which the Church has a fundamental
responsibility.”
So,
the scriptures are authoritative, but they require
interpretation – and that is the principle role of the
Church. In that sense Anglicanism is a via media –
maintaining the ultimate authority of scripture, but
recognizing the need for a church and tradition to
interpret scripture and uphold doctrine. And the
Anglican interpretation is firmly in the reformed
tradition.
For
Anglicanism, the historic prayer books, with the
lectionary, the creeds, the articles of religion, and
the ordinal have formed the basis of a kind of
magisterium – of a teaching authority on scripture. The
Book of Common Prayer is itself a doctrinal
interpretation of scripture. It teaches us how to read
and understand the Bible. It does this both explicitly –
in the Creeds and Articles of Religion, but also
implicitly – both in the context of worship (a theology
of marriage is present in the marriage service; a
theology of ministry in the ordinal; a theology of
Christian initiation in the sacraments of baptism and
confirmation; and so on), and in the traditional
lectionary (how the Bible is read in the context of
worship). So in rejecting the traditional Prayer Books –
either by turning to service books that lack that
doctrinal coherence and unity, as England and Canada
have done, or by producing a new prayer book that is
perhaps less extreme than the service books, but also
lacks doctrinal unity, as PECUSA did, Anglicanism has
deliberately and willfully lost its doctrinal grounding
– another way of saying that it has lost its mind!
If
TEC is a via media today it is not because it holds to
the authority of both scripture and tradition, but
because it rejects the authority of both! TEC is about
something new and innovative in religion, and in order
to do that, it had to first get rid of the Book of
Common Prayer.
Ironically, many people who were not friends of the
Prayer Book have come to realize this – but belatedly,
and perhaps too late.
Here is Bp. Duncan on the subject:
“Anglicanism’s practical magisterium – its reliable
teaching authority — has been its Book of Common Prayer,
and . . . without a restored Book of Common Prayer,
reasserting the theological propositions of medieval
Catholicism as reshaped by the English Reformation, best
represented in the prayer book of 1662, Anglicanism will
continue its theological disintegration apace. . . .
Forty years of alternative texts and expansive language
have produced an undiscipled people and a theological
wasteland. . .” He even adds that there is a “need for
an ‘Authorized Version’ of the Bible . . . How shall we
ever learn Scripture again except that we always hear it
in the same way?” (An Address for Convocation Nashotah
House 25th October, A.D. 2006)
Perhaps it too little too late, but particularly among
evangelicals, there is a growing awareness of the need
for structure – both in doctrine and worship, and a
growing interest in the older traditional prayer books.
Every Church needs a unifying principle – for
Anglicanism it has been the Prayer Book and the Prayer
Book’s understanding of the Bible. It still has the
potential to unify those Anglicans who hold to it, but
it is also a theological, doctrinal, and spiritual
beacon to those who are suffering the consequences of an
increasingly divided and disintegrating Protestantism.
The
Holy Communion
Now
I want take a look at the liturgy of the Holy Communion
– as a practical example of what I have been talking
about, specifically, how the liturgy of the Holy
Communion serves to redirect our souls to their true
end. And I’m doing this by picking up on the theme of
Fr. Hawkins’ Quiet Day last year: Repent, Believe, and
Follow. I also have to give credit to Fr. Gavin
Dunbar, the Rector of St. John’s, Savannah, for the
detail in what follows. I can take credit for none of
it.
St.
Augustine of Hippo, in writing about the Trinity said
that human beings are in the image of God as memory,
understanding, and will (or love). Human memory
corresponds to the Father, the divine Being; human
reason and understanding corresponds to the Son, the
divine wisdom (the logos); human will and love to the
Holy Spirit, who is the Divine Will and Love. The
process of our conversion to God is the restoration of
that image in us – coming to be what we truly are by
remembering God, by knowing God and by loving God.
Loving God means conforming our wills to His.
The
conversion of the soul – the turning of the soul to God,
which is its highest good – requires the activity of
each of the three elements in our souls. First, we are
reminded of God (memory): we are reminded of who God is
and how we have turned away from Him in sin, and we
repent. Repentance heals our forgetfulness of God.
Second, through our understanding, we come know God in
faith, and we believe. Faith heals our ignorance of
God. And third, our wills are moved to the love of God,
and we follow. Charity (love) is the reversal of our
tendency to rebel against God.
The
Prayer Book liturgy (in its 1662 form and ordering –
which corresponds to the 1928, but not to Rite 1 of
1979) is structured to reflect the Reformed doctrines of
Sin, Justification and Sanctification – guilt, grace,
gratitude. Rite 1, on the other hand, is modeled on
Vatican II Roman liturgy, which lacks this clarity about
the soul and the movement of the soul to God.
Repentance is in relation to guilt – sin.
Faith is in relation to grace – justification.
Charity is in relation to gratitude – sanctification.
This threefold movement of repent, believe, and follow –
or repentance, faith, and charity – the movements of
memory, understanding, and will – is actually repeated
three times in the communion service – each time from a
different perspective, serving a different end.
THE FIRST CYCLE occurs in relation to the external
community.
We
begin from God with the Lord’s Prayer and the Collect
for Purity.
Repentance:
The Law (10 commandments or the summary of the law)
reminds us of our guilt and sin in relation to God, and
we respond with “Lord have mercy”. The Collect of the
Day follows, reminding us in some particular way of our
need for grace.
Faith:
The Epistle and Gospel lessons, the Nicene Creed, and
the Sermon inform our faith. The scripture readings
proclaim God’s grace to us, informing our minds; we
recite the Creed together, asserting our communal faith,
and the sermon then applies the Word of God to the
community, activating that faith in us and stirring our
wills to acts of charity.
Charity:
We are then called by the Offertory Sentences to works
of charity, and then in the Offertory, we offer our alms
and oblations with intercessory prayers, as a communal
act of charity.
This first cycle is roughly present in the Rite 1
liturgy– though it gets interrupted and does not follow
quite so logical a structure. But we can still
recognize it. However, what gets completely lost in the
Rite 1 order (which is essentially the Roman ordering)
is the second cycle, which is inward, rather than
external, the movement of each individual soul in
relation to God. This is where we see the reformation
doctrine of sin and grace as a deeper understanding of
the human soul in its relation to God.
THE SECOND CYCLE is inward – the soul’s movement
toward God.
We
are called to repentance by the Exhortations and the
Invitation to Confession.
Repentance:
We then express our repentance in the General
Confession. We remember our personal sinfulness, and
acknowledge our sins, we turn away from those sins in
grief, and we turn toward amendment of life.
Faith:
Then, through faith, we receive Absolution, and are
encouraged in this faith through the Comfortable Words.
Charity:
In gratitude we turn our wills toward God in love, in
the Sursum Corda “Lift up your hearts” – that is the
movement of our hearts and wills toward God in grateful
response to his grace of freeing us from our sins. We
then go on to sing God’s praises in the Preface and
Sanctus. This is the rising of the soul to God in love
and thankfulness.
The
problem with the Rite 1 liturgy is that this expression
of praise and thanksgiving is completely separated from
the confession and absolution – which is to say, it is
not seen in relation to our abject sinfulness and need
for divine grace. In fact, in the 1979 Prayer Book,
Confession is optional, rather than being the critical
turning point of this deeper inward spiritual movement
of the soul to God. This is the aspect of the Rite 1
liturgy that I continue to find particular the most
troubling.
HE THIRD CYCLE is both inward and outward.
We
remember Christ’s sacrifice for us – his church; and we
participate in it as we receive his grace in the
sacrament of his body and blood given for us and to us.
Repentance:
In the 1662 Prayer Book, the Prayer of Humble Access
came before the Prayer of Consecration – moving us to
acknowledge (remember) our unworthiness before God. In
1928 and in the Canadian 1962 it is moved to immediately
before we receive (where it was in 1549), so this phase
and the next are mingled together. Although the order in
1928 does not follow the 1662 in its strictly logical
structure, the elements are all present.
Faith:
In the Prayer of Consecration, faith acknowledges the
great gift of the Father in giving his Son as a
sacrifice for us, and in the Communion, we receive that
grace by faith. Here at All Souls’, we continue to
receive kneeling and to hear the full words of
administration, which emphasizes that we receive the
grace of sacrament by faith, and we are do so with
thanksgiving.
Charity:
The Lord’s Prayer in 1662 came at this point, leading
into a Prayer of Thanksgiving, the offering of
ourselves, the body of Christ, and the beneficiaries of
his sacrifice, to God. The love given to us is offered
back to God. Then the Gloria in Excelsis – the hymn of
the angels – is sung as the final act of praise and
thanksgiving.
The
service ends with the proclamation of God’s Peace and
the Blessing. This peace of God is the eternal peace
that the soul receives through its participation in
Christ’s sacrifice.
So,
I hope this is a little helpful for you, as it has been
for me, in appreciating something of the richness of our
tradition. It has so much more to offer, both in terms
of our personal spiritual lives, but also in our sense
of what the Christian community is – what it means to be
the Body of Christ – than one can find in the rudderless
mishmash of the great variety of services found in most
of The Episcopal Church today. One of the things that I
am heartened by, and want to share with you, is the
number of young clergy who are only now discovering the
Prayer Book and the real Anglican tradition, clergy both
within and without TEC.
