'A special mention of the mercy commemorated upon the festival': the Proper Prefaces in Prayer Book Holy Communion

Discussing the proper prefaces of the Prayer Book Holy Communion, John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - notes the "great antiquity" of the practice and how the English Reformation appropriately retained such observance of the principal Christian feasts:

As the Church, at the celebration of the Eucharist, gave thanks for all mercies and blessings, so it peculiarly praised God for the mercy commemorated upon the festival, on which the Communion was celebrated. Hence is derived the origin of these proper or particular prefaces, with the custom of adding them to the general preface ... That they are of great antiquity is evident from their being mentioned by writers of the fourth century. The practice of making at the thanksgiving in the Communion a special mention of the mercy commemorated upon the festival, seemed so reasonable to our Reformers, that they retained the proper prefaces for Christmas, Easter, Ascension-day, Whit Sunday, and Trinity Sunday. Some of these, however, they altered very materially.

Once again we are struck by Shepherd's celebration of the patristic roots of the Prayer Book: the Movement of 1833 was not required in order for Anglicans to recognise and take pride in this. 

The reference to the Reformers is also noteworthy. As Shepherd goes on to state, the Book of Common Prayer 1549 established the practice of five proper prefaces, for each of the great festivals: the Lord's Nativity, Resurrection, and Ascension, and for Whitsun and Trinity Sunday. This significantly reduced pre-Reformation provision:

out of the ten proper prefaces, that appear in the Missals, our Reformers retained those five, that were appointed for the five principal festivals of the year.

This reflected wider Reformation practice. As the Second Helvetic Confession declared:

if in Christian liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord's nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly.

The decision not to provide proper prefaces for saints' day thus reflected the robustly Christocentric nature of the Communion Office. When contrasted with the multiplicity of proper prefaces in contemporary Anglican rites  - Common Worship offers an utterly ridiculous choice of eight proper prefaces for feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary alone - it is surely difficult not to recognise the theological coherence and wisdom of the Prayer Book rite's five proper prefaces, focussing the congregation on the saving acts of God in Christ, culminating in the celebration of the Most Holy Trinity.

Also worth noting that, in a footnote, Shepherd refers to Good Friday, which has no proper preface:

Good Friday has no proper preface, and I presume for this reason: The whole office is a commemoration "of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits we receive thereby."

This, of course, indicates that a celebration of Holy Communion on Good Friday was assumed. Such following of the ancient practice of the Orthodox East, rather than the Latin West, has - as Shepherd words demonstrated - much to recommend it, despite contemporary Anglican assumptions. 

Finally, Shepherd returns to emphasising continuity with patristic practice, pointing to how observance of octaves is reflected in the rubrics directing the use of the proper preface for the week following the respective feasts (with the exception of Trinity Sunday):

In this regulation, as well as in other instances, the Church of England adheres very strictly to the practice of the ancient Christian Church, in which the high festivals had, what is termed Octaves. An Octave is either the eighth day after the festival, or the whole eight days after the festival, reckoning the festival itself the first day. The primitive Christians observed the eighth day after their principal feasts with great solemnity: and upon every day between the feast and the Octave, as well as on the Octave itself, they repeated some part of the service, which was performed upon the festival.

This rather neatly demonstrates how the Catholic and Reformed characteristics of the Prayer Book Holy Communion are complementary, cohering in service of the Christological centre. And all this, remember, in a period which the Oxford Movement would slander as devoid of serious sacramental, liturgical, and patristic thought.