Common Prayer, stability, and the approach of Advent

It may take us years of reading the text, of letting it marinate in our memories, to bring us to the pivotal insight that leads us to pursue anew wisdom. That’s why we listen to the same Scriptures, pray the same collects, listen to the same eucharistic prayer year after year after year.

Words from Timothy P. O'Malley's recent Covenant post 'Reading Contemplatively'.

It is suggestive of a defining characteristic - and one of the most fundamental strengths - of the Prayer Book tradition: unchanging texts.  Contemporary Anglican liturgy, by contrast, embodies 'choice', the premier virtue of the contemporary social and economic order.  'Choice' has been a leading cause of the undermining of cultural, economic, and social common ground, the fracturing of common life, a fracturing which the Churches have often lamented.

We are about to enter the season of Advent.  The CofE's Times and Seasons provisions for Advent give us 3 different introductions to a confession, 3 different Kyrie confessions, 2 forms of seasonal intercessions, 4 introductions to the Peace, 3 Prayers at the Preparation of the Table, 7 Proper Prefaces, 5 Blessings, 2 dismissals, and - just for good measure - an alternative dismissal for use on Advent Sunday.  To which must be added, of course, the choice of 8 Eucharistic Prayers in Common Worship.

And it doesn't end there.  Common Worship also provides a choice of 2 contemporary language collects for each Sunday of Advent.  But why stop at a choice of 2?  Enter the Church of Ireland, now offering a different alternative 'collect of the Word' (supposedly linked to the readings of the day) for Years A, B, and C.  This includes Advent Sunday because, obviously, there are much better collects out there than that written by Cranmer.  Although, admittedly, one might not have immediately thought of looking at the Book of Common Worship 1993 of the Presbyterian Church USA, the source of the alternative Year C Advent Sunday collect.

When it comes to the Daily Office, Common Worship Daily Prayer, offers seasonal Morning and Evening Prayer - "with multitude of Responds, Verses" - which alters its normal provision (which itself changes daily in 'ordinary time').  It terms of the collect, again a choice is offered: the traditional collect of the day, the collect of the week, of an alternative seasonal collect.

As can be seen, the embodying of 'choice' in contemporary Anglican liturgy fractures any recognisable, meaningful understanding of Common Prayer.  When the Daily Office is said in Advent according to the Prayer Book tradition, all texts remained unchanged with the exception of Benedicite normally replacing Te Deum on weekdays.  The seasonal collect follows that of the week, unchanging year from year.  The pattern of Old and New Testament lections continues, as does the monthly Psalter.  The Creed follows the second canticle, as always, and the collects at Mattins and Evensong similarly continue.

At the Holy Communion there are no seasonal options, ensuring that attention is not distracted from the Advent themes presented in collects and readings and that the unchanging texts of the rite are not disrupted.  Additionally, the one year traditional Eucharistic lectionary provides for a yearly meditation on key Scriptural passages defining the Advent hope, each year drawing us deeper into the texts.

In other words, Common Prayer - the Prayer Book tradition - provides a pattern of, in O'Malley's words, "contemplative reading within our parishes", a "marinating in divine wisdom".  Against this, the fracturing of common prayer, disoriented by 'choice', results in a liturgy which reflects the hectic commercial activity and demands of December and its disordering of common life.

O'Malley urges, "the task ahead is then to invite women and men to learn once more to read contemplatively", if we are to be those "reading existence as infused with glory, with a meaning bestowed by the logos, or Word of God". Advent brings a particular focus to the task, of the need to be more fully alert to the signs of the times and prepared to encounter the "sign" given unto us at Christmas.  Our need, then, of Common Prayer, the stability of its unchanging texts, and the contemplative reading into which it draws us becomes even clearer with the approach of the dawn of Advent.