Approaching All Hallows: Old High Church piety and the Communion of Saints (2)

If we wanted to point to one particular part of the classical Prayer Book liturgy which encapsulated the quiet reverence and reserve of the Old High Church tradition's understanding of the Communion of Saints, perhaps it would be the thanksgiving which concludes the Prayer for the Church Militant in the Communion Office:

And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.

It is, of course, less fulsome than that in 1549 or the 1637 Scottish rite, but Wheatly describes it as retaining "the substance of the thanksgiving" for the Communion of Saints.  Comber likewise refers to it as "the eucharistical prayer ... praising God for such of them as are departed in the faith and fear of God".  In Wheatly there are hints of regret at the loss of 1549's explicit reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary, "the holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs": "a larger thanksgiving for the examples of the Saints. than what we now use".  There is, however, also something gained: a quiet acknowledgement that the Communion of Saints embraces a great and numberless multitude of the very ordinary, some of whom we have known but who now rejoice "upon another shore and in a greater light".  This thanksgiving, then, also embraces those whose memorials surround us in the parish church, whose headstones we pass in the church yard.  With them, and not just the great Saints, we are "knit together in one communion and fellowship".

Having given thanks for them, at the Sanctus we share in their praise of the Holy Trinity. This is a moment of high praise, when we draw near to Sion:

ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.

As Sparrow states:

And in this hymn we hold communion with the Church triumphant.

Wheatly echoes this:

Communicants with the church triumphant; and all of us apprehending ourselves, by faith, the midst of that blessed society; we join with them in singing forth the praises of the most high God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

This also has significance for Eucharistic doctrine, for in the Sacrament our participation in Christ is of the same quality, albeit through the signs of bread and wine, as the participation of the Saints in glory in that "Lamb as it had been slain".  The post-Communion prayers reflect how our heavenly feeding upon the Lord in the Sacrament is in the company of the Saints in heaven. With "all thy whole Church", we give thanks for the benefits of the Lord's atoning sacrifice, with the "whole" echoing the "whole company of heaven" at the Sanctus.  We give thanks that "we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people": again, the use of "company" and "all" echoes the introduction to the Sanctus. 

As such, it is appropriate that the post-Communion prayers are followed by the Gloria, in which - as Sparrow puts it - "the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy does admirably imitate the Heavenly".  For Comber, the Gloria is an "imitation of those celestial hymns recorded in the Revelation" 5:13 and 7:12, while Bennett notes that it echoes the song of the triumphant Saints in Revelation 15:4, "for thou only art holy".  In the Sacrament, we have been brought with the Saints in glory before the Lamb and so we share in their celestial praises of Him.

In Old High Church piety, then, the Eucharistic rite is shot through with a lively conviction that our heavenly feeding upon Christ is in the company of the Saints who now gaze upon face to face, and thus an anticipation of us being "with them ... partakers of thy heavenly glory": "and they shall see his face". The quiet reverence and reserve with which the Communion of Saints is referenced in the rite rather beautifully exemplifies how the Communion of Saints is gathered around the Lamb, with all praise ordered to Him.  In the words of Comber:

And this is the reason, why we exalt him so highly, and pass by the mediation of saints and angels; because none is so holy, none so mighty, none so high in the favour of God, nor none so gracious and loving to us, as Jesus is.

(Unless otherwise indicated, quotes are from Mant's use of High Church divines in his Notes, 1825.)