'Before our eyes': how the epiclesis coheres with Reformed eucharistic theology

It is very rare indeed to find a secular newspaper carrying discussion of the epiclesis.  It was, however, a feature of recent coverage of the covenant between the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama and the Cathedral Church of the Advent.  One report quoted the former dean explaining his decision to leave TEC for ACNA:

Pearson’s views on liturgy rankled the diocesan headquarters. He was particular about the prayers said during communion, such as an epiclesis, a prayer calling on the Holy Spirit to consecrate the bread and wine used in the Eucharist.

"Most of the Anglican Communion does not have this thing called an epiclesis," Pearson said. "... So, we were simply conforming to a tradition that the majority of the Anglican Communion observes."

Another report referred back to a 2016 article by the former dean in The Living Church:

In our context, we have elected to use the eucharistic prayer from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which has no epiclesis. As a congregation that identifies itself as Protestant and evangelical, this was a welcome change, a change that places our congregation with the majority of Anglican Communion.

To describe this view as odd is something of an understatement.  To be clear, as one who deeply appreciates and values 1662, I do not view an invocation of the Holy Spirit to be in any way necessary in the Eucharist.  What is more, the Church of Ireland's 2004 rite includes only a very mild invocation of the Holy Spirit: "grant that by the power of your life-giving Spirit that we may be ... partakers of the body and blood of your Son".  'Not necessary', however, is rather different from claiming that such an invocation is unknown to "the majority of the Anglican Communion" and that it does not cohere with a Protestant view of the Sacrament.

From 1789, of course, an invocation of the Holy Spirit was part of the PECUSA liturgy for the Holy Communion, maintained in 1928.  This certainly contributes to a sense of oddness in a formerly Episcopalian cleric suggesting that such an invocation is somehow un-Anglican.  This might surprise, for example, the Anglican Church of Nigeria, the Communion's largest province.  Its Eucharistic Prayer 1 states:

grant that by the power of Your Holy Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us His Body and Blood.

Nor should we overlook ACNA's BCP 2019:

Sanctify [these gifts] by your Word and Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ.

Put simply, to say that "the majority of the Anglican Communion" does not have an invocation of the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic liturgy is grossly inaccurate.  

Of course, we might suggest that the former dean is onto something when we compare TEC's 1789/1928 invocation with the form of the invocation in 1979.  1789/1928, as Drew Keane has noted, "steers nearer" to 1662 rather than the non-juring Scottish liturgy:

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us; and, of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine; that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.

In 1979, however, there was a move to the language of the 1549 and 1637 rites:

Sanctify [these gifts] by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son.

Was this, then, a move away from a Protestant view of the Sacrament? Was it a move from what was essentially an invocation for faithful reception (after 1662) to a less Reformed understanding of the Lord's presence in the Sacrament? If so, the former dean might be regarded as correct in his suggestion that the invocation is incompatible with Protestant eucharistic teaching.

But no, this is not the case.  The 1979 form can easily be interpreted as conforming to Reformed sacramental doctrine.  This is precisely how Cranmer interpreted the 1549's invocation "that they may be unto us":

and the bread and wine be made unto us the body and blood of Christ, (as it is in the Book of Common Prayer,) but not by changing of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's natural body and blood, but that in the godly using of them they be unto the receivers Christ's body and blood ... And therefore in the Book of the holy communion, we do not pray absolutely that the bread and wine may be made the body and blood of Christ, but that unto us in that holy mystery they may be so; that is to say, that we may so worthily receive the same, that we may be partakers of Christ's body and blood, and that therewith in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished.

Laud interpreted the 1637 rite's wording in the same manner:

that these elements might be, to us worthy receivers, the blessed Body and Blood of our Saviour ... it implies clearly, that they are to us, but are not Transubstantiated in themselves, into the Body and Blood of Christ, nor that there is any Corporal Presence, in, or under the Elements ... For as the Elements after the Benediction, or Consecration, are, and may be called, the Body and Blood of Christ, without any addition, in that real and true Sense in which they are so called in Scripture: So, when they are said to become the Body and the Blood of Christ, nobis, to us that Communicate as we ought; there is by this addition, fiant nobis, an allay in the proper signification of the Body and Blood: And the true Sense, so well signified and expressed, that the words cannot well be understood otherwise, than to imply not the Corporal Substance, but the Real, and yet the Spiritual use of them.

To petition that the bread and wine "may be unto us" the Lord's Body and Blood - as in 1979 - is hardly incompatible with a Reformed sacramental understanding.  In the words of Calvin:

Now, if it be asked whether the bread is the body of Christ and the wine his blood, we answer, that the bread and the wine are visible signs, which represent to us the body and blood, but that this name and title of body and blood is given to them because they are as it were instruments by which the Lord distributes them to us. This form and manner of speaking is very appropriate.

Indeed, we might also suggest that it coheres with Zwingli:

When the sight sees the bread and the cup which in place of Christ signify His goodness and inherent character, does it not also aid faith? For it sees Christ, as it were, before the eyes, as the heart, kindled by His beauty, languishes for Him. The touch takes the bread into its hands - the bread which is no longer bread but Christ by representation.

The issue, then, is not 1979's invocation, for it is consistent with Reformed eucharistic teaching.  The problem, rather, is a failure to recognise the richness and depth of Reformed eucharistic teaching.  Or, as Jewel declared:

We affirm that bread and wine are holy and heavenly mysteries of the body and blood of Christ, and that by them Christ Himself, being the true bread of eternal life, is so presently given unto us as that by faith we verily receive his body and his blood ... we mean not to abase the Lord's Supper, that it is but a cold ceremony only, and nothing to be wrought therein (as many falsely slander us we teach). For we affirm, that Christ doth truly and presently give His own self in His Sacrament.

What might be at work in the rejection of the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic prayer is an elision of 'Protestant' and 'evangelical', as seen in the former dean's The Living Church article.  This is to overlook the significant difference between John Jewel and Billy Graham, between the Reformed Catholicism of Magisterial Protestantism with its rich sacramental theology and piety, and the 19th century's para-church revivalism, in which sacraments were indeed but 'cold ceremonies'.  Invoking the Holy Spirit that the bread and wine of the Supper 'may be to us' the Lord's Body and Blood may not be 'evangelical', but it certainly coheres with Magisterial Protestant eucharistic theology. As Jewel says of the bread and wine in the Supper of the Lord, "that by them He might set before our eyes the mysteries of our salvation ... wherein is set, as it were, before our eyes, the death of Christ and His resurrection".

(The photograph is of the Holy Table in the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Birmingham, Alabama.)