'We are now passing to the Eucharistic part of the service': The first versicles at Matins and Evensong

As we continue to read through John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we come to the versicles and responses after the Confession, Absolution, and first Lord's Prayer. Leaving aside the Gloria Patri for consideration next week, what is striking about Shepherd's treatment of these versicles is his explicit recognition of their eucharistic character.

This points to an important aspect of Sunday Matins as a main liturgy (as, of course, was the case for most of Anglican history). Prayer Book Matins and Evensong have a deeply eucharistic character, ensuring that both thanksgiving and anamnesis can be a significant part of Anglican liturgy where Matins was - and is - the normative Sunday liturgy.

These four Versicles, which we find in the most ancient Liturgies, are selected from that excellent repository of devotion, the Book of Psalms. The introduction of them here, after the Confession, Absolution, and Lord's Prayer; and before Gloria Patri and the Psalms, appointed for the day, is a most wise regulation of the Church. They are intended to connect the preceding penitential part of the service, to which they properly belong, with the Eucharistic part which immediately follows ...

The first, that is, the penitential part of the service being completed, we proceed to the Eucharistic; or "to render thanks to God, for the great benefits that we have received at his hands," and by repeating a portion of the book of psalms "to set forth his most worthy praise" ...

To the question, Why Alleluia [i.e. 'Praise ye the Lord'] is placed here, we reply, that, as the words "let us pray," are ofttimes premised to excite attention to the prayer ensuing, or to intimate a transition from one mode of prayer to another; so "praise ye the Lord" is an indication, that we are now passing, from the penitential to the Eucharistic part of the service.

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