He begins by noting how this part of the Communion Office gives expression to an essential characteristic of the Sacrament, deeply rooted in apostolic and patristic piety:
This Sacrament is a feast of joy and thanksgiving. The Apostles partook of it "with gladness of heart, praising God." It was accompanied with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, the praises of God, as Ambrose has observed, constituting a great part of this office. On days of fasting, and humiliation, the primitive Christians did not communicate, and for this reason: they thought grief and tears unsuitable to the joy and gladness, which became those that partook of this heavenly banquet. Indeed praise and thanksgiving have always been considered as such an essential part of this office, that the office itself has been very generally denominated the Eucharist, that is, the sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise.
Reminding ourselves that Shepherd is writing in 1801, over three decades before the beginning of the Oxford Movement, we again see how this is evidence of the lively, vibrant sacramental piety found in the pre-1833 Church of England: not the cold memorialism ascribed to Hoadly, which the Tractarians considered as dominating 18th century Anglicanism, but the "feast of joy and thanksgiving ... this heavenly banquet". The self-serving, woefully inaccurate picture of the late Georgian Church promoted by later Tractarian writers, in which a warm, authentic sacramental piety was absent before the emergence of the Movement1833, is contradicted by Shepherd's words.
Shepherd goes on to point out how the Sursum Corda and preface is appropriately situated in the 1662 rite - after confession and absolution, before consecration and reception:
That we may celebrate this mystery with greater joy, and offer up our thanks with more ardent devotion, let us recollect that the part of the office chosen by our Church for the performance of these acts of praise and gratitude, is more proper than any other that could have been selected. We have confessed our sins, are loosed from their bonds, and have turned again unto the Lord. By the assurances of pardon just read to us from the Gospel, our faith is invigorated, and our hopes elevated; and we are approaching to the banquet of the most blessed body and blood of Christ.
Shepherd illustrates how this aspect of the ordering of the 1662 rite has a deep and profound logic, contrary to the assumptions and prejudices of 20th century liturgists. In almost all contemporary Anglican rites, the Sursum Corda stands apart from the rest of the rite in the eucharistic prayer, preceded by peace and offertory, far removed from the confession at the outset of the liturgy. The contrast with 1662 is stark. When 1662 calls us to 'Lift up your hearts', we do so immediately following the assurance of God's grace in Christ in the absolution and Comfortable Words: that is, we are called to lift up our hearts in response to God's act of redemption in Christ. In this way, we "celebrate this mystery with greater joy". By contrast, in contemporary rites, 'Lift up your hearts" follows upon our actions - our intercessions, sharing the peace, the placing of alms, bread and wine upon the Holy Table.
The 1662 placing of Sursum Corda and preface gives definitive expression to a much more robustly Christocentric understanding: God's act of redemption in Christ - this is why we lift up our hearts in thanksgiving unto God. To abandon this robustly Christocentric approach to the holy Sacrament, in favour of a supposedly more patristic structure of the liturgy, has been a grave loss which cannot but have had a negative influence on contemporary Anglican sacramental piety. There is nothing patristic about losing a Christocentric approach to the Eucharist.
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