'A special mention of the mercy commemorated upon the festival': the Proper Prefaces in Prayer Book Holy Communion

Discussing the proper prefaces of the Prayer Book Holy Communion, John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - notes the "great antiquity" of the practice and how the English Reformation appropriately retained such observance of the principal Christian feasts:

As the Church, at the celebration of the Eucharist, gave thanks for all mercies and blessings, so it peculiarly praised God for the mercy commemorated upon the festival, on which the Communion was celebrated. Hence is derived the origin of these proper or particular prefaces, with the custom of adding them to the general preface ... That they are of great antiquity is evident from their being mentioned by writers of the fourth century. The practice of making at the thanksgiving in the Communion a special mention of the mercy commemorated upon the festival, seemed so reasonable to our Reformers, that they retained the proper prefaces for Christmas, Easter, Ascension-day, Whit Sunday, and Trinity Sunday. Some of these, however, they altered very materially.

Once again we are struck by Shepherd's celebration of the patristic roots of the Prayer Book: the Movement of 1833 was not required in order for Anglicans to recognise and take pride in this.

The reference to the Reformers is also noteworthy. As Shepherd goes on to state, the Book of Common Prayer 1549 established the practice of five proper prefaces, for each of the great festivals: the Lord's Nativity, Resurrection, and Ascension, and for Whitsun and Trinity Sunday. This significantly reduced pre-Reformation provision:

out of the ten proper prefaces, that appear in the Missals, our Reformers retained those five, that were appointed for the five principal festivals of the year.

This reflected wider Reformation practice. As the Second Helvetic Confession declared:

if in Christian liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord's nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly.

The decision not to provide proper prefaces for saints' day thus reflected the robustly Christocentric nature of the Communion Office. When contrasted with the multiplicity of proper prefaces in contemporary Anglican rites - Common Worship offers an utterly ridiculous choice of eight proper prefaces for feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary alone - it is surely difficult not to recognise the theological coherence and wisdom of the Prayer Book rite's five proper prefaces, focussing the congregation on the saving acts of God in Christ, culminating in the celebration of the Most Holy Trinity.

Also worth noting that, in a footnote, Shepherd refers to Good Friday, which has no proper preface:

Good Friday has no proper preface, and I presume for this reason: The whole office is a commemoration "of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits we receive thereby."

This, of course, indicates that a celebration of Holy Communion on Good Friday was assumed. Such following of the ancient practice of the Orthodox East, rather than the Latin West, has - as Shepherd words demonstrated - much to recommend it, despite contemporary Anglican assumptions.

Finally, Shepherd returns to emphasising continuity with patristic practice, pointing to how observance of octaves is reflected in the rubrics directing the use of the proper preface for the week following the respective feasts (with the exception of Trinity Sunday):

In this regulation, as well as in other instances, the Church of England adheres very strictly to the practice of the ancient Christian Church, in which the high festivals had, what is termed Octaves. An Octave is either the eighth day after the festival, or the whole eight days after the festival, reckoning the festival itself the first day. The primitive Christians observed the eighth day after their principal feasts with great solemnity: and upon every day between the feast and the Octave, as well as on the Octave itself, they repeated some part of the service, which was performed upon the festival.

This rather neatly demonstrates how the Catholic and Reformed characteristics of the Prayer Book Holy Communion are complementary, cohering in service of the Christological centre. And all this, remember, in a period which the Oxford Movement would slander as devoid of serious sacramental, liturgical, and patristic thought.

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

Search This Blog