laudable Practice

Heare us (O merciful father) we besech thee; and with thy holy spirite and worde, vouchsafe to blesse and sanctifie these thy gyftes, and creatures of bread and wyne, that they maie be unto us the bodye and bloude of thy moste derely beloved sonne Jesus Christe. This invocation from BCP 1549 provided another opportunity for Gardiner to mischievously use the text of Cranmer's liturgy to argue against its author's eucharistic theology. According to Gardiner: The body of Christ is by God's omnipotency, who so worketh in his word, made present unto us at such time as the Church prayeth it may please him so to do, which prayer is ordered to be made in the Book of Common Prayer now set forth. Wherein we require of God the creatures of bread and wine to be sanctified, and to be to us the body and blood of Christ, which they cannot be, unless God worketh it, and make them so to be ... by the conversion of the substance of bread into his precious body. One can imagine Cranmer's...

In his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd places the 1662 words of administration in the context of patristic usage: In the primitive Church the Priest pronounced these words, "The Body of Christ, or the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ," and the communicant answered "Amen." Afterwards the priests said, " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul unto eternal life," as appears from the Sacramentary of Gregory. The latter was, of course, preserved in the first reformed English liturgy of 1549, as Shepherd notes: The forms in Edward's first book, were "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." And when the cup was presented, "The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life."  Once again, Shepherd - decades before 1833 - understands th...

... what to me is the clearest and most moving of all Anglican invocations. So said Roger Scruton, in his Our Church , of the Prayer for the Church Militant. Scruton's words echo those of John Shepherd in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801): Prayers to the same effect were offered in the primitive Church at the celebration of the Eucharist, and occur in ancient, and modern Liturgies; but a form of superior, or even equal excellence to this, is nowhere to be found.  Contrary to most contemporary Anglican liturgies, both Shepherd and Scruton rightly recognise the power and beauty of the Prayer for the Church Militant. Contemporary liturgies usually contain mere outlines of intercession, entirely subject to the vagaries of those leading the intercessions. By contrast, the Prayer for the Church Militant offers a memorable, theologically rich, intercession, rooted in a robustly apostolic vision of ecclesial vision (indicated in the op...

Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here in earth. In his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd hints at a relationship between the offertory and the distinctly Reformed introduction to the Prayer for the Church Militant. The stuff of the offertory - alms, bread, wine - is for the living. So too our prayers are for "Christ's Church militant here in earth": After the offertory is said, and the oblations of bread and wine, with the alms for the poor are placed upon the table, the minister addresses this exhortation to the people: 'Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here in earth'. The latter part of this sentence is wanting in Edward's first book. The words 'militant here in earth', which were designed expressly to exclude prayer for the dead, were inserted in the second book, in which that part of this prayer which contained intercessio...

There is no concept of "consecration" anywhere in the service at all. The only "moment" is reception—and the only point where the bread and wine signify the body and blood is at reception. If a point of "consecration" has to be sought - then it is at reception. This, of course, is the famous and influential judgement of Colin Buchanan in What Did Cranmer Think He Was Doing? It is, perhaps, no surprise that laudable Practice rather firmly rejects Buchanan's interpretation. Cranmer, after all, did have a theology of consecration, as set out quite clearly in his Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ (1550): Consecration is the separation of any thing from a profane and worldly use unto a spiritual and godly use. And therefore when usual and common water is taken from other uses, and put to the use of baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, then it may rightly be c...