laudable Practice

In his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd strangely appears to have little to say about one of the glories of the Prayer Book Holy Communion, the Prayer of Humble Access. Indeed, the short paragraph below is the sum of his thoughts: This address, the priest kneeling down at the Lord's table, offers up in the name of all them that shall receive the Communion. In ancient Liturgies we meet with prayers resembling this. Thus in the Liturgy ascribed to James, "We come to this divine mystery, unworthy indeed, but relying on thy goodness." And again, "we trust not in our own righteousness, but in thy mercy." But in no form extant, can the humble and devout Christian so fully, as in this, express his sense of his own unworthiness, and pray the gracious Father of all mankind, to have compassion upon his infirmities, to relieve his necessities, and to fulfil his desires. It is a short but yet significant par...

Christopher Yoder's Covenant article on Prayer of Humble Access wonderfully summarises the rich theological vision at the heart of this prayer:  This, in the end, is where the Prayer of Humble Access leads: to union with Christ. This is the desideratum, the end that we seek, in coming to the Table of our merciful Lord. Or, perhaps it would be better - and more true to the spirit of Cranmer’s prayer - to say that this is why our Lord brings us to his banquet and bids us welcome at his Table: 'that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us'. What, however, of the placing of the Prayer of Humble Access in the Communion liturgy? Yoder suggests that it has had "something of a nomadic existence, moving from place to place in the liturgy". In recent times, yes. However, from 1552/1559 until the 20th century, there was nothing at all nomadic about the location of this prayer: over these centuries, for the vast majority of Anglicans and Episcopalians, it was placed after...