ON ADOPTING THE OLD NEW PRAYER BOOK

Photo by Victor Gan.

A new if ill-defined wave of liturgical reform is upon us in The Episcopal Church, heralded by the curious resolution of the 2018 General Convention that sought to draw a variety of threads together in an unwieldy whole: appreciation of the 1979 Book and its normative character not least, and then also openness to the movement for additional liturgical texts that may better reflect the reality and the aspirations of the Church for inclusion and diversity. 

There are however some curious silences in this complex conversation. Little has been said about liturgy itself in the stricter sense; that is, about rites. There is considerable interest in the words that accompany the rites of course, and in some respects these are fundamental (“ritual” in older liturgy-speak did mean exactly this, the text of the Mass etc.). Yet the advances of the BCP of 1979 were only partly verbal. That BCP was and is so important because via words but also structures, and via even its rubrics and explanatory texts, the Book introduced some radical ideas about liturgy which depended only partly on the texts themselves. These included a renewed emphasis on the Bible, a sharpened eucharistic sensibility with emphasis on acts of offering and fraction, and overall a new sense of the work of liturgy as belonging to the whole people of God. 

The present lack of interest in ritual structure or the forms and relationships of rites could in part be a good thing; one could see the generation of new texts as a further effort, like the Enriching our Worship series (itself now quite venerable), to enhance the use of the contemporary rites in the BCP rather than replacing them, and perhaps therefore implying a satisfaction with those basic structures. Even some recent liturgical disasters performed under episcopal authority, which played with texts in a way that showed disdain for the BCP verbally speaking (such as by using non-biblical readings for lessons) or simply incompetence in its use, were still fundamentally conservative as to structure. 

However a glance around the Church suggests this is not the whole story. Not long ago I was at a professedly middle of the road parish where, if the sound had been turned down, only the use of cassock-albs and the prominence of ordained women could have revealed we were using the current rather than the 1928 Book. In fact there are many places where the Book is mistaken for its texts, and its substance otherwise ignored in ritual. Perhaps we have not actually adopted the “new” book yet? 

Readers may care to do some self-assessment along these lines: 

Are the readings at the Sunday Eucharist actually those - all those - of the lectionary, or do they still use two? The 1979 Book ushered in the new ecumenical forms of lectionary (since further adapted) but the three readings are at its heart. There is room to discuss occasions when not all three need be used, but if you use two as a norm, this the old Prayer Book, not the new. 

Do the Prayers of the People only use one of the set forms, and are the local additions just those from a sick list? This is still basically 1928, with some added options. The 1979 Book offers an open invitation to new local forms which is rarely taken up — curiously enough, in a Church supposedly clamoring for new texts. 

Is there an offertory in the sense the Prayer Book envisages, with all the gifts brought forward as the people stand — or do the eucharistic bread and wine just appear somehow, before everyone stands to sing the doxology when money offerings come forward? There are variations on this theme, but it’s a discomforting “money talks” moment when the 1928 pattern prevails, against the rubrics and against the theology of offering of the 1979 Book. 

Does the eucharistic prayer form a single whole in which the whole community joins, or do congregants drop to their knees after the Sanctus for a “prayer of consecration” that was a separate element in 1928 but no longer exists? 

Does the presiding priest break the bread in silence as clearly required, or talk over the fraction? This isn’t really a 1928 issue because the fraction was not a separate action, but it is a 1979 one; the framers of the Book clearly intend to use silence at this point to emphasize action, not words. However we are a bit text-fixated, aren’t we. 

Do clergy wait to receive communion until the invitation has been made to the whole congregation, or do they get backstage altar passes and communicate before they’re supposed to? You know who you are. This early-access approach for the sanctuary party is a 1928 hangover too, in that the old book didn’t have either a fraction or invitation, and so clergy received straight after the consecration. This however is clearly against the rubric too. 

Does the prayer after communion get called a “prayer of thanksgiving”? This isn’t strictly 1928 terminology, but it was widespread once; the reason it’s deeply contrary to the 1979 book is because the idea of “thanksgiving” has now been so clearly applied to the Eucharistic prayers themselves. It suggests the theology of the 1979 Eucharist itself hasn’t been adopted. 

Last but not least, another clergy privilege issue; does your sanctuary party think it can process out before anyone has been dismissed? Probably. Why? Because they’re not really using the 1979 book. The jollity of singing on the way out of Church seems to have made numerous clergy lose the plot here. This again is a 1928 issue, because people expected to process after the blessing, given that was the end of the liturgy. The end of the liturgy in 1979 however doesn’t require a blessing, but does expect a dismissal. And if - as we have been saying for years - the clergy are part of the laos, they don’t get to skip out early. If you really need to sing after that go ahead, but the hymns are not strictly part of the liturgy and you don’t need words after them.  

So while there are important conversations to be had about texts, there is unfinished business about rites in The Episcopal Church that is just as fundamental. This is also important to issues of inclusion and diversity, surprising as that may seem. Clinging to the ritual structures of 1928 is an identity issue, and maintaining certain coded practices that rub against the grain of the 1979 Book is a form of conservatism that has political significance and excludes newcomers and converts. It involves both clericalism but also issues of tribal identity at congregational level. 

The Eucharist of the 1979 Book was intended to reveal and form a sense of the whole people of God formed in baptism and united in thanksgiving. Its invitation remains open, and need not be at war with the possibility of new texts as well as old. Yet whether we are enthusiasts for the new textual possibilities or hesitant about them, the current Book still invites us to accept its gifts. Perhaps we should one day actually adopt it.