Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
This first year at St. Thomas’s has been an extended exercise in comparative liturgics. The differences between the Book of Alternative Services (BAS 1983) and the Book of Common Prayer (BCP 1962) of the Anglican Church of Canada make for fascinating study, at least by people who like that sort of thing. As I’ve mentioned before, the BAS is a sort of “New and Improved” version of the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer (BCP 1979). They were approved only four years apart, after all, and the family resemblance is striking.
While there are some big differences that could be enumerated, it’s the little things that catch my attention. Take, for instance, the prayer at the beginning of the Palm Sunday liturgy, which inaugurates our Holy Week observances:
BCP 1979 (United States)
Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
BCP 1983 (Canada)
Assist us mercifully with your help, Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy into the celebration of those mighty acts whereby you give us life and immortality; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The main difference is that “contemplation” has been replaced with “celebration.” Here one can see a deliberate choice on the part of the Canadian liturgists to emphasize the active side of corporate prayer, and to use a word that naturally pairs with “joy.” (It also raises the question, to my mind at least, of what we mean when we say that we “celebrate” the Passion that is read on Palm Sunday, not to mention Good Friday.) I imagine “contemplation” was considered too passive and private a word to describe what we are supposed to be doing in Holy Week.
But—aside from dropping the old-fashioned vocative “O”—the real subtlety is in the verb tense: “whereby you have given us life and immortality” versus “whereby you give us life and immortality.” At first glance, this may appear to be a distinction without a difference. But I think the difference is between what it means to engage in the contemplation of past events versus participation in a present reality.
So one might express it this way (don’t worry, we will stick with the given language in our liturgies): We ask for God’s help that we may enter with joy into our participation in those mighty acts whereby God has given and continues to give us life and immortality.
Whichever way one parses this prayer, I believe its purpose is not only to petition God’s help, but to make an implied promise: That if we enter with joy and intentionality into the mysteries of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we will find new and eternal life. In short: Holy Week will transform us.
So that’s the promise I would like to make to you: Whether online or in person, if you enter into our liturgies with a sense of participation and receptivity, God will use Holy Week to change your life, forever. And God will do that again in a new way next Holy Week, provided you approach the celebration and contemplation of those mighty acts with an open mind and an open heart next year, as well.
Holy Week is the most powerfully life-changing, transforming, and converting week in the Christian year, if we allow it to work in us that grace that God wants to work through the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. In the most intense, intimate, and unsentimental way imaginable, we are invited to share in Christ’s suffering and death so that we may have some share in his resurrection life in the here and now, as a foretaste of that unending life in him that Jesus promises us.
This is something to get excited about, or at least it should fill us with great anticipation, even if we’re not the excitable sort. Whatever else you may be planning on doing between April 10th and April 17th, if you can arrange your life so that you are with us, either virtually or (circumstances permitting) in person, you will not regret it.
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector
The Ritual ‘Reason Why’
I have a shelfful of liturgical manuals. They are full of opinions on how to execute beautiful and meaningful liturgies. My favourite title on that shelf is a battered old copy of The Ritual ‘Reason Why’. First published in 1866 at the dawn of ritualism within the Anglo-Catholic movement, I have the “New and Revised Edition” of 1919. From time to time, I shall provide a ritual reason why I do what I do, particularly if I realize that it raises questions.
You may have noticed that in Lent the form of confession appointed for use at the High Mass has been different from the usual one found in the Communion service in the BCP. It is taken instead from the form appointed for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the same book. The reason I decided to do this is that I hoped it would catch our attention, that it might make us contemplate what exactly we think we are doing when we confess our sins corporately. It also occurred to me that the majority of Anglicans no longer encounter the confession appointed for use at the Daily Office, even if they are in the habit of praying Morning Prayer and/or Evening Prayer regularly, because it is often omitted. And those of us for whom the Office is not a part of personal devotional life won’t have encountered it at all, at least not in action.
But the prayer itself is a particularly powerful one, with some of the most poetic language in the prayer book: “erred and strayed thy ways like lost sheep…followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” We confess things done and undone. And, in the throes of a pandemic, we admit that “there is no health in us” and that we are “miserable offenders.” With regard to those last two phrases in particular, I want people to get hung up on those words, perhaps even be offended by them. They are omitted in the traditional language version of the Daily Office in the BCP 1979 (cf. 41-42 & 62-63) and are nowhere to be found in the BAS 1983. Is it because these are overstatements? We have some health in us, don’t we? Or is it because such language is no longer “relevant” to contemporary Christians? (Who wants to be miserable, let alone an offender? We’re not that bad, are we? We can think of some people who are, but surely those words could never apply to us, right?)
For five Sundays a year, in the context of High Mass, I hope that we will all contemplate what it is we are doing and why. Not that we don’t do that on the other forty-seven Sundays (sometimes forty-eight, in a leap year). But I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who hasn’t, from time to time, rattled off the General Confession and received Absolution and given it nary a thought.
I recognize I’m on thin ice with a particular liturgical sensibility, which I respect, regarding the integrity of rites as they have been handed down to us. When it comes to the Low Mass, at least, I do everything by the book—except I maintain the changes already in place upon my arrival. I’d be happy to do it strictly by the book. But I have no idea what apple cart I might be overturning.
All of this is to say that the BCP and the wider Anglican tradition contains great riches, some of which have not been taken out of the treasure house for a while. You may have also noted that there is no blessing at the end of Mass, but that it has been replaced by a benediction. This is taken from the final words of “A Penitential Service” in the Canadian BCP 1962 (cf. pp. 611-615).
Ultimately, the real ritual “reason why” behind everything is the notion that what we do in corporate worship is meant not to point to itself, but to God’s action in Christ Jesus. Since we don’t (I hope) come to church to worship the worship, but rather to worship God, I do hope I can be pardoned for occasionally doing things that catch our collective attention. My intention is not to distract or annoy (though these are always risks), but to point beyond what we are doing to the reality of the mystery to which all liturgy and music points, and in which, at its best, all of our worship participates: the paschal mystery.
As always, I invite your rebuttals and refinements to my thinking. I am teachable. I’m even reformable, believe it or not. I try to demonstrate through these little written items that you can talk to me about anything that’s on your mind, even if it’s a difficult conversation, because I’d much rather know what you think and feel—and consequently get to know you in all your wonderful and horrible particularity—rather than be left in the dark. And woe to me if I cause anyone to stumble! While I will make myself unavailable to be abused, I assume that people intend to act in good faith and have the common good in mind. In this spirit, I offer myself to you, knowing that you will also encounter me in all my wonderful and horrible particularity. But I hope that together we will learn what it means to speak the truth in love and live in authentic community. At least, it’s worth trying, with God’s help, don’t you think?