Instructed Eucharist

Editors Note: You are welcome to use this script for an instructed Eucharist, but we would appreciate it if you would sign in the comments section (at the bottom of this posting, just click) telling us how you used it, where you are from, and how it worked for you. Any suggested modifications would be most appreciated.

This script for an instructed Eucharist was written by the people, clergy and staff of All Souls Episcopal Parish, Berkeley, Calif., the Rev. Canon Grant S. Carey, Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, Calif. and the Rev. James Richardson, priest-in-charge at the Church of the Incarnation in Santa Rosa, Calif., and former rector of St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville, Virginia. The script has been updated several times. Feel free to post suggestions.

You are free to use this script, but please give proper credit when using. AND please sign at the bottom of this posting to let us know you used it.

Blessings!

NARRATOR I: Today we are doing something out of the ordinary. Tonight in our worship service, which is called “the liturgy,” we are going to pause and explain what we are doing and why we do it the way we do it. The word “liturgy” means “the work of the people,” so please consider this teaching exercise as the work we will all be doing together. We are going to give you a tour of the liturgy, pausing at key moments to explain. Consider this the Interstate tour of our liturgy. We will be going fast, and we will be getting off at several off-ramps – not all of them – but enough of them to look around a bit before we get back on the highway. I will remain to answer any questions.

So settle back, and enjoy the ride.

MUSICIAN: The first act of our worship is the gathering of the people at prayer. In fact, the word “church” means “the gathering.” And we gather in a special way, through music. The procession also reminds us that the people of God, through time and history, are moving toward God's Kingdom – following the Cross of Christ – and bringing the Light of the Gospel into all the world.

NARRATOR II: We bring to our worship our whole being. We pray not just with words, but with our every sense. We pray silently and we pray out loud, and we pray through music. We pray with our bodies through our stances of sitting, standing and kneeling. We pray by sight through the visual symbols that surround us. And we pray even with our sense of taste and smell through the bread and wine we will soon share.

So we begin by standing as a sign of respect, and standing is the best way to sing. And so let us gather as we sing…

OPENING HYMN

NARRATOR I: For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have come together Sunday after Sunday, and often during the week. They have come to offer themselves to God and to communicate with God in a very special way. We call this our “Holy Eucharist,” and Eucharist is a Greek word for “Thanksgiving.” Eucharist is only one name for this service.

In the Greek Church it is called the Divine Liturgy which refers to God's people worshipping together. Sometimes it is called the Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, and sometimes the Mass. But whatever name we call it, our Sunday Eucharist is the centerpiece of our worship and life together as a faith community.

Here in the Episcopal Church, our liturgy comes from the Book of Common Prayer. The first English prayer book was written in 1549 by Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury. The prayer book has undergone numerous revisions. The first American Book of Common Prayer was written in the 19th century, and the last full revision was in 1979, and our liturgy today is based on that book.

NARRATOR II: There are two halves to the Eucharist which we should keep in mind as we experience our worship together. The first is “the Liturgy of the Word,” sometimes called the Ante-Communion (“ante” means “before”). The “Liturgy of the Word” includes several parts: (1) the opening prayers, which come from the Book of Common Prayer, (2) lessons from the Old and New Testaments appointed for the day, (3) the sermon, (4) the Church's statement of faith, the Nicene Creed, and (5) the intercessions or the prayers of the people.

The second half of the liturgy is called the “Great Thanksgiving,” during which the fruits of our labor, and the bread and wine are offered, consecrated or set apart, and then received by God's people with thanksgiving. It is the heart and culmination of our worship. We will talk more about that a little later. For now, we proceed into the Liturgy of the Word:

OPENING COLLECTS; GLORIA; COLLECT OF THE DAY

ALTAR GUILD DIRECTOR: The clergy, acolytes and choir members wear vestments. In the Episcopal Church, there are no such things as “robes.” Rather, all of the vestments have names. Vestments remind us that the Church belongs to no particular time or place because it is both universal (in all places) and historic, (belonging to no specific time). It also keeps us from paying undue attention to what people are wearing, whether their clothing is new or old, the latest style or out of date.

You will also notice that today we are using the color [COLOR]. We have colors that mark each church season. In Advent, we use blue or purple. Epiphany is white or green. Lent is purple. Holy Week is marked by red, the color used for martyrs and Pentecost, the time of the Holy Spirit. In Easter, we use white. In the long season after Pentecost, called "Ordinary Time," we use green.  Again, think of this as praying with all of our senses, including with our eyes.

The Altar guild also prepares all of the chalices, containing the wine of Communion, and the plates – called “patens” – and other utensils that will be used in our liturgy. The Altar Guild does a myriad of other tasks, including preparing the bread and wine for our use. And, by the way, we can always use new members of the Altar Guild, both women and men.

NARRATOR II: Next we hear lessons from the Bible, but I’d like you to transport yourself back in time for a moment. Before the time of Jesus, before the time of Moses, before the Bible, before written word, the people of God sat around the campfire, shared a meal, and they told The Story – they told The Story of how God, or “the Great Power,” saved their ancestors and brought them out of crisis and calamity and saved them, brining them into new life. What we do next is an echo of that very ancient human endeavor – we are sitting around the campfire – the candlesticks – and we are about to share a meal, our Eucharist, and hear the ancient story of our ancestors and how God saved them. Those stories were recorded by the Jewish people in what we now call the Bible, or Holy Scriptures. The word “Bible” comes from the middle English word that means “book.”

LECTOR: We will hear four passages from the Bible. The passages are assigned for each Sunday in a three-year rotating cycle called the “Revised Common Lectionary.” We hear the same biblical passages that are read this morning in other Episcopal churches, and in Lutheran, Roman Catholic and other churches as well. Hearing the same passages is part of our connection, or communion, with those other people in other places. We are currently in the third year of the cycle – “Year C.” Each year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which is usually around the first of December.

First we will hear a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, which Christians call the “Old Testament.” We will also hear a psalm, or a canticle which is usually an adaptation of an Old Testament song of praise. We then hear from one of the New Testament letters. The New Testament was written in Greek, which was the common language of the Roman Empire at the time it was written.

At the end of each lesson, the reader will declare: “The Word of the Lord,” By saying “word” we do not mean that God wrote the words, but that these sacred texts reflect the mind of God, or in Greek, “Logos.” Another common ending for the lesson is “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” – that is a biblical phrase taken from the Revelation of John, the last book in the Bible. Our reply is “Thanks be to God.” And the fourth lesson is from the gospel.

THE LESSONS

DEACON: The gospel is a Greek word meaning “good news” and that is the title given to the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the biographies of the life of Jesus. The Gospel lesson is always read by a member of the clergy, and if possible, it is read by a deacon, as a sign of respect for the Gospel. On special occasions, the Gospel may be sung or chanted.

On most Sundays, there is a Gospel procession into the center of the congregation, signifying that the Gospel is at the center of our life as a faith community. The Gospel Procession is led by a cross and candles. Wherever we are seated in the church, it is appropriate for us to stand up and turn to face the Gospel book and reader as a sign of respect.

GOSPEL PROCESSION

DEACON: Our gospel procession echoes the Jewish practice of carrying the Torah – the scrolls containing the Law – into the congregation.

The Gospel Procession does one more thing – it reminds us that we are to carry the Good News of Jesus Christ into all the world.

Making the Sign of the Cross with your thumb on the forehead, mouth and chest at this time asks God's blessing “in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.” This way of making the sign of the cross is one of the earliest known symbols of the Church, dating from the Second century.

THE GOSPEL READING

SERMON

NICENE CREED

DEACON: Following the sermon, we take a few moments of silence to let the words dwell with us. Then we recite together the Nicene Creed, which was written in the fourth century to state the Church's Trinitarian belief in God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was written as a loyalty oath for bishops, but has since evolved into a central part of our worship.

The Creed expresses the faith of the whole Church in all times and places. Although the meaning of some of the phrases are not clear, think of the Creed as a prayer that you share with everyone today who is reciting this creed in their church. And think of it as a prayer you share with everyone who has gone before us who will recited this, and everyone who will come after us. The Creed is part of our communion with all Christians in all times and places.

Some people make the sign of the cross at the end of the creed to remind us that at our baptism we were signed with the sign of the cross and made Christ's own forever. Such acts of reverence are ways in which we show outwardly what we believe inwardly.

RECITE THE NICENE CREED

INTERCESSOR: We now turn our attention to Christ's Church and the world. Together, we pray for the Church, for ourselves, and for the departed. The whole church, past and present, is united together in prayer. The names of persons who are in need of our prayers are added at this point, and there is usually an opportunity for us to speak out loud the names of people for whom we especially want to pray. These prayers are called “Prayers of the People” because they represent our deepest longings as God’s people at prayer.

THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

DEACON: Now we ask God's forgiveness for the wrongs we have done collectively as the people of God. Confession is an important part of prayer whether we do it privately or in church with others. After the confession is announced, there is a time of silence for private, silent individual confession. Then we recite together the words of confession. Please notice that when we say these words out loud that we are confessing our sins as a the gathering of God’s people and not as individuals; it is another way we pray together as the people of God.

After we have made our confession, the Priest says the words of ABSOLUTION, or forgiveness, assuring us that God has forgiven all of us.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

NARRATOR II: The first part of the service is now completed. We greet one another joyfully in the spirit of friendship and reconciliation and in the love of God, exchanging the PEACE with one another. It is way for us to heal from our grudges and wounds before coming to the table of Communion.

The “passing of the peace” is a very ancient way for people to greet one another. Jesus taught us that we should love one another as sisters and brothers. The apostle Paul taught that we should forgive one another as God forgives us before we come to the table to share in the bread of Communion.

When the celebrant says: “The Peace of God be always with you,” everyone responds: “And also with you.”

Then we share God's peace with one another.

THE PEACE

II. THE HOLY COMMUNION

NARRATOR I: We now begin the second part of the Eucharist. There are four parts to this part of the service. The first is our offering of money, food for the poor, and the bread and wine we will use at Communion. The second part of the Eucharist is the prayer of thanksgiving and the consecration of the bread and the wine. The third is the breaking of the bread. The fourth is the receiving of communion.

The Great Thanksgiving begins with the offertory sentence which reminds us that all our possessions are really God's gifts. The reason we take an offering of money in this part of the service, rather than at some other juncture, is because the fruit of our labor is a part of our Great Thanksgiving. And so we begin with an offertory sentence…

THE OFFERTORY SENTENCE & OFFERING

DEACON: In the early days of the Church, worshippers brought their own bread and wine to the service. The deacons chose what was needed for the consecration, and the rest was set aside for the poor. Today we have lay people who bring the bread and the wine to the altar. The bread and the wine, along with the money collected for the work of the church, are the offerings that will be presented to God.

The bread and wine are called OBLATIONS. Bread, wine and our gifts of money represent our lives, our work, our recreation, our families and our community. In other words, we offer to God all that we have and all that we do. This is called STEWARDSHIP.

NARRATOR II: The deacon “sets the table” by laying first a corporal, a white linen cloth, upon which are placed a chalice, a cup for the wine, and a paten, a plate for the bread. The purpose of the corporal is to hold any crumbs which may come from the bread. Next, wine is poured into the chalice and a little water is added. Adding a little water to the wine was a sign of hospitality in the Middle East in the time of Jesus.

DEACON: Before the priest begins speaking the Eucharistic prayer, it is the custom in many churches an acolyte pours a little water over the priest’s fingers. The receptacle for this purpose is called a “lavabo bowl.” This reminds us that we should all come to God's altar with clean hands and pure hearts. It has long been the custom for the head of the Jewish household to wash his or her hands in a similar way before the prayers at the Passover meal. Jesus probably did this at the Last Supper.

ACOLYTE POURS WATER

NARRATOR II: The Priest now says the GREAT THANKSGIVING or the PRAYER OF CONSECRATION.

The prayers we use follow an ancient format written by Hippolytus in the Second century. They are based on the accounts of the Last Supper primarily found in the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul.

We are doing two basic things in the Eucharistic prayer: We are remembering the ancient story, and sharing in the blessing through the blessing of bread and wine. The prayer remembers the story of the people of God and makes it our own story; and we ask God’s blessing on us through the blessing of the bread and wine in our Communion.

These prayers invite us into four actions:
By thanking, we Remember
By remembering, we Offer
By offering, we Invoke
By invoking we Pray

MUSICIAN: The Holy Table or Altar having been prepared, the Eucharist continues with “Lift up your heart” – the “Sursum Corda.” The words follow the format of an ancient Jewish table blessing. The format was adopted in the earliest known Christian Eucharistic prayer by Bishop Hippolytus in the Second Century.

The Eucharistic prayer is interspersed with music of praise and blessing: the “Sanctus,” the ancient hymn: “Holy, Holy, Holy,” followed by the Benedictus: “Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord...” reminding us that our God does come to us in the Holy Communion, and is made known to us in “the breaking of the bread.”

NARRATOR I: In the Eucharistic prayer, we thank God for the many ways God is present in our lives and for the many graces given to us. This leads us into a time of remembering—remembering God’s love for us, remembering how we turned away from God, remembering that God came to us as Jesus Christ to share our human nature so that we might be brought back to God. We remember Jesus’ last meal with his friends and the words he spoke over the bread and the wine and we remember his death on the cross.

Once we have remembered the ancient story as our story, we offer our gifts of bread and wine as well as ourselves and our lives to God.

It is our offering that prepares us to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit, asking that both the bread and wine and we ourselves be sanctified, that is, that we are made holy.

Once the invocation has taken place, we are called to pray together. Our first act of prayer is the Great Amen—that final Amen we say together as the priest holds up the bread and wine.

This AMEN, printed in all capital letters in The Book of Common Prayer, is the most important part of the entire service. It is not some magic in the priests hands that make this meal we share holy, it our coming together as a family to affirm the thanking, remembering, offering and invoking with a resounding AMEN that makes our bread and wine, and us too, something more than before. Our prayer is completed when we recite together the Lord’s Prayer.

In a very real way, the Holy Eucharist is a drama. Together we reenact the offering of Christ to make it real in our lives.

SURSUM CORDA, SANCTUS AND BENEDICTUS
THE PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
THE LORD'S PRAYER
THE FRACTION
THE INVITATION

DEACON: The gifts we gave at the offertory, the bread and the wine, are now returned to us. Because God has accepted these gifts, they are changed. They are for us the Body and Blood of Christ: they become for us love, grace and strength.

NARRATOR I: You may have been receiving Communion your whole life, or this is new to you. So let me remind you again how to receive the Bread and the Wine of Communion. For the bread, cup your hands and hold them up chest high so that the priest can easily place the bread on the palm of your hand. You may then consume the bread, or dip it in the wine and then place it in your mouth. If you wish to receive the chalice, please guide it to your lips by holding the bottom of the cup – and not the top. If you do not wish to receive the wine, cross your arms over your chest and the chalice bearer will give you a prayer. After you have received the Bread and the Wine, it is appropriate to say “AMEN.”

Some churches also offer prayers for healing during the time of communion in a chapel or side transept. Those offering these prayers will make the sign of the cross on your forehead with oil that has been blessed by our bishop. The oil for healing is another sign of the communion we share together not only in this parish, but throughout our diocese and the world.

THE COMMUNION OF THE PEOPLE

ALTAR GUILD: After everyone has received Communion, the Bread and Wine are reverently removed to the sacristy where the chalice and paten cleaned and put away. Unused wine is poured into the ground outside. In some churches there is a special basin, called a “piscina,” which allows the consecrated wine to go directly into the ground. Some of the consecrated Bread and Wine is reserved for the sick and those who are unable to come to church. It is kept in the Ambry, or cabinet.

SENDING OUT OF EUCHARISTIC VISITORS

We also take Consecrated Bread to the sick and shut-in members of our congregation so that they might share with us in Holy Communion. Since they cannot come to Church, we take Church to them. And please let us know when circumstances are such that you would like us to bring communion to you.

DEACON: It is almost time for us to go, but we should not leave before we say together the prayer of thanksgiving. After this, the priest will give us God's blessing.

THE PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING; BLESSING

MUSIC: We now prepare leave. The procession leads us out into the world around us so that we may do the work that God has called us to do, wherever we may be: in our homes, in our schools, in our work and in our play. We have been fed with spiritual Food. God has given us the strength to live our lives as faithful followers of Christ.

THE PROCESSIONAL OUT

DEACON: We have concluded the Eucharist where we began, in the midst of life, in a world where there is suffering and need. But we are centered, as Christ was, in a life to be lived and shared. The Eucharist is the work of the people of God together. It is not a service confined to Sunday morning. Rather, it is a way of life. It is the essence of life itself.

The word “mass” comes from the Latin word for dismissal. We are not allowed to linger; we are called to get back out into the world and do the work we are given to do.

NARRATOR I: Finally, the Deacon will send us forth to do the work that God has called us to do, and we all respond by saying with gusto: “Thanks be to God.”

THE DISMISSAL

Walking through the 1979 Book of Common Prayer

“I hope you will never hear from me any such phrase as our ‘excellent or incomparable Liturgy’ … I do not think we are to praise the Liturgy, but to use it.”

Frederick Denison Maurice

1805-1872

“There have been at least two major attempts within the Anglican Church to restore the quality of life which characterized the church at the beginning. One took place in the sixteenth century. One is taking place in our own time.”

Charles Price and Louis Weil, Liturgy for Living, 1979

“Liturgy celebrates the mystery that is God. This is the fundamental truth on which the celebration of all the Church’s rites depends… Other forms of prayer exist as devotional aids, but only in common liturgical worship can the People of God respond to the command, ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ ”

Dennis G. Michno, A Priest’s Handbook, 1998

Introduction

Today/tonight we walk through our current Book of Common Prayer, adopted for use by General Convention in 1979 after more than a decade of experiment and drafts. When I was a teenager, we had in church what became nicknamed the “zebra books” because the books had stripes on the covers. They were the drafts of the various forms of the “new” prayer book.

When the new book came into use, it felt odd, strange, to many who were accustomed to the graceful poetry of the 1928 prayer book, even if many of us didn’t quite understand the words. It was a hard start for the new book, and a number of congregations broke away from the Episcopal Church (sound familiar?).

The story here at St. Paul’s is that a parishioner chained his 1928 book to his pew rack. The book was buried with him. I’ve think that it would have been nice to preserve the chained prayer book as a reminder that not everyone likes the changes we bring and that somehow we need to live together despite our differences.

So let’s get into the book. How? We could go chapter by chapter, page by page. But that might be a bit dull, and not very illuminating. Let me propose that we explore some of the larger themes contained in the book, and then go into select sections of the book that illustrate these themes.

Themes

The first overarching theme of the 1979 BCP to grasp: It is really two prayer books combined, plus a new appendix of various items meant to assist us in our common life of faith. The 1928 book is 611 pages; the 1979 prayer book is 1,001 pages.

The 1979 book contains: (1) much, but not all, of the contents of the 1928 prayer book and (2) an updated contemporary language prayer book with additional “offices” that were not in the earlier prayer book and (3) an appendix containing psalms, extra prayers, historical documents foundational to the Church; an instructional “Outline of the Faith” in a Q&A format; and calendars showing what biblical lessons to read on Sundays, ordinary weekdays, and saint days.

The inclusion of the 1928 prayer book consists primarily of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, the Eucharist (two versions), and burial of the dead. Like the 1928 book, it is in Elizabethan English, using words like “thee” and “thou,” and “Holy Ghost.”

The contemporary language prayer book contains Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, the Eucharist (four versions), and burial of the dead. Added were Compline (night prayers), and newer versions of baptism, confirmation, marriage, celebration of new ministry, and the ordinations of deacons, priests and bishops. Also added were “pastoral offices” that were not in the 1928 book, most notably “Ministration to the sick” and “Ministration at the Time of Death.” There was another huge addition: liturgies for all three days of Easter, particularly an opulent Great Vigil of Easter celebrated on Saturday night before Easter Sunday. We will talk about these liturgies closer to Easter.

On the surface, many of the differences appear to be about language: Look at BCP p. 333:

The Lord be with you.

And with thy spirit.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up unto the Lord.

Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.

It is meet and right so to do.

It is very meet, right and our bounden duty…

Now look at BCP p. 361:

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to him (God) thanks and praise.
It is right, and a good and joyful thing…

The differences in language are subtle and not just stylistic. For example, Look at BCP p. 66, Rite I, at the Apostles Creed. Jesus descends into Hell in this version (closer to the original), symbolizing that Jesus opens the gates of Hell to free sinners. That language is softened in the contemporary version: BCP page 120, Jesus descends to the dead. Arguably, the 1979 got this one wrong.

A major difference between the 1928 and 1979 books came with baptism, and to that we now turn:

Baptism

The emphasis of the baptismal rites in earlier prayer books had been around curing human depravity; baptism had become something of a vaccine against it. Culturally, baptism had become “Christening” and was done often in private. What had begun in the early church as an elaborate initiation rite had become what was described by some as “the arid ten words” in the 1928 book.

The 1979 prayer book, while not purporting to fully bring back the elaborate baptismal rites of the Early Church, brought the emphasis of baptism to the gifts of the Spirit and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (and that the Resurrection has something to do with us). Baptism also now includes a challenge to us in how we live out our life in a faith community.

Turn to BCP p. 299, note the opening salutation: “One Lord, One faith, one baptism.”

Those words encapsulate the meaning of baptism: that there is One God, that baptism is once, for all time, and includes the baptized fully into the Christian faith everywhere and forever. The whole thing is right there.

BCP p. 302 – The baptismal examination: Harkens back to the Early Church practice of lengthy preparation and then exorcism before baptism. The idea here is that baptism requires the renouncing evil, and pledging to live a new life. You might say these short words are a pale imitation of the ancient rites. The new rite deemphasizes human sinfulness without completely dispensing with the theology behind it. Human depravity is still there, but baptism moves beyond that by moving into the baptismal covenant.

Baptismal Covenant

BCP pps. 304-306 – This is the heart-and-soul of the baptismal pledge and challenge. First asks us to recite the ancient Apostles Creed, which is the basic baptismal creed, as a statement of the faith. Look at the creed as joining in the same words as the earliest Christians would have said, praying the same prayers, walking with them as symbolic of there being “One Faith, one baptism.” We join with them in their baptism, bringing us in communion with all Christians in all times and places.

The covenant then moves to a pledge on how we will live out our life together in faith. We pledge to love our neighbor as ourselves and to “respect the dignity of every human being.” Those are tough words to live by, and we pledge “I will, with God’s help.” The emphasis is that our living out our baptismal covenant is a gift of the Spirit and we can’t do it without God’s help.

The 1979 prayer book added a new prayer to the baptismal rite: the “Thanksgiving over the Water” BCP p. 306; notice the amenesis – the remembering – that is in the prayer; water is remembered as symbolic of how the oppressed out of bondage “through water” from Egypt, and water is remembered as symbolic of the baptism, death and resurrection of Jesus. The water is a physical outward reminder that we are part of this story.

Finally, the 1979 prayer book included the blessing of the baptized, or “sealing” with Holy Oil. The oil used is blessed by the bishop during Holy Week, and then taken to all of the parishes. The oil is a reminder, again, that it is “one baptism” and we are all connected to each other through our baptism; bishops and their blessings are an outward symbol that we share in this baptism. Holy Oil was used in baptism in the early church, and the baptized were drenched in oil. Now we get only a dab on the forehead.

One of the theological changes brought about by the 1979 prayer book was the realization that baptism represented a full entry into the membership of the Church. From that flowed the idea that baptism was full entry to the Lord’s Table. That shift was huge; previously only the confirmed were allowed to come to Communion. Confirmation was now understood as an adult affirmation of the faith, but it conferred no particular special rights. With the 1979 prayer book, all the baptized were included at the Table, no matter their age. 

Sunday worship

A major reform represented by the 1979 prayer book was to return the Eucharist, or Communion, to being the principal service of Sunday. I will say more on why a little later.

Our Sunday worship can be seen as two liturgies: (1) The Liturgy of the Word (the biblical readings), and (2) The Liturgy of the Table, or the Eucharist.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer provides six formats for the Eucharist; two are in Rite I, with the Elizabethan-style language. Four more are in contemporary language, called Rite II. All of these prayers, in some manner, are based on the Prayer of Hippolytus in the 3rd century.

The 1979 prayer book also needs to be seen as part of the larger ecumenical liturgical reform movement of the 1960s, arising from Vatican II in the Roman Catholic Church. Eucharist was to be made by the people, not the priest alone, hence the Table was moved to the center of the church. Moving the Table to the center also symbolized the centrality of Eucharist in our walk of faith.

In both Rite I and II, the Sunday service maintains Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s practice of beginning each worship service with a series of gathering prayers, called the “collects.” The word “collect” is an English word that means – wait for it -- collect. The idea is that we collect the common longings of our hearts and souls into a single prayer representing the common prayer of that week.

We start with the “Collect for Purity,” p. 355, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open…” The prayer is meant to center and focus us for our time of worship together.

Then comes the “Collect of the Day.” Each Sunday has its own collect, and most were written or adapted by Cranmer. The traditional versions, with Cranmerian language, begin on p. 159, or on p. 211 with contemporary language. Note that the first collect is the First Sunday in Advent; that marks the beginning of the church year, and all of the lectionary cycles begin on that Sunday.

The collects bring us to the biblical readings – the Liturgy of the Word. The point of the sermon is to connect the old story – the remembering – to our story. The sermon is not a lecture or a pep talk, but part of our common amnensis.

Lectionaries

The 1979 BCP contains another major innovation: calendars for biblical reading throughout the year, beginning on p. 888. The calendar of readings is called “the lectionary,” and each reading is called a “lection.” The 1928 and earlier prayer books had assigned readings for each Sunday, and the readings never varied from year to year.

The 1979 adopted the practice of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and other churches by assigning biblical lessons to be read in church in a three-year cycle. Each Sunday has its own set of biblical readings; the lectionary is another practice of the early church, and ours parallels the earliest known lectionaries.

The idea of the lectionary was to put the Episcopal church in synch with other churches, hearing the same lessons each Sunday, and to give the faithful more biblical readings than they had ever had before.

An Episcopal lectionary was first used in 1969 and modified several times before adoption into the 1979 book. It was a major innovation at the time, however, the Episcopal lectionary also stood alone among all other churches in the specific assignments for each Sunday. Although many of the readings were the same, or similar, we were still doing our own thing.

The Episcopal Church in 2006 adopted the Revised Common Lectionary, the same as in the Catholic, Lutheran and other churches. The idea here is that we are hearing the same biblical lessons in our church as those in other churches, across denominational lines, giving us a connection with those churches despite our differences.

The Sunday lectionary is marked as Year A, B, or C, and each year emphasizes a particular gospel. We are currently in Year B, the year of Mark. Year A is the year of Matthew, which the early church considered the first-among-equals of the gospels (hence it is also first in the New Testament). Year C is the year of Luke. The Gospel of John is interspersed in all three years.

Following the sermon is the Nicene Creed, written in the 4th century as a loyalty oath for bishops and to solve issues of orthodoxy. Following that are the Prayers of the People, p. 383, an innovation of the 1979 book designed to foster more lay involvement in the leading of the worship.

Thence to The Peace, p. 360, echoing Paul’s admonition that we should not come to the Table for communion until we have forgiven each other and “made peace.” The ancient liturgies ordered people to leave the church and not return until they had done so.

It is to the Eucharist we turn next week.