Sunday 1st August, 2010
The Ninth Sunday After Trinity
Lammas Day
Holy Communion
Gloria In Excelsis Deo1
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Percy Whitlock (1903-1946), Rochester Cathedral Choir |
Communion Service in G: Gloria
Then shall be said or sung,
GLORY be to God on
high, and in earth peace, good will towards men.
We praise thee, we bless thee,
we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O
Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.
Rev 4:9-11
O Lord, the only begotten Son
Jesu Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God,
1 Pet 1:19
Rev 5:11-14
Son of the Father, that takest away the
sins of the world,
Jn 1:29
have mercy upon us.
Thou that takest away the sins of the
world, have mercy upon us.
Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive
our prayer. Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father,
Acts 5:30-32
have mercy
upon us.
For thou only art holy
Heb 4:15;
Rom 3:9-20
thou only art the Lord; thou only, O Christ,
with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father.
Eph 4:4-6 Amen.
The Dismissal
Then the Priest (or Bishop if he be present) shall let them depart with this Blessing.2
THE peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his son Jesus Christ our Lord: and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always. Amen.
After the Blessing, The Peace of God &c
GRANT, O Lord, that we, thy servants, who have this day been partakers of thy Holy Sacrament, may obtain remission of our sins, and be confirmed in piety towards God, and in charity towards our neighbour; may become worthy members of Christ's Holy Church; and inherit eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
—Thomas Bisse (1675-1731), "Guide To The Altar".
A Closing Hymn
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A Closing Organ Voluntary
Fantasie in E flat | ||
When the Service is ended.
DISMISS us from thy house, O Lord, with thy blessing, and by thy grace fit and prepare us for thy heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Thomas Bisse (1675-1731). "A Guide To The Altar"
Or this.
GRANT, we humbly beseech thee, Almighty God, that our services in thy earthly temple, may qualify us for the services of thy church above, to which wilt thou finally receive us, through the mediation of Jesus our Redeemer. Amen.
—Thomas Bisse (1675-1731). "A Guide To The Altar"
Additional Collects
Collects to be said after the Offertory, when there is no Communion, every such day one or more; and the same may be said also, as often as occasion shall serve, after the Collects either of Morning or Evening Prayer, Communion, or Litany, by the discretion of the Minister.
ASSIST us mercifully, O Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
O ALMIGHTY Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be pre-served in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words, which we have heard this day with our outward ears, may through thy grace be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honour and praise of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
PREVENT us O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, the fountain of all wisdom, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking; We beseech thee to have compassion upon our infirmities; and those things, which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, vouchsafe to give us, for the worthiness of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, who hast promised to hear the petitions of them that ask in thy Son's Name; We beseech thee mercifully to incline thine ears to us that have made now our prayers and supplications unto thee; and grant, that those things, which we have faithfully asked according to thy will, may effectually be obtained, to the relief of our necessity, and to the setting forth of thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Additional Rubrics
Upon the Sundays and other Holy-days (if there be no Communion) shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion, until the end of the general Prayer [For the whole state of Christ's Church militant here in earth] together with one or more of these Collects last before rehearsed, concluding with the Blessing.
And there shall be no celebration of the Lord's Supper, except there be a convenient number to communicate with the Priest, according to his discretion.
And if there be not above twenty persons in the Parish of discretion to receive the Communion: yet there shall be no Communion, except four (or three at the least) communicate with the Priest. And in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, and Colleges, where there are many Priests and Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Priest every Sunday at the least, except they have a reasonable cause to the contrary.
And to take away all occasion of dissension, and superstition, which any person hath or might have concerning the Bread and Wine, it shall suffice that the Bread be such as is usual to be eaten;3 but the best and purest Wheat Bread that conveniently may be gotten. And if any of the Bread and Wine remain unconsecrated,4 the Curate shall have it to his own use:5 but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the Church, but the Priest, and such other of the Communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same.
The Bread and Wine for the Communion shall be provided by the Curate and the Church-wardens at the charges of the Parish.6 And note, that every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one. And yearly at Easter every Parishioner shall reckon with the Parson, Vicar, or Curate, or his or their Deputy or Deputies; and pay to them or him all Ecclesiastical Duties, accustomably due, then and at that time to be paid.
After the Divine Service ended, the money given at the Offertory shall be disposed of to such pious and charitable uses, as the Minister and Church-wardens shall think fit. Wherein if they disagree, it shall be disposed of as the Ordinary shall appoint.
The Protestation, or A Declaration On Kneeling7
Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence8 of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood9. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances,10 and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here;11 it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.
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Footnotes
1 "Glory Be To God &c". This Canticle was moved from its former position at the start of the Sarum Rite, to the end of the Communion Service in the 1552 Book.
Like the Sanctus ("Holy, Holy, Holy") the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is based on an Angelic Salutation, this time the song of the angels who announced the birth of Jesus Christ to the shepherds (Lk 2:13-14).
The use of the Gloria in the Communion service, and particularly towards its close, can be strongly justified on the basis of remarks by St John Chrysostom (though the later Liturgy bearing his name does not include it at all; it is part of Greek Mattins).
ST. Chrysostom also often speaks of the hymn Glory be to God on high; and tells us particularly that it was sung at the eucharist, as well as upon other occasions. God, says he, first brought the angels down hither, and then carried men up to them. The earth was made a heaven, because heaven was about to receive the things of the earth. Therefore, ευχαριστούντες λέγομεν, when we give thanks, or celebrate the eucharist, we say, "Glory be to God on high, in earth peace, good-will towards men."
And that by the "thanksgiving" he here means the eucharist, is evident from another place, where he more precisely specifies the time of using it in the communion service: ίσασιν οι πιστοί, &c. "They who are communicants know what hymn is sung by the spirits above; what the cherubims say above; what the angels said, Glory be to God on high; therefore our hymns come after our psalmody, as something more perfect." Meaning that psalms were sung in the service of the catechumens [i.e. the Ante-Communion]; but these hymns, the cherubical hymn and the angelical hymn, more peculiarly in the communion-service.
LET me say this farther; it is the last word in the Sacrament, "this is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," and the whole text resolves into laudatium Deum ['praising God'], and not to praise Him alone, but to praise Him with this hymn of Angels. Now being to praise Him with the Angels' hymn, it behoves to be in or as near the state of Angels as we can; of very congruity to be in our very best state, when they and we to make but one choir.
And when are we so? If at any time, at that time when we have newly taken the holy Sacrament of His blessed Body and most precious Blood — when we come fresh from it.
And as if there were some near alliance between this song of the Angels and these signs, to show that the signs or Sacrament have a special interest in this hymn; therefore is it, that even then upon the administration of it has the Church ordered this very hymn ever to be sung or said, whatever day it fall in the whole year.
For then sure of all other times are we on earth most near to Angelic perfection, then meetest to give glory unto God, then at peace with the whole earth, then a good-will and purpose in us if ever.
Commentators (including Bishop Cosin) also point to the model of the Last Supper, where Jesus and his disciples close by singing a hymn together (Mt 26:30).
2 "Blessing".
WHETHER the practice were derived from the example of Jesus, or the general custom of the Jews, the Christians have from the earliest ages concluded their daily offices, and more especially the celebration of the Eucharist, with a benediction pronounced by the bishop or principal priest that was present. The Constitutions direct "the people to bow down their heads, while the bishop pronounces the blessing;" and a Council ordained, "that none should presume to depart before it was given." ...
THIS benediction of the priest is not to be considered merely as a prayer. It is likewise an absolution, an assurance of blessing and of peace; for God himself will bless those that are duly qualified to receive the sacerdotal blessing; and the benedictions and absolutions which the Ambassadors of Christ ministerially pronounce upon earth, will be ratified in Heaven.
3 "It shall suffice that the Bread be such as is usual to be eaten". The use of everyday, leavened bread was requested by Swiss Reformer Martin Bucer (1491-1551) for the Prayer Book of 1552. He evidently hoped thereby to discourage a reverence to the bread and wine that smacked of Transubstantiation.
An illustration of the "superstition" that could arise comes from Bishop Joseph Hall (1574-1656), who complained that "no woman or layman may make their host, neither may any lay person so much as look at that sacred wafer out of his window" (Holy Decency In The Worship Of God). This was, obviously, going a bit far.
Nonetheless, in her Injunctions of 1559 Queen Elizabeth I responded to what she felt was a growing disrespect to the sacrament as a conseuqnece of using everyday bread. Her Prayer Book shows that pure, high quality leavened bread, like table bread, was still in mind:
IT shall suffice that the breade be suche as is usual to be eaten at the table, with other meates, but the beste and purest wheate breade, that conveniently may be gotten.
But she seems to envisage something rather like the smaller prosphora in the Eastern Churches (especially Russia), small, round, and clearly intended for sacramental use.
WHERE also it was in the time of king Edward the Sixth [1552] used to have the sacramental bread of common fine bread; it is ordered for the more reverence to be given to these holy mysteries, being the sacraments of the body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that the same sacramental bread be made and formed plain, without any figure thereupon, of the same fineness and fashion round, though somewhat bigger in compass and thickness, as the usual bread and water, heretofore named singing cakes, which served for the use of the private mass.
It would appear from this that a packet of your local supermarket's white sliced table bread is not the traditional Anglican way. Some Divines remained strongly in favour of unleavened bread "wafers", and we can see from the Rubric that "it shall suffice" by no means excludes them (though I'd guess the Divines did not envisage anything like the machine-pressed wafers widely used today). Russian or Greek church mini-prosphora is probably the closest to what the Elizabethan Settlement had in mind, though plain, i.e. without the conventional stamp or device.
4 "Unconsecrated". This word was added for the 1662 Prayer Book. The 1552 Book sought to downplay reverence for the bread and wine by seeing the priest take home any of the consecrated host that was left over after the service, to eat with his lunchtime cheese. The editors of the 1662 Book were clearly of a very different mind.
5 "To his own use". If we go back to the early Fathers, our Curate will not necessarily take home the unconsecrated bread tucked under his cassock for his private lunch, but distribute it to others, e.g. fellow clergy or the congregation. Having stressed that we are talking about the unconsecrated bread and wine, Bishop Cosin tells us:
WE read in Clemens [the Apostolic or Clementine Constitutions], that after the Communion was done, the deacons took up that which was left, and carried it in Pastophorium, the room where the priests were lodged. In Origen, that it was not kept till the next day. In St. Jerome, that after the Communion, they that had eaten it in the church spent all that remained of the oblations. In Hesychius, that after the example of the old law, all that was left was cast into the fire. In Evagrius, that it was an ancient custom at Constantinople, that if any of the Sacrament remained, young children were called from the school to eat it up; which was retained in France, as in Concil Matiscon. et Turon., held under Charlemagne.
IT was the ancient manner of the Church, to offer a good quantity of bread and wine (every one of the people some) for the use as well of the minister and priest, as for the poor, and the preparation of the Sacrament.
The Eastern Churches have a tradition of giving the excess unconsecrated bread to the congregation after the service is ended. This is known at the antidoron.
6 "At the charges of the Parish". In the ancient churches, the bread and wine were taken from the offerings of the congregation. Later, Charles Wheatly tells us,
IT was the custom for every house in the parish, to provide in their turns the holy Loaf (under which name I suppose were comprehended both the Elements of Bread and Wine); and the good Man and good Woman that provided, were particularly remembered in the prayers of the church.
Gradually, the parish came to bear the cost out of parish funds, no doubt a better arrangement for impoverished rural parishes. Parish funds were, of course, drawn from what was given by the parishioners at the Offertory.
7 "Declaration On Kneeling". This is not a Rubric, and thus it is not printed in the red type from which a "rubric" gets its name. It was at one time highly controversial, but has been edited to render it essentially harmless. John Henry Blunt explains:
THIS Declaration was first added to the Communion Office at the last Revision in 1661. It was framed, though with a most important difference in the wording, from the Declaration which, as a sort of afterthought, was inserted in the majority but not in all of the copies of the Prayer Book issued in 1552. This affirmed that "no adoration was done or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood." It was probably framed by Cranmer, and intended merely as a protest against the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the low notion of a carnal presence which had come to be the interpretation too commonly put on the phrase "real and essential presence." The Declaration of 1552 was "signed by the King," [Strype's Cranmer, bk. ii. ch. 33,] but it was never ratified by the Church, and is wanting in all editions of the Prayer Book from Elizabeth's Accession to the Restoration.
At the Savoy Conference the Presbyterians desired its restoration. The Bishops replied, "This rubric is not in the Liturgy of Queen Elizabeth, nor confirmed by law; nor is there any great need of restoring it, the world being now in more danger of profanation than of idolatry. Besides the sense of it is declared sufficiently in the 28th Article of the Church of England." Whilst partly adopting it, the Revisers of 1661 (under the influence, as it seems, of Bp. Gauden, probably at the suggestion of the venerable Gunning) made the important change of substituting the word "corporal" for the words "real and essential." Thus they retained the protest against Transnbstantiation, whilst they removed all risk of the Declaration, or "Black rubric" as it was sometimes called, being misunderstood as even an apparent denial of the truth of the Real Presence.
8 "Corporal presence". The first version of this Declaration had "real and essential presence". The Divines of the Savoy Conference managed to get this altered to "corporal presence". The Declaration no longer prohibits the use of terms such as "real presence", nor does it in any way run contrary to the belief that Christ is truly present in the liturgy and in the bread and wine, by whatever ineffable means this may be.
In its current form, it simply excludes gross conceptions of the real presence, which imply that Christ has reversed both the Ascension (i.e. by coming in his human nature to earth before his appointed time, cf. Acts 1:10-11, 1 Corinthians 11:26, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), and the Resurrection (by ceasing to be a spiritual body cf. 1 Corinthians 15:35-45).
9 "Natural flesh and blood". Christ's presence is spiritual, not natural or corporal.
When the inquisitors at his trial challenged Bishop Ridley with, "That which the woman did hold in her womb, the same thing holdeth the priest", he replied:
I GRANT the priest holdeth the same thing, but after another manner. She did hold the natural body; the priest holdeth the mystery of the body.
The body that Christ took from the Blessed Virgin is present with us in the Eucharist spiritually, not merely corporally. Ridely scolded them,
YOU think very grossly of the sitting or lying of the celestial Lamb on the table of the Lord: for we may not imagine any such sitting lying upon the table, as the reason of man would judge: but all things are here to be understood spiritually. For that heavenly Lamb is (as I confess) on the table; but by a spiritual presence, by grace, and not after any corporal substance of his flesh taken of the Virgin Mary.
Anything spiritual is far more potent than something only natural; such a presence is to be considered an inferior form of presence, for which we should not long.
HE fully assures us, that this is not common bread and wine, but His Own body and blood, not in a carnal, but in a spiritual or sacramental sense: so that, by eating this bread and drinking this cup, we partake of His body and blood to all intents and purposes for which the one was broken and the other shed; and that, too, as much, or rather more, than we could have done it by eating His very body and drinking His very blood, in a carnal and literal sense.
To the same purpose is that of the Apostle, The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16). Though it be not His very body and blood itself, it is the communion of them; they are both communicated to us, so that, if we receive them as we ought by faith, we attain the end wherefore His body was broken and His blood shed, even the remission of our sins; which is, therefore, particularly mentioned by Himself in the institution of the cup.
Bishop Andrewes likened it to St Mary Magdalen, who after Jesus's resurrection sought to embrace him but was gently told, "Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father". He canvassed three Patristic explanations, one of which was from St Augustine. Andrewes wrote:
IF faith be to touch, that will touch Him no less in Heaven than here; one that is in Heaven may be touched so. No ascending can hinder that touch. Faith will elevate itself, that ascending in spirit we shall touch Him, and take hold of Him. Mitte fidem et tenuisti — it is St. Augustine. It is a touch to which there is never a noli ['Do not'], fear it not. So do we send up our faith, and that shall touch Him, and there will virtue come from Him; and it shall take such hold on Him, as it shall raise us up to where He is; bring us to the end of the verse, and to the end of all our desires; to ascendo ad Patrem, a joyful ascension to our Father and His, and to Himself, and to the unity of the Blessed Spirit.
10 "Remain in their natural substances". This is a swipe at the 12th century term "Transubstantiation". According to the teachings that subsequently developed around this word, the substance of the bread and wine is changed (not annihilated, but changed) into the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ. The accidence of the bread and wine, i.e. what is apparent to the five senses, remain unchanged.
This was rejected in the Thirty-Nine Articles (Article XXVIII). It was held that the mechanics of this change could not be found in Scripture, and that if it meant that the bread and wine were no longer meaningfully bread and wine, the fundamental concept of a sacrament ("the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace"—The Catechism) was undermined.
MANY controversies have been raised respecting the real presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist. Between the doctrine of Transubstantiation maintained by the Church of Rome, and that held by Protestant Churches in general, there is a manifest and irreconcileable opposition.
Between the Lutheran tenet of Consubstantiation and the tenets of other Protestant Churches there is also a broad line of distinction not easily to be mistaken.
But most of the Reformed Churches, while they declare the elements of bread and wine to remain unchanged, and deny the body and blood of Christ to be corporally present, acknowledge them nevertheless to be mystically and sacramentally present; that is, they acknowledge, that, by virtue of the spiritual grace which accompanies the elements, they convey to the penitent and faithful communicant the full and actual benefits of our Lord's death upon the cross.
THE doctrine of the church of England, and generally of the Protestants, in this article, is,— that after the minister of the holy mysteries hath rightly prayed, and blessed or consecrated the bread and the wine, the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental, that is, in a spiritual real manner: so that all that worthily communicate, do by faith receive Christ really, effectually, to all the purposes of his passion: the wicked receive not Christ, but the bare symbols only; but yet to their hurt, because the offer of Christ is rejected, and they pollute the blood of the covenant, by using it as an unholy thing.
The result of which doctrine is this: It is bread, and it is Christ's body. It is bread in substance, Christ in the sacrament; and Christ is as really given to all that are truly disposed, as the symbols are; each as they can; Christ as Christ can be given; the bread and wine as they can; and to the same real purpose, to which they are designed; and Christ does as really nourish and sanctify the soul, as the elements do the body.
11 "In heaven, and not here". The decisive event of the Ascension cannot be reversed, and Christ remains at the right hand of his Father in heaven.
The Anglican view is that in our liturgy, the veil of flesh between this world and the next is parted, and by faith we find ourselves caught up in the heavenly sanctuary (see Heb 10:19-22. We find ourselves bathed in a spiritual sunshine of warmth and comfort, radiating from the very throne of God.
WHEN thou seest the Lord sacrificed†, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious blood, canst thou then think that thou art still amongst men, and standing upon the earth?
Art thou not, on the contrary, straightway translated to Heaven, and casting out every carnal thought from the soul, dost thou not with disembodied spirit and pure reason contemplate the things which are in Heaven? Oh! what a marvel! what love of God to man! He who sitteth on high with the Father is at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to those who are willing to embrace and grasp Him. And this all do through the eyes of faith! Do these things seem to you fit to be despised, or such as to make it possible for any one to be uplifted against them?
† Elsewhere, Chrysostom stresses that this is a commemorative sacrifice only. See this extract.
A MAN who had lived always in the darkness of a prison, and only heard of the world we now enjoy, might fancy, from all which his own experience taught him, that it must needs be remote; whereas, nothing more would be requisite to convince him of his mistake, than to open the doors of his prison-house and lead him forth to liberty and the sun.…
The spiritual and eternal world, into which we are, at a destined hour, to be born, may be, like its Divine Maker and King, near us, and round about us, in a manner of which we are not aware, nor shall be till we enter it; till we burst the intervening shell, and all the glories of the invisible system present themselves to view.
AS the sun corporally is ever in heaven, and no where else; and yet by his operation and virtue the sun is here in earth, by whose influence and virtue all things in the world be corporally regenerated, increased, and grow to their perfect state; so likewise our Saviour Christ bodily and corporally is in heaven, sitting at the right hand of his Father, although spiritually he hath promised to be present with us upon earth unto the world's end.
And whensoever two or three be gathered together in his name, he is there in the midst among them, by whose supernal grace all godly men be first by him spiritually regenerated, and after increase and grow to their spiritual perfection in God, spiritually by faith eating his flesh and drinking his blood, although the same corporally be in heaven, far distant from our sight.
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