MetaCatholic

John Hobbins posts eirenically but clearly on the new Roman Catholic collect concerning the Jewish people for use on Good Friday. Slightly earlier in the week Ruth Gledhill reported it in the Times, and quite fairly given her past evidence of Zionist sympathies and friendships, though she did perhaps give undue weight to her friend Irene Lancaster who also blogged it, typically seeing it as yet more evidence of anti-Semitism.

It seems to me that this is and will remain a point where Christians and Jews must essentially disagree. It is a quite essential part of Christian belief to hope that all people of every race will acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, Saviour and Lord. From a strictly theological perspective, it would be anti-semitic to exclude the Jewish people from that universal hope. Practically and conceptually many of the ways Christians have sought to express that hope has indeed been anti-semitic, but it need not be so, and John points some of that out.

The Roman Catholic Church tends to be fairly clear, even where others wish it wasn’t. The Church of England’s collect should probably quoted for the sake of comparison. It still has the horizon of a universal hope for Jews as well as Gentiles, is deeply biblical, but somehow manages (in typical Anglican style) to make the whole thing sound far more open and ambiguous.

Let us pray for God’s ancient people, the Jews,
the first to hear his word –
for greater understanding between Christian and Jew
for the removal of our blindness and bitterness of heart
that God will grant us grace to be faithful to his covenant
and to grow in the love of his name.

Silence

Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.

Lord God of Abraham,
bless the children of your covenant, both Jew and Christian;
take from us all blindness and bitterness of heart,
and hasten the coming of your kingdom,
when the Gentiles shall be gathered in,
all Israel shall be saved,
and we shall dwell together in mutual love and peace
under the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

One of the deficiencies of the Church of England’s Common Worship material (at least compared to some other denominations liturgical provision) is a lack of prefaces for Ordinary Time. The preface (as you might expect) is a variable introductory section of the prayer, between the Sursum Corda (Opening dialogue) and the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy).

Its function is essentially thanksgiving and praise, which may be fairly general (especially in Ordinary Time) around themes of creation and redemption, or may focus more specifically on particular aspects of God’s work (especially on Festivals and Holy Days). Ideally, their different wording helps people think through the great truths of our faith as we celebrate the Eucharist.

I post here four such prefaces, which are a mix of original writing, and redactions of many other such pieces of work I have read or heard over the years. The nature of many of the stock phrases and biblical allusions, together with a continuous process of liturgical adaptation means that I cannot now recollect or trace where some of them originated. I hope I’m not infringing anyone else’s work, but In so far as it lies with me, I make these freely available.

Father, all-powerful and ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks and praise
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Out of love for sinful humanity,
he humbled himself to be born of the Blessed Virgin.
Making his home for a short time among us,
he showed us the way of wisdom.
By his suffering upon the cross,
he set us free from the power of sin
and by rising to new life,
he opened for us the way to our eternal home.
And so, with the all the choirs of angels
we proclaim your glory,
and join in their unending hymn of praise:

It is indeed right, our duty and our joy,
at all times and in all places,
to give you thanks and praise,
our holy and everlasting God.
In loving tenderness you created
men and women in your likeness and image,
yet we marred your image and lost your likeness.
Still you cared for us,
taught us through the prophets,
and when the time was ripe,
sent your Son, born of a woman,
to restore in us the image of your glory.
His obedience in human flesh restored the friendship
that rebellious humankind had spurned.
Therefore we can join our voices
with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven,
to proclaim your great and glorious name,
for ever praising you and singing:

Father in heaven,
it is indeed right to give you thanks and praise,
for you alone are God, source of life and goodness.
In mercy and love you have created all things,
and in grace you have restored them
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and born of the Virgin Mary,
he became our brother in flesh,
and like us in all things but sin.
To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation,
to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy.
He accomplished your work by giving himself up to death,
and being raised from the dead,
exalted humanity to the joy of your eternal kingdom.
And that we might live no longer for ourselves,
he poured out your Holy Spirit,
that all things might be made new by your grace.
And so we lift our voices to join with countless angels,
for ever praising you and singing:

It is indeed right, our duty and our joy,
to give you thanks and praise most gracious God,
creator of heaven and earth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who on this first day of the week
trampled down death and opened the gate of the grave.
By his most blessed resurrection
he has restored to us the gift of everlasting life.
From the darkness of death,
he has made the radiance of your love to shine on all creation.
Though you dwell in inaccessible light, hidden from our eyes,
yet by the gift of the Spirit,
we may know you in love and call you “Father.”
Though now we see as in a mirror dimly,
we join our voices to that countless throng of angels
who behold your presence and offer you unceasing praise, singing:

One of the lacks in Anglican Eucharistic provision (and I suspect elsewhere) is material for occasions that are not specifically “religious.” From time to time I draft something for a particular occasion, and have decided to post some of these resources here.

Here is a link to a set of eucharistic propers (together with suggested readings) for use following a natural disaster (of any kind or size). It’s a PDF file, and you can right-click to save it.
After a natural disaster

To give you a clue whether it might be useful to you, as a quick sample, here’s the preface for the Eucharistic Prayer.

It is indeed right to give you thanks and praise,
maker, renewer, and lover of all,
for even in the midst of death you bring life,
and call your people to generosity and compassion.

You are a mystery beyond our knowing,
and your working is hidden from our sight,
yet we know you to be the Lord in joy and sorrow,
who brings hope from our despair.
In Christ you accompany us through suffering,
that through him you may bring us out of death’s deep darkness
into the light of love and life.

By the power of your Spirit you call your church as a witness
to his presence with the wounded, the grieving and the empty,
that they may be liberated from the groaning of creation,
to join in the full freedom of your children
and sing the angels’ song:

Anglicans have very frequently adopted the tag lex orandi, lex credendi, sometimes as a way to avoid systematic theology. Sometimes, however, it’s worth paying attention to the practices implied in the tag. One of the very specific features of Cranmer’s Reformation was to anchor the reading of scripture in daily prayer. If the amount of scripture has now been reduced, and daily prayer is less visible than it used to be, it’s also become true that for most Anglicans their primary reading of scripture is actually the hearing with interpretation that takes place in public worship. Both the historical roots, and contemporary practice therefore suggest that it might be worth someone essaying a liturgical and experiential hermeneutics.

An outline sketch of such an approach might include the following starting points:

• Scripture is read in the context of conversation with God, providing both God’s side of the conversation, but also much of the language for our side of the conversation. The experience of scripture is fundamentally relational.
• Reading scripture is both speaking to God and listening to God. Much of the language it authorises us to use to God, especially in the words of the psalms, which make up the backbone of daily prayer, invites a bold relationship that is not afraid to complain, and argue, even if that is subsumed in a framework of praise. The human character of scripture is owned in human speech, even while the divine word is attended to.
• The christological character of the Old Testament, whether read prophetically, typologically or allegorically is attested to in the Eucharist by the way scripture readings climax in the gospel. But it is also attested in the way in which the canticles of Benedictus and Magnificat (in Cranmer’s Prayer Book) form the response to the Old Testament reading. These take up the language of the Old Testament and point it at the incarnation as its goal.
• The modern version of Common Worship Daily Prayer places this incarnational focus after both of the scripture readings, OT and NT. On the one hand, this directs the whole of scripture to the incarnation. On the other it allows (by giving an OT canticle at Morning Prayer) us to see much more that the Old Testament has its own integrity as a basis for speech with God, even if taken as a whole, it still directs us to Christ.
• In daily prayer and Eucharist, the course of readings is followed by a creed — the Apostles’ Creed in the daily office, the Nicene Creed at the Eucharist. This functions to emphasize that scripture is read with the Church, and in the light of the rule of faith. This has the further effect of contextualising the sermon: we affirm what the church says about scripture, before hearing what the preacher says about it. The sermon is intended to interpret scripture in the light of the church’s faith.
• Within the weekly round (at least) as intended by Cranmer, the Eucharist followed Morning Prayer uninterrupted on a Sunday, and in both ancient and modern prayer books, as in patristic theology, is the centrepiece of worship. This does two things to develop the christological focus further. First, the readings of scripture crystallize in the proclamation of the Gospel. The reading of scripture is in that sense not simply a chronological narrative, in which what is earlier is followed by what is later. The epistles / Acts / Revelation also find their direction focused towards the narratives about Jesus. Second, the climax of the whole is to be found in the sacramental encounter with Jesus, not simply in the hearing. Scripture as the sacrament of hearing God is given to enable the sacrament of meeting God to take place.

There are a (smallish) number of features in the official Anglican Common Worship texts that I can only describe as “Common Worship Annoyances.” One is the wording of the adapted RC offertory prayers. The word over the bread goes like this:

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation:
through your goodness we have this bread to set before you,
which earth has given and human hands have made.
It will become for us the bread of life.

I have two problems with this. The first comes from the sole Anglican adaptation: those words “to set before you” replace the RC words “to offer.” This is a result of trying to defuse a political debate about which a small number of evangelicals care passionately, and a larger number are prepared to vote for (or against) tribally. And, unfortunately, the process by which texts are finally decided is a political one.

I note (and then put aside) my view that popular mediaeval catholic developments of the mass as a repeated sacrifice, and the reformers’ suppression of all language of eucharistic sacrifice, are both wrong and fail to do justice to the relationship between the sacrifice of the cross and its eucharistic remembering and appropriation.

These words do not refer to that offering, or its relationship to the Eucharist , but the bringing of the bread and wine as an offering. Objections to some form of semi-Pelagianism won’t do either. The gifts we bring are acknowledged as being ours to bring only “through [God's] goodness.” Atavistic and visceral protestant reactions to the word “offer” seem strangely misplaced.

What I object to, however, is not per se doctrinal. It is rather the clumsy English of “set before you.” It wanders into the liturgy out of a completely different register to the more elevated language of the prayer.

I likewise object to the last line with that clumsy “It will become for us”. What is still (just about) recognizable in the Latin as a divine passive (ex quo nobis fiet ) sounds bizarrely disconnected from God’s action in the contemporary English. Leaving aside my bafflement that doughty evangelicals can strain at the gnat of “offer” and swallow the camel of “It will become” I really think that both “set before you” and “It will become for us” need a tin ear to go on being used. The RC word over the cup is even worse: “It will become for us our spiritual drink” — at least Common Worship changed that to “cup of salvation”

What is needed is a text that is both kinder on the ear, and that safeguards not only the idea that anything we bring comes only because we have been given it through God’s goodness, but that also what we receive outmatches our offering completely. God’s generosity is non-reciprocally overwhelming. It would also help and be more in accord with Anglican tradition if rather more mystery and rather less mechanism was allowed to the work of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament.

Accordingly I propose these lightly amended texts as rather better than the clunky official provision.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation:
through your goodness we have this bread to offer,
which earth has given and human hands have made.
You will offer us the bread of life.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation:
through your goodness we have this wine to offer,
fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
You will offer us the cup of salvation.