The General Synod of the Church of England has now authorized eight eucharistic prayers to be published in Common Worship later this year. Perhaps the most interesting is prayer H, which came into being late in the life of the Synod and was rushed through with general consent to be able to be published in the new volume. This short article looks at the text of the prayer and gives some comments on it for wider interest. First the text; the bold type is said by the congregation. Eucharistic Prayer H
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
or
The Lord is here.
His Spirit is with us.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give thanks and praise.
It is right to praise you, Father, Lord of all creation in your love you made us for yourself.
When we turned away
you did not reject us,
but came to meet us in your Son.
You embraced us as your children and welcomed us to sit and eat with you.
In Christ you shared our life
that we might live in him and he in us.
He opened wide his arms upon the cross
and made for all a perfect sacrifice for sin.
On the night before he was betrayed
he came to table with his friends
he took bread, and gave you thanks;
he broke it and gave it to them saying:
Take, eat: this is my body which is given for you;
do this in remembrance of me.
Father we do this in remembrance of him:
His body is the bread of life.
At the end of supper, taking the cup of wine
he gave you thanks, and said:
Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins
do this in remembrance of me.
Father, we do this in remembrance of Him:
His blood was shed for all.
As we proclaim his death and celebrate his rising in glory
send your Holy Spirit that this bread and this wine,
may be to us the body and blood of your dear Son.
As we eat and drink these holy gifts make us one in Christ, our risen Lord.
With your whole Church throughout the world
we offer you this sacrifice of praise
and lift our voice to join the eternal song of heaven:
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest!
Commentary The genesis of this prayer is in the July 1999 General Synod of the Church of England. In a debate on the eucharistic prayers, it became obvious that there was considerable concern that the prayers were too much of a “monologue” and that there was a desire for “interactive” prayers. In one sense this is a misnomer, because all eucharistic praying should be done by both priest and people together, but a common criticism of the eucharistic prayers in the Alternative Service Book (1980) has been the monologue nature of the prayers. This has led some parishes to experiment with saying paragraphs of the eucharistic prayer together. It was pointed out in Synod that the prayers of the ASB were not designed to be used in this way and that if it was the desire of Synod to have “interactive” prayers it would be better to compose afresh one such prayer. The aspiration of Synod was clearly voiced by Bishop Colin Buchanan, the unrepressable evangelical bishop and liturgist. The result was that Synod saw a draft prayer, which had been composed overnight, and members were invited to send in their comments.
The prayer returned to the November Synod, where a large number of amendments were proposed. This is one of the most frustrating elements of liturgical revisions in the Church of England. Twenty motions can be introduced on a eucharistic prayer, changing it line by line. It soon became apparent that this was nonsense; by changing “this,” but not “that,” Synod could end up with something that does not cohere. So standing orders were suspended while a creative procedure was developed. This enabled the prayer to go back to revision committee and the points raised to be considered further in committee. This was done, and the prayer was revised. In the February sitting of Synod there were further proposals for amendments from the bishops. It was asked why their Lordships had not done this at their own stage of viewing of the prayer. As the amendments would have made the prayer longer, Synod kept the prayer as the revision committee had suggested.
The prayer is designed to be, as was said above, interactive. When presiding, using the prayer it feels very much a dialogue. It has been carefully constructed so that “presidential elements” are kept presidential, e.g., the dominical words and the epiclesis. It might be questioned whether this perpetuates concepts of consecratory moments.
It ends with the Sanctus. This was questioned in Synod: although it may have been the theory of E. C. Ratcliffe that early eucharistic prayers ended in this way, should that be so now? Also, the effect is to remove a congregational “Amen,” something which is commented on in scripture. Nevertheless it was decided that this was a suitable development and that the Church of England could be involved in a modest development of tradition.
One big issue is of a prayer that is suitable for use with children. The Church of England is slowly moving to allowing children to receive communion before confirmation. In places where this is so there is a demand for suitable eucharistic prayers. The composers of this prayer admitted that this was not intended to fill that gap. However, it will be more suitable for “all age” worship as expressed in the “Family Service” movement. The issue of prayers suitable for use with children is likely to return to the agenda of the Church of England. One evangelical commended the Roman Catholic provision in the debate, saying she would prefer to use this than have nothing.
The Church of England has thus produced a new an innovative prayer, prayer H. It awaits to be seen as to how this prayer will be received in the parishes. There are some indications that it will be very popular in some traditions.