Part Three · Sources and Rationale of the Offices

Chapter IX

HOLY COMMUNION:
II. ANGLICAN RITES

§ 1

The First English Liturgy

The Roman rite throughout is characterized by a very strong sacrificial color, the theme of Oblation being dominant in almost every prayer of the Canon. Nevertheless, the Sacrifice thus indicated is in the strictest sense Eucharistic—it is distinctly a Thankoffering of Fruits of the Earth, Bread and Wine, asking that God may bless them for the communion of the faithful. Strictly construed, there is not one word which could reasonably be forced to denote a ritual Immolation of Christ; not one word which necessitates a notion of Transubstantiation in preference to any other form of belief in the Real Presence.

Yet it is notorious that medieval times distorted the Canon with interpretations, and cumbered it with ceremonial, which were utterly alien to the plain meaning of the text. Against these perversions of the primitive faith, the Reformers desired to restore the Eucharist to its own original purpose, for the use and benefit of the people, that they might once more participate in the Holy Communion, instead of being merely spectators at its celebration.

The first step toward this restoration was obviously the rendering of the service from Latin into the tongue “understanded of the people.” Without waiting for the completion of the entire English liturgy, with its elaborate apparatus of Propers, in 1548 a royal proclamation in accordance with an act of Parliament set forth The Order of the Communion. This comprised a prior “warning” of the celebration; and provision that after the priest's communion in the Latin mass, the Sacrament should be administered in both kinds, with an Exhortation, the Invitation, Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, Prayer of Humble Access, Administration, and a Blessing, all in English.

These formulæ are nearly those that still survive. Some of their details were suggested by German sources;1 but the plan itself was not as revolutionary as might appear. As we shall see later,2 the structure of the primitive order of communion-time devotions had degenerated, and become assimilated to or supplanted by the priest's personal devotions, until it was really inadequate for the people's use: so that the custom had already grown up, whenever there was a general communion, to insert into the mass at this point an interpolated ritual of much the same nature as that given in the Rituale Romanum to this day.3

The following year, the First Prayer Book presented the whole service in English, with the title The Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called The Mass. This caption gives an excellent idea of the nature of Archbishop Cranmer's recension. It was an attempt to return to what were believed to be the standards of the Primitive Church, and the intent of her founder, regarding the rite and purpose of this Sacrament; and at the same time to retain, actually and recognizably, the traditional and immemorial use of the Church of England.

The dominant aim seems to have been to preserve the external appearance of the rite and the accustomed order of its ceremonial, at the sacrifice of no noticeable particular.

Thus the traditional eucharistic vestments were retained;4 the ritual postures were expressly permitted;5 in general it was assumed that the celebrant should follow the rules and actions of the old service, without which the new rubrics were quite inadequate to enable any one to perform the rite.6

The entire musical framework of the mass was preserved. The five fixed elements—the ninefold Kyries, Gloria in Excelsis, Creed, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei—were unaltered, and their simple traditional music was promptly adapted to the English words.7 The variable Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion anthems, and the Proper Prefaces, were considerably simplified in scheme for facility of use, as Cranmer in his struggles with the problems of the Breviary had lost patience with the turning up of mere shreds of propria; but it is safe to say that no member of the congregation would have been aware of the difference.

But all the late accretions of private prayers accompanying ritual actions, at Entrance, Censing, Gospel, Offertory, Fraction, Commixture, Pax, Ablutions, and conclusion, were never properly a part of the public service, and were without uniformity even among the various English uses. They might well be left again to private devotion. So in 1549 the only survival of all this material was the priest's Paternoster and Collect for Purity at the beginning. For the most part the ceremonies themselves were left undisturbed—e.g., there was a perfectly explicit Offertory Rubric, directing the preparation of the Elements and the manner of their presentation upon the altar—but the whole “Lesser Canon” of the offertory prayers was abolished.

In the matter of the Canon,8 Cranmer firmly and sharply parted company with German influences. Luther's method of dealing with its problems was to abolish it totally, and instead of a Prayer of Consecration to read merely the narrative of the Institution over the Elements. But Cranmer was imbued with a proper reverence for this central, majestic, and indispensable action of worship, which from the time of Gregory the Great had been known as The Prayer9 of the liturgy. He produced what Dr. Brightman10 aptly calls an “eloquent” paraphrase of the Canon. It was a liberal translation, rather than a new composition; a recension, not a substitution. Some small details of the original were suppressed; some few cognate expressions conflated into it from other sources;11 some crabbed and enigmatic phrases expanded into free renderings which were eminently evangelical, inspiring, and practical; and the spasmodic and ill-connected order reduced to an intelligible sequence and movement by certain rearrangements.

All this was effected with such a confident hand, and such an effortless finish of style, that few Anglicans have given the texts the minute study necessary to establish the fundamental underlying identities with the parent order, and that Roman critics, not unnaturally perhaps, have found themselves unable to recognize them at all. Yet unquestionably Cranmer's sole aim was to present the vital meaning of the traditional Latin service of the Church of England, sacrificing no detail, even the most minute, which possessed spiritual truth and value, but setting it forth in the clearest and most affecting language.

The chief change of order was the segregation and consolidation of all the Intercession-material both for the Living and the Departed into one prayer “for the whole state of Christ's Church,” following the Sanctus.

The ensuing Consecration Prayer was virtually unaltered in sequence. This left in a very prominent place the Quam oblationem, which constituted the peculiar “preliminary Invocation” which has always characterized the Roman and Egyptian rites. The proper Latin Invocation, the prayer Supplices te rogamus, was not at this time recognized by any one as being an Invocation—indeed, it is very falteringly admitted as such to the present day; so it is not surprising that Cranmer converted it to other purposes, and concentrated the theme of the Invocation of the power of God to consecrate the Sacrament, at this place before the Institution; conflating into it the words Hear us … we beseech thee: … thy holy spirit … bless and sanctify these thy gifts, from the Liturgy of St. Basil.12

There were moreover some modifications of doctrinal emphasis. Prayer for the Departed and commemoration of the Saints were retained; but the two mutually supplemental lists of Names,13 representing the vestiges of early local Roman Diptychs, were eliminated, as was the mention of the “merits and prayers” of the Saints.

To meet the medieval distortions which had interpreted the Latin Canon's innocent and primitive expressions of the Eucharistic Sacrifice into an implication of the reënactment of Calvary, Cranmer felt he had no choice but to eliminate every expression of direct verbal Oblation of the Holy Gifts. All such phrases were carefully transmuted so as to refer not to the Elements, but to the devout aspiration of those who offered them, or to Christ's “One Oblation” of himself which gave them a divine meaning. As a result, the Eucharistic Sacrifice was represented as a fourfold Commemoration of the Offering upon the Cross, a Sacrifice of “praise and thanksgiving” for the benefits of the Passion, the Church's corporate Oblation of its members as “a living sacrifice,” and the presentation of their prayers in union with the Heavenly Intercession.14

This omission of a verbal Oblation of the Gifts in the text did not of course alter the fact that they were actually offered in the rite. Indeed Cranmer's interpretation simply made explicit the inherent significance of the sacrificial Action, both in its Godward and its manward aspects, and gave a powerful, brilliant, and deeply spiritual rendering of the essential meaning of the Latin Canon.

Thus Cranmer's resolute boldness in the handling of non-essentials, and his wise conservatism toward essentials, provided the First Prayer Book with a normal Catholic liturgy, complete in all vital parts. In spite of some alterations in the proportions of its emphasis, it has every claim to comprise a full equivalent of the parent order from which it was derived, and with which it stands in a living continuity. At the same time, both text and rubric were cleared of any expressions or ceremonies which symbolized medieval perversions, not merely of a hypothetical faith and practice of the Primitive Church, but actually of the fundamental import and genius of the Latin rite itself.

§ 2

The Second Prayer Book of 1552

The Liturgy of the First Prayer Book should have been an admirable platform of comprehension for all “men of good will” on both sides. Cranmer had caught the very accent of the Great Liturgies, in that his English was rich and forceful, rather than narrowly precise; and it was open then, as it has been ever since, for people of markedly differing points of view to embrace his liberal language ex animo as embodying a “pious sense” of their own beliefs. And in fact it was reasonably acceptable to moderate men of both parties. Unhappily, at that troubled period of change, moderate men were few. In particular, the Continental divines who had found refuge in England were bitterly outspoken against everything that bore even a reminder of the old customs.

It is possible that Cranmer might have withstood these assaults, if it had not been for what no doubt seemed to him the suspicious complacence of the conservative party. The new “mass” roused on the whole no more opposition from their side than might have been expected toward any English translation;15 and the more intelligent exponents of the Old Learning, while naturally regretting every alteration of the form they had known all their lives, were nevertheless constrained to admit that it was a sufficient Catholic liturgy. Indeed Bishop Gardiner, the ablest of them, openly confuted Cranmer and maintained his conception of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist on the basis of the Prayer Book service.

This cut the ground from under Cranmer's feet, and left him defenseless from the insistence of those who had been demanding a root-and-branch reformation of the Liturgy, to whom the acceptance of the new rite in any degree by even moderates on the Catholic side was intolerable. Therefore Cranmer, while still resolved to retain the essential substance of the traditional Christian rite, set himself so to alter its form as to satisfy his supporters.

So in direct contrast to 1549, in 1552 the apparent intent was to make the service look as different as possible. Most of its decorative detail was swept away: the eucharistic vesture of the “Ornaments Rubric,” the permission for devotional “gestures,” the rubrics directing the offering of the Elements, and the Manual Acts; the ornamental framework of the musical portions, the Introit, Postcommunion Anthem, Benedictus qui venit,16 Agnus Dei, Gloria Tibi, “Christ our Paschal Lamb,” the provision for the singing of the Creed, and the Prologue to the Lord's Prayer; even such minutiæ as the recurrent salutation, “The Lord be with you,” before the Collect, Preface, and Postcommunion Thanksgiving, and “The peace of the Lord be alway with you” after the Consecration.

The actual theological objections which Cranmer had to meet were on the whole surprisingly slight: though his attempts to deal with them resulted in some radical reconstructions.

Naturally the foreigners had brought with them Luther's objection to any sort of prayers for the dead: hence the commemoration of the Departed was excised from the Prayer for the Church, and the limiting description “militant here in earth”17 added to its Bidding.

Their only other important stricture was against the Consecration Prayer. No one at this time had the faintest doubt about the Real Presence in the Holy Communion—i.e. of the fundamental reality of the spiritual experience of devout receivers of the Sacrament; but the foreigners took exception nevertheless to the idea of the Consecration as directed to the Elements or as entailing any objective effect upon them.

Therefore the Invocation was modified to favor a “receptionist” interpretation. Moreover, it was felt that the long interval between the definitive Words of Institution and the actual reception of the Sacrament ministered to the idea of an objective presence. If, as Peter Martyr said,18 “the words belong rather to men than either to bread or wine,” this aim should be achieved by stopping the Canon at the Institution, and proceeding to the Communion with no interposition whatever.

This was the bombshell exploded under the heart of the Canon in 1552, which sent its disjecta membra flying to distant and sometimes peculiar parts of the service. But though it might seem to the historical student that the traditional Canon was thereby blown to fragments, it is interesting how Cranmer contrived to “gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.”

The Oblation and proper conclusion of the Consecration Prayer was set—not very happily—as an alternative to the Postcommunion Thanksgiving. The Anamnesis or commemoration of the Passion, dropped from the transferred Prayer of Oblation, was reinserted in an abbreviated form19 in the Invocation—a really skilful substitution, so adroit as to have escaped the notice of commentators, and coming in very effectively in close sequence to the commemoration of the One Oblation.20 The Lord's Prayer was put at the beginning of the Postcommunion, where it balanced the like commencement of the “Ante-Communion.” The Exhortation, Invitation, Confession, Absolution, and Comfortable Words were placed before the Preface, and the Prayer of Humble Access after the Sanctus. This offered these devotions as a preparation for the whole Action, instead of merely the Communion; and lightened the service of a heavy anticlimax after the Consecration.

The excisions from the Canon left the Consecration Prayer reduced to the narrative of the Institution, introduced by a kind of Anamnesis of the Passion and an Invocation. If the General Intercession had been left before this abbreviated prayer, the whole structure following would have been out of balance. Moreover, Gardiner had stressed the sacrificial meaning of the Intercession within the Canon—which was enough to banish it. By a singularly happy exercise of judgment, it was transferred to precisely the position after the Sermon which it had first occupied in the Primitive Church. Disused in that place for twelve centuries at Rome, it had survived as a living liturgical tradition in the “Gallican” sphere of influence, in the form of the Prone or “Bidding Prayer,” which was a usual Sunday devotion in England. Thus brought once more into conjunction with the Offertory, the words “to accept our alms and” were added to its exordium.

One new addition to the rite caused yet another dislocation. The contemporary orders of Pullain and Laski21 may have influenced the insertion of the Ten Commandments—though at least since the thirteenth century the Decalogue had been a stated feature of the vernacular devotions at high mass in England.22 By assimilating the ninefold Kyries as responses after each Commandment, this form acquired much the quality of a penitential litany.

But this penitential introduction to the service was quite incompatible with the joyful Gloria in Excelsis immediately to follow it. Just as the interpolation of the Gloria in the sixth century on festal occasions banished the liturgical use of the Litany, reducing it to the vestige of its final Kyries on all occasions, so now the reconstitution of the Kyries to a litany-form banished the Gloria from this place. Cranmer transferred the Gloria to the only possible place it could appropriately occupy in the service, namely that following the Postcommunion Thanksgiving.

There were a few further changes to meet the views of the foreign reformers. “The Altar” was supplanted by “the Table” in the rubrics, coincidently with a Royal Injunction demanding a real table, “with legs,” which the rubric directed to be brought down at the communion-time to “stand in the body of the Church, or in the chancel, where Morning and Evening prayer be appointed to be said,” i.e., in view of the congregation, not hidden by the choir-screen, and put lengthwise in the aisle, with the celebrant standing “on the north-side.” New sentences of Administration, which carefully avoided calling the Sacrament directly the body and blood of Christ, were adopted, seemingly from Laski;23 and the elements were to be delivered into the communicants' hands, not their mouths as in Sarum and 1549. At the last minute an Order in Council, with no synodical authority, added to the book the famous “Black Rubric,” the Declaration on Kneeling.24 Apparently designed to make it impossible for any one to profess belief in the Real Presence in the Elements, it did definitely exclude the theory of Transubstantiation by insisting that “the Sacramental bread and wine … remain still in their very natural substances”; but apart from that, all its intentionally harsh and disagreeable language actually contained no statement with which St. Thomas Aquinas would have disagreed.

Finally, there were a few emendations. The Churchwardens were to gather the alms, instead of having the givers come up individually. The Bishop, if present, was to pronounce the Absolution and Benediction. Octaves were directed for the Proper Prefaces. The use of the “Ante-Communion,” which 1549 had prescribed for the ancient “Station Days” of Wednesdays and Fridays, if there were none to receive the Sacrament, was now extended to Holy Days. The clause, “whose kingdom,” etc., unaccountably missing from the Creed in 1549, was restored. In the Gloria in Excelsis was inserted the “superfluous” repetition of “Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.” This, sometimes taken as a printer's dittography,25 was perhaps a deliberate addition, inserted for the purpose of preserving the banished Agnus Dei intact within the Gloria, whence it was conceived to have been derived. The transfer of the Gloria may indeed have moved Cranmer to drop the Agnus, as the nearly identical forms were now close together in the service.26

We have discussed this Liturgy of 1552 with some fulness, because it is of primary importance in the history of Anglican rites, since it was the form that has survived to this day in England, with alterations only in minutiæ, and since it was the living stock from which subsequent revisions sprang.

It is true that the remarkably clearcut structure of the first English liturgy was impaired in this recension, and its order of parts strangely dislocated. The position of the Humble Access prayer was indefensible. The curtailing of the Canon was highly regrettable: since in spite of all the attempts to protestantize the service, the net result was that it was ultra-Roman in the predominant emphasis on the formula of the Institution, and by its very structure symbolized medieval theories more absolutely than any other liturgy that has ever existed.

And yet little that was valuable and nothing that was essential was actually lost out of the rite. The new penitential preface was entirely seemly. The Intercession was back in the primitive place, and on the whole the best place. The Confession, etc., formed a noble approach to the altar. The Gloria in Excelsis was a magnificent conclusion.

Though it has long been fashionable to deprecate and deplore the rite of 1552, and though subsequent revisions have wisely reverted to the standards of 1549 in many details, yet the Second Prayer Book established the fundamental structure of a distinctive Anglican type, some of whose arrangements it may never be wise to alter. In general, it has survived because it was worthy to survive. Neither British conservatism nor the very real legal difficulties in the way of change, which proved insurmountable even in 1928, could have preserved for four hundred years a rite which was not organically sound, and adequate to express the devotional needs of the people.

§ 3

Subsequent English Revisions

The Second Prayer Book, which had hardly come into general use before it was outlawed by the Marian reaction, was restored with few changes in the Elizabethan book of 1559. The sentences of Administration of the communion in the books of '49 and '52 were combined. The Ornaments Rubric of the First Book was reënacted by reference, but proved wholly unenforceable, and remained a dead letter until the ceremonial revival of the nineteenth century. The “Black Rubric” was omitted.

The ill-fated Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, though utterly rejected at the time in the country for which it was intended, has had great influence on subsequent revisions. Most of the changes adopted in the present English Prayer Book which has been in use since 1662, date from this book of 1637. These comprised, first, an attempt at a more precise rubric, such as the directions for the priest to turn to the people at the Ten Commandments, for the people to stand at the Gospel and Creed, for the minister who leads the General Confession to kneel,27 for the covering of the consecrated elements with the Postcommunion Veil, and for their consumption after the Blessing. Rubrics for the Offertory and the Manual Acts, dropped in 1552, were restored. Titles were given to the components of the service in the rubrics: of which The Collect, The Absolution, and the Prayer of Consecration, were adopted in the English book. A more reverent phraseology spoke of the “holy” Gospel, and the “holy” Table.28 The Epistle was finished off like the Lessons with “Here endeth the Epistle.”29 A Commemoration of the Departed was reinserted in the Prayer for the Church Militant. The Collect for the King was placed before that of the day—regrettably; but it avoided turning back in the book, and kept the Collect of the day in immediate sequence with the Epistle. The congregational Amen was reinstated at the end of the Prayer of Consecration.30

Other features of the Scottish book which did not get into the English were the restoration of the Invocation, Anamnesis, and Oblation, and proper conclusion of the Consecration Prayer as in 1549, and the Gloria Tibi before the Gospel, all of which were adopted in the American Prayer Book of 1789; also the Laus Tibi after the Gospel,31 the Lord's Prayer with its Prologue after the Canon, and the Prayer of Humble Access before the Communion, which were accepted in our revision of 1928.

A few additions were made in 1662 which were not in the Scottish book. Notices and announcements were put before the Sermon instead of afterward. A rubrical change transferred the meaning of the word “Offertory” from the old Offertorium anthem, as in 1549, to the act of oblation. “And oblations” was added to the “alms” of the Church Militant prayer.32 The Doxology of Matt. 6:13 was appended to the Lord's Prayer.33

As a result of one of the meticulous Exceptions of the Ministers, the Manual Acts were amplified with further detail of the “mimetic” gestures which have always tended to invade this point of the service; not very happily perhaps: the simple acts of designation of 1549 should have been sufficient.34

Directions for a second consecration “if the consecrated bread or wine be all spent before all have communicated” were inserted along the lines of the Order of Communion of 1548 and the Canons of 1604: i.e., by the use of the bare formulæ of the Institution, without prayer of any sort. This is easily the worst feature of the book.

The “Black Rubric” was reinserted at the instance of the Presbyterian party; though the Bishops rightly remarked that there was not “any great need of restoring it, the world being now in more danger of profanation than of idolatry.” But it was rewritten to disclaim “Adoration” not of “any real and essential” but of “any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood.”

The use of the “Ante-Communion” was now finally extended to Sundays, it having long proved impossible to maintain even a weekly Eucharist with communions in the average parish; and even for large churches the book found it necessary to require the assisting clergy to communicate at least on Sunday, in order to assure a weekly celebration there.

By this path the great attempt of the Reformation to restore the people's frequent reception of the Sacrament resulted in abolishing even the regular celebration of the service. In 1571 Archbishop Grindal of York had ordered the “accumulation” and continuous recitation of Morning Prayer, Litany, and Communion or “Ante-Communion”—which in practice almost invariably meant the latter, thanks to the rubric which forbade the celebration unless at least three communicants35 had previously36 signified their intention to receive. Grindal's custom had promptly become general; and the rubrics of 1662 simply recognized the existing practice of the Church. The tide did not turn until the “Oxford Movement” emphasized again the paramount importance of the Eucharist in Christian worship, and effected its restoration by the simple process of securing a very general ignoring of the requirement of prior notification of intention to communicate.

§ 4

American Rites

The abortive American book of 1785 followed the current English use closely. But the custom of “accumulated” services had become so fixed, that it was simply assumed that the Holy Communion would never be used separately. Hence the Communion Office was printed directly after the daily services; and the prefatory Lord's Prayer and the Creed were completely omitted, to avoid a “vain repetition” of those already said in Morning Prayer. The word “Minister” was substituted for “Priest” in the rubrics throughout the service. The “Ante-Communion” ended with the Gospel.

The first authentic American book in 1789 preserved the plan of 1785 by allowing the omission of the first Lord's Prayer and the Creed, if Morning Prayer preceded immediately; the rubric referring back to the text of Morning Prayer for either Apostles' or Nicene Creeds, neither of which was reprinted in the Communion.

The great feature of this book was the Consecration Prayer, adopted through Bishop Seabury's diocesan use of 1786 from the Scottish order of 1764. It begins with the splendid exordium, “All glory be to thee” (first in 1755), which binds the Post-Sanctus to the conclusion of the Sanctus37 by the repetition of the word “glory,” just as the Syrian rite does with “holy” and the Egyptian with “full.” The Alexandrian-Roman-English feature of a “preliminary Invocation” was removed, the Invocation being placed in connection with the Great Oblation, where alone it has ecumenical warrant. Its phrasing however conflated the current English and Scottish forms. The remainder of the Consecration Prayer followed the structure of 1549; the Scottish transfer of the Intercession and the Preparation for Communion to follow the Consecration being rejected.

Other Scottish features of the service were the Summary of the Law, made a permissive addition to the Decalogue; the Collect for grace to keep the Commandments,38 finishing off the recitation of the Decalogue as a true penitential Litany, made complete by this proper Litany-collect; and the Gloria Tibi after the announcement of the Gospel, as in 1549.

New details were a simple alternative Preface for Trinity Sunday; and permission to sing a hymn after the Consecration Prayer, and to substitute a hymn for the Gloria in Excelsis.

The rubrics used “Minister” through the collection of the alms, and “Priest” from the presentation of the Elements: thus implying that the “Ante-Communion” might be said by a Deacon.

In 1892, the Nicene Creed was printed in the Communion service, retaining the permission to omit the Creed from the Communion if said before in Morning Prayer, and allowing either Creed in either office, except that the Nicene must be said on at least the five great festivals. The Decalogue must be said once a Sunday—otherwise the Summary and Kyries might be substituted—and the Collect of the Commandments was made optional. The Long Exhortation was required only once a month. The “Warnings” of an ensuing celebration were dismissed to the end of the service. A new rubric aimed at wilful “mass without communions” directed that “sufficient opportunity shall be given to all present to communicate.” Five new Offertory Sentences were provided—the last two for use at the presentation of the Alms and Oblations. Addressed to God, they adequately fill the place of the old Secreta Collect.

In the last revision of 1928, the Communion Office was removed from the end to the beginning of the book of Collects, Epistles, and Gospels. This brought it next the section of the Choir Offices, not for mere convenience as in 1785, but that it might be associated in the minds of the users of the book with the general and habitual services of the Church, not with the “Occasional Offices,” before which it formerly stood, and with which some writers had even classified it.

The “canonical” rubrics about repelling unworthy communicants were relegated to an inconspicuous position in the new section of “General Rubrics” at the end. The obsolete directions for the place of the Holy Table and the posture of the celebrant were replaced by “the Priest, standing reverently before the Holy Table”—approximating the “standyng humbly afore the middes of the Altar” of 1549.

Other reversions to the standards of the First Prayer Book were the Salutation The Lord be with you before the Collect of the day—but, inconsistently, not also before the Sursum Corda and the Postcommunion Thanksgiving, turning-points which needed to be signalized in the traditional way even more than the Collect; the inclusion of a suffrage for the Departed in the Prayer for the Church, and the deletion of the limiting term “Militant” from its Bidding; the restoration of the Lord's Prayer, with its ancient Prologue, to follow the Canon, and the placing of the Prayer of Humble Access immediately before the Communion; and the removal of the “superfluous” repetition from the Gloria in Excelsis.39

Twelve of the Offertory Sentences of 1892 were dropped, chiefly those exhorting the people to support the clergy, and those implying “unworthy” motives for almsgiving, such as an apparent “bargain with God”; and the two new Sentences for missionary collections were added.

Additional flexibility of use was secured by permitting the omission of the prefatory Lord's Prayer at discretion, an optional use of the Decalogue in shortened form, and the omission of the Long Exhortation at any time except the first Sundays of Advent and Lent, and Trinity Sunday.

The desire for special “votive” intercessions (hitherto met by interpolating collects after the Collect of the day or before the Blessing) was provided for by permitting special prayers after the Creed or at announcement-time, and special Biddings prefixed to the General Intercession.

While the word “Priest” was restored throughout the rubrics, a special provision permits a Deacon, “in the absence of a Priest,” to say the service “to the end of the Gospel.” But in this book the use of the “Ante-Communion” on Sundays and other Holy Days when there is no communion is permitted, not required, by the rubrics.