Saturday, December 23, 2006

The need for a new "Anglican Missal"

According to Canon Charles Winfred Douglas, The American Missal of the 1930s was produced to counter some tendencies in The English Missal and The Anglican Missal that were distinctly Roman and peculiar to the modern Roman Church. However, as is readily evident to the most casual observer, all Missals currently in use in the continuing Anglican Churches include those elements that many churchmen continue to find odd at the least and theologically prohibitive at the worst. What I think is needed by those that utilize any of the Missals is a revisiting of the same issues that concerned Canon Douglas, so that a truly "Anglican Missal" might be brought forth for use in the classical Anglican Churches that desire it. His essay and arguments, thankfully preserved by Project Canterbury, are reproduced below for your consideration.


Missals in the Protestant Episcopal Church
The Churchman, CXLIV (July 25, 1931), 11-12.
by Charles Winfred Douglas

Why the American Missal was Produced


Obviously, the missal of the Protestant Episcopal Church is contained in the Book of Common Prayer; and no other rite possesses any authority save by Episcopal license. Nevertheless, missals containing supplementary devotions have been widely used among us for the past sixty years. About that time, an English book, Divine Service, began to be found on American altars. Later editions of this book bore the imprint of an American publisher. This work had many successors. Half a dozen of them are on my shelves. They all had the serious fault of being adapted to the English Prayer Book, not to our own. This fact led me, in association with the late Rev. Maurice W. Britton, to undertake in 1911 the preparation of an Altar Missal, to have been called The Saint Dunstan Missal. In 1913 the first section of this work, the "Ordinary and Canon of the Mass," was admirably printed by D. B. Updike at the Merrymount Press, and published by the H. W. Gray Company. It aroused no comment other than a few favorable reviews. It has been widely in use ever since, some 700 copies having been sold. But the General Convention of 1913 initiated the long process of Prayer Book revision; and further work on the missal was necessarily postponed until the conclusion of that task.


Meanwhile, two new foreign publications found their way to American altars, The English Missal and The Anglican Missal. The latter claimed to contain the American rite, but did so only in garbled and imperfect form. Both books were frankly Roman; rearranging the order of the Eucharist more Romano, interpolating the Canon of the Roman Mass before the Prayer of Consecration, and adopting the modern Roman Calendar even to such Feasts as those of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and of Saint Peter's Chair at Rome.


To many of us these books seemed alien in manner, inadequate in preparation, and disloyal not only to our formularies, but to our whole morale as a church. Therefore when, before I could resume my own old plan, I was asked by Bishop Ivins to participate in the preparation of an altar service book not open to these grave objections, I regarded it as not only a personal privilege, but a religious duty as well, to accede at his request: and I am proud and happy to have shared with him and with his fellow-editors the labor and responsibility of preparing The American Missal. For a work undertaken through motives of utter loyalty, it has had its share of denunciation, often quite uninformed, from critics whose voices were never publicly heard in condemnation of the disloyal books which it has almost universally replaced. My honored and beloved friend, the Bishop of Colorado, told us last year that the crowning objection to the Roman system was not so much its doctrine in the main, but its rigid regimentation, which dictates every minutest detail of belief, conduct, rite, and ceremony. Some of our brethren and Fathers in God appear to be swayed for the moment by that Romanensian rigidity; against which, as against every attack on the liberty wherewith Christ hath set us free, I remain completely Protestant. But this is too solemn a matter of controversial dealing. It is a matter of man's most sacred prayer; which he cannot pray, whatever book he uses, without the Holy Spirit. We cannot quarrel about a work in which we seek to be led by the Holy Spirit of God: we can only, with complete mutual respect, lovingly try to understand one another.


Now why do some of us feel the need of a book containing devotions supplementary to the Book of Common Prayer?


Probably every priest and bishop says private prayers of some kind before, during, and after the Eucharistic celebration. Our private prayers are not prescribed by bishop or by convention; they remain completely free. Hundreds of us, in the exercise of this lawful freedom, prefer to utter prayers sanctified by ages of use in God's church, rather than our own improvisations. They are printed for the convenience of the priest who desires to say them; and they are the proper concern of no other person whatever, save possibly a lay server at his side. From among these devotions, our Prayer Book has recently been enriched by the beautiful Collect for the Unity of the Church.


The Introits, Graduals, Alleluia Responds, Tracts, Offertories, and Communions, taken from Scripture; and the Sequences, taken from the Hymnal, are of course definitely provided for in the Prayer Book in the precise places where they occur. They make up the devotional treasure of the choir, which from very early Christian times adorned the Eucharist with God-inspired words rather than with later and less worthy hymns.


In another category are the additional services for an enlarged calendar. They are supplementary to the Prayer Book, as are the similar services in the Book of Offices set forth by the House of Bishops. For the use of either, the consent, at least tacit, of the diocesan, is required. But may I point out that this calendar is a composite of those approved by the bishops visitors of the various religious orders working in our church? The priests whose devotional leadership is sought in our retreats, our parochial missions, our summer conferences, our schools of the prophets, our college of preachers, are largely those who daily use this calendar. The tree is known by its fruits: and the good tree of devout commemoration of God's Saints in every age is yielding the good fruit of saintly lives in our age. Who wishes to deny the religious and their associates the benefit of daily devotion?


The special observances of Holy Week and of some other days, when they are not wholly drawn from Bible and Prayer Book, are of course "subject to the direction of the ordinary." This means that they are to be treated precisely as the popular devotion of the Three Hour Service on Good Friday.


Apart from their practical value to those who devoutly and wisely use them, such books as The American Missal have a larger significance and importance. Their wide use is a bond of relationship with churches both Protestant and Catholic toward which we have mode overtures of sympathetic approach with a view to eventual intercommunion. Many of us are unaware that great numbers of our Protestant brethren have gone far beyond us in the matter of historical liturgical enrichment. I have before me several recently published Protestant service books, each of which contains much of the material characterizing a missal. One of them, by no means the most Catholic in tone, contains Tenebrae, the Reproaches, the Adoration of the Cross, the private prayers which have been objected to in The American Missal, Proper Prefaces for Lent, Passiontide, Corpus Christi, and Feasts of Apostles; and other similar devotions. The missal of the Old Catholics, with whom we seem on the verge of intercommunion, is precisely similar, in its faithfulness to what is Catholic and its rejection of what is merely Roman, to The American Missal. The Orthodox, with whom we already have economic intercommunion, are accustomed to greater liturgical richness than that of our official books. Perhaps The American Missal will prove to be an agency blessed by God in bringing us to that wider outlook and larger responsibility for Christian unity so convincingly urged by the Lambeth Conference.

from Project Canterbury

13 comments:

Paul Goings said...

I may be confused, but if the English, Anglican, and American Missals all contain elements which some churchmen might object to, then what are you proposing as criteria for a reformed missal. Certainly Canon Douglas would have supported many of these contentious elements, as his article indicates, so I'm not sure what is being suggested.

Rev. Dr. Hassert said...

My suggestion is mainly that of Douglas+, not that things like the holy week or other services be removed, but only that the contents try and reflect Western Catholicism before the Great Schism of 1054, rather than the Victorian Roman Catholicism of the 19th century (again, not including Roman Catholic saints of the Counter-Reformation period, and distinctly Roman feats like the Immaculate Conception and the Chair of Saint Peter in Rome). An Anglican Missal teaching the Catholic faith should be in agreement with the faith of the ancient Church.

The Western Rite Orthodox services could be a basis for such a text.

AC+

Paul Goings said...

the contents try and reflect Western Catholicism before the Great Schism of 1054

So, perhaps, the Use of Sarum, or another of the pre-Schism Western rites, but with permission to use a vernacular translation? Is that what you're getting at?

I presume that one could also take the Ordo Romanus Primus, which I believe is eighth century, as a liturgical model?

I'm fairly conflicted about omitting saints from the Counter-Reformation period. Are you intending to imply that any Roman Catholics after Trent cannot be accepted as models of sanctity, or is the intention to simply freeze the calendar at 1054?

Rev. Dr. Hassert said...

Not to go overboard in emulating the Western Rite Orthodox (I think they use 1054 for the cut off for Western saints), but celebrating the feasts of those who sought to kill Queen Elizabeth I, or who actively tried to bring down the Church of England in other ways, (or who taught Roman doctrines as necessary for salvation) sends a rather mixed message among classical Anglicans and will usually result in such a book not being broadly accepted among those who try and remain faithful Churchmen. Not that post-Reformation Roman Catholics cannot be models of sanctity, surely not--one has only to look at JPII.

My concern is to bring Anglicans together around a Missal they could all embrace, so perhaps there should be a "cut off date" for inclusion of saints in the Church year. 1054 may be as good as any.

A vernacular translation of the Sarum might be used, but I would hope the central rite would be a classical Anglican Eucharistic rite that has been acknowledged as expressing the fullness of Anglican doctrine as concerns the Eucharist: the 1549 or 1928 English rites, the Scottish 1929, or the American 1928.

In that the 1928 American BCP (with only moderate alterations to the canon) is used by the American Western Rite Orthodox, I see no reason why this shouldn't be the core of an American Anglican Missal.

One has only to look to The Western Rite Service Book and the Western Rite Calendar of the Antiochian Orthdox Church to see such a thing in existence already. In essence, they've adopted Anglican service books (rather mildly) for Orthodox use. I think Anglican Catholics should have a look to see what the Orthodox have added (and sometimes taken away, in regards to the Missals) to see what Anglican worship would look like if conformed to principles of the ancient Church.

Again, I don't want it to seem that I am going overboard on how well the WR Orthodox have taken the Anglican texts and adopted and adapted them for Western Rite use (I'm too western and Augustinian in my theology, and the Western Rite is till seen by many in Orthodoxy as an awful thing--however, I think it is wonderful that within Orthodoxy the legacy of men like Douglas+ lives on), but I do want to point out something that Douglas+ mentioned as well; keeping the Roman feasts and saints days separates us not only from one another in Anglicanism, diminishing the notion of Common Prayer, it separates us from the Orthodox as well.

Rev. Dr. Hassert said...

P.S. Please forgive my obvious spelling mistakes in the posts above.

Anonymous said...

We're having this discussion on a local level with our AC mission. The flock (High and Dry 1928 BCP former Episcopalians) find the clergy's (ACC Missal users) interpolations jarring and very "Roman". What's wrong with using the Altar Service book? or, if you're looking for a richer, traditional Anglican text a U. S. adaptation of the Book of Common Prayer 1962 (Canada).

On the saints I agree with our blogger. Why ape the Roman Kalendar (and then there is the question of which one--pre-1962, Vatican II, the Pius X Society...) when we have a rich heritage of uniquely British (Welsh/English/Scottish and Irish) saints up to the time of the Reformation and many "blesseds" following 1549? These would seem to best express our special brand of spirituality in the church catholic.

Rev. Dr. Hassert said...

This is something that The Patristic Anglican (ACC) and An Anglican Parish Priest (APCK) have addressed as well; throughout the Continuum the laity by and large seem to want a basic 1928 Prayer Book Eucharist done by a male in an alb and chasuble (or a surplice and stole); they don't want things that are strikingly Roman. However, many that go into the priesthood desire to do the service "by the book," in this case one of the Missals. There is sometimes (in my opinion) little thought given as to the "why" of the things being used in the Missal.

I came from an ACA (now APA) parish out east where the Missal was on the altar, but the service was done such that the Prayer Book could be followed to the letter, and only the Prayer Book feast days were kept. This was done to make Common Prayer a reality, and keep the jarring differences between the Missal and the Prayer Book far less obvious.

To an extent, I think the clergy need to be made aware of the fact that this sort of thing is happening in every jurisdiction--the people in the pew want the Prayer Book, while the priests called to such parishes feel the need to give them the Missal instead.

Hence, once again, the need for a Missal that conforms to the BCP of 1928, rather than making the 1928 BCP conform to the Missal.

Anonymous said...

Well, perhaps the proper solution would be a 1928 Altar Service Book with adequate rubrics and the incorporation of Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1963)--which is very much what the Canadian revision did in 1962. I was leafing through George DeMille's The Catholic Movement in the American Episcopal Church (2d ed 1950). He speaks of reaction to Douglas's American Missal thus "...to such men as these [High Church bishops], thus to offer the Church a frankly partisan Prayer Book seemed a highly un-Catholic action, tending, indeed, to increase the obvious sectarianism within the Church, which is one of the evils of Anglicanism. The use of the Missal was, therefore, forbidden by many distinctly High Church bishops as a breach of Catholic unity." (p. 201) Which all goes to underline the problems of such an entity. In short, it smacks of all that Cranmer was trying to root out of the Mass--the alienation of the faithful in our common prayer of thanksgiving which is the Eucharist. The secrets, the silent Canon, the acta arcana, communion in one kind all increased this divorce of the mystic union of the Church militant with its Bridegroom.

Rev. Dr. Hassert said...

I very much agree with those comments. Perhaps what I am envisioning as a new "Missal" would be nothing more than a 1928 Altar Service with the Lesser Feasts and Fasts included for easy use at the altar.

Anonymous said...

As any priest at the altar who regularly does a sung service, the Altar Service Book is a nightmare. It contains no music so the priest must either bring a copy of The Choral Service to the altar or memorize all of the necessary music. Plus, in spite of all his musings, the music which Douglas produced for The Choral Service was Roman. The equivalent in the Church of England is taken from the old Sarum books and is what I think should be used. The model ought to be The English Liturgy produced by the Rt Rev'd Walter Howard Frere and Percy Dearmer. The epistles and gospels are pointed so that they can easily be sung to the ancient tunes and the calendar is that of 1662.

G said...

Re: death bredon's comment. Additional collects for the Black-Letter Days in the Canadian BCP can be found in the Canadian Book of Occasional Offices (1964).

Anonymous said...

I suggest that those who feel that the Antiochian WR accepts the 1892 or 1928 BCP read Russian Observations on the BCP at http://anglicanhistory.org/alcuin/tract12.html The Antiochian WR Vicariate also has utilized "The Tutorial Prayer Book" 1913 by Neil and Willoughby to get a fuller picture of the protestant interpretations the BCP is open to. The book was published after the Russian Observations but validates the concerns of the Russians. The WR Vicariate in its Tikhon Usage Mass goes to great lengths to eradicate any vestiges of Cranmerian protestant eucharistic theology under whatever guise. This is the only portion of the BCP that is any way accepted for use in the Antiochian WR Vicariate.

Rev. Dr. Hassert said...

"The WR Vicariate in its Tikhon Usage Mass goes to great lengths to eradicate any vestiges of Cranmerian protestant eucharistic theology under whatever guise. This is the only portion of the BCP that is any way accepted for use in the Antiochian WR Vicariate."

I find this statement a bit strange, in that the Western Rite Service Book, in its services for Morning and Evening Prayer, the litany and the Tikhon Eucharist, are nearly verbatim from the 1928 American Anglican.

Here is the 1928 Eucharist from the BCP:
ALL glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious the death and sacrifice, until his coming again: For in the night in which he was betrayed, (a) he took Bread; and when he had given thanks, (b) he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, (c) this is my Body, which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, after supper, (d) he took the Cup; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this; for (e) this is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins; Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me.

WHEREFORE O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy Divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same.

AND we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us; and, of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine; that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.

AND we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness, mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant that, by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice; yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.



Here is Tikhon's rite:

ALL glory be to Thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that Thou, of Thy tender mercy, didst
give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who there (by His own oblation of himself once offered) made a full, perfect, and
sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in His holy
Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that His precious death and sacrifice, until His coming again: (A bell rings once.) For in the night in which He was betrayed, He took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is My Body, which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of Me. (A bell rings thrice for the offering of the Host.) Likewise, after supper, He took the cup; and when He
had given thanks, He gave it to them, saving, Drink ye all
of this; For this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins; Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me. (A bell
rings thrice for the offering of the Cup.)

The Oblation
WHEREFORE, O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the institution of Thy dearly beloved
Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, we, Thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before Thy Divine Majesty, with these Thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto Thee, the memorial Thy Son hath commanded us to make;
having in remembrance His blessed Passion and precious Death, His mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension; rendering unto Thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same.

The Epiclesis
AND we most humbly beseech Thee, O merciful Father, to hear us; and of Thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to send down Thy Holy Spirit upon these Thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may be changed into the Body and Blood of Thy most dearly
beloved Son. Grant that we, receiving them according to remembrance of His death and passion, may be partakers
of His most blessed Body and Blood.
R. Amen. Amen. Amen.

AND we earnestly desire Thy fatherly goodness, mercifully
to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching Thee to grant that, by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through
faith in His blood, we, and all Thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion. And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee; humbly beseeching Thee, that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with Thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one
body with Him, that He may dwell in us, and we in Him.
And although we are unworthy, through our manifold
sins, to offer unto Thee any sacrifice; yet we beseech Thee
to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing
our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus
Christ, our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity
of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto Thee, O
Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.

I'll leave it up to the reader to decide the degree of difference of similarity present in these two rites.

AC+