Prayers at Communion

You may notice that as seasons change, so do the words we use in praying the Great Thanksgiving. While “changing it up” does keep things interesting, there is more to the ways these prayers are selected for a given season than variety.

The earliest Eucharistic prayers (Eucharist is the Greek word for thanksgiving) were probably more spontaneous, being crafted by the Celebrant of the day. These had a definite form that we would recognize today but probably were not written down.

Later, prayers for regions or dioceses were written down, and all churches in those areas would be expected to use those words. Over time, the form of thanksgiving for creation, the redemption of the world in Jesus the Christ, the retelling of the words of institution, and the invocation of the Holy Spirit became common features of most churches throughout the world.

By the time of the Reformation (16^th century) the Roman church in the West had a fairly consistent prayer, in Latin, that was used throughout the continent. The most holy moment in these prayers were the words of institution “Take, eat, this is my body…”. In some traditions, bells are still rung to call attention to this transformative moment.

The reformers, however saw the Roman celebration of the Eucharist as superstitious magic rather than holy mystery, thinking it focused too much on the power of the priest and the church. The term “hocus pocus” in juggling and magic performances at the time was a play on the words “hoc est corpus meum” (this is my body).

And so, many new forms and prayers for celebrating communion arose in Protestant churches. In the Church of England, Thomas Cramner crafted the original Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The Communion prayer in this book, and the ones to follow, kept much of the form of the Mass but changed the communion prayer to be more in line with Lutheran/Protestant theology, focused on the grace and forgiveness of Christ. It also was translated into English so that it would be easily understood by all.

In the mid-20^th century, many Christian churches reclaimed the liturgical traditions of the early church, including the form of the liturgy. In the U.S. Episcopal Church, this resulted in the Prayers in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. These prayers recaptured the thanksgiving for the whole sweep of salvation history (creation, Israel, and Jesus), and dialed back the heavy reformation theology emphasis from earlier Anglican prayer books.

In Lent, we at Grace will be using prayers based on the theology and the poetic Shakespearean English of earlier prayer books (see page 340 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer). In the season after Easter, we’ll use authorized prayers more recently adopted for the Episcopal Church that reflect current insights and concerns. I invite you to be aware of how these prayers invite us into Thanksgiving for God’s work in different ways and to appreciate their theological sensibilities and differences in language. God is expansive, and our prayer can be too!

If you would like to talk more about these prayers, and liturgy in general, I would be glad to meet.

Thomas