Common Prayer: A View from North of the 49th Parallel

Although I have lived uninterruptedly in British Columbia longer than any other place in my life, I am not a native-born Canadian. I was born in England, raised in the United States, and emigrated to Canada in 1987. In some respects I am an embodiment of what is becoming the Canadian reality: an immigrant who has found the Canadian context to be life-giving and, if I may use the term, natural. But Canada is my home if not my native land because it is here that I have spent twenty-eight of the thirty-one years since my ordination to the transitional diaconate in June of 1981.We Canadians treasure our connections with Anglicans throughout the world yet we are consciously North American, valuing the wisdom of our neighbors to the south while, at the same time, valuing our Commonwealth ties. Perhaps it is these two characteristics that make me feel so at home here, the son of a mother from England and a father from the United States.So, what is about in Canada, eh?Re-visiting the SourcesIf one wants to know what is about common prayer in the Anglican tradition, a good place to start is the Prayer Book of 1549. Archbishop Cranmer used the Preface and a concluding editorial, Of Ceremonies Omitted or Retained, to articulate a number of principles which have shaped Anglican worship for the past four hundred and fifty years.1) Liturgy is the product of human activity and thus susceptible to decay and distortion: There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted: as (among other things) it may plainly appear by the prayers in the Church.12) Regular and thorough reading of the scriptures is a norm for Christian worship: [The ancient fathers] so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once in the year, intending thereby . . . that the people (by daily hearing of holy scripture read in the Church) should continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God.23) Liturgy is to be conducted in the vernacular rather than a hieratic language: And moreover, . . . Paul would have such language spoken to the people in the church, as they might understand and have profit by hearing the same.34) Simplicity and clarity rather than complexity and obscurity is a characteristic of authentic worship : Moreover, the number and hardness of the rules called the pie, and the manifold changings of the service, was the cause, that to turn the book only, was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times, there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.45) Worship should unite people of a culture: And where heretofore, there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in churches within this realm: some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, some the use of Bangor, some of York, and some of Lincoln: Now from henceforth, all the whole realm shall have but one use.56) Bishops are called to exercise pastoral stewardship of the liturgical life of their dioceses·. And forsomuch as nothing can, almost, be so plainly set forth, but doubts may rise in the use and practicing of the same: . . . the parties that so doubt, or diversely take anything, shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same: so that the same order be not contrary to anything contained in this book.67) English is not a privileged liturgical language; if the people understand another language, then it is suitable for worship (see number 3 above): Though it be appointed in the afore written preface, that all things shall be read and sung in the church, in the English tongue, to the end that the congregation may be thereby edified: yet it is not meant, but when men say Matins and Evensong privately, they may say the same in any language that they themselves do understand. …

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