The incident quickly became a cause célèbre for American reactionary conservatives and their outrage-mongers. They misgendered Gentili; they said that she was an atheist and a prostitute and should therefore not have been given a church burial. Most foolishly, they asserted that those at the funeral who celebrated ‘Saint Cecilia’ thereby defamed the memory of Cecilia of Rome, Virgin and Martyr, rather than taking from it what was surely intended — to commemorate Gentili herself as sacred.

The cathedral’s clergy responded by joining in the blanket condemnation of the service they had held, calling it ‘sacrilegious’ and inappropriate to the season of Lent;¹ they assure us that they have offered a Mass of Reparation to atone.

The cathedral’s response is disappointing inasmuch as by failing to respond to any specific criticism of the events, they implicitly condone all of these arguments. They said nothing of the circumstances of poverty in which Gentili found herself with no other option but sex work upon moving to New York; they said nothing of her work campaigning against the unjust laws which persecuted her and many other trans women. They failed to note that, as a baptized Catholic, she was eternally bound to the body of Christ and had as much right to a church burial as any other Catholic.² They did not correct those who referred to her as male. Moreover, in defending themselves with the claim that they knew nothing about the person whom they were burying, they hold the deceased Gentili for the behaviour of the mourners at her funeral.

Nonetheless, the cathedral’s naïveté here should nonetheless be a lesson to itself — of a rather different kind.

As it was burying a well-known trans and sex workers’ rights activist — well-known enough to enjoy a detailed biography on Wikipedia — the cathedral should have expected a large number of trans people and sex workers would wish to attend to pay their respects. The cathedral should have recognized that many of the mourners would thus be guests in a Christian church to which they do not belong — a Church which has hurt many of them.

In this context the Church must realize that it is playing host to a different culture and act in accordance with God’s commandment to hospitality. It must hold fast to its traditions and doctrines while welcoming those of the community it invites into its House. But in this specific context, it must also reflect on what it has done in the past to hurt the people of that community; what it has done to make itself the object of mockery by them.

This is not to say it should take this mockery lying down (nor that a funeral is the right context for a theological debate over the Church’s past treatment of trans people and sex workers). But to preach the message of Christ to all means also to seek forgiveness from those whom the Church has hurt by allowing a twisted version of that message to be sent out. This perversion of the gospel may not have come from the Roman Catholic Church itself, but the reaction from American conservatives shows how little the universal message of reconciliation is understood even among those who seem to think they stand with the Church.

This moment should have been an opportunity for the Church to teach and to learn; the Church wasted it by appeasing those who twist the word of Christ to mean unforgiveness and hate.

For the last few years my preferred table of lessons for the daily office has been the one published by the Church of England in 1961 — a slight revision of the 1922 lectionary found at the front of current editions of the Book of Common Prayer. Like the 1922 lectionary, it is based on the Church year, not the civil calendar year; but it has the following advantages, especially felt in private devotion, over the original:

• A two-year fixed cycle of Sunday lessons, instead of the free choice of up to three lessons provided by the 1922 lectionary. It might well be realistic for a parson to read all the available options in the 1922 and pick the most appropriate to read at a public service of Mattins or Evensong; when praying privately, one is in practice hamstrung into picking a reading knowing nothing more than the book and chapter, usually picking the first one by default. The 1961’s provision of a two-year cycle on Sundays only is a marked improvement for those who pray the office alone or in small, informal groups. (On the most important days, such as Advent Sunday, Septuagesima, Easter, etc., the significant readings are the same in both years.)
• The elimination of ‘gospel harmony’ after Trinity in favour of straightforward lectio continua reading of the synoptics, eliminating a lot of back-and-forth switching between the gospels.

However, getting a copy of this lectionary is rather tricky, as it was effectively out of print until recently. John Hunwicke includes it in his Ordo every year; I included it in my office book in 2019; but more recently the 1662 Book of Common Prayer International Edition has included most of it in an appendix as an ‘alternative table of lessons’, somewhat reviving interest in it.

Since I usually carry around and pray from a 1662 pew edition, though, none of these solutions are very convenient. So I’ve made little A6 booklets to slip inside my prayer book, containing the lectionary in worked-out form for each Church year. Maybe you’ll find them useful too!

1. Ave, maris stella,
   God’s own Mother, loving,
   atque semper virgo,
   blessed gate of heaven.

2. Sumens illud «Ave»
   Gabriel’s word was spoken.
   Guard in peace our pathways,
   mutans Evae nomen.

3. Solve vincla reis,
   healing light revealing,
   mala nostra pelle,
   for us interceding.

4. Monstra te esse matrem,
   to him praying humbly,
   quem pro nobis natum¹
   him who made thee holy.

5. Virgo singularis,
   meek beyond comparing,
   nos culpis solutos,
   make us meek and caring.

6. Vitam praesta puram,
   watch the way before us,
   that, videntes Jesum,
   we may join his chorus.

7. Sit laus Deo Patri,
   as to Christ in heaven,
   Spiritui Sancto
   triune praise be given. Amen.

I’m considering the view that it was, in fact, mainly the catholic party which was primarily responsible for the failure of the 1928 prayer book — even the more moderate catholics who actually supported the book’s passage (and not just the extreme ‘Romanizers’ who rejected it on the grounds that neither it, nor the 1662 before it, were sufficiently doctrinally orthodox in their view).

The 1928 book was really the result of a failure to compromise. Or rather, it made one lazy compromise: for the first time, it would have officially sanctioned liturgical disuniformity in the name of letting everyone use the form of service they liked most. We can see the disaster this attitude has got us into today; at the time, the provision allowing the 1662 book to continue in use exactly as it was must have made it seem less necessary for the (largely catholic-leaning) reformists to find single forms of worship acceptable to all parties in the church. Those unhappy with any particular changes could simply ignore them.

If the moderate (Dearmerian) catholic party had been more willing to accept compromise, work for liturgical unity, and make a single, completely reformed Book of Common Prayer, perhaps it would have succeeded. The whole ‘additions and deviations’ approach was as much to blame for the book’s failure than objections to any of the individual ‘deviations’ allowed.

There were a lot of small, uncontroversial improvements to the 1662 book which could have been made without needing to keep old forms around. The 1928 could have been what the 1662 was to previous BCPs: an unquestionable, if minor, improvement with no doctrinal controversy. Improvements like: a shorter daily office, especially for weekdays; new prayers and thanksgivings; more eucharistic propers; and the subtle updating of outdated wording (e.g. changing ‘vile body’ to ‘body of our low estate’ in the burial service).

The most doctrinally controversial aspects of the new book were the provision for reservation and the long eucharistic prayer of the new communion service. Obviously, nearly a century later, I can’t say what compromises might have worked in these areas to yield agreement between the catholics and evangelicals of the 1920s. But, say, if the moderate catholics had given up on allowing reservation, then the other changes in the communion service (dropping the decalogue, shorter confession and absolution, etc.) would alone have significantly decreased the difficulty of celebrating in multiple patients’ homes in a short period of time. As far as I have read, even after the second defeat of the revised book in 1928, simply trying to get the measure through a third time and removing the provision for reservation altogether was seemingly never seriously considered.

On Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Ghost to the disciples after the ascension, as it is told by St Luke in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. In today’s reading, on the other hand, we hear a similar story told in characteristically more mystical terms by St John: Jesus giving the gift of the Holy Ghost to his disciples by his own breath, after the resurrection but before the ascension.

In today’s Epistle and Gospel readings, we see not only how Christ came to us, died, and was resurrected, but that the Holy Spirit he gave us bears witness to these things for us. We remember the resurrection we celebrated last Sunday, but once again, as in Lent, we find ourselves driven to looking forward — this time to the Ascension and to Pentecost.

Jesus says before he gives them the Holy Spirit, ‘As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.’ What extraordinary words. ‘In the same way that my Father sent me, the eternal and divine Christ, to be become human, and to bear witness to God in the world through ministry, and to suffer for the sins of everyone else — in the same way as my Father sent me for these things, that’s what I’m sending you to do.’ In the narrative Jesus is speaking to his disciples, but this is his message to us all, his Church. And then he gives them the Holy Ghost.

John tells us the significance of this gift in his Epistle. If we have received the Holy Spirit, we live in truth. We bear witness to the truth of Christ. Without the Spirit, we have no truth; without the Spirit, we have no Christ in us, no resurrection in us, and no life in us.

This is the significance of the forgiveness of sins. Sin means death. Nine weeks ago, on the second Sunday before Lent, we heard in Genesis chapter 3 the origin of sin, and how mankind, that God had destined for immortality, rebelled against him by sinning. You had one job, Adam: don’t eat from that tree. But he did. After that, everyone who followed in the footsteps of Adam and Eve by sinning was doomed, like they were, to die.

But knowing Christ gives us life. Knowing Christ, we inherit the gifts that he gave us. He tells us that, if we forgive each others’ sins, they are forgiven. Just like that. One of the things the Pharisees objected to about Jesus’s ministry was how he, a mere man, dared to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. Only God can do that, they said. But when we know Christ and accept the gift of the Spirit, we can all forgive sin. We give each other the gift of eternal life and freedom from death.

All of us suffer from sin. We suffer from doing sinful things. We suffer from the sinful things other people do to us. Hell, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, is other people. As long as we have this sinful nature, we will carry on hurting each other, and suffering from being hurt by the sins of others – just as Christ suffered from the sins of his people against him. But he forgave them, and gave them life. He gave us the gift of life to share among ourselves.

When Psalm 22 came around in the daily office at the beginning of this month, I shared a brief reflection on the contrast between the first part of it, which is a clear prophecy of the crucifixion, and the second part, which dramatically changes mood and points to praise and thanksgiving to God for the resurrection. Good Friday, I said, is meaningless without Easter Sunday. The crucifixion of one poor, itinerant Jewish preacher for heresy would have been forgotten by history had he not shown himself to be divine by rising from the dead three days later.

Today’s readings urge us on in a similar way. The resurrection of Christ isn’t just an extraordinary miracle in and of itself, neither is it just that it shows us what lies ahead of us when our own bodies pass away. It points us to the Christian life on earth as well. It points us to living by the guiding of the Holy Spirit to spread his gift among us. If we let that gift guide us, it spreads among us — the most wonderful gift of all.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words, which we have heard this day with our outward ears, may through thy grace be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honour and praise of thy Name — through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

These texts suggest that the time of approach was even earlier than I speculated in my previous article — not only before the prayer for Christ’s Church, but before the offertory and the offertory sentences themselves.

First, the earlier source, Beveridge’s Great Necessity, presumably describing practices he had known throughout his life, includes prayers for communicants to say privately at the service, in this order: ‘Before going to the Altar’; ‘At going to the Altar’; ‘At prostrating before the Altar’; ‘Whilst others are coming up, and the Priest preparing to read the Sentences’; ‘At the Offertory’.

Second, the New Week’s Preparation provides a much more detailed outline of preparation and prayer, starting the week before reception and proceeding day by day, continuing smoothly into the devotions to be made during the communion service itself. The section immediately following a ‘prayer to be used as soon as Sermon is ended’ is a detailed annotated version of the prayer book liturgy from the offertory onwards entitled ‘The Companion for the Altar’, beginning:

Now, laying aside all Fears and Despondencies, proceed to the Communion Service, and then to the Sacrament, which as much Joy and Satisfaction, as a guilty Criminal would go to plead his Pardon at an Earthly Tribunal.

☞ At your Approach in the Chancel, drop all Thoughts of Things on Earth, and give up yourself wholly to the Remembrance of the Sufferings of our Saviour, lifting up your Soul to him in these Words:

I will wash my Hands in Innocence, O Lord, and so will I compass thy Altar, that I may shew the Voice of Thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wonderous Works.

Rubrick.

¶ Then shall the Priest return to the Lord’s Table (etc., rubric from the prayer book)

The movement of communicants from nave to chancel immediately after the sermon may also explain the 18th century practice of non-communicants leaving the church entirely after the sermon.

The New Week’s Preparation also suggests that my hypothesis that the communicants would remain in place for the prayers of thanksgiving after reception is incorrect: the private devotion entitled ‘A Prayer of Thanksgiving as soon as we are retired from the Lord’s Table’ comes immediately after reception and before the Lord’s Prayer. The rubrics are fairly clear that communicants should withdraw at some point before the blessing,¹ but I had assumed this would be before or during the Gloria, since the Lord’s Prayer and thanksgiving or oblation belong to the canon and not the dismissal in the old mass. But if the approach before the offertory is in any way a continuance of a mediaeval custom, it makes sense that the communicants would have continued to withdraw at the point in their own devotions at which they had always been accustomed to (i.e., directly after receiving) notwithstanding that the content of the prayers following reception had originally belong to the part of the service they would have been in the chancel for.

When did the modern practice of approaching after the consecration arise?

An account of the Rev. Robert Walker (1709–1802) quoted by Wordsworth and published 1820 in The Edinburgh Magazine reads (emphasis mine):

There is a small chapel, in the county palatine of Lancaster, where a certain clergyman has regularly officiated above sixty years, and a few months ago administered the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the same, to a decent number of devout communicants. After the clergyman had received himself, the first company out of the assembly who approached the altar, and kneeled down to be partakers of the sacred elements, consisted of the parson’s wife, … (etc.)

More precisely datable accounts doubtless exist, but as Walker was appointed to the church of Seathwaite, Lancashire in 1736, and this account apparently dates from a time when he had been serving his chapel for over sixty years, apparently the modern practice was common enough not to be surprising by 1796 or earlier, but practice may have varied from church to church for significantly longer. Sources or further information would be appreciated.

1. How lovely the maiden in royal array,
   such splendour above any angel’s display!
   His angel God sent to show Mary her call:
   for beauty in faithfulness chosen of all.

2. Her head now adornèd with bright golden crown,
   the sceptre she leadeth before her Son’s throne:
   So bravely our heavenly heroine tread
   and trampled the demonic serpent’s vile head.

3. O Virgin of virgins in holy embrace,
   O radient with virtue, resplendent with grace:
   The stars and the sun deck thy visage with light;
   the heavenly company joys at thy sight.

4. No star in the sky nor no flower below,
   no sunlight so glorious as thy saintly glow;
   the roses will wither, the stars one day fade,
   but thou art in beauty forever displayed.

1. Die Schönste von allen, von fürstlichem Stand,
   kann Schön’res nicht malen ein’ englische Hand:
   Maria mit Namen, an ihrer Gestalt
   all Schönheit beisammen Gott selbst wohlgefallt.

2. Ihr Haupt ist gezieret mit goldener Kron’,
   das Zepter sie führet am himmlischen Thron,
   ein’ sehr starke Heldin, mit englischem Schritt
   der höllischen Schlange den Kopf sie zertritt.

3. Wohlan denn, o Jungfrau, der Jungfrauen Bild,
   von Tugenden strahlend, mit Gnaden erfüllt,
   mit Sternen geschmücket, die Sonne dich kleidt,
   die Engel, den Himmel dein Anblick erfreut!

4. Die Sterne verlöschen; die Sonn’, die jetzt brennt,
   wird einstens verdunkeln, und alles sich endt;
   du aber wirst strahlen noch lang nach der Zeit
   in himmlischer Glorie durch all’ Ewigkeit.¹

Most modern Anglican liturgies, especially Common Worship Order One, move the confession and absolution at the holy communion service from its traditional Anglican place within the communion rite — either (in England and America) immediately before the eucharistic prayer proper, or (in Scotland as in the first prayer book) after the consecration and immediately before reception — to the very beginning of the service. The historical and ecumenical logic is impeccable: it takes the place of the confiteor of the old mass; it matches the placement of the confession at the prayer book’s daily office; it is where the ‘act of penitence’ is in the modern Roman mass.

Unfortunately, though, it destroys the immediate combination of penitence and celebration in the eucharist which has been with Anglicans since before our first fully reformed liturgy.¹ This combination is striking: while we celebrate Christ, the sinless and utterly innocent man, dying a criminal’s death to save us, we also see the immediate contrast to ourselves, constantly in need of his infinite forgiveness to save our souls. True, the modern liturgies provide other ways of emphasizing this contrast, such as the prayer of humble access (or the Roman import Domine, non sum dignus), but are generally optional — and none can be so meaningful as the promise of forgiveness in the priest’s declaration of absolution followed by that promise’s seal in the sacrament mere moments later.

Further, placing the confession and absolution that creates an impression that penitence, rather than being an integral part of the remembrance of Christ in the eucharist (and of the ideals of Christian living which the eucharistic memorial represents), is something to get out of the way as quickly as possible before moving onto other things. It fails to put repentance at the centre of the Christian message; when combined with invitations to the altar such as ‘all are welcome’, it robs the sacrament of its penitential context entirely.

In practice, the answer now (apparently for the last several centuries) is after the ‘Prayer of Consecration’ (i.e. after the words ‘… as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me. Amen.’) But the text of the rubrics of the 1662 BCP seem to at least accommodate, even to direct, a different, older practice.

The rubric before the third exhortation (‘at the time of the Celebration of the Communion’) directs that the exhortation should be read with ‘the Communicants being conveniently placed for the receiving of the holy Sacrament’. This implies that e.g. if the communicants are to receive the sacrament kneeling at a communion rail (as the Laudian authors of this rubric doubtless hoped), they should already be there for the exhortation, and remain there throughout the confession, preface, humble access, and institution narrative.

Obiter dictum: The reading of the exhortations

All three exhortations are printed in the communion service between the prayer for Christ’s Church and the confession, but only the third is to actually be read at that point. The rubric before the first exhortation, covering also the second, directs that those exhortations should be read ‘after the Sermon or Homily ended’. This was a change from the practice in the 1552–1604 prayer books, which clearly directed all of the exhortation to be read (one after the other!) after the prayer for the Church. The Laudian/episcopalian party involved in the revision of the prayer book in 1662, from early on in their thinking, saw that the exhortations were more of the nature of a sermon than a prayer and therefore should be read in the pulpit, not from the chancel. Bishop Matthew Wren’s Advices, containing his own notes on his proposals for revision, suggests that the rubric begin

Warning shall be duly given for every Communion, by the Minister, upon the Sunday before, next after the Nicen Creed at Morning Prayer […]¹

(i.e. just before the sermon), and a proposed revision in the Durham Book (the episcopal party’s early attempt at a draft proposed prayer book combining all their wishes) read (emphasis mine)

When the Curate shall see the people negligent to come to the holy Communion, he shall use this Exhortation in the pulpit after the Sermon or Homilie there ended, upon ye Sunday or some Holyday before he intendeth to celebrate ye same.

The time of approach

At services with communion, then, by the reading of the third exhortation,² the communicants should already be placed for receiving the consecrated bread and wine. But when should they actually have moved from their seats in the nave to this position?

The 1549 prayer book had an explicit rubric to this effect, directing that, at the offertory,

so many as are disposed, shall offer unto the poore mennes boxe every one accordynge to his habilitie and charitable mynde. […]

Then so manye as shalbe partakers of the holy Communion, shall tary still in the quire, or in some convenient place nigh the quire, the men on the one side, and the women on the other syde. All other (that mynde not to receive the said holy Communion) shall departe out of the quire, except the ministers and Clerkes.

The expectation was, then, that the poor box would be somewhere in the chancel³ and parishioners would approach it at the offertory to put their money in, and remain (‘tarry still’) there if they wanted to communicate, otherwise returning to their places in the nave.

In 1552 though, this rubric was gone and, though the poor box remained, it was to be approached only by the churchwardens (‘or some other by them appointed’) after gathering the offerings of the people, more like a modern offertory collection.⁴

The BCP editions from 1552 to 1604 contain no direction at all for when the communicants would approach the altar, but presumably the intention was to maintain something like the 1549 practice. But with the offering of money now done by the churchwardens on behalf of the people, were they then expected to enter the chancel after the offertory having remained in their seats for the collection? Or after the prayer for Christ’s Church? Or, more confusingly, following the direction of the priest when he told them to ‘draw near with faith’?

There remains also a third option, that the intending communicants should be in the quire from the start of the service ready to receive. But this can be ruled out on various grounds: in most churches, this would mean the communicants would be sitting behind the pulpit during the sermon; the gathering of people in the quire, assuming they did not sit in the stalls (which would be occupied by choristers in large churches), would inconveniently block the way of the priest on the way to the pulpit and lectern; and if it were done that way, there would be no need for the rubric asking people to give notice of their intention to communicate for the priest so he may know how many will receive with him, since he could see them in the chancel at the start of the service.

In 1549 the words ‘draw near with faith’ followed the consecration, with the communicants having already been in the quire since the offertory, and so the ‘drawing near’ was most certainly in a spiritual, not a literal sense. Further, we have already seen that the 1662 book’s authors intended the communicants to be in place before this point. To this end several of the bishops’ proposals in 1662 suggested deleting the ‘draw near’ language from that short preface to the confession to avoid confusion, including Wren’s Advices and John Cosin’s Particulars. So the ‘draw near with faith’ point for entering the chancel can likewise be ruled out: the people should already physically be in place by that point.

Ruling out either the offertory or the exhortation as the time at which communicants should approach is considerably less clear-cut. Essentially, the only evidence within the 1662 book or any of the drafts of it that I can find is that final form of the rubric for the third exhortation, ‘the Communicants being conveniently placed for the receiving of the holy Sacrament’. But even this is unclear: the passive language used suggests that by the time of the reading of the third exhortation, the people should already be so ‘conveniently placed’. This may suggest an earlier approach to the altar, before the prayer for the whole state of Christ’s Church (which, in 1549, followed the Sanctus and therefore was also prayed with the communicants in the quire prepared to receive), but does not give a clear indication.

In the absence of any clear rubric, it is difficult to know which of these two positions the approach should have. Nor is it easy to appeal to any precedent other than 1549, because the question depends on the complicated nature of the prayer for Christ’s Church. In terms of liturgical history, the prayer for the Church fills three distinct rôles at once: as the first part of the prayer book’s ‘disjointed canon’, in which case it is part of the communion rite and the people should be appropriately placed for it; as the reformers’ reintroduction of the ancient oratio fidelium, in which case it is part of the ‘pro-mass’ and not the communion itself,⁵ and should be said in the same place as the rest of that part of the service, i.e. the nave; and as an offertory prayer replacing the mediaeval secreta, in which case it has an ambiguous position between the two possibilities.⁶

For an abundance of caution, I would suggest the approach to be after the prayer for the Church, since that is the only point at which a rubric explicitly mentions the people’s placement to receive the sacrament. Nonetheless the reformers’ intentions were clear: that the intending communicants should be in their places to receive the sacrament throughout the whole eucharistic prayer, even including the confession, and thereby to create an integrated communion rite in which the people were present in the chancel for the whole act of penitence, celebration, reception, and thanksgiving — despite having apparently ‘disjointed’ the canon of the mass into multiple scattered pieces. While numbers of communicants are now generally too large, and churches too small, for so many to be crowded into the quire for so long, it’s worth considering how the intended posture for the entire second half of the 1662 communion service at the time held the catholicity of the service together despite the arrangement of its elements having been much criticized.⁷

Update: I later found more evidence on this question.

Children’s worlds are full of supernatural gift-givers: Father Christmas (Santa Claus), the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy. These one-dimensional characters dispensing worldly pleasures are people whom children are expected to grow out of believing in.

At a certain age, children become natural skeptics, beginning to question for themselves what their parents have told them about the world: they begin to notice that Father Christmas’s handwriting and wrapping paper is suspiciously similar to their parents’; the tooth fairy doesn’t visit when they lose a tooth without telling anyone. When these figures disappear from their lives, why shouldn’t God go with them?

This is not a purely hypothetical question: children who discover for themselves that the magical gift-givers aren’t real really do become more skeptical about religion.¹ Adults impose a certain amount of social pressure — having an adult in their life who is clearly actively a faithful Christian certainly implies that belief in God is for adults as well as children — but retention rates in the Church from childhood into adulthood suggest this is far too little, too late.

God, of course, is far more than these childhood characters ever claim to be: Father Christmas brings toys; God gives life and death, incarnation and resurrection, creation and apocalypse. Children’s church and Sunday school are good at teaching young children Bible stories. Young children will believe their literal truth; a deeper understanding of their actual spiritual meaning is presumed to follow at later ages.

But how? What do we actually offer for slightly older children, with their newly-developed pseudo-scientific view of the world, losing their childhood sense of magic? And the even older ones who are learning about geology, evolution, and the incredible vastness of the universe in their school classes, and need to understand how God fits into all of it? Are confirmation classes not too little, too late, even where they are offered?