| Alternative Service Book |
Article Index for Alternative |
Website Links For Alternative |
Information AboutAlternative Service Book |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ALTERNATIVE SERVICE BOOK | |
| 1980 books | |
| christian texts | |
| church of england | |
| christian liturgy, rites, and worship services | |
| christian prayer | |
|
Following the failure of the attempts to introduce a new Prayer book through Parliament in the 1920s, liturgical reform idled. Some so-called Catholic parishes used the English Missal, a highly Romanised version of the BCP; most used either the BCP or the now illegal 1928 Prayer Book, which has continued in print until the present day with the warning 'The publication of this book does not directly or indirectly imply that it can be regarded as authorized for use in churches'! As time passed and liturgical scholarship proceeded, it became clear that a new attempt should be made to provide orders of service for the church. The mischievous encouragement of Dom Gregory Dix , in his book 'The Shape of the Liturgy'. published in 1943, for bishops informally to permit the use of a new rite was accompanied by his own liturgical proposals for such a rite, including the so-called 'Four Action Shape' for the Eucharistic Action which he claimed to have re-discovered. Only in 1955 did the Church set up a Liturgical Commission and ten years later the Church Assembly passed the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure 1965. A series of books followed: the Series 1 Communion Book scarcely differed from the 1928 book (as was the case with its Wedding Service). Series 2, issued at the same time, put forward a form which followed the Dix agenda: Offertory , Consecration , Fraction , Communion . This was a pattern which was to be widely influential in countries which had used the BCP. However, the effect of the issue of little booklets was that on Sundays, congregations which had been used to two books, a prayer book and a hymn book which contained every word they would hear or sing or say, other than the sermon, now had a small booklet and no access to the new sets of readings at all. Series 3 rolled back a little in its enthusiasm for Dix. The evidence for the , or breaking of the bread, was not nearly as significant as the Consecration or Administration. Other services were less controversial and some scarcely surfaced, including the Funeral Service. The Baptism service, allowing more responses from the godparents and being considerably less wordy than the BCP, became popular. THE BIRTH OF THE BOOK In 1974, the Worship and Doctrine Measure, passed by the new General Synod allowed the production of a new book which was to contain everything that would be required of priest and congregation: Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, Holy Communion, Initiation Services (Baptism and Confirmation), Marriage, Funeral Services, the Ordinal, Sunday Readings, a Lectionary and a Psalter. Once again, after a gap of nearly fifteen years, parishes which did not want to use the Book of Common Prayer had in their hands all the words, including readings ordered according to themes and with a two year cycle. Discussion in General Synod was lengthy. Hundreds of amendments to the initial proposals were debated on the floor of the chamber. The old battles about the significance of the communion were re-fought. The temper was different, but in some ways, the arguments would have greater effect since very many more parishes had, following the influence of the Parish Communion movement adopted the Communion as their main service. THE BOOK The book was very variable in the degree to which it departed from the Book Of Common Prayer . The Offices of morning and evening prayer provided alternative canticles and all were now ecumenically approved translations, the so-called ICET texts. but the form was conservative. ( A shorter service was provided for weekdays.) There were two forms of the Holy Communion , Rite A and Rite B. Rite A allowed for the Confession to come at the beginning of the service, contrary to the BCP, gave space for extempore prayers in the intercessions and unveiled the blessed rubric 'or other suitable words' which were to become normative in modern prayer books. The prayer of Humble Access was removed to a place before the Offertory - styled 'the Preparation of the Gifts' and the Four Action Shape was on its way. There were four Eucharistic prayers, wickedly called 'Missa Tombola' in some circles, one of which derived from Cranmer's form, two from the earlier experiments and one from work done between two scholars, one Evangelical and one Catholic during the progress of the debates; it owed much to a prayer from the Ordo Missae of the Roman Catholic Church . All were heavily dependant on scholarly acceptance of the primacy of a third century work called the Apostolic Tradition written by the Egyptian bishop, Hippolytus and which had been published only in 1900. (This work was hugely influential on the Liturgical Movement, both Roman and Anglican.) Rite B retained a version of Elizabethan language and prayers from the BCP such as the Prayer for the Church Militant, (for which an alternative was allowed) and the first Eucharistic Prayer. The word 'Offertory' somehow survived after the Peace. A Prayer of Oblation, a bowdlerised version of the first Prayer of Thanksgiving in the BCP was added to it to conform to the modern pattern. However, Rite A though not Rite B (!) could be said following the order of the Book of Common Prayer a concession to those who valued Cranmer's insertion of the Administration of the Communion within the Canon. A new rite for Thanksgiving after Adoption preceded the revision of the Old 'Churching of Women' service. Baptism could now be treated as part of a main Sunday service, the result of other influences intended to bring it back into the mainstream of worship. The Baptism of those able to answer for themselves is much more implied, another influence at work. The questions, however, now addressed to the godparents or the person baptised directly, no longer required the renunciation of the devil or 'the vain pomp and glory of the world' or 'the carnal desires of the flesh' but merely a turning to Christ, a repentance from sin and a renunciation of evil. Likewise the ancient Apostles Creed was replace by three tritheistic questions unknown to the credal discussions of the Church, Eastern or Western, modern or ancient. The Marriage rite followed the 1928 book in no longer suggesting that men might be 'like brute beasts that have no understanding'and allowed readings and a sermon (as the BCP had not). It added words for the giving and receiving of the ring and made provision for a communion. The Funeral service officially allowed the coffin into Church though of course Church funerals - or in a crematorium - had not ceased with Cranmer. It no longer excluded suicides or the unbaptised: the rubric was simply omitted. The deceased was still not to be addressed directly but a form of committal was now included: the deceased was 'entrust to '[God's merciful keeping'. The two year cycle of ''', Teachers or Confessors . There was a good range of Preface s to the Eucharistic Prayers, including one for St. Michael and All Angels. This went in 2000 as well. The Sunday Lectionary originated in the work of the Joint Liturgical Group an English ecumenical grouping. The Weekday lectionary which, for the first time provided Eucharistic Readings for every day of the year, originated with the Weekday Missal of the Roman Catholic Church . The ASB survived until the turn of the Millennium. General Synod learned not to repeat the time-hungry debates though which it had been born. The Daily or Sunday offices had been superceded by less formal forms - the Services of the Word - which accommodated the desire of Evangelicals not to be bound very much by liturgical forms. A new lectionary would be based upon the principle of allowing each writer his own voice and on a three year cycle. The Marriage rite needed work on it though not, arguably, its thorough secularising, such as occurred, to attempt to retain marriage as a Christian sacrament. It was replaced by a series of books,three to date, none of which included readings, and by software packages and online support. This was Common Worship . |
|
|