[Magdalen] Two questions for the assembled multitude

Grace Cangialosi gracecan at gmail.com
Mon Nov 28 21:28:56 UTC 2016


Actually, the addition you mention is in the RC liturgy, and I have no trouble with it.  They recently switched back to the older form: "I am not worthy that you should come under my roof..."  from "I am not worthy to receive you."

I guess, more than anything else, it's the particular language used that troubles me.

One funny story wrt that prayer:

At my Celebration of New Ministry, which used Rite I from the Great Thanksgiving on, the bishop and I were at the wall-facing altar. As he began the Eucharistic Prayer, I suddenly realized we hadn't discussed using the PHA. So I was literally trying to beam his way "Don't say the Prayer...  Don't say the Prayer..."
Came to that spot...and he said the prayer!
Later I said to him that,although he was a wonderful bishop, his ESP wasn't very good! He asked why, and I told him. He laughed and said that as he began the Eucharistic Prayer, he was thinking "I wonder if she wants me to use the PHA?" He decided that, since this was still a Rite I congregation, he'd be safer to include it.

> On Nov 28, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> My mileage does vary, big time.  I miss it and don't consider it grovelling at all, but rather acknowledgement of my own frailties and weakness in the face of God's infinite love and mercy.  I'm very far from a Morning Prayer main service person.
> 
> A welcome addition to the Eucharist chez moi is the exchange as the chalice and broken host are elevated following Agnus Dei: 'Behold the lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world.  Happy are they who are called to the supper of the Lamb' and our response 'Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed."
> 
> Maybe this is common elsewhere but I had never met it.
> 
> Marion, a pilgrim   ... today my sail I lift ....
> 
> 
>> On 11/28/2016 2:08 PM, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
>> My own personal question about the so-called "Prayer of Humble Access" is why the editors of the '79 BCP found it necessary to keep it at all. Seems to me, coming at that point in the liturgy, the Agnus Dei is sufficiently humble without all of the groveling suggested by the PHA.  If I'm presiding at a Rite I service, we never use that prayer.
>> 
>> I know, I know...YMMV big time. But I would suggest that the average congregation's fondness for it is coming out of that "We've always done it that way" posture. They're the same folks who insist on having Morning Prayer, Rite I as the main service on Sunday morning at least once a month, preferably twice.
>> 
>>> On Nov 28, 2016, at 12:19 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote
>>> 
>>> Re: Body and Blood.  The order is just customary.  This reminds  me of
>>> pet peeve I have about the '79 Episcopal Prayer Book.  Why was  it
>>> necessary to change the wording of the Prayer of Humble Access
>>> to make sure Episcopalians wouldn't think there are separate  functions
>>> for the Body and the Blood.  Did the prayer book reformers think
>>> Episcopalians were so dumb to think literally: (1) Body = made clean  and
>>> (2) Blood = washing the soul?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> David S.
> 


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