[Magdalen] Two questions for the assembled multitude

[Roger Stokes]

On 28/11/2016 21:19, Susan Hagen wrote:
> I love this line:  But thou art the same Lord, whose property is
> always to have mercy.  Our God is just that kind of God.

Way back when I was in seminary I recall Moelwyn Merchant, an English 
academic and priest then at Exeter and later in Chicago, coming to 
speak. at our college. He objected to the change of wording in our then 
new Series 2 Alternative Service from "property" to "nature" in that 
prayer. As he observed "nature" implies that mercy sums up God rather 
than being one aspect of the divine. "Property" says that it is one 
aspect of God to be merciful but that is not what we always experience.

> The one I really love is this alternative given in the New Zealand prayer book:
>
> Most merciful Lord,
> your love compels us to come in.
> Our hands were unclean,
> our hearts were unprepared;
> we were not fit
> even to eat the crumbs from under your table.
> But you, Lord, are the God of our salvation,
> and share your bread with sinners.
> So cleanse and feed us
> with the precious body and blood of your Son,
> that he may live in us and we in him;
> and that we, with the whole company of Christ,
> may sit and eat in your kingdom.

I prefer that form and we have them as alternatives in our Order One. 
The older form may be appropriate where it was between the Sanctus and 
the consecration prayer but I certainly don't like it just before the 
distribution of communion.

Roger