Rev Michael Coren loves the old prayer book – and so do his young parishioners
I recently led a morning Eucharistic service in Burlington, Ontario, using the Book of Common Prayer (BCP).
At the end of it, a student from the local university approached me and said, ‘Hey, Rev, cool language. Never heard that before in church. I may even come again.’ I was about to explain the origins of the text and its evolution when, entirely wisely, the young man stuck his earbuds in, turned on his music and waved goodbye.
‘I’ll be back,’ he shouted as he left. I doubt he was listening to William Byrd or Thomas Tallis, but he has indeed been back.
It often happens. Contrary to what we’ve been told for decades about new generations wanting the contemporary and the modern, my experience – as a father and as a priest – is that kids are too savvy and cynical for that.
They can distinguish between language directly influenced by Shakespeare and language directly influenced by a committee based on diversity, sensitivity and inclusion.
It’s the same in the Roman Catholic Church – arguably even more so. The Latin Mass, or even the Mass in the vernacular in an older form, is popular not only among older people longing for the past, but among younger people longing for the permanent.
I admire Pope Francis, but his attacks on – even persecution of – the Latin Mass are unwise, downright cruel and extraordinarily counterproductive. The Vatican has just imposed new restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass.
There’s tangible growth in Latin Mass parishes, often among young people. They react to beauty and to the profound. It’s true that some of them are vehemently conservative, but by no means all.
I’m a liberal Anglo-Catholic, supportive of equal marriage, women’s ordination and fairly radical politics, but that’s because of, and not in spite of, my attitude to worship.
Our usual services, often known as ‘Alternative’, are fine, and the various churches in the Anglican communion have done a surprisingly good job in elegant translation.
But that’s not always the case. There are churches where the liturgy is partly written by groups of eager parishioners, and it’s almost always the same enthusiasts.
They mean well, but the results sometimes resemble rejected scripts from Star Trek episodes rather than timeless worship of the divine. Lots of references to wonder, awesome and mystery.
But the BCP is different. Oh, how wonderfully different it is: ‘Land of the living’, ‘A tower of strength’, ‘At death’s door’, ‘Peace in our time’, ‘At their wits’ end’, ‘Babes and sucklings’, ‘Softer than butter’, ‘From ashes to ashes, dust to dust’, ‘To have and to hold’, ‘In sickness and in health’, ‘Till death us do part’…
The book we use now dates from 1662, but that’s a little misleading. Its origins are earlier, and there have been edits since. The first prayer book was published in 1549, shortly after Henry VIII’s death.
It is wrongly assumed that he founded the Church of England, but in many ways, he held it back. His break was purely with Rome, and that attitude wasn’t uncommon among otherwise traditional Catholics in 16th-century Europe.
When he was succeeded by his genuinely Protestant son Edward VI, authentic reforms could take place. The original BCP was the first prayer book to contain all the weekday and Sunday services in English, and it was controversial and divisive.
Another, more Protestant version was published in 1552. When Edward VI died the following year and his Catholic half-sister Mary came to the throne, it was the temporary end of the book and permanent end of the man most responsible for it. In 1556, Thomas Cranmer, by then 66 and unwell, was imprisoned, humiliated, and then burnt to death.
He had been an important player in Henry VIII’s divorce from Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon – so this was personal. He was also the mind, soul and skill behind much of the BCP. His literary style was indicative of what would form the genius of Elizabeth and Jacobean prose, drama, and poetry.
Elizabeth I reintroduced the book in 1559, including some edits to satisfy the conservatives. The Anglican church may seem relatively Catholic today, but Cranmer was an authentic Protestant, heavily influenced by the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli.
When the Parliamentarians won the Civil War, they abolished the BCP. We sometimes forget how persecuted the Church of England was under the Puritans. So, when Charles II was restored to the throne, the book returned, and its 1662 version is largely what we have today – in 50 countries and 150 languages. It’s arguably more responsible than Shakespeare or the King James Bible of 1611 in spreading and shaping the English language.
Last month, I was at the bedside of a woman in her final moments. She asked me to read from the BCP: ‘Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.’
‘Oh, the comfy words,’ she said. ‘I so love the comfy words.’ And she died.
The comfort of Christ, the comfort of great liturgy, and the comfort of comfy words.
Rev Michael Coren is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada
