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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: New Eucharistic Prayer
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Abigail
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# 1672
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Posted
Some months ago at my church we started using a different Eucharistic prayer at the main Sunday service. I would be interested to know if other people use this and what they think of it.
I have found it here https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/additional-eucharistic-prayers/prayer-one.aspx and I understand it is meant to be used for services where a lot of children are present. (We don't actually have that many children.) I don't like it and much prefer the prayer we used to use – which I think was Prayer H or possibly F. (Sorry, I'm not very well up on all this. At my church we have all the liturgy on a screen at the main services and don't use books, and I find it quite hard to find my way around the CofE website, which is where the above comes from.)
Perhaps I should add we have Communion twice a month at the main 11am service, but there is Communion every week at the 9am service, where they still use the other prayer.
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The older I get the less I know.
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
I like it, though would prefer to omit the (optional) interpolations - it's neither long-winded nor tortuous, and, by the looks of it, quite easy to follow.
We usually use Prayer B (the one closest to the Roman use ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) ), but ISTM that this prayer would be ideal for our quarterly Family Mass - which, I hope and pray, I can this year persuade our reactionary P-in-C to make a monthly service......
Ian J.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
I'm not sure about that (or about very short eucharistic prayers in general). Normally I'm all for brevity, and don't care for long-winded services. On the other hand, the eucharistic prayer is the high point and raison-d'être of the liturgy; with this, one blink, and you've missed it. It appears to have all the essentials, but could easily be regarded as just the bare minimum formula needed to consecrate the elements. This would be exacerbated if the rest of the service was the usual chatty child-oriented (despite a paucity of children) 'all age worship'. Surrounded by much silence and a sense of mystery, it might work.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
The wide variety of Eucharistic Prayers in the C of E is very much "horses for courses". Not all churches will use all of them. In fact, I would be astonished (and possibly suspicious) if any church did try to use them all.
If you have a service where this one might fit, then give it a try. I've found over the years that it is difficult to assess whether something will work or not simply by looking at it on paper. For me, you have to try new liturgy out and experience whether it will work or not; whether it will flow or not.
Some liturgy I have looked at has felt so underwhelming and yet when "done" it proved to be just right. And the reverse is true - some things I have been really excited about before hand and then found that they fell flatter than a flat thing that's just had a steamroller run over it.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
I'm fascinated by liturgy, but very very bored by talk about eucharistic prayers and the seemingly endless fiddling with them. Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich probably never heard the text of a eucharistic prayer, so it can't be that important.
(Prayer H is the one with the sanctus at the end and half of the text spoken by the congregation. Bad idea, IMHO.)
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
I'm sure the experts will tell me that I'm completely wrong, but it seems to me that there are two different thoughts here, and it's important to keep them separate.
The first one is, 'is a Eucharistic Prayer effective - i.e. does it work, so as to cause us to receive the body and blood of Christ, however we understand that? A lot of the argument about that does seem to partake of what I recently said on the Midnight Mass thread.
quote:
'only the dear late Father Chantry-Pigg and I knew this, and now I alone am left to ensure the maintenance of the true faith against the barbarians'
Communicants have no control over what the celebrant is doing. Unless you, yourself, are the celebrant, we have to accept what we're given, whether well or badly celebrated. And is you are the celebrant, everyone present has to accept what you give them. For over four centuries, most Western liturgies omitted at least one ingredient which is now regarded as fundamental.
If the Eucharist is celebrated in an authorised form - and even if it contains some mistakes - it works, even if you in your pew don't like the prayer chosen, or are thinking 'if I were ordained, I wouldn't do it like that'.
We aren't called to be Harry Enfield's character who keeps appearing saying 'you don't wanna do it like that.
The second, quite different point is that just as we all like some hymns, don't mind others and have some that really make our teeth squirm. Invariably, there'll be someone for whom your hated hymn is one of their real favourites. Preferences and the opposite for prayers, including even Eucharistic Prayers can be the same. If there's one of them that you don't like, you can guarantee there'll be someone else who really likes it.
Beyond that, the position strikes me as much the same as what I said about only the dear late Father Chantry-Pigg and me.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
Well said Enoch - and I come from a tradition where there are no such things as "authorised Eucharistic prayers" (although printed settings are available which worship leaders can use, amend or ignore!)
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
I agree with Enoch almost entirely. Half my worshipping life these days is with liturgies (and liturgical presidents) that make me squirm (or at least make the nit-pickety ecclesiantical me squirm) but I can recognise the presence of Christ in those congregations and presidents and liturgies which makes it all worthwhile.
It wouldn't do if we were all alike. On the other hand, some priests do have a cloth ear for liturgy and for appropriate contexts. Prayer H for example works fine in a house-mass setting with an informal group of half a dozen people; IMHO it would seem very odd in the context of a cathedral solemn eucharist. Personally speaking, I would think very hard before using the prayer mentioned in the OP in any sort of formal context. But that's just me.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
Provided the president is episcoally ordained and the prayer authorized, obviously Christ is present and the eucharistic sacrifice is offered (in union with the one perfect unrepeatable but eternal sacrifice). I accept what I'm given. I'm far more concerned at messing about with the lectionary.
But I'm not inspired by this plethora of eucharistic prayers.
[ 27. December 2014, 20:44: Message edited by: venbede ]
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Magersfontein Lugg
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# 18240
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Posted
While I understand and sometimes agree with Venbede's point I also like variety in Eucharistic Prayers.
Has anyone come across one's they like from outside of those the C of E uses?
Posts: 104 | From: Bottle Street | Registered: Oct 2014
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Provided the president is episcoally ordained and the prayer authorized, obviously Christ is present and the eucharistic sacrifice is offered (in union with the one perfect unrepeatable but eternal sacrifice). I accept what I'm given. I'm far more concerned at messing about with the lectionary.
But I'm not inspired by this plethora of eucharistic prayers.
Christ is always present - our participation in Him is not dependent on the individual presiding.
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Thurible
Shipmate
# 3206
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Posted
We use the Roman Canon at the Easter Vigil but, otherwise, use Prayer C exclusively (trad language), including our monthly family Mass. Our family Mass is simply the standard High Mass with a children's sermon, and the junior choir and junior serving corps serving the whole Mass (rather than going out after the Gospel).
Thurible
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"I've been baptised not lobotomised."
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
My main two annoyances with current CofE eucharistic prayers are:
1. Congregational interpolations. Aesthetically, they make even a short prayer seem longer by breaking the flow, rhythm, and "beat" of the prayer. Practically, they mean that instead of listening intently and participating mentally, the congregation spend their time with their noses in their books, waiting for their next "cue". Lesson for the Liturgical Commission: the laity are not a Greek chorus.
2. Mucking around with the Institution Narrative. This should be one part of the prayer that the president can say by heart, with total concentration, rather than attending to some over-fussy minor variant in the words s/he is used to. Lesson for the Liturgical Commission: meditate on that expression "by heart".
Apart from those constant bugbears, I'm also saddened by material for "all age worship" that patronises children. Quite young children have a grasp of "high" language - poetry, darama, oratory. They may not know the dictionary meaning of every word, but they know the meaning of the text if it is performed well. (Rather like any of us seeing Shaekspeare performed, even if we aren't fluent in Elizabethan English.) Children, in fact, get bored when they're being talked down to. And so do adults.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Thurible
Shipmate
# 3206
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Posted
I think you're right about not patronising Da Yoof. It's certainly what we've sought to avoid. There's an element, too, of not wanting to scare the horses in a parish that hasn't traditionally inculcated our Lord's words about children.
Thurible
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"I've been baptised not lobotomised."
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magersfontein Lugg:
While I understand and sometimes agree with Venbede's point I also like variety in Eucharistic Prayers.
Has anyone come across one's they like from outside of those the C of E uses?
I liked variety in rite when I was an adolescent and university student. As my beard grows (elegantly, of course) greyer, I find that attempts at this are very distracting, although I know that my clergy friends love it as they seem to get bored with the same old canon.
As well, it presents difficulties for those who are using acquired languages. This had been pointed out to me some years ago by a Tamil-speaking Anglican in Toronto, but I got to feel the real impact in France and Spain, when having the same text used everywhere without variation made attending local churches much more useful. We have to make sure that tit is not a bar to diversity in our churches.
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
We have to make sure that tit is not a bar to diversity in our churches.
A subject for Dead Horses surely? ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Oxonian Ecclesiastic
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# 12722
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Posted
"Lesson for the Liturgical Commission: the laity are not a Greek chorus."
Great quotations of our time.
Posts: 174 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2007
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Rev per Minute
Shipmate
# 69
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
As well, it presents difficulties for those who are using acquired languages. This had been pointed out to me some years ago by a Tamil-speaking Anglican in Toronto, but I got to feel the real impact in France and Spain, when having the same text used everywhere without variation made attending local churches much more useful. We have to make sure that it is not a bar to diversity in our churches.
But the RC novus ordo has four authorised Eucharistic Prayers (at least in the English version) so a single text is not normative in Catholic Mass either.
I have borrowed EPs from New Zealand and from TEC in the past for specific services (usually home Eucharists or similar). The use of different language is useful to make regulars think differently - but I agree it could be more awkward for new members.
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"Allons-y!" "Geronimo!" "Oh, for God's sake!" The Day of the Doctor
At the end of the day, we face our Maker alongside Jesus. RIP ken
Posts: 2696 | From: my desk (if I can find the keyboard under this mess) | Registered: May 2001
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Oxonian Ecclesiastic
Shipmate
# 12722
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Posted
I almost always stick to Common Worship B (weekdays, and if there is a special long preface), C (normal Sundays) or F (when there is no special preface). I did once use a Eucharistic Prayer from TEC's 'Enriching our Worship'. I liked it, but felt naughty. I might do it again though.
Posts: 174 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2007
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rev per Minute:
But the RC novus ordo has four authorised Eucharistic Prayers (at least in the English version) so a single text is not normative in Catholic Mass either.
Ten, actually. I think I've only ever used eight of them,* though, and I have one I use for 90% of Daily Masses and another I use for 90% of Sunday Masses.
The people's responses are identical in all of them, as are the words of institution (although the narrative introducing those words varies quite a bit), and some other text is shared between some. They all have pretty much the same shape (EP I actually being the biggest outlier in this respect).
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* In my first three Masses as presider, I worked through I, II and III in order. Didn't continue the pattern though! I've still never used IV or Reconciliation II.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rev per Minute:
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
As well, it presents difficulties for those who are using acquired languages. This had been pointed out to me some years ago by a Tamil-speaking Anglican in Toronto, but I got to feel the real impact in France and Spain, when having the same text used everywhere without variation made attending local churches much more useful. We have to make sure that it is not a bar to diversity in our churches.
But the RC novus ordo has four authorised Eucharistic Prayers (at least in the English version) so a single text is not normative in Catholic Mass either.
I have borrowed EPs from New Zealand and from TEC in the past for specific services (usually home Eucharists or similar). The use of different language is useful to make regulars think differently - but I agree it could be more awkward for new members.
I have only run into the use of Novus Ordo variations in English-speaking RC churches. In France, Québec, and Spain, I only encountered the one form (I can't remember which version was used in my one visit to a Spanish-language church in the US). While my French is quite decent, my Spanish can be best described as bad-- but I was able to follow and would have noticed differences.
I am not as certain that variations make regulars think differently (or that this be useful), but this is an issue where I have long seen a strong clergy/laity divide.
What would be awkward for newcomers is not that a different service is being used-- they would likely expect that -- but finding out on further visits that it changes frequently and, worse, that those in the know (and as newcomers, they wouldn't be in this number) are aware of it and the newcomer is not.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Magersfontein Lugg
Shipmate
# 18240
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adam.:
quote:
Originally posted by Rev per Minute:
But the RC novus ordo has four authorised Eucharistic Prayers (at least in the English version) so a single text is not normative in Catholic Mass either.
Ten, actually. I think I've only ever used eight of them,* though, and I have one I use for 90% of Daily Masses and another I use for 90% of Sunday Masses.
The people's responses are identical in all of them, as are the words of institution (although the narrative introducing those words varies quite a bit), and some other text is shared between some. They all have pretty much the same shape (EP I actually being the biggest outlier in this respect).
How come 10 (can you read them online)?
I thought the RC had 4 plus two extras for children.
And which are the ones you use 90% I wonder!
Posts: 104 | From: Bottle Street | Registered: Oct 2014
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magersfontein Lugg:
How come 10 (can you read them online)?
I thought the RC had 4 plus two extras for children.
And which are the ones you use 90% I wonder!
I don't think there's any particular reason for then 10-ness of the number of choices! (Though I can see a future exegete pontificating, 'of course, they have 10 EPs in imitation of the 10 commandments').
Here are the ten Eucharistic Prayers in RM3. The twelve from the Sacramentary can also be found there for comparison.
I use EP II for most daily Masses and EP III for most Sunday / HDO Masses. I'll use III for feast days and solemnities that aren't HDOs, as well as for most funeral and nuptial Masses (II if it's clear that the family are just having the Mass for granny's sake and really aren't into all this church stuff); EP I for really big Sundays. The Various Needs ones I'll use for daily Masses when I don't have concelebrants and the context of the Mass suggests it.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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Magersfontein Lugg
Shipmate
# 18240
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Posted
Thank you Adam. a very helpful link. Does it mean the children's prayers havent been translated again and so the old translation is still being used?
Posts: 104 | From: Bottle Street | Registered: Oct 2014
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
No, while the children's lectionary is still useable, under the appropriate circumstances, the old children's EPs are not part of MR3 and therefore should not be used.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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FCB
Hillbilly Thomist
# 1495
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adam.:
No, while the children's lectionary is still useable, under the appropriate circumstances, the old children's EPs are not part of MR3 and therefore should not be used.
My understanding is that the old translation of the children's EPs could still be used until a new translation was provided (though I hope you're right, because I always loathed them; I figure EPII really should be simple enough for children).
[ 06. January 2015, 18:02: Message edited by: FCB ]
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Agent of the Inquisition since 1982.
Posts: 2928 | From: that city in "The Wire" | Registered: Oct 2001
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
We vary the EP for parish eucharists according to the season since some seem better suited to particular times than others.
We use the original EP deemed to be the most suitable for children H?) at the Family Eucharist.
If churches would get away from the idea of having a 'one size fits all' booklet and rather have them for specific liturgical seasons then they could ring the changes and might find the choice of EP a better fit?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Basilica
Shipmate
# 16965
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
If churches would get away from the idea of having a 'one size fits all' booklet and rather have them for specific liturgical seasons then they could ring the changes and might find the choice of EP a better fit?
Or lose the text of the Eucharistic prayer.
Posts: 403 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Basilica:
Or lose the text of the Eucharistic prayer.
People like to follow it on the page. That's particularly important if your acoustics aren't very good.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Basilica
Shipmate
# 16965
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Basilica:
Or lose the text of the Eucharistic prayer.
People like to follow it on the page. That's particularly important if your acoustics aren't very good.
People do like to follow it on the page, but often only until they can't. I've heard on several occasions people say how much they appreciated the Eucharistic prayer more when they listened and watched rather than read off a page.
It swings both ways, I think. (Though texts should be provided for those hard of hearing.)
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