The Shape of the Eucharist

Shape is an odd word to use of a service of divine worship and with reference to a public liturgy because the word “shape” is necessarily an abstraction. A circle or a square is a two-dimensional abstraction from the reality of the everyday world, useful in plane geometry, but removed, nevertheless from the ordinary life of the physical world. Even a cake pan, which has three-dimensional shape, is not a cake, in and of itself. Filling it moreover does not always produce a cake. A pan full of sand is a pan full of sand, and not an alternative form of “cake.”

In 1945, Dom Gregory Dix authored a book entitled, “The Shape of the Liturgy.” Dix referred to the “standard structure” of the officially organized worship of the Church. He considered the shape of the Eucharist to be the “sequence of the rite.” The shape according to Dix contained (1) the offertory, (2) the thanksgiving, (3) the breaking of the bread, and (4) the communion. The Standing Liturgical Commission (SLC) of the Episcopal Church took this shape to heart in their search to make the Eucharist attractive to the current culture.

The SLC listed a number of criticisms of all the traditional Books of Common Prayer. The criticisms and the appropriate responses are listed on the enclosed sheet.

The members of the SLC created the new Order of Service for the Eucharist according to their abstract shape, calling it Rite Two. They also made the text of the “Order for Holy Communion” from The Book of Common Prayer (1928) fit into this same shape calling it Rite One. They then provided in the 1979 Prayer Book what they judged to be the essentials of the shape as an annotated list or schematic of what comes first, in the middle, and at the end, so parishes could create their own local Eucharist according to this set structure, using approved ingredients from a variety of sources to supply each necessary part. It is interesting to note that the Church of England in “Common Worship” included two distinct “shapes” – new services with a modified “four-action shape” and the service from the traditional Book of Common Prayer with its own long-standing “shape.”

The Episcopal Church increased its emphasis upon the right “shape of the liturgy” for two primary reasons (1) to make and maintain the claim that common prayer is not found in shared texts but really and truly in unity of shape, sequence, and structure, and (2) to assert the claim that ECUSA is truly an inclusive church, embracing people of different views, lifestyles, and orientations, who may all fill this shape in their own distinctive ways.

It follows logically then, when shape, the mere sequence of content, is taken as what authenticates the liturgy, that the possibility cannot be avoided of allowing an ever-expanding variety of content and ingredients to be inserted into the received shape. Thus unity in “common worship,” because of the use of a “common shape,” can be claimed even when there are massive doctrinal, theological and moral differences from one rite to another and from one congregation to another.

The approved-shape of the 1979 Prayer Book has eight parts.

1. The people and priest gather in the Lord’s name.
2. They proclaim and respond to the word of God.
3. They pray for the world and the church.
4. They exchange the peace.
5. They prepare the table.
6. They make Eucharist.
7. They break bread.
8. They share the gifts of God.

In the traditional Books of Common Prayer, both the shape and the content, the structure and ingredients, the form of the Order for Holy Communion are fixed in all essentials. In fact “Common Prayer” means a “fixed order and content of public prayer that is prayed in common by all.” It is understood that if the Service itself contains orthodox doctrine, then orthodox doctrine is proclaimed, believed, taught, and confessed each time the Service is used.

It may be claimed without prejudice, that the form of the Order for Holy Communion in the historic Books of Common Prayer represents a Reformed Catholic tradition of doctrine and liturgy, while the shape and content of the Holy Eucharist in the 1979 Prayer Book is an attempt to use an ancient structure and to fill it with mostly modern ingredients, together with a few remnants of traditional content. Furthermore, it is fair to suggest that the 1979 Prayer Book, with its variety of content and ingredients within the common shape of its numerous Eucharistic prayers, is hardly the kind of text that is appropriate for a Formulary of the Church.

If more than shape matters, and the traditional Christian emphasis on form is correct, which we believe is manifestly true, then it is beyond the capacity of the 1979 Prayer Book to perform the work of a Formulary – the formation of Christian lives according to a fixed, Biblical pattern.

If the “Early Church” is defined in terms of the Church of the first five centuries in her entirety, rather than the limited period of the pre-Constantinian era, a different approach to doctrine, dogma, liturgy, canon law, ordained ministry, piety, and devotion is formalized. The form of the traditional Anglican Order for Holy Communion was based in general terms upon the liturgy and doctrine of the Early Church, not of the second and third centuries, but of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Anglicans believe that there is One Canon of Holy Scripture, composed of Two Testaments, which is the final authority from God for faith and morals, with Three Creeds (Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian) proclaiming the faith, Four Ecumenical Councils (Nicea 325, Constantinople 381, Ephesus 431 & Chalcedon 451) providing the basic dogma of The Trinity and the Person/Identity of Christ Jesus our Lord, and the example of Five Centuries of united Christian practice, providing models of liturgy, ordained ministry, canon law, and church life.

The classic dogma of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ was stated with clarity and conviction by the Ecumenical Councils. The primitivism of the second and third centuries bore no consistency in doctrine or dogma. It was a period of great heresies as each isolated church debated the issues and reached independent conclusions. For example, the exchange of peace was regarded as absolutely necessary in the earlier centuries. However, by the end of the fifth century, this practice had generally ceased as a congregational activity and was confined to the ministers at the altar. Those who created the traditional Anglican “Order for Holy Communion” did not include the public exchange of peace as a necessary part of the shape and content because it was not regarded as necessary, or even advisable (for pastoral reasons) as a congregational activity.

In conclusion, we may state with confidence that the liturgies of the classical formularies (Orthodox, Roman and Anglican) are practical, three dimensional participants in the world of man, albeit with the intention of redeeming that world and lifting it up to the kingdom of heaven. They are real forms, not abstractions, and they have an active presence in the complete life of man, not just as ideas, but as movements of the body, words on the lips, and association with real people right this moment and back through time. The forms laid out by the formularies are the same, through and through. The difference between “shape” and “form” is rather like the difference between an owl stuffed with straw (shape) and an owl with his life and blood and order intact (form).

For more details, read “Neither Orthodoxy Nor A Formulary” by The Rev. Dr. Peter Toon, M.A., D.Phil.

and The Rev. Louis Tarsitano

(Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society of the USA 2004

Criticism of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer

1. It is too inflexible, allowing virtually no variation in length or in content.
2. It does not encourage congregational participation, leaving far too much to the official ministers.
3. It lacks a Psalm and a reading from the Old Testament.
4. It separates from each other the four essential actions of the Eucharist.
5. It fails to provide a real breaking of the bread.
6. It fails to offer thanks to God for creation and for the Incarnation and Resurrection.
7. The “Order” does not have an epiclesis upon the people.
8. It has no definite eschatological reference.
9. It is excessively penitential and lacks a clear celebratory and festal character.

Defense of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

1. “Common Prayer” always had a fixed content in keeping with a comprehensive and complete worship.
2. The congregation participates in responses to the liturgy as well as reciting certain prayers and the creed.
3. It presupposes that the church has already said Morning Prayer before the Eucharist.
4. The theory of the fourfold action set forth by Dom Gregory Dix was and remains now only a theory and does not have the authority of Bible, Creed or tradition.
5. The real breaking of the bread required by the traditional Order occurs in the Eucharistic prayer instead of after it.
6. The doctrines that God is the Creator and that Jesus Christ is the Eternal and Incarnate Son are clearly proclaimed within the Creed and presupposed by all the content of the Service.
7. There is an epiclesis (invocation for the descent of the Holy Spirit) upon the consecrated elements and for the people, it exists in the bidding “The Lord be with you”.
8. The whole of the traditional liturgy is a proclaiming of the Lord’s death and resurrection until he comes again in glory.
9. True celebration before the Lord of holiness includes genuine acknowledgement of and penitence for sin with a fervent desire for absolution.