The reason why Dr Carey commends this book is that he wants to help people pray daily in "a reflective and structured way." He does not believe that the official Book of Common Prayer [1662] of the Church of England does truly help people to do this and to relate their daily prayer to Sunday eucharistic worship. As he explains:
"Although Cranmer's version of Morning and Evening Prayer [in the BCP] has long provided a non-eucharistic form of public worship on Sundays, and has done much to characterise Anglican public worship, it has only patchily achieved his other purpose of being the regular worship attended by the whole congregation and offered day by day in parish churches throughout the land."
So we have the amazing spectacle of the Primate of all England commending for daily use a Prayer Book that has not been approved by the General Synod, that he judges to be superior to the BCP (a formulary of the C of E), and that he presents to all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion of Churches for their daily use.
We note that this prayerbook addresses only the "You-God" (it does not know the "Thou-God") and it has inclusive language in Psalms and Canticles. Psalm 1 begins, "Happy are they."
But let us see how this Prayer Book leads us to pray in thanksgiving for Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, the editor of the BCP of 1549 & 1552, and by common consent a genius in terms of creating an English prose for public worship.
THOMAS CRANMER Bishop & Martyr (21 March)
Everlasting God,
your servant Thomas Cranmer
restored the language of the people
in the prayers of the Church.
makes us always thankful for this heritage
and help us to pray in the Spirit
and with understanding,
that we may worthily glorify your holy Name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What do we think would Cranmer, who showed his literary genius most particularly in the composing of Collects for the Church Year, make of this Collect, dedicated to his memory? I think the following.
First of all, he would be amazed and horrified that he was being remembered in this way. Secondly, he would be taken aback and horrified that a Collect, which is prose and not poetry, is being printed on the page as if it were poetry. Thirdly, he would be humbled and horrified that God is being addressed as "You" and not "Thou,Thee," since in the vernacular and in Latin in England over the centuries before his time God had been addressed using the distinct second person singular pronouns.
Fourthly, he would be shocked and horrified at the impiety of the words in that the Lord God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, supremely omniscient and omnipotent, is being told what he knows already and knows perfectly. We recall that one of the achievements of Cranmer as a writer of prose prayers was the use of the relative clause. For example, "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts.." But here, in a prayer to remember him, that which Cranmer would never have done (tell the Almighty what he knows) is done! The Collect could have said, "whose servant Thomas Cranmer restored the language of the people in the prayers of the Church, make us.," but it chose to tell God what he knew.
Happily in the Collects for use with the new prayer book of the Church of England, Common Worship [2000], the Collect in "traditional language" for Cranmer does retain the style that he perfected:
"Father of all mercies, who through the work of thy servant Thomas Cranmer didst renew the worship of thy Church and through his death didst reveal thy strength in human weakness, strengthen us by thy grace so to worship thee in spirit and in truth that we may come to the joys of thy everlasting kingdom.."
If we are going to thank God for Thomas Cranmer in public prayer let us do so with appropriate, dignified English!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America
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