In this season during which many parishes are preparing people for confirmation, I’ve found over the years that many people other than the inquirers wonder about why we Episcopalians do certain things in our worship. Today I’m starting a short series trying to address some of those questions. Since this is the Season of Easter which spans 50 days, I want to begin by talking about a major liturgical change that’s made in the service for the season.
In most Anglican parishes around the world, the custom has developed to omit the General Prayer of Confession during this season. Why? Easter Season is understood to be the most joyous season of the Christian year with the focus more on praise, thanksgiving and our redemption than on confession. The Book of Common Prayer includes a rubric that allows for the omission on occasion and this great festival season is seen as a particularly good time to omit it.
There’s more! Before the Reformation, there was no general prayer of confession in the liturgy. People were expected to engage in self-examination and confession before coming to church to worship. This expectation influenced the trend for Christians to routinely to make private confessions to the priest on Friday or Saturday before Sunday worship. So, omitting the prayer is actually a return to the earliest practices of the Church. Outside of private confession, the idea also was that the very act of giving thanks to God was an acknowledgment of one’s sinfulness. The Prayers of the People also typically contained the Kyrie Eleison, which is penitential in nature. All this is to say, we don’t try to diminish the need to confess our sin; we just emphasize something else for a few weeks.
Now to one other Easter practice. In many parishes, week after week, following the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy...) most everybody kneels for the remainder of the Eucharistic Prayer. In many of those same parishes, during the Easter season, people remain standing rather than kneel. Why? Same reason we omit the general confession. As redeemed people, we can boldly face God rather than humbly falling to our knees.
Besides which, kneeling for the Eucharistic Prayer is a particularly western or Roman practice to start with. In the Orthodox Churches, they always stand for the Prayer and always have. In the earliest Christian Churches in the west, there weren’t chairs, much less kneelers, so everybody tended to stand. Kneeling entered the worship practices of the western liturgy in the High Middle Ages. The reason many people in Episcopal Churches stand for the Prayer year round is because it is the more historically “correct” way to pray. [BTW, to be completely “correct,” stand with your elbows at your side, your forearms pointing away from your body at about a 45 degree angle to your body and in front of you, with your palms open. This is called the “orans position,” the historic posture of prayer. You often see priests in this posture as they pray the Eucharistic Prayer.]
However, local customs are hard to change unless a particular rector really pushes for it. So in St. Mary’s practice, at Easter you are likely to see only a very few people standing during Easter--I’ll be one of them. One of the wonderful things about the Anglican Church is we don’t force people to conform to a particular practice in worship. What seems to matter most to us is this: if what you’re doing doesn’t disturb others as they worship and it enhances your experience of the Holy Mystery--do it! Stand if you wish; kneel if you wish; sit if you must. We’re just happy you’re there to worship our Lord as a diverse community of the faithful.
Peace
Jerry
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