COMMON WORSHIP suggests the usage of the Ash Wednesday collect as a post-communion prayer throughout Lent, until the Saturday after the Fourth Sunday. (During Advent, an equivalent provision is made for the collect for the First Sunday of Advent.)
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing that you’ve gotten made, and forgive the sins of all those that are penitent: create and make in us recent and contrite hearts that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may receive from you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. . .
This collect in Common Worship is a modernised version of the one set within the Book of Common Prayer for the First Day of Lent. Although Cranmer disapproved strongly of the ceremony of ashing, in composing this prayer he used a part of the traditional Latin prayer for the blessing of ashes (Comment, 9 February).
The opening sentence takes us back to the start of the Bible, which tells us that God loves all that he has made. The chant-like structure of the primary chapter of Genesis, with its rhythmical list of the six days of creation, culminates within the statement that “God saw every part that he had made, and indeed it was excellent.” It is a triumphant song of religion within the Creator, and raises our eyes from our merely human destiny to the grander vision of universal joy.
The second sentence, “Create and make in us recent and contrite hearts,” brings us to a sadder place: the human heart. It reminds us that we now have rebelled, and the dust from which God created us is the dust to which we will return (Genesis 3.19). This bleak prospect is relieved only by God himself, whose perfect remission and forgiveness we will receive through Jesus Christ.
When he composed this collect, Cranmer was acquainted with Coverdale’s translation of the Psalms. It is inconceivable to read the words “Create and make in us recent and contrite hearts that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness. . . ” without being reminded of Psalm 51, “Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit inside me. . . The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise.”
FROM her earliest days, the Church has used the season of Lent as a chance for self-examination. In former times, Lent was a period during which catechumens were instructed in the religion before their baptism on Easter Eve. It was also the custom for sinners to make public penance — a practice long since discontinued.
To supply this deficiency, Cranmer compiled a special service for Ash Wednesday, “Denouncing God’s Anger and Judgement against Sinners”. It is an alarming catalogue of human depravity, and is powerful on judgement but weak on love. This service (“A Commination”) is never used today; its presence behind the Prayer Book is unknown to most churchgoers, which is just as well.
In modern times, fasting as an indication of penitence has change into less distinguished in Anglican practice. The Revd John Henry Blunt, a formidably erudite Victorian parson, compiled a listing of instructions for parish priests. He advised them to not encourage any type of fasting, because, in those days, the typical parishioner’s normal food plan in winter was barely adequate for survival. As an exercise in spiritual discipline, foregoing a second helping served no purpose within the case of those that had insufficient on their plate for a primary.
Instead, he suggested that those that could afford such luxuries should consider abstaining from, for instance, “Theatres, balls, private parties, novel-reading, mere ornamental pursuits, unnecessary delicacies and luxurious costume” (Directorium Pastorale: The principles and practice of pastoral work within the Church of England, J. H. Blunt, 1866).
THE collects provided by Common Worship for the primary 4 Sundays of Lent develop themes of penitence and self-discipline, in preparation for the climax of the Christian 12 months in Holy Week and Easter. To that end, the Liturgical Commission chosen and adapted three of them from the BCP. The collect for the First Sunday relies on BCP Lent 1; those for the Second and Fourth Sundays are versions of BCP Easter 3 and Trinity 24. Both these last two derive from the pre-Reformation Sarum Use.
The collect for the Third Sunday of Lent merits close attention:
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went lower than joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the best way of the cross, may find it none apart from the best way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. . .
THE elegance and precision of this prayer meet the very best standards of the standard collect. It was composed within the nineteenth century by W. H. Huntingdon, and was included within the Prayer Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church within the United States. Many years later, Dean Milner-White published it in his Procession of Passion Prayers (1956), thereby introducing it to the private devotions of a lot of us on this side of the Atlantic. It was subsequently included within the Alternative Service Book 1980.
Huntingdon’s prayer derives its wording from Cranmer’s exhortation within the Office for the Visitation of the Sick: “For he himself went lower than joy, but first he suffered pain: he entered not into his glory before he was crucified” — words translated from the writings of a up to date liturgist, Hermann von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne. Hermann’s Consultation (1548), which discussed the Catholic Church’s need for doctrinal and practical reform, included a revised type of the pre-Reformation Office for the Visitation of the Sick.
Such is the ability of a well-crafted prayer, and the potency of language, to tell and inflame the Church’s devotion.
The Revd Adrian Leak is a retired Anglican priest, whose recent publications include The Golden Calves of Jeroboam and After the Order of Melchizedek.
