On the Three Streams of Worship

The Second Sunday after Epiphany

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Anglicanism seems to love things in threes. That is entirely reasonable given the centrality of the Holy Trinity to the Christian faith. In terms of worship, there are three streams of worship which correspond to these three persons of the Trinity. The most familiar to most people would be the Mass or Holy Communion. Anglicans also worship through the Daily Offices regularly. Historically Morning Prayer was the normative form of Sunday worship for many years until the Eucharist was restored to prominence in the 19th century. Finally, there is a third stream of worship which exists that is far less regularized, which I call Devotional Reception.

The Mass or Holy Communion is the most commonly understood form of worship in Anglicanism. It includes a number of prayers and Scripture readings, many of which deal with God the Father, the son or the Holy Spirit in some combination, making this seem like a form of worship which emphasizes all three persons, but ultimately as the name implies it is the celebration of the Eucharist which forms the central focus of the service of Holy Communion. It is in the Eucharist that we focus the centrality of the worship on the second person of the Trinity. Christ Jesus was incarnate, died for our sins and rose again. He commanded at the last supper that we do this in remembrance of him, and the entire crescendo of Eucharistic worship is that act of re-membering his propitiatory sacrifice.

The second form of common worship is that of the Daily Office. Morning and Evening Prayer are a psalm-centric form of worship, and owing to that they are much more centrally focused on the revelation of God the Father’s nature. The Daily Office originates in Jewish prayer practice, which involved prayer throughout the day at particular times. As Christianity developed, these prayer times were retained and liturgies developed to formalize their use among Christians. The Daily Office represents the Anglican use of these prayers and combines a number of the hours into two simple services for morning and evening. Much like with the Eucharist, which thematically is focused on Christ himself but which includes reference and worship of the other members of the Trinity, the Daily Office maintains references to Christ and the Holy Spirit, most often through the collects and the New Testament readings. The centrality of the service, however, remains the worship of God through the Psalms, whether read or chanted.

It also distinguishes itself in that it is a daily office. The normative practice among Anglicans with respect to Holy Communion would be weekly only, though in some cases an additional service of Holy Communion might be sought during the week. With morning and evening prayer, it becomes a daily practice of honouring God and exploring who he is. While the Revised Common Lectionary of readings takes you through the Bible in a three year cycle, Morning and Evening Prayer cycle though the Psalter every month, and it is only through their daily use that the RCL will cycle through the whole of Scripture during those three years. It creates and enhances a much stronger rhythm of Scripture reading and prayer than does only a once-a-week communion, even whereby the grace imparted in the Eucharist is unique versus the grace that is usually received through simple prayer and Scripture reading.
Taken together, these two are the most familiar practices of Anglicanism, but they place their emphasis only on two of the three persons of the Trinity. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is in these places limited to references in prayers and in Scripture readings. There is need for a third type of service, which can go by many names, but ultimately the title Devotional Reception seems apt because it captures the two aspects of this service, particularly as it relates to the Holy Spirit.

In the Daily Office, it is a clear action of worship and praise of the Father. If there is reception, it is most clearly the imparting of revelation from God’s word. In the Holy Communion, there is an offering on the part of the people—“And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee,”—but also there is the reception of the Blessed Sacrament. When we gather then to honour the third person of the Trinity, how ought that to look?

One concern often expressed over modern praise music is that it offers an emotional response to the people. At various times, Evangelicals have expressed concern over how worship interacts with their regular Sunday gatherings which themselves often involve simply a combination of praise music and preaching. Defenders of modern praise music suggest that there is no reason a parishioner could not get a similar emotional response from traditional Christian hymns, however there does seem to still be a difference.

Ultimately that emotional response is something received, and in the context of the mass, it does not seem to always be entirely appropriate. So what if that modern music were taken and repurposed? Devotional Reception is an idea for a non-Eucharistic service in which such music can be channelled specifically for the purpose of encouraging those in attendance to be open to receiving not simply directly from the music, but receiving the Holy Spirit himself. To be empowered, to be strengthened and to be enlightened. For many Christians, the response modern praise music evokes can be contemplative and meditative, for all the use of percussion and other similar instruments, in a way that a traditional organ accompanied solely by voice cannot.

That skips forward a bit to the reception, but what of the devotion? Due to the sometimes vague language of modern praise, a time of teaching would be needed as well. A time to explore concepts particularly relating to the Holy Spirit which might otherwise only receive the briefest of attention around Pentecost. It is an opportunity to orient hearts and minds towards the Holy Spirit before that reception begins.

Finally, one of the major works of the Holy Spirit is in healing. While many in North America have never had the awesome wonder of experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in this way, it seems the works of the Spirit are far more common in parts of the world where people feel a much stronger need to rely not upon themselves or the conveniences of their society, but on God. A time of prayer would then be appropriate. Just as the people may receive something of a feeling of the presence through praise music, they can receive that more sacramental grace through the laying on of hands in prayer, as Scripture commands us. It is a time in which there can be far greater empowering through the Spirit.

Taken together, these three streams of worship offer opportunity for constant turning to God in praise and offering, and receiving from God, in the form of revelation and grace. As orthodox Christians, it should be our earnest desire to see some form of normative and regular worship of the Holy Spirit and reception from the Spirit as a part of our regular worship of God.