Introduction to the American Missal

Discussion in 'Liturgy, and Book of Common Prayer' started by Shane R, Jul 27, 2020.

  1. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    Loyalty to the Prayer Book has become a battle-cry. as such it is used to confound one's enemies, and hence does not always become a principle of personal practice or intelligent action on the part of those who proclaim it.

    Loyalty to the Prayer-Book implies knowledge and sympathetic understanding of our liturgy. For the Prayer-Book is the result of a long evolution in worship, and that evolution still continues. When liturgy ceases to develop, as with any other thing, it is dying or dead. "Stick to the Prayer-Book" may be good advice. But those who give it are often those who do not realize that Prayer-Book Offices cannot -simply cannot- be celebrated if one sticks to the Prayer-Book in the sense of doing no more than what is therein ordered.

    Are there to be vestments? Not even the surplice and stole is ordered. Cross and candles? There is no Prayer-Book authority for them. Of ceremonial customs there is little. Vested choirs, processions, processional Crosses, flags and banners, and many other things dear to the heart of the "Prayer-Book Churchmen," are unmentioned. Music is ordered, but none is provided. Hymns are permitted but only one hymn, the Veni Creator, is given. The use of most of these things is the result of following, not Prayer-Book directions, but the living Catholic tradition of the church.

    In other words, the Prayer-Book Rite must be treated as an apocopated liturgy, for that is precisely what it is. That is to say, our liturgy cannot be celebrated without the addition of material or knowledge which the Prayer-Book fails to supply. And when such supplementary material and the Prayer-Book Eucharistic formularies are published together as one book, the result is called a 'Missal.' Now it is impossible to publish such a book and please everybody. One person wishes little in the way of such additions. Another wishes much. To be of wide service, such a book should be inclusive rather than exclusive, and those who believe in the guidance by the Holy Spirit of the Church will not doubt that the evolutionary process, which is so characteristic of the Western Liturgy, will surely, if slowly, eliminate that which is unworthy.
     
  2. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    Continued, with some abridgement by me:

    Six things have been found necessary, or at least convenient, almost everywhere, and amongst all kinds of Churchmen, as supplements to the Prayer-Book, namely:
    1. Some ceremonial directions.
    2. Musical notations.
    3. Forms for certain popular liturgical dramas. . . (ie. Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Holy Week.)
    4. Prayers and Scriptural lections for many occasions which demand special observance but for which the Prayer-Book makes no provision.
    5. Hymns.
    6. The personal prayers of the Celebrant.
     
  3. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    What are the personal prayers of the Celebrant?
     
  4. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    In this case, private prayers that he would be saying during the course of the liturgy.
     
  5. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I thought one time you said you did not like those.
     
  6. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    I don't. I posted this content for the benefit of other's curiosity. The more I examine the Missal, the less I think it is Anglican.
     
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  7. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    Why is that? I have never seen the American Missile so I have no clue what is in it
     
  8. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    That required some courage to say, I'd imagine. Cheers.
    :discuss:
     
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  9. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    The Missal is essentially a collection of a bunch of hyper Anglo Catholic rites for Holy Communion. The ACC has the printing rights for the American version and from time to time they add another 'canon of the Mass' to the volume. The 1549 canon and Gregorian canon are included as options. The first time I ever visited an ACC parish they assigned someone to sit with me and help me navigate the Missal. They assumed I had never seen the volume before and didn't know anything about it. I was wearing clericals!

    What the Missal does not have are the daily offices. Here's a Canadian Missal, it's not exactly the same as the American Missal but you will get a taste of what it's all about. I celebrated that rite once for a parish near Richmond.
     

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  10. Symphorian

    Symphorian Well-Known Member

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    Here's the Anglican Catholic Church UK Mass booklet. It is somewhat closer to the English Missal (Knott Missal) than the Canadian example.
     

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  11. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    One of my pet peeves is when a parish says, "Oh we do a straight BCP service," but if you visit the place there's no prayer books in sight but they've got a bunch of Missals laying around. A number of continuing parishes are notorious for that bait and switch.
     
  12. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Exactly! I don't know why they do this. So many continuing churches I've visited have this mythology that they're your traditional mom-and-pop straight-BCP type of place; you get in there, and the priest is wearing a fiddleback chasuble with some sort of Missal in his hand.
     
  13. John Politis

    John Politis New Member

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    Why is that? I have never seen the American Missal so I have no clue what is in it.