Review: Pray Without Ceasing – Morning and Evening Prayer for the Seasons of the Church Year and Ordinary Time
(In this review, PBSC National Vice-Chairman the Revd. Chris Dow acknowledges the strengths of this new resource for daily prayer, but points out its shortcomings in the areas of canticles, doxologies, affirmations of faith, and the psalter.)
There’s an old saying that a book should not be judged by its cover. That may not be wise advice in every case, but apparently a book can and should be judged, not only by the words it contains, but also by its design. The layout and organization of a book – as well as its font, graphics, physical size, print quality, and typesetting – communicate meaning and facilitate usability according to the book’s particular function. With respect to our present purposes, a book of liturgies for Christian worship stands or falls, not only because of its theological content or lack thereof, but by how that content is ordered.
The 1985 Book of Alternative Services (BAS) has now been decisively judged insufficient on these grounds: the cluttered layout of its daily office liturgies makes them functionally unusable, the result being that Morning and Evening Prayer have fallen into widespread neglect in Anglican parishes throughout Canada.
While doubtless there were other factors at play, it is not surprising that this decline in daily prayer coincided with a precipitous ecclesial decline more generally.[i] Correlation is not causation, but surely in this case there must be some intrinsic connection: continuous devotion to prayer has been at the very heart of the church’s life from its inception (Acts 2:42), and prayer in the form of the morning and evening offices is central and indispensable to Anglican identity.
A church which prays only one day in seven is not deeply rooted and grounded in God, and an Anglican church which eschews its own tradition of daily common prayer must be asked the hard question of whether, or in what sense, it can continue to call itself “Anglican”. (I say this as an Anglican priest who has himself been mostly delinquent in instituting the offices in the parishes I’ve served). It is to be expected that a church which does not pray daily or teach its members to do so will decline; and a church tradition that eschews its own patrimony and inheritance has nothing to pass on to the next generation. Surely there can be no hope of ecclesial renewal without a prior renewal of daily prayer.
Not to sound triumphalist, but the Prayer Book Society of Canada (PBSC) and others have made this argument for nearly four decades, and it seems the case is now closed: the BAS and its daily offices have failed – and with serious consequences. What is noteworthy is that this judgment has now been rendered officially by The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) itself.
This decision can be found in the introduction to a new resource for daily prayer happily entitled, Pray without Ceasing, recently published by the ACC’s General Synod. In the introductory rationale for the new liturgies, which seem to be intended to replace those in the BAS, the editors write that the church is
not served well by how Morning and Evening Prayer were laid out in The Book of Alternative Services. A full and satisfying use of the Offices required worshippers to turn numerous times to different pages and then back again. This editorial design meant that many of the riches of the Offices in The Book of Alternative Services were not well used or even well known.
There are indeed riches to be found in the offices of the BAS, particularly in the wide range of biblical canticles it offers. But, as in life, so in liturgy: sometimes less is more. The fact that the BAS has so many options for canticles, litanies and responsories means that there are too many moving parts to be easily harnessed. A person or congregation cannot simply pick up the BAS and pray through the offices without extensive prior instruction, preparation and bookmarking.
Pray without Ceasing, by contrast, offers carefully laid-out liturgies for each day of the week during ordinary time, as well as special liturgies for each season of the church year. In this, the Canadian editors have done well to borrow a great deal from the Church of England’s Common Worship: Daily Prayer (CWDP) – a resource that I have treasured and used for many years. But CWDP has even more optional moving parts than the BAS, thus it too can be unwieldy for the uninitiated. For that reason, CWDP is perhaps best used in the Church of England’s Daily Prayer app and audio podcast, as the app automatically selects the propers of the day.
Pray without Ceasing is currently available only as a ring-bound booklet, e-book, and PDF. Unfortunately, the ring bound booklet is bulky and not of especially high-quality. I expect that the plain paper pages will fall out of the wire binding with use over time. At a price of $30 per copy, this is not good value, and I had wished for something more durable and portable, like the beautiful, well-bound editions of CWDP which have multiple ribbons for bookmarking the various sections. I hope that Pray without Ceasing will one day be printed and bound in similar high-quality editions, even if this means they will be more expensive.
But more so, I hope that these new liturgies will soon be made available in a digital daily prayer app. Even though the offices in Pray without Ceasing are more user friendly than those in the BAS, there is still a need to find, select and insert the Psalm, Bible reading(s) and collect of the day – and for each of these the rubrics point to numerous options that can only be found elsewhere. Just like using the BAS, this will inevitably involve more bookmarking, page-flipping and book juggling – small but annoying tasks that are just cumbersome enough to discourage novices and people on-the-go from praying the office. The greatest advantage of an app is that it seamlessly inserts all the parts of the liturgy into one continuously scrolling page. Developing such an app does not necessarily need to be an official project undertaken by Church House, although that would be a good use of our national church resources, limited though they may be. An enterprising cleric, parish or group could undertake to develop the app themselves, as the PBSC did for Common Prayer Canada.
Publication and presentation issues aside, let us consider the form and content of the liturgies in Pray without Ceasing, focusing on these four key elements: the canticles, doxologies, affirmations of faith, and its new Liturgical Psalter.
Canticles
Each office in Pray without Ceasing provides exactly three options for canticles – and all three helpfully appear within the body of the liturgy to facilitate ease-of-use. For example, at Morning Prayer in the upcoming season of All Saints, the Song of Zechariah (the traditional Benedictus) is the first option given, followed by A Song of the New Creation (Isaiah 43:15, 16, 18, 19, 20c, 21) and the deuterocanonical Song of Wisdom (Wisdom 9:1–4, 9–11).
I must complain that editors of contemporary liturgies and lectionaries have a hazardous habit of taking scissors to the Bible and snipping out verses they deem unsuitable. In the example given above from the Song of the New Creation, which the Canadian editors take from CWDP, notice that verses 17 and 20a-b of Isaiah 43:15-21 are omitted.[ii] For what reason? Doubtless verse 17 has been dropped because of its militaristic imagery, as Isaiah says that “the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” (43:14) is the one
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down; they cannot rise;
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: (Isa. 43:17 NRSVue)
Some might consider such language to be violent, but it is only mildly so by comparison with other Old Testament passages, and the whole point here is that the LORD ultimately wills to subdue the power of earthly weaponry. Some may worry that such language harkens to days when the church itself was allied with colonial chariots and horses, armies and warriors. While indeed there is much shame in that legacy, the objection in this case gets it exactly backwards, because this verse unmistakably echoes the Exodus story in which the oppressed are justly vindicated from Pharoah to serve the LORD whose service is perfect freedom.
But whereas I can at least understand the discomfort that some may have with verse 17, I can think of no rationale whatsoever for deleting the first two parts of verse 20. In this beautiful vision of God’s promise to bring rivers of living water to the desert wasteland, Isaiah foresees and the LORD declares that
The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert, (Isa. 43:20a-b NRSVue)
Why, may I ask, are the wild animals, jackals and ostriches undeserving of inclusion in our liturgy? What have these indigenous creatures of the desert done to deserve deletion? Is it because they are unclean (Lev. 11)? But did not Jesus suffer outside the gate to make all clean by His blood? (Heb. 13:12)?
In the Old Testament, just as the various categories of clean and sacrificial animals are symbolic of Israel and its leaders, so the unclean and wild animals symbolize gentiles, which is to say, the majority of us.[iii] I am not needlessly harping upon an obscure point. By deleting two-thirds of a verse we apparently consider too strange to say out loud in public liturgy, we have only served to delete ourselves and those the church is called to serve.
The haunt of jackals (and ostriches) is used in the Scriptures as a literary device to illustrate abandonment, desolation, and loneliness. Given our contemporary culture’s well-documented epidemic of loneliness, this is a biblical image that needs to be studied and preached with the utmost urgency. Jackals themselves may have a folkloric reputation for bloodlust, deviousness, filthiness and sorcery, but they also have commendable ways that we would do well to consider, including resourcefulness and resilience. Given that the ACC currently finds itself in a state of near “collapse”,[iv] I submit that the jackals and ostriches – as well as the pelicans and hedgehogs, owls and ravens (Isa. 34:11-15) – have much to teach us as we adapt to the adverse conditions of their desolate landscape. If God can instruct the sluggard to observe the hard-working ants to be roused from laziness (Prov. 6:6), perhaps God similarly wills to point us to the creatures of the desert at such a time as this.
If a congregation, and the ACC as a whole, were to say Isaiah’s unabridged Song of the New Creation (43:15-21) in public liturgy – discussing, studying and reflecting upon its meaning as a community – think of the formative effect this could have over time. It would inspire a love and wonder for God’s creation, the land, and its diverse creatures, all of which reveal something of God’s glory. It would serve to tame our own lusts of the flesh, restraining us from treating each other and ourselves like brute beasts without understanding. It would remind us that God is with us in our ecclesial wilderness and that we who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:13). It would call us to minister to the untouchables the world has forgotten, in whom we will find none other than Christ himself (Matt. 25:45).
Alas, I am afraid that despite an editorial team’s best and well-intentioned efforts, liturgies which have as their primary motivation the desire to be “inclusive” will always unintentionally exclude someone in the end. It may be the jackals or the owls among us, or it may be a certain someone else, but liturgical language novelties cannot help but leave someone unmentioned, or undervalued, or uncomfortable.
Indeed, other than improved organization and ease-of-use, the main driving-force behind the liturgical changes in Pray without Ceasing is “inclusive” language. In the introductory “Rationale for the Offices”, the editors write that
although The Book of Alternative Services made some strides in more complementary language for God and more inclusive language for people, many contemporary worshippers desired that more progress be made towards language that is “faithful and fair.” In this set of Offices a balance has been sought between traditional and more inclusive language for God.[v]
I wish to state clearly that I believe all baptized Christians regardless of gender or identity are full members of Christ’s body and my sincere hope is that each may be able to recognize themselves as such in the liturgy. My quibble is that the word “inclusive” – and its other lexical forms like “inclusion”, “inclusivity” and “inclusiveness” – are curious terms for us to use to discuss this matter, seeing as this is not vocabulary that appears in any English translation of the New Testament. A search for these words in the NRSVue yields but one occurrence – Romans 11:12 – where the subject is specifically Israel and the Greek word rendered as “inclusion” (plērōma) is better translated as “fullness” or “fulfillment”.
My concern is that the ACC has adopted a non-Christian vocabulary with a vague meaning. Parroting the discourse of the wider culture, such terms are deployed as trendy buzzwords that bounce about in an echo chamber of virtue signaling. This leads to groupthink that suppresses critical thought and prevents deep engagement with the particular terminology of Scripture. It is as though we have forgotten how to speak our native biblical language. If our church is to be revitalized, we must learn once again to be conversant in our mother tongue.
To this end, one biblical model for sorting through our sensitivities around liturgical language might be Paul’s instructions to the Weak and the Strong in Romans 14-15. In Paul’s first century context, the Weak are Jewish Christians who feel conscience-bound to continue observing kosher dietary laws, rejecting meat sacrificed to idols, whereas the Strong are primarily Gentile Christians who have no such scruples. These divergent dietary practices and attitudes caused dissension in the Roman Christian community at their fellowship meals, as the Strong looked with contempt upon the Weak, and the Weak judged the Strong (Rom. 14:1). In the parlance of our times, we might say that both sides were acting in ways that were not “inclusive” of the other, but again, we should be careful to avoid such an anachronism.
The presenting issue today is different, but the dynamics of the division are basically the same. We are at odds, not over the question of unclean meat, but “unclean” sounding language. Male language for God and gender-binary language for humans is offensive to many Canadian Anglicans. Are those with such sensitivities “weak”, or are they “strong” in their bold assertion of new terminology? The genius of these Pauline categories is that they are labels flexible enough to be perennially applied in different ways to various issues. Speaking personally, I might like to think of myself as “strong”, but maybe I am the one who is “weak”, as I too have my sensitives, my traditional conscience forbidding me from using the new names and pronouns for God. Somewhat like an ancient Jewish Christian concerned about meat sacrificed to idols, I worry that the new terminology is an idolatrous projection of human ideas onto the godhead.
Thus, one solution to our sensitivities and divisions could be a liturgical menu with kosher and non-kosher options, as it were, so that each of us can choose something palatable to our own tastes. This is basically what the editors of Pray without Ceasing attempt to supply in the three options they provide for doxologies.
Three doxologies
In each office, at the conclusion of the Introductory Responses, Psalm, and Canticles, users of Pray without Ceasing can select one of three doxologies:
- Glory to God, Source of all being, eternal Word, and Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
or
- Glory to the holy and undivided Trinity, one God: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
or
- Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Let us examine these in reverse order:
3. The traditional Gloria Patri, which calls each of the three persons of the Trinity by their names given in the New Testament, needs no comment in this space. But I do want to extend my sincere and heartfelt thanks to the editorial team for including the Gloria Patri for those of us of a traditional conscience. The very fact that it is present on the page, even if relegated to the third and final position, is an important display of revisionist restraint and a respectful acknowledgment of Christian orthodoxy and ecumenical consensus.
2. This newly worded trinitarian formulation does not name the three persons, but rather focuses on the unity of the godhead. Though it will be new and different for us to say, it is theologically valid, reminding me of the BCP collect for Trinity Sunday, in which we “acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty […] worship the Unity.” I personally consider this doxology to be a welcome addition, and I hope that by saying it together as one body in public liturgy, God will use it to facilitate our perfection in unity (John 17:23).
1. This three-part doxology avoids gendered language for the first two persons of the Trinity by renaming the first as the “Source of all being” and calling the second by his alternate title of “Word”. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, is indeed the eternal Word of God made flesh, the incarnation of God’s Word spoken in the Law, Prophets and Psalms (Luke 24:44). He is everything that God wants to say to the world, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). But I must take issue with the editors’ decision to rename the first person of the Trinity as the “Source of all being”.
I suspect this may be based on a very common misreading of the tetragrammation (“four letters”), the divine Name of YHWH as revealed to Moses at the burning bush, meaning “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14). This is often taken to mean that God is the universal ground and source of all philosophical being. But as Peter J. Leithart has pointed out, the Hebrew could equally be translated as “I will be who I will be”, or “I will be who I was”, or “I am who I was.”[vi] In the words of James B. Jordan, this basically means that God is “consistent” in his character and dealings with us.[vii] “Give thanks to Yahweh, for He is good, for His lovingkindness endures forever” (Ps. 136:1 LSB). “For I, Yahweh, do not change” (Mal. 3:6 LSB). Just so the eternal, preexistent Word “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).
Why opt for the vague abstraction “Source of all being” – which opens the door to an endless array of disparate meanings – when a much more straightforward and canonically coherent interpretation of YHWH will do? But it would also be improper to name the first person of the Trintiy as Yahweh, for reasons we will see below when we consider the Psalter.
It could also be that the editors of Pray without Ceasing distantly derive “Source of all being” from Cappadocian Trinitarian theology, such as that of Gregory Nazianzen, who describes the first person of the Trinity as the source and origin of the godhead. Yet Gregory is also not squeamish about naming this hypostasis “Father”. Consider this sentence from his Third Theological Oration:
This is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Ghost. The Father is the Begetter and the Emitter; without passion of course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Ghost the Emission; for I know not how this could be expressed in terms altogether excluding visible things.[viii]
But despite my misgivings with “Source of all being” as a replacement for Father, I will say that this is considerably better than the now discredited alternative doxology of “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” – a modern instance of the ancient heresy of modalism. I would also note that the version of the Lord’s Prayer used in Pray without Ceasing is always the “Our Father” and not an alternative text like that of the New Zealand prayer book, which calls God the “Father and Mother of us all”.
But as our national chairman Gordon Maitland has argued previously, it would be possible to say the offices in Pray without Ceasing day-by-day and week-by-week without ever confessing the ecumenically agreed-upon name of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is not a rubrical option that the PBSC could ever endorse. That being said, it is significant simply that the traditional Gloria Patri is still included as an option in our liturgy, and in public worship, those of us of a traditional conscience could quietly say the third option even if the officiant were to use the first.
The fact that “Source of all being” is normally the first doxological option listed in Pray without Ceasing perhaps reveals that it is the editors’ own preference. I wonder if this also portends that it will assume primacy in the ACC. Will this new almost-trinitarian formulation itself be the “source of all” future Canadian Anglican liturgies? If Church House has plans to develop a new baptismal rite, I would ask whether rubrical permission would be granted to a priest to baptize a person “In the name of the Source of all being, eternal Word, and Holy Spirit.” I certainly hope not, as such a baptism would be considered invalid by the Anglican Communion, as well as the vast majority of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches. But let us not get ahead of ourselves.
We must understand and appreciate the challenging task the editors faced: they had to develop daily office liturgies with a trinitarian doxology faithful to Anglican tradition and ecumenical consensus, while also providing an option for a large constituency of our fellow members who simply cannot use a male patriarchal title for the first person of the Trinity. If this is a balance that must be struck, then the editors of Pray without Ceasing have succeeded to the highest degree possible.
I would also note that providing exactly three options for the doxology is itself trinity-inspired. Notice how the divine number three, so artfully deployed by the editors as a structural pattern, has singlehandedly saved Pray without Ceasing from going too far down the road of theological revisionism, and has made room for the maximum number of people in public worship.
Two Affirmations of Faith
But while Pray without Ceasing allows all Canadian Anglicans to choose a doxology that suits their tastes, the same cannot be said for the two affirmations of faith it provides: the Apostles’ Creed and “Hear, O Israel”. These two options are the same as those in the BAS offices, the only difference being that the wording of the Apostles’ Creed is now taken from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, in which the second paragraph begins, “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord”, rather than “his only Son” (emphasis mine).
But I wish to focus my remarks on the “Hear, O Israel”, a shortened version of the Shema used in Jewish worship. While it is a central biblical text, and one quoted by Jesus himself (Deut. 6:4-5; Mark 12:29), the Shema has always been a highly questionable option in this spot, as it is not an affirmation of Christian faith per se. I would need to consult archival material to confirm this, but I hypothesize that the Shema was inserted into the BAS at least partly as an expression of Christian-Jewish unity after the Second Vatican Council’s Nostra aetate (“In our time”), the watershed 1965 document that set forth a new vision for the Catholic church’s dialogue with the Jewish people (as well as other religions), rejecting the long history of Christian antisemitism and focusing on our shared roots in the scriptures of the Old Testament/Tanakh.
But although it is provided as an option, I predict that the Shema, which addresses the congregation as “Israel”, will be little used for the foreseeable future due to the present conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Given the conduct of the Netanyahu war cabinet and Israeli Defense Forces in their relentless bombing campaign, the extreme suffering this has visited upon Palestinian civilians, and the extensive media coverage this is receiving (disproportionately so compared to other world conflicts), the name of “Israel” is simply too hard for many people to say and hear these days, not least many in the ACC.
Canadian Anglicans who are uncomfortable both with the Creed’s male language for God and the Shema’s call to Israel will be forced to choose between the lesser of two offenses. If the editors of Pray without Ceasing wanted an alternative creed-like text, St. Patrick’s Lorica would have been a far better and less controversial choice, as it is both explicitly Christ-centered and mostly non-gendered in its language. But I commend the editors’ restraint in not including the United Church of Canada’s avant-garde New Creed of 1968 (“We are not alone”), which has oft been used at Anglican synods.
Daring clergy and lay officiants who do opt to use the Shema can expect hard questions from congregants after the liturgy, namely, “what do we mean when we say that we are Israel?” They will face the delicate task of clarifying just how the biblical Israel of the Shema is distinct from the modern nation-state of the same name and offer a reasoned opinion on the fraught question of whether, or to what extent, these two “Israels” overlap. They will need to explain with the utmost care and precision how Jesus, as Messiah, is the one who embodies Israel (Matt. 2:15; cf. Hos. 11:1), how the Church is the new Israel in him (Gal. 3:29), while accounting for the fact that “the Israel made up of Jews is not self-evidently a part of the Christian Church in experiential terms”[ix] – all the while steering clear of a hard supersessionism or replacement theology (Rom. 11:29). While such important questions should not be avoided, all things considered, it is probably easiest just to stick with the tried-and-true Apostles’ Creed.
A Liturgical Psalter
Pray without Ceasing includes A Liturgical Psalter: The Psalter of the Book of Alternative Services Emended for Contemporary Use. A full examination of this new Psalter is not possible in this space, but I hope to outline a few observations, issues and questions to set the stage for future inquiry. The editors’ stated purpose in revising the BAS Psalter is as follows:
to provide a psalter whose language is (i) faithful to the intent of the writers of the psalms as poems expressing the relationship between God and the people of Israel and (ii) fair to current users of the psalms who have found the predominately masculine language a barrier to the integration of the psalms into their life of prayer and worship.
To achieve the second aim, “he”, “his” and “him” are consistently removed when referring to God. For example, Psalm 3:4 in the BAS Psalter reads, “I call aloud upon the Lord, and he answers me from his holy hill”, and in the Liturgical Psalter this becomes, “I call aloud upon you, O Lord, and you answer me from your holy hill” (emphasis mine).
Additionally – and more controversially in my view – the word “king” is normally replaced by “sovereign”. Psalm 10:16 in the BAS Psalter reads, “The Lord is king for ever and ever”, and the Liturgical Psalter changes this to, “You are sovereign for ever and ever” (emphasis mine).
Although the word “Lord” is removed from this last example, this is an exception, as the Liturgical Psalter normally retains its use despite its patriarchal connotations. On the one hand, I appreciate this restraint, as the word is part of the tradition of English Bibles and prayer books and removing it would be too radical a change for many. Sadly, most do not realize that the etymological origin of “Lord” is the Old English “hlāford”, literally meaning “bread keeper”. This reminds us that Jesus is the bread from heaven who gives himself for the life of the world (John 6:33-35). But in English usage, the word evolved to mean a powerful, male, patriarchal landowner – precisely the kind of word and image that is so troublesome to so many in the ACC today. For this reason, I question why it was kept given the project’s stated aim of inclusive language, especially when it is not the most literal translation of the original Hebrew, nor the best way to display the word.
Traditionally in English Bibles, the tetragrammaton appears as “LORD” in small caps. This serves three purposes:
- it serves as a visual reminder highlighting the fact that there are four consonants in the Hebrew divine name, YHWH;
- it distinguishes and sets apart the divine LORD from any human male claimant to be a lord;
- it respectfully acknowledges the Jewish custom of substituting ‘adonai (Lord) for YHWH to preserve the unutterable sanctity of the divine Name.
Consistent with contemporary British English usage, the 1985 BAS Psalter did away with LORD, displaying it instead as “Lord”, and this is retained in the new Liturgical Psalter. The unfortunate result of this is that the divine Name is obscured. Take for example the beginning of Psalm 16, where the Psalmist says “to Yahweh, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good without You’” (Ps. 16:1 LSB). In the Coverdale Psalter of the BCP, this is rendered as, “I have said unto the LORD, ‘Thou art my God: I have no good apart from thee.” But in both the BAS and the new Liturgical Psalter this becomes, “I have said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord, my good above all other’” (emphasis mine). This makes it seem as though the same word appears twice in the original Hebrew, when in fact, the first instance is the divine Name and the second is ‘adonai.
The editors acknowledge that other contemporary Psalters have removed the word “Lord” altogether due to its association with patriarchy.[x] They defend their continued usage of “Lord” as a way to “remind us who is truly sovereign and whose purposes are being worked out in human history.”[xi] That is well said, but if it is so, they ought to have restored the usage of “LORD” to distinguish and set apart the divine Name from a human male patriarch.
The rubrics state that the Psalms of the day from the Liturgical Psalter are to be prayed at each office as appointed from one of three possible lectionaries. But the Invitatory Psalms at the beginning of Morning Prayer services during Ordinary Time (which take the place of the standard Venite) are taken from an alternative resource called, Songs for the Holy One, in which “Lord” is regrettably removed in favour of “Holy One”, an even less literal rendering.
In my view, there are only two possible options for displaying the tetragrammaton in English: Yahweh or LORD. I doubt that Yahweh was given any thought as a possibility, but we may wish to reconsider this for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most literal translation of the Hebrew; secondly, unlike the generic sounding “LORD”, it reminds us that the God of the Bible has a particular identity and covenantal relationship with his people (Ex. 3:16); and thirdly, it avoids the patriarchal connotations of LORD. But since it seems we will continue to use “Lord” for the foreseeable future, we must recover its root meaning of “bread-keeper”.
One welcome addition to the Liturgical Psalter is the canonical division of the Psalms into five books, as this part of the inspired text of the Bible. But it also retains the traditional Latin incipits, or first lines (e.g. Psalm 1 – Beatus vir qui non abiit), which are an odd fit in a contemporary language Psalter. It is unclear to me what purpose they serve, and one wonders who is being “included” by inserting potentially confusing and off-putting words from a language no longer spoken. I wish the Latin incipits had been replaced by the canonical superscriptions (e.g. Psalm 50 – “A Psalm of Asaph”), as these are part of the inspired biblical text. In fact, where the superscriptions of the Psalms occur, they are numbered as the first verse in the Masoretic text and Jewish Bibles.
My major concern with the Liturgical Psalter is that by removing the title of “king”, by hiding the divine Name, and by continuing the contemporary custom of pluralizing references to the Psalter’s singular righteous “man” (e.g. Psalm 1:1, “Happy are they” instead of the literal “Blessed is the man”),[xii] the most central message of the Psalms has been inadvertently obscured. Jesus the Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords, is YHWH incarnate and the one who speaks in the Psalms. In praying the prayers that Jesus himself prayed, our voices are made one with his. He speaks in and through us (Heb. 2:12) and thereby we included into the mystical body of Christ. Christian liturgy in general and Psalmody in particular can only be truly “inclusive” of us if it is Christological; if it is not Christ-centered, then all of us are excluded. Without Christ and his singular voice speaking in our congregation, we would remain “strangers and sojourners” and could not be members “of God’s household” with “access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18-19).
I am sure this was the furthest thing from the intention behind the Liturgical Psalter, but my worry is that all these moves away from the literal wording risk excluding the Lord Jesus from his own prayer book in the name of something we call “inclusivity”. The divine writer and voice of the Psalter, and the One who is thereby the author of our salvation (Heb. 2:10), should always be given pride of place; and such respect requires that we honour the literal wording he has written.
Conclusion
To summarize, my objections to Pray without Ceasing, as outlined in this paper, are fourfold and are as follows:
- The excision of certain Bible verses in the canticles is hazardous.
- “Source of all being” is a questionable name for the first hypostasis of the Trinity.
- “Hear, O Israel” is an improper affirmation of Christian faith and its inclusion at such a time as this is problematic.
- The attempted “inclusive” language revisions in the Liturgical Psalter are deficient for obscuring the Christological message of the Psalms, for only Jesus himself can truly “include”, or better, incorporate us into his mystical body, the church.
But while these objections are rather major, they are not quite deal-breakers for me. Because the editors of Pray without Ceasing have made room for me by retaining the Gloria Patri, Apostles’ Creed, and other traditional elements, and because some of the new features are welcome innovations, these are liturgies in which I can mostly participate in good conscience, even with some discomfort. Perhaps then I would have some faint inkling of how some others feel in a traditional prayer book liturgy.
I cannot recommend that parishes and individuals purchase hard copies of this book unless higher quality editions are published, and I call for the development of a Pray without Ceasing app, without which these new liturgies will be underutilized, and thus the hard work of the editors sadly wasted.
I do not speak for the PBSC in commending this new resource, but I would encourage our membership to read it before rushing to judgment. I, for one, welcome the publication of Pray without Ceasing and will use it at certain times and seasons with modifications. I commend the editorial committee, contributors, and publishers for their work; and as the title they have chosen, Pray without Ceasing, is taken from 1 Thessalonians 5:17, allow me to quote another verse from the same passage: I “esteem them very highly in love because of their work”, and pray that by a renewal in daily prayer all Canadian Anglicans may “live in peace with one another” (1 Thess. 5:13).
In short, I believe that Pray without Ceasing is an impressive but flawed liturgical resource, yet such are its strengths that its weaknesses can be accommodated for now and remedied over time. Finally, I hope that in writing this review I spur others to do likewise, because Pray without Ceasing is a work that merits close attention.
Footnotes
[i] Matthew Puddister, “Membership decline steepens”, Anglican Journal, 1 May 2024.
[ii] Another example is A Song of the Spirit (Revelation 22:12–14, 16, 17), again taken from CWDP, which omits the list of those who will be excluded from the New Jerusalem: “the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying” (Rev. 22:15). Though this word of judgment sounds harsh to our ears and seems antithetical to contemporary concerns for “inclusivity”, it is nonetheless part of God’s inspired Word. Thus, it is not ours to omit and including it in public liturgy would facilitate our sanctification to the end of our ultimate “inclusion” in God’s new creation.
[iii] James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Wipf & Stock, 1999), p. 100.
[iv] David Goodhew, “The Collapse of the Anglican Church of Canada”, Covenant, 5 August 2024.
[v] Pray without ceasing: morning and evening prayer for the seasons of the church year and ordinary time (Toronto: Anglican Church of Canada, 2024), p. 5.
[vi] Peter J. Leithart, “Yahweh”, Theopolis Institute, 27 April 2018, theopolisinstitute.com
[vii] James B. Jordan, “Yahweh: what’s in a name?”, Theopolis Institute, 15 January 2018, youtube.com.
[viii] Gregory of Nazianzus, De filio orat 29, “On the Son”, Third Theological Oration, Sect. II.
[ix] Ephraim Radner, “The Church as Israel”, Church (Eugene OR: Cascade Books, 2017), Kindle location 2664.
[x] Pray without ceasing, p. 232.
[xi] Pray without ceasing, p. 232.
[xii] Recent scholarship has demonstrated that the blessed “man” of Psalm 1, who meditates on the law day and night in accordance with Deuteronomy’s statutes for kingship (Deut. 17:18-19), is the very same person as the anointed king of Psalm 2. “When Ps 1 is read together with Ps 2, the synergy between these two pieces of poetry suggests that the true blessed man who meditates day and night on the Torah (Ps 1:1–2) will be the king that the Lord has installed on Zion, his holy hill (Ps 2:6).” See James M. Hamilton, Psalms, Volume 1 Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), p. 89.