Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England

Common Worship

• Publisher: Church House Publishing
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780715121313
• eBook ISBN: 9780715122402
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Provides the ordination liturgies of the Church of England from The Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship alongside a study guide for these services

The Common Worship Ordination Services

Contents

A Note on the Annotations

The Ordination of Deacons

The Ordination of Priests, also called Presbyters

The Ordination of Deacons and Priests at the Same Service

The Ordination and Consecration of a Bishop

¶ Authorization

The Common Worship Ordination Services are authorized pursuant to Canon B 2 of the Canons of the Church of England for use until further resolution of the General Synod.

A Note on the Annotations

As this is a study edition of the Ordination Services, rather than one intended for liturgical use, the opportunity has been taken to annotate the text with references to the Bible and also to the Canons of the Church of England and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. The annotations do not form part of the authorized text.

The best liturgical texts are a fabric woven chiefly from Scripture. In preparing and revising these Ordination Services, the Liturgical Commission and the Revision Committee had Bibles constantly open in front of them. Older generations of liturgical craftsmen carried much of Scripture in their memories and, rather than quote directly, tended to combine and recombine images, phrases and allusions into a rich scriptural tapestry. To help readers who might wish to pick out and follow some of the threads in this fabric, references to Scripture have been included as footnotes. These references can be grouped into three broad categories:

¶ A few point to direct quotation. For example, the greeting with which the bishop opens each service (‘Peace be with you’) is the greeting with which the risen Christ greets his disciples three times in John 20. Similarly, words from the welcome to newly ordained priests – ‘let the word of Christ dwell in you richly’ – are a quotation from Colossians 3.16.

¶ The majority point to scriptural phrases, images or ideas. A single line of liturgical text often draws simultaneously on different points in the Bible, recombining images in ways that constitute in themselves a trajectory of the interpretation of Scripture within the life of the Church. For example, ‘Christ’s own flock, bought by the shedding of his blood on the cross’ draws primarily on Acts 20.28 (‘the flock … that he obtained with the blood of his own Son’), but there are echoes too of 1 Corinthians 6.20 and 7.23 (‘you were bought with a price’) and Hebrews 9.12 (‘with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption’). Again, the petition in the Litany that the clergy may ‘hunger for truth and thirst after righteousness’ is almost a direct quotation from Matthew 5.6, but the beatitude has been reshaped by the memory of John 6.35 and 14.6. Inevitably, it is impossible to list all the possible script...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• A note on using this Common Worship EPUB edition
• Foreword
• Introduction by the House of Bishops
• The Common Worship Ordination Services
• The Ordinal (1662)
• A Brief History of Ordination Rites
• Commentary by the Liturgical Commission
• Celebrating Ordinations: a Practical Guide
• Copyright Information
• Index of Biblical References
• General Index