Common Worship - Content and Style

Content and Style

Common Worship represents a radical change in the distribution of liturgy and production of worship materials within the Church of England. It is published in electronic as well as paper form, with the intent that congregations can assemble their own orders of service using the forms they prefer for each section of the service, and if desired extend them with prayers and readings. It also offers a wider choice of forms for each section of the liturgy than any previous liturgy. Many churches have produced separate books for each of a number of different types of service (parish Communion, all age service, different church seasons, etc.) to their own specifications. A software package (Visual Liturgy, for Microsoft Windows only) is designed to facilitate the production of complete material for each Sunday, including hymns.

Like the ASB, Common Worship is mostly in modern language (though it retains versions of the Eucharist and other material in the language and using the structure of the BCP). The text of the modern language Eucharist is essentially identical to Rite A of the ASB and derives from the work of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. The wording of the ordinary of the mass was therefore very similar to that of the first English version of the post-Vatican II Roman Missal (used until 2011). Unlike the ASB it consists not of one book but of several. The main book includes the Sunday services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, Baptism (though not Confirmation), and various forms of Holy Communion, including eight Eucharistic Prayers, not all of which adhere to the Hippolytan form, and all of which are designed to be interpreted in a broadly Reformed sense. A separate book styled Pastoral Services contains the forms for Wholeness and Healing, Marriage, emergency Baptism, Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child, and Funerals. The Daily Prayer book was published in 2005 (although a "Preliminary edition" circulated before that) and the seasonal booklet, Times and Seasons in 2006. This last is intended to make revised provision for the winter period including Advent, and Epiphany as far as Candlemas - thus replacing the book, The Promise of his Glory - and to replace the booklet Lent, Holy Week and Easter.

The new lectionary authorised at the same time derives from the 1969 Roman Catholic Common Lectionary, which was revised in 1983 with ecumenical input as the Revised Common Lectionary and adopted by many denominations worldwide. The Common Worship lectionary differs from the Revised Common Lectionary at certain times of the year. This runs on a three year cycle, A, B, and C, with, respectively, Matthew, Mark, and Luke being given the gospel readings in one of the three years. The attempt to provide themes has been deliberately abandoned in favor of writers having their own voice in a sequence of readings, either of the whole book or, where books are long, parts of it. One of the reasons for this was to encourage consecutive expository preaching. There is, however, some provision for themes, in that the Old Testament reading can be chosen either to run continuously or to be chosen because it relates to the Gospel. No such provision is made for the New Testament reading. Material from St John's gospel is introduced at various points, most especially in year B, which is devoted to St Mark's gospel, which is shorter than the others.

The books provide a huge number of alternatives, rather than a single form, extending the process begun with the Alternative Services Book, but with the clear intention that it be treated as a resource book rather than used for worship. The expectation (contained in the electronic version) is that parishes will print (or project onto screens) texts for each week. The Service of the Word, authorised earlier but now incorporated into Common Worship, somewhat resembles the Directory of Public Worship produced during the Commonwealth, containing as it does directions as to structure rather than a full liturgy. The "common" of Common Worship is in the framework and structure for each service but then allowing for a variety of prayers and resources to be used within those common structures. In that respect it is a departure from Cranmer's principle of uniformity: 'from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but one use'.

The desire for diversity and variation has been criticised by some scholars, such as Mark Dalby (The Renewal of Common Prayer ed Perham (CHP 1993)), as making light of the principle of worship being 'common prayer'. Common Worship bears more than a passing resemblance to the pre-Reformation church of which Cranmer commented 'many times there was more business to find out what should be read than to read it when it was found out'. Others, however, have challenged this view. 'Common Worship Today' (Mark Earey & Gilly Myers, eds.) makes the point that worship has always been more diverse than is implied by the use of a single book, and views diversity as realistic and necessary.

One other respect in which Common Worship differs from its predecessor is in relation to the saints. While in the main volume only one eucharistic preface is provided for the saints, other books in the series (particularly Common Worship: Daily Prayer and Common Worship: Festivals) provide far more resources. The provision is distinctly Anglican, however, in that individuals are included who have not undergone formal canonization. On the other hand, although the text tends to avoid statements about the eternal destiny of those who are celebrated, the occasional phrase (e.g. "In communion with all who served you on earth and worship you now in heaven" in the second eucharistic preface for All Saints' Day) seems to reflect the Roman Catholic doctrine of the saints.