In Defense of the Prayer of Humble Access

We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table; but you are the same Lord whose character is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

These wonderful words, known as “The Prayer of Humble Access,” were written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer at the time of the English Reformation in 1548, and they have been a key part of the scriptural tradition of worship in every subsequent edition of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (BCP), such as the 1662 BCP that became the standard of Anglican worship for most centuries, down to our own 2019 Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church in North America.

However, the words of the Prayer of Humble Access might seem more weird than wonderful; they can sound strange, uncomfortable, and even off-putting to many people today for several reasons, but at least three stand out. 

First, its stark language about sinfulness or unworthiness can come across as puritanical, pessimistic, or too self-renouncing. While none of us are perfect, are we actually this bad? After all, if we have already become Christians, why would we continue to pray for our bodies and souls to be washed and for Christ to dwell in us and we in him — hasn’t that already happened? Emerging therapeutic and individualistic sensibilities often clash with the theological anthropology of this prayer. 

Second, the eucharistic language in the Prayer of Humble Access, on eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood, can come across as extreme. Does this language suggest Anglicans believe what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper? How, or in what sense, is the consecrated bread and wine the body and blood of Christ?

Third, the Prayer of Humble Access can seem new and foreign because it has fallen into disuse in many Anglican churches. Though it was a standard part of Holy Communion worship services among Anglicans worldwide for well over four hundred years, it became optional in the late 20^th century in the 1979 BCP. In some Anglican churches the prayer quickly disappeared altogether, while other Anglican churches planted in recent decades have simply never used this prayer throughout their history. So, even though this richly traditional prayer has deep historic roots in traditional Anglican liturgy, it can sound unconventional or unfamiliar today even among people who were baptized as infants and raised in Anglican churches, and unsettle the Anglican-curious, especially among those who joined an Anglican church from other Christian traditions. 

Far more can and should be said in response to such concerns, and wisdom is needed to do so with pastoral care in the concrete situations of particular persons and parishes. But, in what follows, I offer five reasons why and how — or, more specifically, when — to use the Prayer of Humble Access.

Like Isaiah, Participating on Earth in the Heavenly Worship of the Thrice-Holy God

First, as J.I. Packer helpfully notes in his pamphlet The Gospel in the Prayer Book, worship services for Holy Communion in the Anglican tradition have a recurring pattern, of “sin acknowledged – grace announced – faith exercised in response.” Prayer Book worship is thus a gospel-shaped pattern of worship, prayer, and formation.

In the 2019 BCP, in both the “Anglican Standard” and “Renewed Ancient” liturgies for Holy Communion, you will notice that this three-fold cycle recurs at least three times throughout the divine service every week: first, in the opening of our service with the Collect for Purity, request for God’s Mercy, and hymns of praise; second, when we confess our sins, hear the assurance of pardon, and greet one another in peace; and third, it recurs again in the prayers before and after the Lord’s Supper. 

Why do Anglicans confess their sins so often, both in corporate worship on Sundays, and multiple times per day if we pray the Daily Office? Why do we have penitential seasons such as Lent? And why do we have prayers so heavily focused on our need for redemption, such as the Prayer of Humble Access? Of many reasons that might be given, the simplest answer is that this is how Jesus taught us to pray. When his disciples came to him and asked Jesus to teach them to pray, a key part of how he answered was to regularly pray “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Lk 11:1, 4).

Where should the Prayer of Humble Access be place in the service?

Second, with that broader picture in view of our worship services, we will better appreciate the significance of the Prayer of Humble Access if we notice its specific placement within the broader sequence of our worship service. In past eras conformity to the Prayer Book was both far more of an expectation and a possibility. But after the 1970s, for better or for worse, Anglican Prayer Books increasingly became filled with a wide variety of options. No longer was it merely an expectation, but it was simply no longer a possibility to straightforwardly follow the Prayer Book in one’s local parish; the Prayer Book became a source text from which each local parish was expected to compose the actual liturgical choices that would be followed on Sundays. This has its advantages; some of the options are nice to have. But it also has obvious disadvantages, not least in creating disunity.

The 2019 BCP makes the Prayer of Humble Access optional, suggesting it “may” be used after the prayer of consecration as the last thing immediately before the congregation partakes of communion; that follows the placement of the Prayer of Humble Access in the 1637 Scottish Episcopal liturgy, which in turn influenced the placement of the Prayer of Humble Access in the 1928 American BCP.

Crucially, however, our own 2019 Book of Common Prayer for the Anglican Church of North America expressly describes the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer Prayer Book as “the standard for doctrine, discipline, and worship” (pg. 4; see also pgs. 767 and 792). And, specifically on the eucharistic liturgy, there is a rubric on pg. 142 of the 2019 BCP which indicates that the component parts of the 2019 BCP can be re-ordered so as to follow the order of the 1662 BCP’s eucharistic liturgy. 

The historic placement of this prayer in the 1662 liturgy has a profound biblical and theological logic that carries rich implications for pastoral and spiritual formation. In the 1662 BCP (pg. 261 of the 1662 International Edition), the Prayer of Humble Access is offered earlier in the communion service, immediately after the Sanctus: “Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify they glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of they glory. Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High. Amen.’”

In the Sanctus, because Jesus Christ is both truly God and truly man, and because we have received the Spirit of Christ by faith, we on earth become united with the risen and ascended Christ in heaven. The church’s earthly worship is thus a kind of mirror of the heavenly worship, but it is not only a bare imitation. Scripture teaches that we really and truly participate in the heavenly worship of God with the angels, archangels, heavenly creatures, and saints. Even if our outward sensory of a particular church service is less than experientially thrilling, nonetheless even the meekest gatherings of the church’s worship involve a communion of saints, a meeting of heaven and earth, as taught in Scripture in passages such as Hebrews 4:14–16, 9:23–10:23, 12:25–29, 1 Cor 11:10, and more. That is why we say we are joining our voices “with angels and archangels…” 

But take careful notice of what it is that we are saying with the heavenly host: a threefold repetition of “Holy, holy, holy,” which should call to mind passages of Scripture such as Isaiah 6:1–7, where Isaiah heard those same words in his vision of the angels praising God in his Holiness:

[1] In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. [2] Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. [3] And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

[4] And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. [5] And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” [6] Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. [7] And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” 

The placement of the Prayer of Humble Access is thus significant in the liturgy of the 1662 BCP. Like the prophet Isaiah, upon entering into the heavenly Holy of Holies, and upon joining our voices with angels and archangels who cry out an eternal song of praise before the awesome presence of God, we become undone because we realize afresh that we are sinners; that is the bad news. As Psalm 24:3–4 puts it, “who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul.”

But hear the good news! Notice the specific language used in this prayer: this is the prayer of humble “access.” A “new and living way has been opened to us” into the presence of God, into the heavenly holy of holies through the flesh of Jesus, by his sufficient and once-for-all time offering of himself on the cross and as our risen and ascended priest in heaven (Heb 12:21)! As a certain friend once shared with me, the unworthiness that this prayer expresses is only prefatory to its astounding claim that, despite our shortcomings, Christ indeed makes us worthy.

Though “we” are unworthy to come to the Lord’s table, and “we” do not trust in our own righteousness, we can look to “Your,” that is, the triune God’s, mercies. We can thus boldly come to the Table because Christ has mercifully invited us (Heb 4:16)! Marvel of marvels, and wonder of wonders! The older language of the Holy Communion liturgy in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer thus included exhortations such as Hebrews 10:22, “Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort.” So, having joined our voices with angels and archangels, and discovering there both our inadequacy and Christ’s all-sufficiency, in the worship service we then access the table itself in the prayer of consecration. 

Is the Prayer of Humble Access overly harsh about the sinfulness of sin?

Third, we can now more directly take up objections that this prayer might come across as groveling or self-flagellating, particularly in these lines:

“We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant and great mercies.. 

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table; but you are the same Lord whose character is always to have mercy. 

Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat … and to drink … that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his that our sinful bodies may be made clean … and our souls washed … and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us

If our fundamental assumptions about human flourishing and human self-worth are chiefly shaped by individualistic, consumerist, and therapeutic assumptions that dominate life in the modern, Western world, then the beliefs that all Christians have held for millennia about human sinfulness will seem unimaginable, almost unthinkable to us. But if we are taking our cues about what it means to be a human being from the Word of God, then even a quick scan of passages such as Romans ch. 3 or ch. 5, or Jeremiah 17:9, or Psalm 51, or Ephesians 2:1–3 will flesh out the backstory of the human plight assumed in this prayer.

By praying the Prayer of Humble Access, we are verbalizing to God that we are not fitting or worthy of his mercies and goodness. Despite our recurring delusions to the contrary, we cannot put God in our debt. The mercy of God is not a prize for the deserving, or something we can boast about having merited by our moral performance; rather, it is medicine for the sick and helpless. In texts such as Romans ch. 4, the grace of God is life for the dead, like the Word God spoke when God created everything out of nothing; the gift of God’s mercy is incongruent, not given to the deserving, but rather God is the one who “justifies the ungodly” (Rom 4:5), even while that gift of God’s mercy also changes us to become more and more like the Giver. Thus, Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther in his 1518 Heidelberg Disputation wrote that “the love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.”

As John Murray once wrote, union with Christ is the central doctrine of salvation. Jesus Christ was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25), and faith is the means by which the Holy Spirit unites us with Christ, such that we share with Christ in his vindication from sin. By faith we share in Christ and all his benefits of salvation, which we appropriate distinctly but inseparably in Christ, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:30–31, where Paul indicates that by faith we share in Christ and all his benefits: “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Only as the Holy Spirit thus joins us with Christ do we become partakers of all his saving benefits such as sanctification, justification, adoption, glorification. Grace thus triumphs over sin and death, but not in such a way that are free to just go on sinning; we, through baptism, died to sin with Christ and have been raised to walk in newness of life (Rom 5:21–6:11).

Notably, the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion served as a theological confession for Anglicans for centuries, and the 2019 Prayer Book of the ACNA makes strong commitments to their authority (BCP 2019 pg. 767; see esp. pg. 792: “We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today”). The eleventh article is devoted to justification, and reflects the theology of the magisterial Protestant Reformation, that “we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification” (BCP 2019 pg. 776). 

Thomas Cranmer drew upon this backdrop of theological assumptions when in the Prayer of Humble Access he quoted Jesus in Matthew 15:27 and Mark 7:28. In this story Jesus commends a gentile woman who makes a profound expression of humility and trust, throwing herself and her demonized daughter upon the mercies of Jesus. After Jesus indicated that he was sent on a mission initially to the lost sheep of Israel before he was sent to the nations, this un-named woman in both meekness and bold faith noted how even dogs eat up the crumbs of bread that fall from the children’s table, and this meager provision was all she desperately sought from the only one who could rescue her. Jesus did not indicate she was being too hard on herself or say she was groveling; rather, he said “O woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 15:28).

What does the Prayer of Humble Access mean when it talks about eating and drinking Christ's flesh and blood?

The central petition in this prayer concerns our actually partaking of communion, the act of eating and drinking, which shortly follows praying this prayer, and uses the following language to describe what it is that we are partaking of:

Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”

It is not a particularly modern phenomenon to find this kind of language provocative. In the Gospel according to Saint John, people were wildly offended when Jesus used this very language. Initially, Jesus declared to the crowd not only that he is the bread of life, but he further specified:

[53] So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [56] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. [58] This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” [60] When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” [61] But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? [62] Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? [63] It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. [64] But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) [65] And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:53–65)

That this is a hard saying is actually part of the gospel narrative itself. Not only were these disciples troubled by Jesus’ words, but they proved such an obstacle that it actually led to a winnowing down of the followers of Jesus within the story of John’s gospel — but also led to a deepened sense of what it means to be a disciple and to entrust one’s life to the Word of Christ:

[66] After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer , walked with him. [67] So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” [68] Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, [69] and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66–69)

But my sense is that contemporary questions and objections to the scriptural language of John 6 that we find in the Prayer of Humble Access are specifically concerned with how different Christian traditions conceive of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps you are familiar with the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, that the elements so become the real body and blood of Christ that the consecrated elements no longer are bread and wine in their ‘substance,’ despite seeming like bread and wine in their ‘accidents.’ Perhaps you come from a memorialist background, where the Lord’s Supper is primarily seen as symbolic for remembering and reflecting upon his sacrifice on the cross. Or, perhaps you come from a Lutheran tradition which holds that Christ’s human nature becomes present in, with, and under the consecrated elements. How do Anglican beliefs about the Eucharist relate to those three traditions, and what does the Bible say?

There are at least four strands of teaching in Scripture that we must account for. First, when our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper, he indicated we should do this “in remembrance” of him; memory is thus a crucial part of the sacrament. 

But, second, Scripture also teaches that more is going on in the Lord’s Supper than its partakers merely remembering Jesus; the sacraments are a means of grace. Paul calls circumcision a sign and seal of the righteousness that Abraham had by faith, to which baptism corresponds in the new covenant (Rom 4:11; Col 2:11–12). The sacraments are thus the means through which God speaks a visible, or even an edible, Word. 

Third, the scriptures indicate, however cryptically, that we participate in Christ’s flesh and blood in the Eucharist. In 1 Corinthians ch. 10, Paul describes the events in the Old Testament of crossing the Red Sea as a kind of baptism, and the stories of Israel drinking water from the walk, and eating manna in the wilderness as eating and drinking “spiritual” food and drink which was actually Christ himself (1 Cor 10:4). A little later, Paul says the following about the Lord’s Supper, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)” The Greek word koinonia that Paul uses is well translated by the ESV as “participation”; in the bread and the wine, we are partaking of, we are sharing in, we have a common union with, no less than Christ himself. 

Fourth, the Scriptures make plain that the literal flesh and blood of Jesus is not presently on earth, but ascended into heaven. Indeed, Jesus is with us always, unto the end of the age (Matthew 2:19), but that is so because he has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts (Gal 4:4–7; Jn 14:16–20). We would not have salvation if Christ only was born and died on the cross, and then set aside his flesh and blood forever. Our redemption hinges on our sharing in Christ’s resurrection (Rom 4:25). In the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is integral to Christ’s atoning and priestly work as the one mediator between God and man that we presently have our flesh in heaven interceding on our behalf, and that Christ is not only at the right hand of God, but sat down after making a once-for-all time sacrifice since his work was completed, rather than continuing to stand like priests do (Heb 10). In fact, Hebrews says, if he [Christ] were on earth, “he would not be a priest at all” (Heb 8:4)! Much more can and should be said about the Lord’s Supper than these four observations, but they are nonetheless crucial things we must account for in our eucharistic theology.

The Anglican reformers such as Thomas Cranmer who helped compile the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, and the early proponents and defenders of Anglican theology such as Richard Hooker and John Jewel, drew heavily upon the writings of the church fathers and distinctively Reformed approaches to eucharistic theology. They were both Reformed, in that they believed Scripture was the primary authority for matters of faith and practice, and they were also catholic in that they sought to recover the faith once for all delivered to the saints, especially as the fathers of the early church received and commended the Christian tradition. But Richard Hooker was especially fond of John Calvin, who in his Institutes of the Christian Religion wrote the following about our real participation in Christ in the Eucharist: “therefore, what our mind does not comprehend let faith conceive— that the Spirit truly unites things separated by space” (IV.17.1-2). The person and work of the Holy Spirit is the secret to how we really and truly participate in Christ in the Eucharist. That is what the Thirty Nine Articles have in mind when they say in article 28 on the Lord’s Supper: 

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ. Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

Unlike in the Roman Catholic view of the Mass, it is not that Christ is coming down from heaven as a corporal presence, replacing the substance of bread and wine with the substance of his flesh and blood; rather, by faith, we in and by the Holy Spirit are ascending to participate in the heavenly worship where Christ’s flesh and blood are really present. That is why every week the priest exhorts communicants to “feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving” (BCP 2019 pg. 136). 

So, even in Anglican churches that do not use the Prayer of Humble Access, the language of real presence is nonetheless an integral part to communion liturgy. Even in modern prayer books, notice the role that the Holy Spirit plays in the epiclesis during the prayer of consecration, when the priest prays “We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and we offer you these gifts. Sanctify them [the elements of bread and wine] by your Word and Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ” (BCP 2019 pg. 134). Did you notice that connection there? Every week in our service we already include the language both of making a memorial of our redemption in Christ, and we use the language of Christ’s real presence in the Lord’s Supper — but it is specifically through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s own words of institution that this occurs. 

Occasionally one hears the notion that Anglicans are bound together not by theological confessions; sometimes Anglicanism is spoken about as not having much of a coherent theology, as if it were more of an ethos, or perhaps a vibe or a mood, which happens to have a common way of praying in the Prayer Book. Yet, even in the Prayer Book, you find profound statements of eucharistic theology which clarify the relationship between Anglican beliefs about the Lord’s Supper to Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and memorialist traditions, such as the following rubric in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. When the 1552 Prayer Book was created, John Knox and others worried that the act of kneeling to receive communion betrayed a theology of the Eucharist which the Reformers rejected. In response, a rubric was provided to explain why it is appropriate to kneel out of reverence and gratitude while receiving Holy Communion, which was slightly revised and became standardized in the 1662 BCP, quoted below:

Whereas it is ordained in this office for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling — which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgement of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue — yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is here declared, that thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored — for that would be idolatry, to be abhorred by all faithful Christians — and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ’s natural Body, to be at one time in more places than one. (1662 IE, pgs. 269–270).

The christology of this rubric from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer is strongly informed by the so-called ‘extra calvnisticum,’ the tradition of Reformed teaching on how Christ’s divine and human natures inter-relate, an excellent example of which is Q&A’s 47 & 48 of the Heidelberg Catechism. The concern is that if Christ is somehow present in more than one place at a time, that might undermine the integrity of Christ’s human nature, since true human natures are circumscribed with finite limits to only be in one place at time. But, because the Spirit’s work of eucharistic ascent by faith, the Reformed tradition can nonetheless maintain that in the Eucharist, because of the work of the Spirit, we really feed on Christ’s flesh and blood as the one who is risen and ascended.

A strong notion of mystery is integral to this vision. While an Anglican theology of real participation in Christ, as the Spirit unites us on earth with the risen and ascended flesh and blood of Christ in heaven, is neither wholly the same as a straightforward memorialist, Roman Catholic, or Lutheran account, Anglicans do not claim to know precisely how the Holy Spirit unites us with Christ. As the eminent Anglican theologian Richard Hooker wrote in Book V of his Laws of Ecclesiastic Polity:

Let it be enough for me, then, when I present myself at the Lord’s table, to know what I receive from him there, without searching or inquiring how Christ performs his promise. Let disputes and questions — the enemies of piety and hindrances to true devotion, which on this matter have been too patiently heard — take their rest. Let curious and sharp-witted men beat their heads about what questions they like. The very letter of the Word of Christ gives plain assurance that these mysteries fasten us as nails to his very cross, that by them we draw out even the efficacy, power, and virtue of the blood from his gored side, that we there dip our tongues in the wounds of our Redeemer and are dyed red both within and without, that our hunger is satisfied and our thirst forever quenched. He whose soul possesses this paschal lamb and rejoices in the strength of this new wine feels wonderful things, sees great things, and utters unheard-of things. (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.67.13)

Returning to the Prayer of Humble Access, we should conclude that this prayer is not only compatible with, but gives profound and eloquent expression to, a robustly Protestant and distinctively Reformed approach to the Lord’s Supper. 

Sadly, the reformed character of the Anglican Prayer Book tradition is not always appreciated among Anglicans, but is something apparently recognizable to several non-Anglicans. In 2017 a confessional Presbyterian professor of church history, Carl Trueman, and a confessional Lutheran professor of Systematic Theology, Robert Kolb, co-authored Between Wittenberg and Geneva: Lutheran and Reformed Theology in Conversation. There, Trueman remarked that the liturgy for Holy Communion and the Prayer of Humble Access is “perhaps the single greatest liturgical achievement of Reformed theology, … [which] is more than mere symbolism. The act of Holy Communion assumed here, in a prayer shot through with biblical allusions, involves humility, faith, the being and nature of God, his work in Christ, forgiveness, union with Christ, and the potent impact of partaking of the elements.”

Why All this Matters

Though the preceding discussion has strove to clarify some of the scriptural and theological underpinnings of the Prayer of Humble Access, and address several common objections to its use, such highly niche liturgical discourse can easily become not only gratuitous, but actually dangerous. In Thomas Hardy’s utterly bleak novel Jude the Obscure, an unspeakable injustice is committed while a few priests, unaware, are debating nearby which direction a celebrant should face while praying. Without love for God and neighbor, little in this essay matters.

Nonetheless, there are more and less helpful ways for Anglican churches to relate to the Book of Common Prayer. The Prayer of Humble Access should be more widely appreciated as not only one optional resource among others, but as a treasure of our Anglican heritage worth recovering, renewing, and commending today. But our attempts to do so will only prove of enduring value insofar as they point us beyond ourselves and to Christ himself, love for him, and love for another. 

So, if your parish prays this prayer, direct your gaze fully upon some of the most enduring and life-transforming truths hidden in its middle and its ending. Who is God? “the same Lord whose character is always to have mercy.” And what are we hoping is the outcome of our devotions and our eucharistic participation? “…that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.” So, then, what is the payoff for all this discussion? Ultimately, all that matters in life and in death is knowing Jesus; abiding in him, and he in us (John 15:1–11). As Hooker put it:

This bread contains more than the substance which our eyes behold. This cup, hallowed with a solemn benediction, avails to the endless life and health of both soul and body, for it serves both as a medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins, and as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. It sanctifies what it touches, enlightens us with belief, and truly conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ. It matters not what these elements are in themselves; it is enough that to me who receive them they are the body and blood of Christ. His promise suffices as a witness of this; he knows how to accomplish his words. Why should any thought possesses the mind of the faithful communicant but this: ‘Oh my God, you are true. O my soul, you are happy’?” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.67.13)