Prayer of Consecration in the 1662 Communion Office

The Prayer of Consecration in the 1662 Communion Office is the central eucharistic prayer in the rite for Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer as authorized for the Church of England in 1662. It stands at the point where the bread and wine are set apart for sacramental use, and it gives classic expression to Anglican teaching on the Lord's Supper. Its language is restrained, scriptural, and closely connected to the Thirty-Nine Articles, especially the Article on the Supper of the Lord.

Place in the rite

In the 1662 Communion office, the Prayer of Consecration follows the Prayer of Humble Access and immediately precedes the administration of Communion. Its position is significant. The congregation has already heard the exhortation to draw near with faith, made confession, received absolution, heard the Comfortable Words, and joined in the Sursum Corda and Sanctus. The prayer therefore comes after penitence, thanksgiving, and preparation, and before reception of the consecrated elements.

The minister is directed to stand before the holy table and to take the paten and cup into his hands at the appropriate points. These manual acts are not treated as a separate ceremony, but as part of the ordered recitation of the institution narrative. The prayer recalls Christ's saving death, asks that communicants may receive the benefits of that death, and repeats the words of institution from the Gospel and Pauline accounts. This structure reflects the Prayer Book's concern that sacramental action be joined to the proclamation of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice.

Theological themes

The prayer emphasizes the sufficiency of Christ's offering on the cross. It describes that offering as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This language became especially important in Anglican theology because it distinguishes the Eucharist from any notion of a repeated sacrifice of Christ, while preserving the Eucharist as a sacramental participation in the benefits of his passion.

The petition asks God to grant that those receiving the bread and wine may be partakers of Christ's most blessed body and blood. The wording is deliberately devotional rather than speculative. It does not define a mechanical change in the elements, nor does it reduce Communion to bare remembrance. Within Anglicanism, this has allowed both Reformed and more catholic accounts of eucharistic presence to appeal to the Prayer Book text, provided they remain within the doctrinal boundaries of the formularies.

The prayer also links consecration to faithful reception. The communicants are to receive according to Christ's institution and in remembrance of his death and passion. This reflects a wider Prayer Book pattern in which sacramental grace is not separated from repentance, faith, thanksgiving, and obedient participation in the Church's common prayer.

Later Anglican reception

The 1662 form influenced many later Anglican rites, even where its exact order was revised. Some later Prayer Books placed a fuller memorial, oblation, or epiclesis within the eucharistic prayer, while others retained a structure close to the English book. Debates over these revisions often turned on how best to express the relation between Christ's sacrifice, the Church's thanksgiving, and the consecration of the elements.

In Anglican liturgical history, the 1662 Prayer of Consecration remains a point of reference for discussions of eucharistic doctrine and ceremonial. Its brevity and precision helped shape the worship of English-speaking Anglican churches for centuries. It also illustrates a characteristic Prayer Book method: doctrine is taught not only by formal statements, but by the repeated language of common worship.

References

• The Book of Common Prayer (1662), "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion."
• The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, Article XXVIII, "Of the Lord's Supper."
• Bryan D. Spinks, Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology: Sacraments and Salvation in the Thought of William Perkins and Richard Hooker. Scarecrow Press, 1999.