Prayer of Humble Access (1928 BCP)

Prayer of Humble Access (1928 BCP) is the kneeling prayer said in the name of communicants immediately before reception of Holy Communion in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It follows the Prayer of Consecration and the Lord's Prayer, and it gathers the communicants' unworthiness, trust in mercy, and desire for union with Christ into one act of common prayer. Its language is biblical, sacramental, and penitential: worshippers come to the Lord's Table not "trusting in our own righteousness," but relying on the mercy of the same Lord who gives himself as spiritual food.

Text in the 1928 Rite

In the 1928 Holy Communion office the prayer is introduced by a rubric that makes the priest's words representative of all who will receive. The prayer is said kneeling at the Lord's Table and immediately before Communion:

Then shall the Priest, kneeling down at the Lord's Table, say, in the name of all those who shall receive the Communion, this Prayer following. We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy 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.

The placement matters. By the time the prayer is said, the communicants have heard the Commandments or Summary of the Law, the Collect, Epistle, Gospel, Creed, sermon, offertory, intercession, invitation, confession, absolution, Comfortable Words, Sursum Corda, Sanctus, and consecration. The Prayer of Humble Access is therefore not a general opening devotion. It is the Church's final kneeling approach to the consecrated gifts, spoken after mercy has been proclaimed and before the Body and Blood are administered.

Scriptural Language

The line about "crumbs under thy Table" draws especially on the Canaanite woman's answer to Christ in Matthew 15. In the 1928 propers, that Gospel is appointed for the Third Sunday in Lent:

Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.

The allusion is not self-contempt for its own sake. The woman confesses that she has no claim on the children's bread, yet she trusts Christ's mercy and receives his answer. The Prayer of Humble Access teaches the same posture: the communicant does not presume upon merit, but comes because the Lord's "property is always to have mercy."

The petition "so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood" also echoes the sixth chapter of John. The prayer uses this language devotionally and sacramentally, asking that reception may cleanse and unite the faithful to Christ.

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.

The same petition is governed by the Prayer Book's doctrinal boundaries. Article XXVIII teaches real participation in Christ while refusing to define the mystery as a material change of substance:

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.

This article is a key to the prayer's Anglican theology. The communicants ask truly to eat and drink Christ's Body and Blood, but the mode is heavenly and spiritual, and the means of reception is faith. The prayer is therefore neither a denial of sacramental communion nor an assertion that reception works apart from repentance and faith.

Place After Consecration

The 1928 American book differs from the 1662 English order by placing the Prayer of Humble Access after the Prayer of Consecration and the Lord's Prayer. The communion words then immediately apply the consecrated gifts to each communicant:

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.

E. Clowes Chorley, historiographer of the Protestant Episcopal Church, identified this placement as one of the notable changes in the 1928 revision:

The Prayer of Humble Access now stands after the consecration of the Elements, and before the Lord's Prayer is now said, "And now, as our Saviour Christ hath taught us, we are bold to say 'Our Father which art in heaven.'"

Chorley's wording should be read alongside the printed 1928 sequence: the consecration is followed by the Lord's Prayer, then the Prayer of Humble Access, then Communion. The practical effect is to make the prayer a direct preparation for reception rather than part of the consecratory action itself.

Historical Development

The Prayer of Humble Access entered English liturgical use in the 1548 Order of the Communion. That source already connected the prayer with the Comfortable Words and with reception by the people:

Then shall the Priest kneel down and say, in the name of all them that shall receive the Communion, this prayer following: We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, in these holy Mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and he in us, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood. Amen.

The 1548 wording shows the prayer's original pastoral setting. It was part of an English rite for communicating the people, and it already held together humility, mercy, sacramental eating and drinking, cleansing, and mutual indwelling in Christ.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer retained the prayer but placed it before the Prayer of Consecration:

Then shall the Priest, kneeling down at the Lord's Table, say in the name of all them that shall receive the Communion this Prayer following. We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy 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.

The 1928 American rite therefore preserves the 1662 substance of the prayer but changes its liturgical position. That shift is significant because the prayer now interprets the communicants' approach to the consecrated gifts rather than preceding the consecration.

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere explain how the English 1552 revision had moved the communicants' devotions earlier in the rite:

the greater part was set before the Anaphora, but the Prayer of Humble Access was inserted into it, immediately before the Consecration.

Their interpretation helps explain why the 1928 American position is not accidental. The American book stands in a long Anglican discussion about the order of confession, absolution, thanksgiving, consecration, humble approach, and Communion.

Procter and Frere also describe the theological mood created by the prayer:

the attitude of prayer and supplication befits those, who shall partake of these mysteries, at each step of their approach to the table of the Lord. Here is, therefore, placed the Prayer of Humble Access, in which we again solemnly acknowledge our unworthiness of the mercies, given to us in the cleansing of our sinful bodies and souls by the Body and Blood of Christ.

This is the prayer's practical force in the 1928 rite. It restrains irreverence without discouraging communicants. It teaches that worthy reception is not confidence in self, but repentant faith in the mercy of God and in the cleansing work of Christ.

Theological Use

Clause by clause, the prayer gives a compact Anglican account of eucharistic approach. "We do not presume" rejects entitlement at the altar. "Trusting in our own righteousness" echoes the Prayer Book's evangelical doctrine of grace. "Manifold and great mercies" names the ground of access. The "crumbs" clause teaches humility, but the appeal to God's mercy teaches confidence. The final petition asks not only for forgiveness but for communion: "that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us."

The prayer should therefore be read with both the Comfortable Words and Article XXVIII. The Comfortable Words assure penitent communicants of Christ's mercy; the Prayer of Humble Access gives them the words in which to approach; Article XXVIII explains that the Body and Blood of Christ are received by faith after a heavenly and spiritual manner. Together they guard against two opposite mistakes: presumption without repentance and fear without trust.

Pastoral and Catechetical Significance

In parish worship, the Prayer of Humble Access forms communicants before they receive. It teaches them to come kneeling, together, and in faith. Its plural language matters: the priest says it "in the name of all those who shall receive the Communion," so the congregation approaches as one body rather than as isolated devotional individuals.

For catechesis, the prayer is especially useful because it connects biblical story, doctrinal definition, and liturgical action. Matthew 15 supplies the table and crumbs imagery; John 6 supplies the language of eating and drinking; the Articles supply the rule of faithful reception; the 1928 rite supplies the concrete order in which the Church prays these truths immediately before Communion. The result is a deeply Anglican eucharistic prayer: humble, scriptural, sacramental, and centered on mercy in Christ.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Comfortable Words (1928 BCP)
• Prayer of Consecration (1928 BCP)
• Administration of Communion (1928 BCP)
• Sacraments in the 1928 BCP
• Articles of Religion (1928 BCP)

External Links

• Holy Communion - The 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• The Order of the Communion, 1548
• The Lord's Supper or Holy Communion - The Church of England
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XII
• E. Clowes Chorley, The New Prayer Book: Revision