Lent, Rite I, and the Prayer of Humble Access
Beloved in Christ,
Lent is my favorite season of the liturgical year. This may sound odd as it is the most penitential season, the most dour season, a season of fasting and repenting.
But there is something refreshing to me about the spiritual practices and disciplines of this season. It’s a quiet season where sacred silence abounds and we learn, through prayer and fasting and spiritual reading, to listen to God’s voice. To trust in God’s goodness and mercy - not merely knowing it intellectually but experiencing it in an embodied way.
During Lent, we are using Rite 1 for worship. Rite 1 uses Elizabethan language and the format of the prayers tend to have a bit more penitential language in them. One of the things I deeply appreciate here at St. Andrew’s is the wide swath of approved liturgical materials we use - from Rite 1 on one end to the newer Enriching Our Worship Eucharistic Prayers on the other end.
We are exposed to the wide diversity of Anglican liturgy, tradition, and theologies which we are a part of in the Episcopal tradition. We find ourselves caught up in the global body of Christ by praying, experiencing, and becoming familiar with the variety of Eucharistic prayers we have.
One of my most favorite parts of Rite 1 liturgy is the Prayer of Humble Access which takes place right before we receive the Eucharist. It is drawn from Mark 7:28 where a Gentile woman says to Christ, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumb” and Luke 7:6 where a centurion says, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.”
The Prayer of Humble Access holds in tension that we are fallen and sinful people constantly in need of God’s love, that we are not entitled to the mercy of God, nor the Love of God. And yet, we trust in the “abundant and great mercies” of our loving God who invites us to the table that “we may evermore dwell in” Christ and Chris in us.
It is a prayer of profound humility. It takes seriously the sinful realities which corrupt humanity (look at the world around us for all the proof needed there!) and launches us directly to the aide of the One who creates, sustains, and compassionately loves all things: Our loving and life-giving and all-merciful God.
Lent is a time of reawakening to the goodness of God and our dependence on God in our life, and I look forward to sojourning through this season with each and every one of you.
Yours in Christ,
Alex+