Anglican Ash Wednesday: Catholic or Reformed?
I want to take you back to the year 1548. It is the year before the very first Book of Common Prayer, and it is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. For many centuries, you and your family came into the church the day before to have your confession heard. On this day, come to receive ashes on the forehead, but on this day, no such ashes are given.
Ash Wednesday 1548: A Pivotal Change
That year, the Church omitted candles for Candlemass and palms for Palm Sunday, and held no Good Friday veneration of the cross. As the historian Eamon Duffy recounts, “The entire edifice of Catholic culture and liturgy was being dismantled in England.”
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Now, we must say in fairness to the reformers, specifically Cranmer, that they had their reasons. They found no such customs in the ancient Church. What they found was hard, taxing penance-punishment inflicted on sinners by an authoritative Church. And in this vein, Cranmer, in the following year (1549), would include in the first Book of Common Prayer a liturgy for the First Day of Lent, commonly called Ash Wednesday, which began as follows:
A New Style for Ash Wednesday from the Prayer Book
Brethren, in the primitive church there was a godly discipline, that at the beginning of lent such persons as were notorious sinners, were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord. And that other admonished by their example, might be more afraid to offend. In the stead whereof until the said discipline may be restored again; (which thing is much to be wished,) it is thought good, that at this time (in your presence) should be read the general sentences of God’s cursing against impenitent sinners, gathered out of the 27th Chapter of Deuteronomy, and other places of scripture. And that ye should answer to every sentence, Amen: to the intent that you, being admonished of the great indignation of God against sinners: may the rather be called to earnest and true repentance, and may walk more warily in these dangerous days, fleeing from such vices, for the which you affirm with your own mouths: the curse of God to be due.
Then, we read the Deuteronomic curses. Then, classic Cranmerian style dictated a strong pulpit admonition to sinners, a call for repentance, and the reading of Psalm 51. The Kyrie surrounds these (Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy) along with a prayer:
O Most mighty God and merciful father, which hast compassion of all men, and hatest nothing that thou has made: which wouldest not the death of a sinner, but that he should rather turn from sin and be saved: mercifully forgive us our trespasses, receive and comfort us, which be grieved and wearied with the burden of our sin: they property is to have mercy, to the only it appertaineth to forgive sins..
It continues so forth, even if disorganized.
Reforming Ash Wednesday, Awakening the Church
It indicates the Reformers’ attempt to reawaken the Church to God’s mercy. He is both wrathful and merciful, a just God jealous for his people.
Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 4:23, 24
Purchasing indulgences does not appease this God; only a penitent heart does. Cranmer also reveals a significant positive aspect, a characteristic quite typical of him: when he asks himself what actions people must take (or ‘what must people do’) to cure the day’s ills, he seeks to answer that question by examining the actions the primitive Church took. He doesn’t craft liturgies like this because he is a megalomaniac or a pessimist, or even because he holds a classically reformed view of human nature. No, he does it because he believes that to do so is ancient.
Addressing Inconsistencies
The problem is that Reformers tended to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Not all grace departed from the late medieval Church before the Reformation. We can speak of great piety and devotion, of which Ash Wednesday and the imposition of ashes were a part. Had they seen the goodness of such liturgies, one wonders if they would have kept them. This debate continues in many Reformed circles, especially as Protestants find value in such ceremonial practices. Many see this as a rejection of their reformation heritage and a submission to legalism at worst. But, many see that as narrowly reformed according to a glorious two-century-long past is not only myopic, but a rejection of the great catholic heritage which all Christians should enjoy.
In Anglicanism, all of this was reawakened in the Oxford Movement, as Oxford scholars became versed in the ancient world of the church fathers, vowing to wake up catholic England to her great heritage, so long sleeping. This also prompts a limited revival of practices like Ash Wednesday ashes, Maundy Thursday foot washing, private confession, altar candles, and liturgical singing. In the last forty years, these practices have become so widespread among Anglicans that they are universal. Thankfully, instead of rejecting our great catholic heritage, we strive to rebuild among ourselves. We use God-pleasing elements to rebuild: hearts filled with mercy and grace, fasting (symbolized by ashes), and unity with our fellow believers in the faith.
Photo by: Thays Orrico on Unsplash.
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