The Holy Spirit in the Book of Common Prayer

By John W. Wesley

Did you know that the Holy Spirit is a significant figure in the The Book of Common Prayer? The Holy Spirit in The Book Of Common Prayer explains every occurrence of the Holy Spirit in this important Episcopal book of worship. The Holy Spirit is found in:

Most of the liturgical service liturgies

Every liturgy for Holy Communion

More than half the collects and other prayers

More than 30 specific actions

Arent you curious about why the Holy Spirit is given such a prominent place in The Book of Common Prayer?

Dont you wonder why you havent heard more about the Holy Spirit before now? If that sounds like something that could be a benefit to you and your parish, valuable information starts on page one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490868790

John W. Wesley

Father Wesley has been an ordained Episcopal priest since 1970, and his lengthy experience has convinced him that the current decline in congregants and finances in many Episcopal congregations can be tied to the lack of sound teaching linking the Holy Spirit with our worship, sacraments, and sacramental rites. Through a brief exposure to the Episcopal Charismatic Movement in its early years, Father Wesley learned to live and minister in the power of the Holy Spirit and has experienced openness from the congregations he has served to his sermons and teachings linking the Spirit with The Book of Common Prayer. Although “officially retired,” Father Wesley serves as part-time rector of a parish in Montevallo, Alabama, and feels privileged to be an adjunct instructor of religion at the University of Montevallo. His wife, Sandie, and he have four grown daughters and nine grandchildren ranging in age from seven to nineteen years old.

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Copyright © 2015 John W. Wesley.

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New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-6880-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6881-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6879-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902941

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/23/2015

Contents

Foreword

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Holy Spirit as the Power of God

Chapter 2: The Holy Spirit as the Power of God in the Service of Holy Baptism

Chapter 3: The Holy Spirit as the Power of God in the Liturgies for Holy Communion

Chapter 4: The Holy Spirit as the Power of God in Believers’ Lives

Appendix A: The Holy Spirit as a Coequal Person of the Trinity

Appendix B: Holy Ghost versus Holy Spirit

Appendix C: The Use and Placement of the Epiclesis in Sacramental Rites Other than Baptism and the Holy Eucharist

Appendix D: Other Examples of the Transformative Functions of the Holy Spirit

Conclusion

References

Foreword

As a pastor of many years, often in small, struggling parishes, Father John Wesley has been at work in the Episcopal vineyard since early in the morning and has borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day. He can, then, help us—we who have perhaps been loitering in the market place and have come to the harvest late or lackadaisically—to find where the ripest grapes are clustered.

We may not at first be eager for the hard work, but his intensity of focus and faith may make us take a deep breath and square our shoulders, resolving to work harder to begin a deeper life empowered by the Holy Spirit. He understands that we may find it easier to deify sports heroes like Michael Jordan and want to be like Mike, but persons who want to be like Christ need something more than special athletic shoes; they need the Holy Spirit.

Father Wesley supposes many of us may have a stronger connection to the Father and Son than we do to the Holy Spirit, but believes access to the power of the Holy Spirit is not far away. It is embodied eloquently in the prayers and rituals of The Book of Common Prayer. He documents key passages and asks us to attend intensely, to hear and see more deeply what the promised gifts and treasures of the Spirit are. He dares to assume that ordinary people like you and I can and will intend a more profound purposefulness in participating in the liturgy and sacraments and that we can and will ask for, expect, receive, savor, and live out the special energies and gifts flowing from the Holy Spirit. Essentially, word by word, phrase by phrase, he finds it all spelled out in the Prayer Book. We need only ask the Spirit to awaken us to the riches of our faith and to empower us to really believe what we believe we believe.

No matter that the church may seem in decline or that our culture may be losing trust in institutions and organized religion, no matter that religious historians suggest that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift, living in a time of necessary reassessment and change (it happens about every 500 years, they say). Father Wesley acknowledges and confronts the crisis but thinks the solution is close at hand, hidden in plain sight. The Book of Common Prayer continues to be trustworthy and loved; it embodies the essentials of Scripture, reason, and tradition. Most importantly, it explicitly invites us again and again into vital relationship with the Holy Spirit.

In our Alabama diocese, the bishop has urged us to Hold fast to that which is good/and sing a new song unto the Lord. Father Wesley’s book suggests that the specific words of The Book of Common Prayer are surely among the treasured things that are good, and that a new song can be sung simply by living more deeply into its meaning and promises. The Prayer Book’s words relating to the Holy Spirit are themselves somehow timeless lyrics, an always new song promising the Spirit’s empowering of ordinary people to respect the dignity of every human being, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to follow a more excellent way as members of the mystical body and the family of God.

John Wesley has been my pastor in the past and will be my friend always in the future. I have learned from his sure and sturdy faith.

—James Mersmann

Dedication

I dedicate this book to all faithful Episcopalians who love their church as I do and yearn to see our church once again growing strong, and maybe most importantly, making a difference in the increasingly chaotic society in which we live.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible has been used exclusively, unless otherwise noted.

For the purposes of this book, The 1979 American Book of Common Prayer has been used exclusively, and has been certified by the Church Publishing Company as public domain.

Introduction

An ordained Episcopal priest for over forty years, I grieve, as I’m sure many others do as well, over the steady decline of our church in membership, stature, and influence. Many have simply left the denomination, laying the blame for our decline on moral apathy spawned by theological liberalism and biblical revisionism. Some at the other end of the continuum fault our cumbersome institutions and outdated traditions, claiming they are no longer relevant to a postmodern society.¹ The biggest problem with both of these theories about the cause of our current predicament is that neither offers a solution, other than leaving or radically reinventing the Episcopal Church.

I would like in this book to offer another solution. Let’s rediscover the religious and spiritual tradition we already have, as laid out for us in The American Book of Common Prayer, especially the element of our tradition with which we are possibly the least familiar: the Holy Spirit.

I have selected this focus for two reasons. First, the Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity with whom Episcopalian laypeople seem to be the least familiar. Second, as I will develop at length in Chapter 1, throughout The Book of Common Prayer and in both Old and