29 November 2017

The Catholic Apostolic ("Irvingite") Church's version of The Prayer of Humble Access

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The ("Irvingite") version of the Prayer of Humble Access as found in the Liturgy of the Catholic Apostolic Church, 1847 USA edition is as follows:


I have had a great interest in the Catholic Apostolic Church, in part for familial reasons (re: Albury Park), but moreso because a wide range of Anglican, Episcopalian, Church of Scotland, and US Evangelical & Reformed liturgies bear the clear signs of having used this magnificently structured Divine Liturgy for inspiration, guidance, and direction in developing liturgical theology based upon a three-fold blending of the Holy Bible, The Book of Common Prayer, and the ancient liturgies of the Apostolic and Eastern Churches in the language, form, and purpose of worship.

 Liturgies as different as those of the Anglicans in India to the United Liturgy of Nigeria to the 1979 USA Book of Common Prayer all bear the marks of having grown in part from the fertile soil of the Catholic Apostolic Church's liturgies in English.

The Euchologion from the Church of Scotland perhaps best carried forward the extreme humility and deeply penitential qualities of the Catholic Apostolic Liturgy, but none of them managed to hold in tension that equal measure of humility and penitence with a like measure of rapturous adoration and praise so emblematic of the Irvingite liturgical offerings.

Penance and self-abnegation are never ends in themselves in the Catholic Apostolic liturgical orders: they always point brightly to the Divine Mercy of God the Father in the bestowal of spiritual and physical mercies and gifts together within the never-failing communion of the individual within the mystical Body of Christ.

I conclude with one of the acts of praise from the Liturgy and Divine Offices of 1847:


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