FATHER of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory. May we who share Christ’s body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world. Keep us in this hope that we have grasped; so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(An Order for Holy Communion, Alternative Services Series 3)
“FIRST in the family to go to university” is a common boast: I can claim that; but I was also first in the family to go to church. In retrospect, going to church and discovering faith has been far more significant in my life than academic prowess (now there’s a subject for debate around a pint of lager and a packet of crisps. . .). Every Sunday, from the age of 11, I would join friends to take a pew at St Matthew’s, Bootle. Our diet, at the hands of Dennis Gatenby, was matins; and, later in the day, we’d be back for evensong, all from the embossed, black-backed, red-edged 1662 Prayer Book.
But lo! In 1966, not only did England win the World Cup, but the Church of England gathered up her skirts and gave us the Alternative Services booklets; and with this my liturgical life began.
I WAS 13 when I first encountered this prayer. It was the only stepping-stone between receiving the host and being sent out into the world. How we loved this prayer at St Matthew’s! The rhythm and short phrases were like those chanted on the Kop; indeed, the solidarity it spawned meant that we, too, would never walk alone. What release! Yes, the mass has ended, as our Roman Catholic neighbours would later come to say. We chanted this prayer before our dismissal with a crescendo of hope; and, for me, it provided the distinctive hope that reassured me why I was — and am — a Christian.
Maybe it is sacrilege, but I subjected this prayer to the Flesch Reading Ease Calculator: the higher the score, the easier the content is to read and understand. My favourite prayer came in with a score of 88 out of 100. (In comparison, what I’ve written thus far comes in with a lamentable score of 67.) My favourite prayer is judged very easy to read, and understandable by ten-year-olds.
This is awesome, because this prayer, with its wonderful cadences, expresses the godly process that leads us to Jesus. It describes the purpose of his life and death; it explains how our hope is founded, supported by the Holy Spirit and the eucharist; and it offers a vision of a world able to sing in tune with God’s purpose.
YES, I love this prayer. It keeps me happy in my faith, and in the Church of England. But who wrote it? Was it produced through a moment of inspiration in the Liturgical Commission, way back in the 1960s? Is my gratitude due to Ronald Jasper and his co-workers, sitting around a table in Church House, Westminster, with foolscap paper and precious fountain pens, scribbling at pace, desperately trying to capture a moment of creativity?
Through the wonders of the internet, I now know to whom we should direct our thanks: it is to Professor David Frost, who died in May, aged 86. David (forgive the informality) seems to have composed this prayer that has soothed, reassured, and elated our hearts when he was in his early to mid-thirties.
And now I move further into the realm of fantasy, taking me back to those days in Bootle. Could there be, tucked away in the Commission’s archives, a letter from the Vicar of St Matthew’s, the Revd John Gaunt Hunter? Might that letter have insisted that the Commission heed those who can read — but don’t? J.G.H. was a champion of the vast number of “non-book” people destined to be shy when faced with verbose liturgy. Maybe his passion, honed in Bootle, strengthened the backbone of the Commission to make way for this exceptional, simple offering from a relatively young man, whose prayer assures me, and so many others, of the ever-renewing power of Jesus.
Ann Morisy is an author and community theologian.
