A few years ago I wrote a historical study of the Ash Wednesday service in the Anglican tradition. The big surprise was that no ashes were used until very recently. But this leaves the big question, if you don’t have the ritual imposition of ashes in your Ash Wednesday service, then what do you have? What was the older Anglican Ash Wednesday service?

Let me introduce you to the Commination Service.

Denouncing of God’s Anger and Judgments Against Sinners

Cranmer dramatically revised the older liturgy for Ash Wednesday in his 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Instead of the blessing and imposition of ashes, which naturally places the emphasis on sanctified material objects, the focus of this service was the divine word. This word takes the primary forms of the curses of the Mosaic Covenant and David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51. The service follows a Law/Gospel pattern, a typical feature for Cranmer. It also employs a subtle but powerful use of liturgical dramatics, as the minister moves down from the pulpit to the location for praying of the litany (often in the midst of the people) and recites the penitential psalm in unison with the people.

The Commination styles itself as something of an approximation of a disciplinary practice that has been lost and ought to be recovered, the “godly discipline” of “the primitive church.” It is analogous to a special rite of penance. Only, instead of being limited to those “notorious sinners,” the Commination service includes all members of the parish. This universality is consistent with the central theme of the Reformation, that everyone, even the most outwardly righteous, stand justly condemned for our sins and are in need of intervening grace. And it is this universality, extending even to the priests, which gives this service its particular potency. We are all in this together.

The Opening of the Service

The opening rubric instructs us that this service is ordinarily intended to follow Morning Prayer and the Litany. Since the First Day of Lent will always be a Wednesday, the Litany would always be scheduled for the day. The Commination can be used on other days than Ash Wednesday, of course, but it is to be used at least on that day, and the opening exhortation explicitly references the season of Lent. It’s also significant to note that Morning and Evening Prayer for this day have proper psalms, three for the morning and three for the evening. This makes up six of the traditional seven penitential psalms. The seventh, and most famous, will appear in the Commination service itself.

The priest begins the Commination service by explaining what is about to happen. Since the ancient discipline has been lost, he says to the people, another practice will be done. This will be the reading of the curses of the Mosaic covenant, taken largely from Deuteronomy 27. And after the priest reads each condemnation, the people will respond by saying “Amen.” They will audibly acknowledge the truth of God’s justice.

Cursing and Warning

With that instruction, the service moves immediately to the curses. The priest reads each sentence aloud by line. To each curse, the people affirm: “Amen.” Cranmer took some editorial liberty in ordering these pronouncements. His starting template is Deuteronomy 27:15-26, where the Levites are instructed to stand on Mt. Ebal and call out various curses upon six of the tribes of Israel for breaking God’s laws. But Cranmer does not follow the text of Deuteronomy strictly. Sometimes he combines the Deuteronomy text with a parallel passage, taken from both the Old and New Testaments. Sometimes he substitutes a different curse entirely. And he arranges it so that there are ten curses. Like the Ten Commandments, this is a comprehensive summary of the whole law.

Having pronounced God’s judgment and affirmed its true and righteous character, the next portion of the service is the homily. This homily is fixed, to be the same each year. In this, it is similar, though longer, to the exhortations given at baptism or in advance of Holy Communion. Depending on each preacher’s delivery, it lasts between five and ten minutes. Its tone is urgent. Largely composed of paraphrases from John the Baptist, the psalms, the prophets, and Jesus himself, the homily is a sustained call to repentance. It warns of eternal judgment, including “snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest.” The reality of Hell is clearly set forth before the congregation.

And then, towards the end of the homily, the message turns. Using a passage of Scripture which appears in the “comfortable words” of every communion service, the people hear, “Although we have sinned, yet have we an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.” If we repent and come to him, then, we are assured, Christ will forgive us and “give us the gracious benediction of his Father, commanding us to take possession of his glorious kingdom.”

Repentance

Having now built the service to a high point, the liturgical crescendo occurs by way of descent. The priest comes down, if he has been reading from the pulpit, and he kneels with the people. If the litany desk is located in the nave, as was typically the case in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, then the priest has also now left the chancel and entered into the midst of the congregation. He kneels alongside them, and they all repent together. No anthem or hymn is called for in this interval period. The church observes a dramatic silence as the minister makes this transition.

The proper psalm for the Commination is Psalm 51, the most important penitential psalm. The priest and people pray the words of Scripture together, taking upon their lips the words of repentance first made by King David after his great sin. This psalm provides a pattern of repentance, beginning with the call for mercy, moving to the confession of sin and affirming of God’s righteous judgment, and then concluding with a request for forgiveness and a promise of new obedience and worship. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Concluding Prayers and Benediction

The service comes to its end by pivoting to a portion of prayer, starting with the typical “Lord, have mercy” and the Lord’s Prayer. Similar to the structure of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, next comes a short list of responsive versicles and a series of collects. These prayers are particular to the Commination Service, though one is an expanded version of the communion collect for Ash Wednesday. Importantly, the emphasis is now wholly on forgiveness: “O most mighty God and merciful Father, who hast compassion upon all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made, who desirest not the death of a sinner, but that he should turn from his sin and be saved: Mercifully forgive us our trespasses.”

The first two of these concluding prayers are read by the priest, with the people saying “Amen” at the end of each. But the third prayer is to be read by all, clergy and laity together. This prayer calls for God to turn the people back to himself, to show his favor and mercy upon them, to forgive their sins, and to look upon them “through the merits and mediation” of Jesus. Having begun with the dreadful sentence of the law, the Commination ends with the vicarious representation of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

And then the service concludes with God’s blessing. Instead of the usual benedictions used for Morning and Evening Prayer or at Holy Communion, the Commination offers the Aaronic blessing, the great gift of the Father’s smiling face towards us:

The LORD bless us, and keep us; the LORD lift up the light of his countenance upon us, and give us peace, now and for evermore. Amen.