Author: Jim Naughton

The Holy Eucharist is the doing in the sensible world, by God’s appointment under material forms, what Christ our Head and Chief is ever doing in the spiritual world. There is an earthly altar, and a human priesthood, and bread and wine; but Christ is really present as priest, and offering, and the food of the faithful who feed upon the sacrifice. One would expect that since Christ is in the Eucharist as priest and offering.

Cranmer was not only a cautious man but a peaceable man. Faced with the necessity of making great changes, he followed Luther in not making greater ones than he could help; moreover, he made them by stages, not all at once. Thus, the 1552 Communion service was the fourth stage in a process which began with the first introduction of English into the Latin Mass in 1547.

When Jesus in the wild the conquest won,

Then His prophetic office was begun,

He faithful, no one saving truth conceal’d,

He gracious, the right way to Heaven reveal’d,