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A close-up shot of Onuphry, Metropolitan (Archbishop) of Kiev, preparing the communion bread at a service in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (a kind of monastery) commemorating the ‘baptism of Rus’, that is, the occasion of Russia’s conversion to Christianity in 988 under Prince St Vladimir the Great of Kiev. The nearest English equivalent would probably be the baptism of King Ethelbert of Kent in 597. The English reformers who put together the Book of Common Prayer encouraged the Christian to approach a priest before communion, to “confess and open his sin and grief secretly, that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort, that his conscience may be relieved”; but they did not forget that the eucharist is itself a mystery of forgiveness for the repentant, and the Comfortable Words were inserted into the liturgy as further reassurance.
Introduction
In the Prayer Book of 1549, four Scriptural passages were appointed to be read out aloud as reassurance for those presenting themselves at the rail to receive Holy Communion. These are the Comfortable Words.
Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith to all that truly turn to him.
Come unto me all that travail, and be heavy laden, and I shall refresh you.* So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have life everlasting.*
Hear also what Saint Paul saith.
This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners.*
Hear also what Saint John saith.
If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins.*
* Matthew 11:28. The Prayer Book was first made in 1549, when the currently authorized translation was the Great Bible of 1539. For the Prayer Book, however, Archbishop of Canterbury and supervising editor Thomas Cranmer went his own way: the Great Bible has ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are laden, and I will ease you’. The word ‘travail’ harks back to the Tyndale Bible of 1523-35.
* John 3:16.
* 1 John 2:1-2.