Cranmer's Compression of Unworthiness and Trust

Thomas Cranmer composed the Prayer of Humble Access for the 1548 Order of Communion and it was carried into the first full Book of Common Prayer the following year, drawing its central image, being unworthy to gather even the crumbs under the table, from the Canaanite woman's reply to Jesus in Matthew's Gospel. Its theology sits deliberately between two poles: it confesses that no merit of the worshipper qualifies them for communion, describing God as one whose property is always to have mercy, while affirming confidence that this same mercy makes approach possible despite unworthiness. That balance made it a focal point in later Anglican debate, since more Reformed-minded revisers found its language of eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood uncomfortably close to a doctrine of the sacrament they wished to avoid, while Anglo-Catholic revisers valued exactly that language. The prayer was consequently moved, shortened or removed across different editions of the Book of Common Prayer in various provinces of the Anglican Communion, and its presence or absence in a given service has often served as a rough indicator of a parish or province's place on the Anglican theological spectrum.