Praying As Our Fathers: The Book of Common Prayer

*This morning I led the devotional time for my department at work.  Below is what I shared:

I have found that learning to pray is one of the hardest aspects of the Christian life.  Scripture exhorts us to pray, but what do we say?  How do we maintain a balance in our approach between the amiable sentiment of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and the sobering “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” both talking to a trusted friend and standing before the throne addressing our almighty king?  The disciples themselves struggled with prayer, and asked Jesus for lessons in how to pray, for in that context of the Gospels is the Lord’s Prayer recorded.

Over the years I have attended many seminars and Sunday school classes on prayer, with advice ranging from “follow these five helpful tips to improve your prayer life,” to “just pray as the Spirit leads.”  Many times I have struggled praying consistently and finding motivation to pray for extended periods of time because I feel like I do not know what to say.  When I do pray, it can be heavily laden with my emotions at the moment such as bemoaning my overwhelming problems, without always clearly clinging to the truth of Scripture in faith.  In the midst of this struggle to find a balance between expressing how I feel to my Father and seeking for my will and desires to become more aligned with those of my Lord, I found a little book, written five hundred years ago by devout clergy and drawing on centuries of the Christian tradition, which has radically changed the way that I approach prayer.  It has brought a new consistency in my daily prayer.  This book does not replace spontaneous prayer, but it has brought a balance to my extended daily prayer life, by equipping me with a language and structure for my prayers.  It has encouraged me to daily confront my sinfulness and to truly be thankful for the abundant redemption that we have in Christ.  It is called The Book of Common Prayer.

Some of you may not know that I was a history major in college and studied for the Michaelmas term of 2005 at Oxford, so I this time would not be complete without taking a few moments to pause for a little British ecclesiastical history lesson…

The Book of Common Prayer, A History.

Did you know that for centuries Christians have been guided in their prayer times through written prayer books and recitation of the Psalms?  Under the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, multiple books or manuals, such as the Sarum Missive and the Book of Hours, were used by priests for conducting Sunday morning mass and daily prayer services in Latin.  There is much debate among scholars as to how much of the Latin text the average person understood, but it is at least fair to say, that it was not their native tongue, or as Wycliffe Bible Translators calls it, “the language of their heart.”

Amidst strife and less than desirable circumstances, during the reign of King Henry VIII, the church in England split from the papacy, forming the Anglican tradition.  As a result, the English church no longer submitted to the Pope’s authority, but remained largely Catholic in its faith and practice.  Henry’s son, King Edward VI, however, initiated the gradual change to Protestantism.  He commissioned a group of bishops to begin working to produce a guide for worship in the English language, the first of its kind in the vernacular.  They drafted the first edition in 1549, a temporary version to be used until further time could be devoted and intentionally implementing ambiguity in the wording.  Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity that same year, mandating that the book be used throughout churches in the realm of England, and outlawing all other liturgies, so the bishops sought to allow for differences in interpretation to appease both Catholics and Protestants.  If you remember your English history of the sixteenth century (Bloody Mary ring a bell?), this was a wise choice, since it was a time of religious turmoil and great strife between Protestants and Catholics.  Three years later, however, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, strongly encouraged by exiled Continental reformers of his day, led the effort to revise the book, a decided effort to make the book, and thus the Church, more reformed, or Protestant, in its language and structure.  It more decidedly argued against the Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and clerical celibacy, for example, and clearly articulated that salvation is through faith, not based on our meritorious works.

As mentioned earlier, the Medieval Book of Hours, also called the primer by the English, guided the pray-er through seven prayer times: Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, collectively known as the Canonical hours, since they correspond to set times of prayer throughout the day.  Realizing that it was difficult for the average person to observe all seven, Cranmer condensed these prayer times in the Book of Common Prayer into two – Morning and Evening Prayer (you might have heard the latter called Evensong if you have attended one of the sung prayer services while in England).  In these prayer times, reading of the Psalms, as well as passages from the Old and New Testament were incorporated, and could be used by the clergy and laity to recite the daily prayers both individually and corporately.

Since that time, some edits have been made over the centuries, most significantly in 1662, but much has remained the same, in particular the style of language.  Originally written in 1549, the language is from the same century as Shakespeare and the King James Bible.  Thus, the wording may sound archaic and some of the terms might be confusing, but the beauty and poetry of the English language is preserved at its height, leading the worshipper to truly “Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness” as the Psalmist encourages in Psalm 96.

Wherever the British Empire went, so went the English Church with their prayer book in hand – into the Americas to colonize the wild land, following the imperialism of Queen Victoria into the African continent and into India.  In fact, today the Book of Common Prayer is used in over 50 different countries and has been translated into 150 languages.  Traditional Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians have borrowed from it for their liturgy, and the book’s marriage and burial rites are often used by people of varied denominations – do “to have and to hold” and “till death us do part” sound familiar?

An Introduction to Morning Prayer

I believe that we are all familiar with the basic structure of prayer as modeled in The Lord’s Prayer; perhaps you have heard is called ACTS or CAST – Confession, Adoration, Supplication, and Thanksgiving.  The prayer book begins Morning Prayer with a prayer of Confession, humbling admitting our sin and seeking forgiveness.  The Psalms are then read to lead the pray-er into Adoration, remembering the greatness of God’s character and His redemptive plan.  After the Scripture passages, Supplication, also known as Intercession, is made for all those in need, pausing in the middle of the prayer for a few moments to voice the names of those suffering.  The prayer time ends with a prayer of Thanksgiving, reflecting on the grace and mercy of God as most clearly demonstrated through the redemption of the world through His Son.

John Wesley, an Anglican priest who inspired the creation of the Methodist church wrote, “I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.”  Thus, I would like to introduce you to the order of Morning Prayer.

*For my devotional time at work, I printed packets for each of us, but I have attached a link to the 1928 version of the Book of Common Prayer online for all of you.  I hope that you will find it challenging and encouraging to your faith, convicting and bringing peace and joy. 

http://www.commonprayer.org/offices.cfm 

The Lord be with you.