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The September Feasts

As a new month is about to begin, let’s take a moment to look ahead at the upcoming noteworthy feast days in the calendar.  September is an exciting month in general, so let’s see what’s coming up.

Foremost is the fact that the feast of Michael the Archangel, and of all angels, is on September 29th, which is a Sunday this year.  Remember that one of the lovely restorations of tradition in the 2019 Prayer Book that the 1979 nearly squashed is the fact that we can celebrate most major feast days on Sundays again!  The rubrics authorizing this can be found at the top of page 689:

Any of these feasts that fall on a Sunday, other than Advent, Lent, and Easter, may be observed on that Sunday or transferred to the nearest following weekday.

So you have the option of going “1979-style” and transfer the feasts off of Sundays, but if the order-of-options is significant then the primary suggestion is to keep those feasts on the Sundays on which they land.  This is how the old prayer books worked; this is what this Customary encourages.  As a result, this is a big opportunity to pull out those classic angel-themed hymns such as Christ the fair glory of the holy angels (although this is one of the only omissions from the new 2017 hymnal that this writer deeply misses).  This is also a great opportunity to preach about angels, spiritual beings, and all that great biblical stuff that popularly doesn’t get much attention apart from Christmas.

Also coming up this month are the major feasts of Holy Cross Day and St. Matthew’s, on the 14th and 21st respectively, both on Saturdays.

Holy Cross Day is (uncoincidentally) forty days after Transfiguration Day, thus bringing an interesting potential “third great fast” of the year to a close.  Historically, Holy Cross Day is tied to the story of the finding of “the true cross” outside Jerusalem by Emperor Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, but liturgically that feast day for us is more about the Cross of Christ at the time of the crucifixion.  It’s not quite a clone of Good Friday, though. Where Good Friday focuses on the “Holy Week” narrative of the death of Christ and our culpability in our sinfulness, Holy Cross Day emphasizes the glory of Christ on the Cross.

St. Matthew, of course, is the first Evangelist (gospel-book-writer).  The historic one-year lectionary seems to draw from his book more than the other three (not that I’ve literally counted the number of appearances of each) and some of the most-beloved gospel texts, like the Sermon on the Mount, are primarily known from Matthew’s book.  St. Matthew is also one of the apostles of whom we know a decent amount, having lived as a tax collector (the equivalent of a traitor to his people in that situation) before getting to follow Jesus.

Among the optional commemorations, the two most noteworthy entries are St. John Chrysostom on Friday the 13th (lucky him) and Cyprian of Carthage on Sunday the 15th.  The former is sometimes referred to as “the Augustine of the East”, being a major preacher and teacher of his day, influential in the East like Augustine of Hippo is in the West.  The latter, of course, will not be celebrated this year because his caliber of feast day cannot be observed on a Sunday in any calendar tradition, but you can still feel free to offer a Collect in his honor at the end of the Prayers of the People at the Sunday Communion liturgy if you wish.  Living in the 200’s, Cyprian represents a fairly early generation of Christian leaders and teachers.  His most famous work was De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate (On the Unity of the Catholic Church), one of the great written products of the Early Church.

One more September commemoration I’d like to note here is one that’s not found in the 2019 calendar: the Nativity of Mary on September 8th.  It’s also on a Sunday, and therefore also a day that we can’t really celebrate either.  I mention it partly because it’s a significant feast day in the Roman calendar, and partly because it’s the ordination anniversary of yours truly.  (I apologize for the self-indulgence.)  Some people say there are already enough feast days in the calendar to commemorate the Blessed Virgin Mary, others say “the more the merrier”, so I leave it to you to decide to what degree it’s worth taking note of our Lady in corporate worship a week and a half from now.

As usual, we’ll note most of these days here when they arrive.  But it’s always important to know these celebrations are coming, before they get here, especially with St. Michael’s on a Sunday about a month from now.

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National Prayers and Theology

You may be familiar with the phrase lex orandi lex credendi – it is a Latin phrase roughly meaning “the law of prayer is the law of belief”.  It is a principle that what we believe, we must pray; and what we pray, we inevitably believe.  Praying and believing is a two-way street, and when there’s a disconnect between the two, something has to give.  A bad prayer life will erode orthodox beliefs; good theology requires good worship to support it.

That is why (as most of you readers probably already know) the historic, liturgical, tradition of Christian worship is full of carefully-worded prayers, dialogues, exhortations, and quotations.  Entire essays and theological debates can turn on the interpretation of a single word in the Communion prayers!  It should come as no surprise, therefore, that this attention to theological content and tone is applied even to the Occasional Prayers – a collection of 125 extra prayers near the back of the 2019 Prayer Book that (like its predecessor in 1979) probably goes mostly unnoticed.

If you peruse this list with that in the 1979 book, it’ll look very similar at first – same basic arrangement, lots of identical prayers, and so on, but you’ll also find that greater care for orthodoxy has been exercised.  As a result, you can even use these prayers to help point in the right direction for some basic theological questions.  For example, what is a biblical view on the government?  The intersection of politics and religion is a hot topic in any age, but it is perhaps especially perplexing in the modern era of democracy and representative government.

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Pages 654-8 contain the “The Nation” section, prayers #27-39.  Not only are these good prayers to pray often, but they can be good prayers to study.  It might be a challenge to reverse-engineer their Scripture allusions (and that is on my longer bucket-list), but there is much to discern.  How is God described in each of these prayers?  What is the relationship between him and an earthly ruler?  What is the purpose of government and kings and rulers?  What are they supposed to do – what are their responsibilities – and how does God hold them accountable?  These prayers, while uplifting our national leaders (who desperately need all the prayer they can get, let’s be honest) also guide us toward what to look for in them, and recognize when they’ve fallen short.  Are our leaders “continually mindful of their calling to serve this people in reverent obedience to [Christ]”?  Do they “walk before [God] in truth and righteousness”?

When we pray for states, governments, and leaders, it’s very easy to bring our political views into the picture.  “May __ never get elected!”  “May __’s administration survive the other party’s character assault!”  “God save us from the ___ party!”  Prayers like these help us keep the main things the main things: a godly people, a righteous model citizen in office, thankfulness and humility, faithfulness and virtue.  Perhaps these can help us be more honest as well as accurate, getting past all the excuse-making and the partisanship and the “what about __?” distractions.

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Readings Review & Planning Propers 8/26/19

One of the things we’re going to do on this blog on Mondays is look back and forth at the Daily Office readings (or lessons) so we can better process together what the Scriptures are saying.  I’m not always going to touch on all four reading tracks, much less give a play-by-play review of the week past or preview of the week to come, but just look more generally at where we’ve been and where we’re going.  The other thing we’re going to do on Mondays starting today is list the recommended Propers for the Communion or Antecommunion service for each day of the week.

Readings Review

Last week: 2 Samuel 6-11, Philippians, Colossians 1:1-20, Joel 2-3, Amos 1-5, John 15:18-19:37
This week: 2 Samuel 12-18, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians 1:1-14, Amos 6-9, Obadiah, Jonah 1-2, John 19-21:, Matthew 1-3

A nice feature of this late-August point in the daily lectionary is the concurrence of the end of St. John’s Gospel with the epistle to the Colossians.  Colossians is a book that leans heavily on the death and resurrection of Jesus, proclaiming his supremacy and sufficiency for all Christian life and spirituality.  We’ll look at this book further in another post this week, so suffice it to note here that we get to walk through the death and resurrection of Christ just as this epistle gets going.

You might ask why the epistles aren’t being read in canonical order.  After finishing Romans on August 17th we went to Philippians, now Colossians, and soon Philemon and Ephesians.  I’m not 100% sure, but I believe the general idea is to read these books chronologically.  Colossians and Philemon go together, at any rate (Philemon was from Colossae, and several greetings-names are found in both letters), so to read them in sequence can be beneficial for putting the larger picture together.  Having just finished Philippians and moving on to Ephesians after also keeps this group of “prison epistles” together – St. Paul likely wrote all four of these letters at roughly the same time during his imprisonment.

The Minor Prophets of the Old Testament, however, are being read in canonical order, even though that is not quite their chronological order.  Their chronology is a little more disputed, and the benefit gained from rearranging them is not as great.  We finish Amos this week and start into some of the shorter books, which will take us two-thirds of the way through September.  Take care not to skim these books – these are writings that Christian often and easily neglect, only pulling out the choice verse here and there around Christmas.  Let these prophets tell their stories, dole out their warnings, cry out for justice, and convict people of faithlessness.  There is much in there that points to Jesus, but there is also much in there that calls out sin – in any day and age!

Planning Propers

This is the week of Proper 16 (or Trinity 10 in the traditional calendar), so keep in mind that the historic Prayer Book default is that a mid-week Eucharist will repeat the Collect & Lessons (the propers) for yesterday.  Otherwise, we recommend…

  • Monday 8/26 = Votive (of the Holy Spirit) *
  • Tuesday 8/27 = St. Monica (saint) or Votive (of the Holy Angels)
  • Wednesday 8/28 = St. Augustine of Hippo (teacher of the faith)
  • Thursday 8/29 = Beheading of St. John the Baptist **
  • Friday 8/30 = Votive (of the Cross)
  • Saturday 8/31 = St. Aidan (missionary bishop)

* A Votive is a “Various Occasion” (page 733 in the BCP 2019) and label in parentheses are simply a traditional suggestion.

** You should use the Propers for a Martyr, but change the Gospel lesson to the actual story of the event, like Mark 6:17-29.

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The Least-read book of the Bible?

Article VI famously lists the biblical canon for the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the “Other books” commonly called Apocrypha (for which I’ve taken preference to the particularly Anglican term Ecclesiastical Books).  Not every book listed in that third category has shown up in Anglican lectionaries.

  • Tobit, Judith, Wisdom (of Solomon), and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) were read in full in the original Daily Office lectionary.  Our 2019 lectionary highlights the majority of those books, yet curiously and sadly omits Tobit entirely.
  • 1 & 2 Maccabees were not touched by the original Daily lectionary, but are very briefly sampled in the 2019 lectionary.
  • The additions to Esther and to Daniel were not originally included, but the former at least were always easy to add in as lengthened readings.  The 2019 lectionary includes one of the additions to Daniel (Susanna), and the Prayer Book tradition has always included another addition to Daniel (the Song of the Three Young Men) among its Morning Prayer canticles.
  • The Prayer of Manasseh, too, has in recent times been distilled into a canticle.
  • A few snippets of 2 Esdras (or 4 Ezra) have appeared in some 20th century Daily lectionaries, including the first draft (but not final copy) of the 2019’s.

That leaves 1 Esdras (or 2 or 3 Ezra) as the only one that isn’t used at all in Anglican liturgy, despite being listed as a canonical book in Article VI useful for reading and instruction.  The reason for this is the same as the reason why 1 & 2 Chronicles were omitted from the original Daily Office lectionary (and are still only sampled in the 2019) – because the vast majority of the book is redundant.  For the most part, 1 Esdras repeats the end of 2 Chronicles and the majority of the book of Ezra.

If you want to know more about this under-noticed book, watch on!

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Let’s pray Antecommunion together!

Now that we’ve had an introduction to the Service of Antecommunion, let’s take 23 minutes to pray it together!  I’ve chosen the optional commemoration of St. Bernard of Clairvaux for today’s liturgy.  Grab your 2019 prayer book, ESV Bible, and 2017 hymnal, and let’s go…

Order of Service, so you can get your books ready:

  • Trinity Acclamation (BCP 105)
  • Collect for Purity, Summary of the Law, Kyrie, Gloria (BCP106-7)
  • Collect of the Day: of a Monastic (BCP 639)
  • Lessons: of a Monastic (BCP 732)
    • OT: Lamentations 3:22-33
    • Psalm 1 (Simplified Anglican Chant Tune #744)
    • for the Epistle: Acts 2:42-47
    • Gospel: Mark 10:23-31
  • Reflection on the life of St. Bernard
  • the Creed is omitted because it’s neither a Sunday nor a Major Holy Day
  • Prayers of the People (BCP 110)
  • Confession & modified absolution (BCP 112)
  • modified Peace (BCP 114)
  • The Lord’s Prayer (BCP 118)
  • Occasional Prayers #76, 98, 100, 108 (BCP 669-77)
  • Prayer #106 for Spiritual Communion (BCP 677)
  • Dismissal (BCP 122)
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Antecommunion: What, Why, and How?

Something we’ve touched upon here before is the subject of the service of Antecommunion. I figured it’s about time we revisit that idea with a more direct address of its identity, purpose, and execution.

What is ‘Antecommunion’?

The prefix ante- means ‘before’, so the service of Antecommunion is the Service of Holy Communion before, or leading up to and excluding, the actual celebration of Communion.  Basically from the Introit to the Offertory, this is the non-sacramental part of the Communion liturgy.  The only difference is that this is done on purpose, and ends with a few different prayers, making this specifically the Service of Antecommunion rather than the Service of Holy Communion Except We Stopped Short Just Before The Important Bit.

Why would anyone do this?

Antecommunion is a uniquely Anglican practice; I’m not sure if any other tradition has ever had a liturgy on the books like this.  In the Prayer Book tradition, provision was made for the celebration of Holy Communion every Sunday and major Holy Day of the year, but, people were not used to such frequent reception of Communion, and despite the Reformers’ best efforts, the average English believer still only came to the Holy Table once a month at best.  The priests, however, were still expected to fulfill the liturgical demands of the Prayer Book, and so provision had to be made for situations in which there was a Service of Holy Communion offered but no communicants prepared to receive Holy Communion.

The 1662 Prayer Book has, at the end of the Communion liturgy, a handful of collects, and a rubric or two, for that very situation.  I’m not aware what, if any, subsequent Prayer Books contained similar instructions for that situation.

Now that Anglicans almost the world over are accustomed to weekly Communion, this “need” for Antecommunion is no longer common.  If your parish priest is unexpectedly sick on a Sunday morning, then a Deacon or Lay Minister could lead an Antecommunion service instead, since it’s almost identical to the regular Communion service.  This leads us to two possible scenarios in which the Antecommunion service may still be relevant for our needs and interests:

  1. A group of people, lacking a priest, want to participate in the eucharistic liturgy as much as they’re able.
  2. A priest, lacking a congregation, wants to participate in the eucharistic liturgy as much as he’s able.

The former situation is rare – normally when people want to worship together they should be saying the Daily Office.  Antecommunion should always and only be an addition to the Office, not a substitute.

The latter situation is perhaps more common, especially among those clergymen with high church sensibilities.  Roman priests, for example, were (if not still are) bound to celebrate Mass daily, much like how Anglican priests were (if not still are) bound to say the Office daily.  If you’re a priest and you feel like you “ought to be” celebrating Holy Communion daily, or at least ought to be celebrating it more frequently than just Sunday mornings, then Antecommunion is the compromise.  It is extremely rare to find, among Anglicans, anyone who approves of a priest saying Mass entirely alone – Prayer Book tradition requires at least two other people gathered with the celebrant, so only the most Romanized clergymen would ever opt for a ‘private’ mass.  So if you are alone, Antecommunion is the closest you can get to the devotion of the so-called private mass.

How does the service of Antecommunion work?

The whole point of this liturgy is that it’s a stand-in for the full Communion service, so it’s essentially identical from the start until the Confession.  After that, you say the Lord’s Prayer, and a few additional prayers, and then you’re done.  For a bookmark-style guide using the 2019 Prayer Book, download this Antecommunion leaflet.  Plus, if you want, you can check out this walk-through video.

As a bonus, I even provided a quick summary of how to do this with the 1928 Prayer Book, since I know some of you are users of that book, rather than the 2019.

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I don’t like this hymn

One of the big challenges of praying, reading the Bible, and worshiping alone is the tendency towards doing what we like and skipping what we don’t.  Left to my own devices, I’d probably just chant psalms and read the Old Testament, Ecclesiastical Books, and sometimes also the Gospels and Revelation.  Maybe the Canticles and the Lord’s Prayer and a collect or two would survive.  But the liturgical tradition, particularly the Prayer Book tradition, keeps steering me (and all who heed it) on a healthier track for more wholesome worship that keeps the individual and the congregation rightly balanced.

It is along those lines that I’ve been developing the Saint Aelfric Customary the way I have: taking on trust that the Prayer Book is a reliable book, we’re seeking to explore its options, with classical Anglican tradition in mind, and build a Customary – a style and plan of execution of liturgy – that makes full and proper use of the options at hand.

The hymnal has received similar treatment, and you can read about the Hymnal-in-a-Year recommendation here.  As I’ve observed before, the 2017 hymnal put out by the Reformed Episcopal Church is an excellent blend of old and new; I was glad to see a few contemporary songs – the cream of the crop – make it into its pages.  That said, there are still some tunes in this book that I’m not really that crazy about.  When it comes to music, my passion is mostly in the British folk tradition, and my training is primarily renaissance, baroque, and classical.  When it comes to Christian singing, this leaves a couple massive gap in my experience: African-American spirituals or gospel songs, and the American revivalist hymn style that came under its influence.

Enter Marie Ferguson’s Joys are flowing like a river, to a tune written by W. Marshall, both in 1897, “BLESSED QUIETNESS”.  This is one of the hymns in the 2017 hymnal appointed for today, Tuesday in the week of Proper 14.  The arrangement in our hymnal is not quite the same as what I’m finding on YouTube, but you can get the idea.  It’s just one of those awful schmalty tunes with to many flats in the key signature, with lyrics just dripping with sentimentality.  As my congregation’s music minister I will never appoint this hymn to be sung because I can’t play that style properly, and as my congregation’s priest I will never appoint this hymn because we do so little music as it is that I want to make sure that no song is wasted.  But today I’m trying to sing it on my own, because it’s in the hymnal, and some people who are more knowledgeable and experienced than I am decided it’s worth being one of 639.

Joys are flowing like a river,
Since the Comforter has come;
He abides with us forever,
Makes the trusting heart his home.

Blessed quietness, Holy quietness,
What assurance in my soul!
On the stormy sea, Jesus speaks to me,
And the billows cease to roll.

It’s a Holy Spirit themed hymn, of which Anglican hymnody tends to be rather scarce, left to its own devices (though this is true also of Catholic and classical Protestant hymnody too – the Church has always sung more about Jesus than about the Spirit), so it’s no surprise that we’re dipping into other traditions to bulk up this part of the book.

There is a collect in the prayer book that I didn’t understand at first until I found its biblical source (Isaiah 30:15), which sounds very much like the refrain of this hymn:

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This “blessed quietness”, this place of “returning and rest”, is a good place to be.  In that spiritual calm of “waiting upon the Lord” and spiritual peace, one can know and feel the presence and power of God.  So although this hymn comes across as super sentimental, it is still filled with biblical imagery and truth.  Let’s see the other verses (omitting the repeated refrain).

Bringing life, and health, and gladness
All around, this heav’nly Guest
Conquered unbelief and sadness,
Changed our weariness to rest.

Like the rain that falls from heaven,
Like the sunlight from the sky,
So the Holy Spirit’s given,
Coming on us from on high.

See, a fruitful field is growing,
Blessed fruit of righteousness;
And the streams of life are flowing
In the lonely wilderness.

What a wonderful salvation,
When we always see his face,
What a perfect habitation,
What a quiet resting place!

So yes, this is very much an emotion-driven song, which can make it both very effective (if you’re in the “right mood” for it) or quite maddening (it you aren’t), and yet in its emotionalism it continually latches on to biblical images in a way that shows decent theological reflection.  The Holy Spirit’s role as Comforter could be said to be the underlying premise of these lyrics, and explicated in both emotional and spiritual terms.  And if you’re less set-in-your-musical-ways than I am, you may even enjoy the tune!

So I have to admit, I still don’t like really like this hymn.  But I can also say it’s a good hymn, and I’ll try to sing it with you today, if I can the hang of the rhythms.

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Readings Review 12 Aug.

One of the things we’re going to do on this blog on Mondays is look back and forth at the Daily Office readings (or lessons) so we can better process together what the Scriptures are saying.  I’m not always going to touch on all four reading tracks, much less give a play-by-play review of the week past or preview of the week to come, but just look more generally at where we’ve been and where we’re going.  I can’t turn this blog into a group Bible Study, especially since not all of you are actually using the daily office lectionary from the 2019 prayer book.  Plus, by sticking (usually) to a larger scale review of recent or upcoming readings, there’s a better chance of recent overlap with other similar lectionaries, and the ability to keep this weekly theme from going stale after a while.

The Readings

Last week: 1 Samuel 24-29, Romans 5-10, Hosea 2-8, John 7:25-11:44
This week: 1 Samuel 30-2 Samuel 5, Romans 11-16, Hosea 9-14, Joel 1, John 11:45-15:17
Special lesson for St. Mary the Virgin (15 Aug.) = Luke 1:26-38

One of the big “story arcs” here, so to speak, is the dramatic saga of David and King Saul in the morning OT lessons.  All of last week and for a few days this week we’ve been reading about the tension between the two of them: King Saul is frequently hunting his former bodyguard and musician, David, often with intent to kill.  And yet, David twice refuses to kill Saul when he has the chance even though he knows that God has chosen him to be the next king.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, David was quite a sinner himself; we’ll see more of that later.  But in the interactions between David and Saul, David is clearly in the right nearly 100% of the way through.  He understands that as long as Saul lives, he is the current anointed one of God to be king over Israel.

This sheds light on the interaction between Jesus and the scribes and pharisees and priests.  He knew that he was the Messiah – the Christ, the Anointed One – to whom their ministry pointed, and must eventually yield.  And although he exchanged words with them many a time, he never overthrew their authority.  For the time being, they were supposed to be “the clergy”, as we might say; they were supposed to be the teachers of the things of God.  And once Jesus ratified the New Covenant in his blood, only then did he cease to pay them the respect of their God-given office.  Indeed, the New Testament barely ever mentions them again after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

For us we learn the virtue of patience, of waiting, of respect for the present while anticipating the future.  We often like to “move on” once a deal is signed, and live and act as if The Future Is Now.  But if that’s really what we do, then we never actually respect and live in The Now.  This is especially important in spiritual things: we are now regenerate, adopted children of God.  We are now God’s people, cleansed by the blood of Christ.  But for now we are also still sinners, and we cannot deny that reality.  Just as David and Jesus kept their hands off their rightful crowns until God’s appointed time, so should we not pretend to have attained to sinless perfection, or the full consummation of the glory of Christ-in-us before the Kingdom of God is actually fulfilled when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead.  As David was persecuted by King Saul, and Jesus scorned by the Jewish rabbis and priests of his day, so too do we suffer under the reign of sin and death.

So, by all means, read these Old Testament stories with a keen interest in what David is demonstrating here.  He is not always such a clear typological picture of Jesus, but for many of these chapters he definitely is.

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Regular Occasional Prayers

Early this year we had a post here about making the “Occasional Prayers” in the new prayer book a regular feature of one’s recitation of the Daily Office.  I won’t link you back to it though because that was built on the penultimate draft of the prayer book, and a few of those prayers have been dropped, merged, added to, and moved around, throwing the numbers off between the late 2018 draft and the 2019 final copy.

UPDATE — This order has been revised, see here: https://wordpress.com/post/saint-aelfric-customary.org/1898

Instead, I’m providing a fresh shiny new upload here of this Customary’s Order for the Occasional Prayers!  Click that link to download it.

Some of the backstory to this can be found in the file – the Daily Office in the classical prayer books (before 1979) included a number of prayers and thanksgivings and collects after the Office (perhaps mainly just Morning Prayer if I recall) which were authorized-but-optional, to be added after the the required Three Collects toward the end of the Office.  It’s a mixed blessing having lost that feature in modern prayer books – on one hand people it’s nice to have a larger and more comprehensive appendix of prayers to draw from, but being place so far back in the book will make them less likely to be noticed by the average prayer book user.  That’s why this suggested order is put forth.

Let’s look at why this scheme is recommended the way it is.

Sunday, being the principle day of worship for the church gathered, has the section of prayers labeled At Times of Prayer and Worship as well as the prayers on Death, the Departed, and the Communion of Saints, as that is when most of the saints on earth are gathered.  The assigned prayers skip around, numerically, in order to avoid prayers that are too similar from being read at the same Office.

On Monday the prayers start at the beginning of the list, covering the section For the Church.  In general, the prayers for the morning are more specific and the prayers for the evening are more general or topical.

Tuesday morning covers the next section, For the Nation, again arranging the prayers so that too-similar collects aren’t prayed on the same day.  Depending upon which country you hail from, certain prayers along the way will be appropriate to omit (mainly in the USA versus Canada distinction).  In the evening, one day dips into the Personal Devotions list and the other starts the For Society section.

Wednesday morning is omitted, because that’s a traditional time for saying the Great Litany.  The evening finishes the For Society section and begins the next section, Intercessions For Those in Need.

Thursday morning skips ahead to more of the Personal Life and Personal Devotions sections, while Thursday evening (in light of the day’s traditional Eucharistic theme) covers most of the Thanksgivings.

Friday morning (like Wednesday morning) is omitted so you can focus on the Great Litany.  The evening covers the rest of the prayers For Those in Need where Wednesday left off.

Saturday covers the prayers about Creation and Family Life, as well as Personal Life and Devotion.  The creation theme matches the Morning Prayer Collect recommended for Saturdays (Collect for Sabbath Rest), and the family section is chosen to match the fact that Saturday is often a “day off with the family” for much of the working world.  The remaining personal devotions also serve as a sort of introspective preparation for corporate worship on the following morning.

For sake of simplicity, “Week I” should line up with odd-numbered weeks in the liturgical calendar, and “Week II” with even-numbered weeks.  For example, this is the week (in modern reckoning) of Proper 13, so this week should be considered an odd-numbered week.

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Collect for Proper 13

With the Transfiguration over, the Collect of the Day in the Daily Office returns to this past Sunday’s Collect – for Proper 13.

Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your grace that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

What we see at work in prayer is a biblical principle from verses like 1 Corinthians 4:7 – “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”  This humbling reality, that all good things that we’ve got come from God, applies even to our worship and service.

This reality is a balance between two extremes.  On one hand is an error more often made by Roman Catholics: the assumption that ordinary Christians are just too sinful and ignorant to offer God any “laudable service”, and so we entrust the clergy and the ‘religious’ to offer God more perfect praise on our behalf.  Go to church, hear Father celebrate mass, and we can say that we vicariously offered something to God too.  On the other hand is an error more often made by evangelicals: the assumption that if we just worship God with heart-felt enthusiasm that he will be truly honored, and so we dive in to a string of worship songs with the mad assertion that our feelings of sincerity are more significant to God than the actual content of our words and actions.

Countering both these extremes is the biblical reality: we can offer worthy worship to God, but only by his grace.  Grace then precedes worship and works.  Because of grace, we offer laudable service to God and strive to “run without stumbling” to attain to God’s heavenly promises.  As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews put it, “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (6:11-12).

So when you sit down to pray (or kneel, or whatever), remember not to be overconfident in your own worthiness, verbosity, or sincerity; and remember not to be embarrassed, discouraged by your bumbling ways.  God gives you grace to approach his throne with boldness.  We find that grace in confessing our sins to a merciful Lord; we find that grace in praying prayers that God himself provided us to pray (especially the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms); we find that grace in an order, a liturgy, provided by his Church, to assist us not only to form our prayers into coherent sentences but also to unite our prayers with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And underlying all of that, of course, is the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.  Every baptized person has God the Spirit within, it’s not a matter of elitism or ordination status or what-have-you.  Be not afraid, when your prayers are bumbling and crude, the Spirit will “translate” your intentions to the Father; and when you think you’ve got it just right and perfect on your own wit, the Spirit will ask the Father for the mercy and humility you omitted.  Let us learn from one another how to pray, how to worship.  Think of the Prayer Book as the compilation of centuries of insight in this matter!  Rather than asking advice in prayer from one or two friends or pastors, why not turn to the collective wisdom of millions as represented in the Common Prayer book.