Posted on by Fr. Brench

Beyond Sunday Communion part 4: Morning Prayer & Litany & Communion

The Prayer Book tradition of worship is rich and robust, providing not only rites and rituals for individual worship services but indeed for an entire life of Christian worship. As a part of this ambitious large-scale schema, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to worship than simply going to Holy Communion every Sunday morning. There are the daily rounds of prayer, punctuated by the [Great] Litany a couple times per week, various pastoral offices for key stages in the natural and spiritual lives of a congregation and family, and pointers toward the development of private devotions to enable the individual worshiper to flesh out his or her own life of worship apart from the gathered Church.

What is often missed in today’s church culture, however, is that the original Prayer Book pattern for worship on Sunday morning was actually a three-part affair: Morning Prayer, The [Great] Litany, and the Holy Communion. Until relatively recent times, all three of these were appointed to be said in every church every Sunday and Holy Day. Granted, this was often shortened in actual practice, and by the late 19th century it was probably more common for people to attend just one service rather than all three in a row. Yet the full pattern of worship is still present even in our modern Prayer Books, and the typical malnourished Christian of today could benefit greatly from a retrieval of the spiritual rigor of our forebears. To that end, we’ve been looking at different combinations of worship services that you could carry out on Sunday mornings in your church.

Morning Prayer & The Litany & Holy Communion

We’re wrapping up this sequence of articles by going for the gold: how might you run a 100% Authentic Anglican (TM) Sunday Morning Worship Service? I’m going to present three ideas on how to execute this trilogy of Prayer Book services: the start-and-stop approach, the compound marathon, and the finessed liturgy.

The Start-and-Stop Approach

I would consider this the ideal for Sunday morning worship, personally. You start with Morning Prayer by the book, with a little bit of music. Then there’s a little break for study, discussion, catechesis, whatever’s going on. Then you return to the pews and kneel for the Great Litany. But rather than concluding the Litany outright, you open it up for spontaneous prayer. Or if the congregation is charismatic-influenced, open it up for prayer and praise! After the reading and studying of the Word in Morning Prayer and the long detailed prayer coverage of the Litany, and with the climax of the Eucharist ahead, this is also a perfect opportunity for the Rites of Healing: offering sacramental confession and the anointing of the sick. Then, after another breather, it’s time for the full Communion service.

While this would be quite a full morning for all involved, there are mitigating factors worth considering. First of all, the priest doesn’t have to lead everything! He should be present to pronounce absolution in Morning Prayer, available for ministry after the Litany, and only then must he take up the mantle to officiant Holy Communion. As for the congregation, not everyone necessarily comes to all three services. Prospective members and “seekers” will receive the instruction and prayer they need in the first two services; Holy Communion isn’t for them yet. Lots of people would probably still show up only for the Communion portion and skip the first two. But imagine the robust spirituality that would be fostered in those who did show up for all three! What a blessing that could be to the church and the community.

The Compound Marathon

Like the first approach, the Compound Marathon is a walk-through of the Morning Office, Litany, and Communion in full, one after another, with no breaks in between. You could omit the closing sentences from Morning Prayer, just so it doesn’t feel too much like you’re sending everyone away 1/3 of the way through, but otherwise this is literally three worship services in a row.

This is the least attractive idea to my sensibilities. With no transitions between each service, people will be very aware of an awkward “we’re done, but we’re not done” sense and the overall impression will probably be very foreign to everyone involved.

But it is the simplest way to bring the three services together. The less verbal guidance required to help the congregation through the liturgy, the better, so finishing out each service before moving on to the next is going to be the path of least confusion. This is also the most instructive approach: those who’ve never experienced Morning Prayer or the Litany before will get to experience them both in full without anything clipped out! In that light we find where this strange idea might actually make sense: the church could make a special occasion of “exploring the fulness of our tradition of worship” and do Morning Prayer, Litany, and Communion all together as a one-off special event.

The Finessed Liturgy

But if you want to use all three liturgies together on a regular basis, and/or the congregation is already at least somewhat familiar with them, then you’re best off following the actual rubrics when it comes to moving from one service to the next.

Morning Prayer starts off on page 11 and runs until (but not including) the Prayer for Mission on page 24. Then the Litany begins (page 91) and runs through the Kyrie on page 96. At that point, the Communion service begins with the Collect of the Day on page 107/125.

Additionally, some other factors could be considered:

  • The Confession & Creed may be omitted from the Office.
  • The Psalms and Lessons in Morning Prayer may be able to be shortened.
  • Reading the Canticles is much quicker than singing them.
  • The Great Litany can be lengthened or shortened at the officiant’s preference, so abbreviating its intercessions is a legitimate move, as long as the congregation is able to follow you.
  • A hymn (or the Gloria) might sit nicely between the Litany and the Eucharist’s Collect of the Day.
  • The Prayers of the People in the Communion liturgy technically aren’t supposed to be skipped, but in light of all the prayer that has come before you’d be well within your rights to shorten them drastically.

This sounds super long, yes. But don’t be intimidated! The two biggest time-sinks in a worship are the sermon and the singing. And remember that the great majority of the Prayer Book liturgy is about reading and praying the Word of God (Scriptures) to the Word of God (Jesus), so there’s no such thing as time wasted there.

Personal note in conclusion

Of all the combinations, this is the one I’ve never tried before in my church, I must admit. On paper, I was set to try it out a couple times, but I always chickened out. Someday I probably will muster up my resolve and give it a go, and when I do I will almost certainly use the Finessed Liturgy approach, as well as clearly identify the Sunday ahead of time with a special reason for observing the full tradition of Prayer Book worship. It may be a special holy day, or a historically-minded occasion. And I will make it clear that it’s a once-time event so as not to scare my flock with an unasked-for spiritual workout in overdrive. If I were to make the observance of all three services a regular part of parish life, I’d separate them out (as in the first approach) to provide space for particular ministerial and practical needs in between.

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Beyond Sunday Communion part 3: Morning Prayer & Holy Communion

The Prayer Book tradition of worship is rich and robust, providing not only rites and rituals for individual worship services but indeed for an entire life of Christian worship. As a part of this ambitious large-scale schema, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to worship than simply going to Holy Communion every Sunday morning. There are the daily rounds of prayer, punctuated by the [Great] Litany a couple times per week, various pastoral offices for key stages in the natural and spiritual lives of a congregation and family, and pointers toward the development of private devotions to enable the individual worshiper to flesh out his or her own life of worship apart from the gathered Church.

What is often missed in today’s church culture, however, is that the original Prayer Book pattern for worship on Sunday morning was actually a three-part affair: Morning Prayer, The [Great] Litany, and the Holy Communion. Until relatively recent times, all three of these were appointed to be said in every church every Sunday and Holy Day. Granted, this was often shortened in actual practice, and by the late 19th century it was probably more common for people to attend just one service rather than all three in a row. Yet the full pattern of worship is still present even in our modern Prayer Books, and the typical malnourished Christian of today could benefit greatly from a retrieval of the spiritual rigor of our forebears. To that end, we’ll be looking at different combinations of worship services that you could carry out on Sunday mornings in your church.

Morning Prayer & Holy Communion

The most complicated pairing of traditional Prayer Book services is that of Morning Prayer and Holy Communion. The American Prayer Book of 1928 hints of the concept of running the two services together but provides no rubrics on how this is meant to be done. The 1979 Prayer Book finally followed that up with a set of instructions: cut the Morning Prayer service off after the collects and before the Prayer for Mission, and then start the Offertory of the Communion liturgy (1979 BCP page 142). Additional Prayers might be expected in between, however, to ensure the requirements for the Prayers of the People be fulfilled. The practical result of this schema is that the Daily Office serves as the “Liturgy of the Word” within the Communion service.

However, the framers of the 2019 Prayer Book consciously and intentionally did not repeat that rubric. They asserted that the integrity of the Daily and Communion offices should be maintained, and there was nothing to be gained by blending them together like that. So now we have an interesting situation, because on pages 24 and 50 of our Prayer Book we still have the same rubric as in 1979: “Unless the… Eucharist is to follow, one of the following prayers for mission is added.” So if you want to combine Morning Prayer and Holy Communion into one worship service, the Office ends at the same place as it does for switching to the Litany, which is the same place the original Office ended, which is the same place as the 1979 Book to move on to the Offertory in Holy Communion. Except in our case, the “Liturgy of the Word” in Holy Communion can’t be overwritten. This leaves us with a curious range of options.

First, literally start at the very beginning of the Communion service. You could smooth the transition a little by singing a hymn to be the hinge: functioning both as the Anthem near the end of the Office and the Opening Hymn of the Eucharist. Needless to say this is the longest option in terms of the worship service’s duration. Though the other options aren’t going to be all that much shorter.

Second, skip everything you’re allowed to skip. If you want to remain obedient to the rubrics, but try your hardest to shorten this combined service, here are the things you can skip:

  • The Confession in Morning Prayer
  • The Apostles’ Creed in Morning Prayer
  • The Gloria in Excelsis Deo in the Communion service
  • The Comfortable Words and certain other marked prayers during the celebration of Communion

This is often overlooked by liturgy planners, but the real key to “saving time” when you’re concerned about a worship service lasting too long is not about breezing through the Prayers and skipping sections of the liturgy. The biggest time-user is music. This is especially true in the modern charismatic-influenced evangelical tradition – those songs can go on much longer even than the old hymns! So if you’re the sort who’s concerned about attention span and a set “finish time”, look at how you can reel in the music, rather than cut corners with the actual canonical liturgy.

That said, there is something to be said for the spirit of the rubrics rather than just the letter. Along those lines, here are some other things to consider to smooth the transition from Morning Prayer to Holy Communion and make it feel a bit more unified and a bit less repetitive.

  • Use the Confession in Morning Prayer instead of the Communion (that way you can skip a bunch of the follow-up material, including that oft-time-consuming Peace!)
  • Trim the Prayers of the People (after all Morning Prayer does have some basic intercessions built in already)
  • Alternatively, chop off all the prayers from Morning Prayer (concluding it with the second lesson & canticle, and then moving on to the Communion. This way you get the benefit of the extra Scripture readings and none of the prayers thereafter which will get duplicated.)

In my early years as a priest, I tried out all three of those last ideas (possibly all at once). I did this on a couple festive Sundays of the year – Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, All Saints’ Sunday – for the benefit of getting two different collects of the day (in most of those cases) and extra Scripture lessons. I thought it’d be a good way to heighten the celebration of the high holy days in a way that was both Bible-centered and Prayer Book -honoring, analogous to how the especially penitential Sundays would be punctuated by the Great Litany.

Unlike my appointing of the Litany, however, the Morning Prayer + Holy Communion combo pack did not last. It’s significantly longer, it’s clunkier, and on the days that I appointed this there was usually a lot of wonderful music that we wanted to sing as well. It may be that the Office & Eucharist combination would work better in a low-music setting. It may be that this combination may better be achieved as two separated worship services with a time for Bible Study or Sunday School or Catechesis in between.

Or, hey, maybe you actually do want to plan a worship that’s 1½-2 hours long, and then a full Morning Office with a full Eucharist back-to-back is a perfectly Anglican way to achieve that!

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Beyond Sunday Communion part 2: Morning Prayer & Litany

The Prayer Book tradition of worship is rich and robust, providing not only rites and rituals for individual worship services but indeed for an entire life of Christian worship. As a part of this ambitious large-scale schema, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to worship than simply going to Holy Communion every Sunday morning. There are the daily rounds of prayer, punctuated by the [Great] Litany a couple times per week, various pastoral offices for key stages in the natural and spiritual lives of a congregation and family, and pointers toward the development of private devotions to enable the individual worshiper to flesh out his or her own life of worship apart from the gathered Church.

What is often missed in today’s church culture, however, is that the original Prayer Book pattern for worship on Sunday morning was actually a three-part affair: Morning Prayer, The [Great] Litany, and the Holy Communion. Until relatively recent times, all three of these were appointed to be said in every church every Sunday and Holy Day. Granted, this was often shortened in actual practice, and by the late 19th century it was probably more common for people to attend just one service rather than all three in a row. Yet the full pattern of worship is still present even in our modern Prayer Books, and the typical malnourished Christian of today could benefit greatly from a retrieval of the spiritual rigor of our forebears. To that end, we’ll be looking at different combinations of worship services that you could carry out on Sunday mornings in your church.

Morning Prayer & The Litany

Let’s say the priest is on vacation. You could get a supply priest from elsewhere in the diocese to fill in for him, sure, but there are plenty of homegrown options available as well. How about save the parish a little money, time, and effort, and instead whole Prayer Book services that don’t require a priest? Take advantage of the situation as an opportunity, and make use of the other two Anglican services traditionally expected on Sunday morning: the Morning Office and the Great Litany!

Of all the possible combinations of services, this is the easiest one to work out. You proceed through Morning Prayer normally, and when you get to the rubric on page 24 (right before the Prayer for Mission) you skip over to page 91 and start the Litany. Simple!

There are really only two questions to ask yourself in the course of such a plan.

First: do we want to pause between the collects and the start of the Litany? In the original Prayer Book, the Daily Office ends with those collects, so anything else that followed it was extra. Singing an anthem at that point would have been perfectly natural, and indeed has remained a staple of Choral Evensong and Sung Mattins to this day. This is also the traditional point at which to include a sermon. The sequence could therefore be:

  1. Morning Prayer through the collects
  2. Hymn or anthem
  3. Sermon or Homily or Bible Study
  4. The Great Litany

The other question is: how do we want to conclude the Litany? Ever since 1928, the final section of the Litany has been cordoned off under a subheading (“The Supplication”) and rendered optional. As you prepare a Sunday service composed of the Office and Litany, you have to decide whether to include the Supplication or not. The rubrics in the center of page 97 explain where the Supplication supplants the shorter ending. The simplest explanation is that the top half of page 97 is the shorter ending, and the bottom of half of page 97 (leading to page 98) comprise the longer ending.

Because the Supplication is particularly “gloomy” – praying for aid against danger, and deliverance from unnamed afflictions, I recommend including it throughout Advent, Lent, and any other penitential occasion. In my own practice, I always include the Supplication whenever I pray the Litany on a Friday, and always skip it on Wednesdays. Again, find a pattern that works for you and your congregation, remembering that what is normal and familiar is sometimes best, and sometimes familiar normality needs to be challenged.

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Why is that missing from the Daily Office Lectionary?

From time to time, people who use a Prayer Book for daily prayers and Scripture reading notice that something has been skipped in the course of Bible-reading and wonder why. What have they missed? Why does the Prayer Book book omit whole chapters of sacred scripture? Is the Church trying to suppress or water down the truth?

I cannot answer that question for every Daily Office Lectionary in the world – some are more comprehensive than others, some have particular agendas or purposes, some were honestly just plain bad. But I can point you to two major principles that guide the formation of a given Bible-reading plan.

#1 The lectionary needs to be repeatable year by year

This is critical but easy to overlook. If the pace is too rigorous, only the most stalwart worshiper will get through it, and then it’ll be an exercise in elitism rather than a beneficial practice for the whole congregation. Similarly, this means that the lectionary has to be relatively simple to follow, and contain minimal changeable features from year to year. With only 365 days to work with, and this need for a reasonable pace (typically up to 4 chapters per day, one each of OT and NT in both Morning and Evening), something has to be cut.

The American lectionary of 1979, for example, defaults to a two-year cycle of reading which is easily sustainable but still manages to be lighter than ever in terms of biblical coverage (strangely not even covering the whole New Testament in that time). The American of lectionary of 1892 provided a special section of readings for the forty days of Lent, interrupting the usual continuous flow of reading – a complication that barely lasted thirty years!

#2 The lessons need to be suitable for public reading

It must be recalled that the Daily Office is not a private devotion, but a public office. It is, ideally, what is read in every church before all the worshipers present every day. This also means that these texts will be read without the benefit of a sermon following. Thus, when considering which passages of Scripture to include and which to leave out, this suitability for public reading is necessary. Some chapters of the Old Testament will be more suitable than others – a genealogy in 1 Chronicles or the land allotments in Joshua and Ezekiel will be inferior value and clarity than the riches of the historical accounts or the preaching of the prophets.

This is not a rejection of the God-breathed nature of all Scripture, of course. As St. Paul boldly asserted, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). Yet at the same time we are justified in evaluating the comparative value of different parts of Scripture. The four Gospels are of especial value, so we always read from one at every Communion service as the last (the apex) of the Scripture readings. The New Testament is of special significance as it proclaims Christ more directly than the Old; thus we read from it in equal measure as the Old, even though that means reading the NT more than once a year in the Daily Office Lectionary. And within the Old Testament, as I noted above, some readings will be more profitable to the hearer than others. We could go so far as to say that some passages of Scripture are sufficiently obscure that their most proper context for reading is in a study group or as a sermon text.

What’s missing in the 2019 Daily Office Lectionary?

There was a trend, for the past 100 years, of lectionaries getting shorter and shorter readings and getting more and more complex to follow. In the face of those trends, the 2019 lectionary stands against the tide, returning to the widest scope of biblical coverage since 1662 (in fact covering more of the Old and New Testaments than its original forebear, at the expense of the Books Called Apocrypha). Nevertheless, there are plenty of Old Testament chapters that are not included. Here’s a quick run-down on that.

Although more of the Book of Leviticus is read in this lectionary than in any previous Prayer Book, more than half of the book is still omitted. You can read more about that here. The same can be said for the Book of Numbers.

Nearly half of Joshua is omitted (notes on that here), and a couple chapters of Judges are also missing.

One of the most noteworthy omissions from the oldest Prayer Book lectionaries are the books of 1 & 2 Chronicles. In more recent times, select chapters of the Chronicles have been interspersed with 1 & 2 Kings, which is what the 2019 lectionary also does. You can read about that here.

Ezekiel, too, is a book that has been largely skimmed through in the past but now sees a bit more coverage. I’ve written on that here.

It’s also worth noting that the earliest Prayer Books omitted all but two chapters of Revelation. Recent books have restored it to full inclusion, and I’ve written a little about that history here, in case you’re interested.

The Ecclesiastical Books (more commonly known as the Apocrypha) have suffered the most chopping and omission in the 2019 lectionary. Where in the past the full books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) were read in their entireties, plus most or all of Baruch, they are now given only summary treatment. And among these remnants is also added a crash summary of 1 & 2 Maccabees.

What if I *really* want to read everything?

Some people are completionists, or at least aspire to be completionists in Scripture-reading. If you have such a burning desire, and the time to give to extra reading of the “harder” or more obscure texts of sacred writ, I have put together a Midday Lectionary that supplements the 2019 Daily Lectionary with all the Old Testament chapters and Ecclesiastical Books omitted from Morning & Evening Prayer. You can find that here.

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The Prayers for Mission at Morning Prayer

The inclusion of a Prayer for Mission at this point in the Daily Office was introduced in the 1979 Prayer Book.  Most of the prayers in that book are retained here, but some changes have been made. One of the chief concerns of 20th century evangelicalism is the work of mission, bringing the Gospel to all peoples, tribes, and nations, locally and abroad.  The Canadian Prayer Book of 1962 put a particular mission focus into its office of Prayers at Mid-Day and the American Book of 1979 put six prayers for mission into the Daily Office – three for the Morning and three for the Evening.  Some of the content has changed for the 2019 Prayer Book, but the function is the same: we have a group of prayers for mission to keep us mindful of God’s work throughout the world in various ways.

The First in Morning Prayer.  This prayer was not among the 1979 Prayers for Mission in the Daily Office, but a version of it was Additional Prayer #9 in the appendix of that book.  Before that, it has a long history of use in both Prayer Book and pre-Reformation tradition, serving as the Collect for a couple different Votive Masses in the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries and the Sarum missal, as one of the final collects of the Litany of 1544, and as an extra collect at the end of Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1662 Prayer Book.

Almighty and everlasting God, who alone works great marvels: Send down upon our clergy and the congregations committed to their charge the life-giving Spirit of your grace, shower them with the continual dew of your blessing, and ignite in them a zealous love of your Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Previous Prayer Books have entitled this prayer, “For Clergy and People”, which identifies the angle of its missional focus.  The mission of the church is to be carried out by congregations and their clergy together by the grace of the Holy Spirit.  God’s continual blessing is requested, and zealous love for the Gospel is identified as another gift to empower this mission.

The Second in Morning Prayer.  A Missionary Bishop in India wrote this prayer and it was subsequently adopted into the Additional Prayers and Thanksgivings in the 1892 and 1928 Prayer Books.  With further minor revisions along the way it took its current place in the 1979 and 2019 Prayer Books.

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

This prayer looks to our common humanity across the world, imploring God to grant that all would “feel after” or “seek after” him.  The appeal to the pouring of God’s Spirit upon all flesh in the Book of Joel and on the Day of Pentecost also gives this prayer an eschatological tone: it is the destiny or calling of humanity to unite in Christ’s kingdom.  Thus we are encouraged to see the mission of the church from the angle of preaching this peace, or unity, to the whole world.

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the Cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name.  Amen.

The Third in Morning Prayer.  The third prayer was written by Bishop Charles Henry Brent in a book published in 1907.  Its Prayer Book debut was in 1979, and its position was maintained in the 2019 Book.

Where the second prayer contains a brief appeal to the work of Christ’s (in his preaching) this one centers entirely on the example of Christ (on the Cross).  As Jesus’ arms were stretched out wide as if to embrace the world, so too must we stretch out our hands in love to a world that needs “the knowledge and love” of him.  Although the tone of this prayer is decidedly modern, in keeping with its authorship, the devotional angle of Christ’s embrace of the universe on the Cross is of ancient origin.

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The Collects for the Day of the Week

In the 2019 Prayer Book’s Daily Office, we have a collect for each day of the week. This is an adaptation of the collects offered in the 1979 Prayer Book, but before then in the Prayer Book there were fixed collects: the Collect of the Day, followed by two in the morning and two in the evening. Additional (optional) collects were usually offered in most Prayer Books, too, but those lists eventually grew longer and became the “appendix” of occasional prayers in the modern books.

Here is a quick handy guide to previous posts about the various collects in the 2019 Book.

Collect of the Day: why?

Morning Prayer

Evening Prayer

The Prayers for Mission

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Finishing Compline

Although in the classical Anglican Prayer Books the Nunc Dimittis is resident in Evening Prayer, its place in the spirituality of liturgical time most fully comes into its own here in Compline.  The language of “let your servant depart in peace” is an integral part of this office’s devotional emphases on sleep as an image of death, and the light of Christ transforming both the worshiper and the world.  For further notes, see Evening Prayer.

This Canticle has been a part of the service of Compline since at least the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the antiphon is also of ancient use in the Church.  The positioning has shifted in different breviaries – some before the Prayers (such as the Sarum) and some after the Prayers (such as in modern Prayer Books and the Roman Rite).  Precise translation of the antiphon into English varies among different sources; ours retains the wording of the 1979 Prayer Book.

The addition of three Alleluias during Eastertide is also a pre-Reformation tradition, marking one of the heightened features of praise during that festal season.

The call and response, Benedicamus in Latin, is a common closure for many offices.

Retained from the 1979 Prayer Book, the final benediction said by the officiant is drawn from the Roman Rite.

The almighty and merciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
bless us and keep us, this night and evermore. Amen.

In the monastic setting where most of the daily office tradition was developed, these prayers would be the worshipers’ last words before going (back) to sleep. The benediction is not a formal blessing in the sense of a priest’s role, and thus is proper for an officiant of any order to say.  It draws from part of the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:24) but is made explicitly Trinitarian and occasioned for Compline in the adding of “this night and evermore.”  Although it is a traditional benediction for this office, it is an appropriate final bedtime prayer to use in family settings and other late-evening occasions.

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Prayers for Mission in the Evening

The prayers for mission in Evening Prayer are less directly concerned with evangelism or outreach compared to the Morning Prayer collects.  With the day drawing to a close, and its work ending, these prayers appropriately reflect on the results and signs of the missio Dei (God’s mission) in our lives and churches.

The first prayer looks to the end-goal of missions work: the universal worship of God.  The worship of the “whole heavens” sets the paradigm for the whole earth, all nations, all tongues – men, women, and children.  This prayer also reminds us that worship entails peaceful love and service.

O God and Father of all, whom the whole heavens adore:
Let the whole earth also worship you, all nations obey you, all tongues confess and bless you, and men, women, and children everywhere love you and serve you in peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer was first published in 1933 and entered the Prayer Book in 1979.  The original phrase “men and women everywhere” has been changed to include children in this edition.

The second collect has been attributed to Saint Augustine of Hippo though its origins remain unclear.  A form of it was included in the evening intercessions printed in a 1919 service book, The order of divine service for public worship.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering,
pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

This beloved collect, also used in Compline, prays for the “works of mercy” angle of mission, with the evening and nighttime as the specific focus.  Rather than drawing upon the usual night-dark-sin-death line of imagery, this prayer draws the worshiper to a posture of compassion toward others “who work, or watch, or weep” while others sleep.  And then, rather than directing us to minister to such persons, the prayer instead implores Jesus to tend, give rest, bless, soothe, pity, and shield others.  It is a sobering and touching reminder that Christian acts of mercy are the work of Christ himself.  And all that because of his love for a working, watching, and weeping world.

As if it’s building off of the previous prayer for mission, the third collect reminds us up front that the signs of his presence are made manifest in his servants, that is, people who carry out acts of love and service toward others.  Rather than a prayer about mission directly, thus, this prayer deals with the in-house benefits of a mission-minded life.  As Christians serve as Christ’s presence in the world, his “abounding grace” increases in our own midst.  The “Spirit of love” and “companionship with one another” together create a healthful community – a church – that makes Jesus present both to us and to the whole world.

O God, you manifest in your servants the signs of your presence:
Send forth upon us the Spirit of love,
that in companionship with one another your abounding grace may increase among us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This collect is a 1979 revision of a prayer written by William Bright in his 1864 book Ancient Collects.  Its original form dates back to the 8th century.

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An evening prayer for Saturday

This prayer was translated from the Sarum Breviary in Selina F. Fox’s A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages, published in 1913, and adopted as a collect for Saturday in Evening Prayer in the 1979 Prayer Book.

Collect for the Eve of Worship

O God, the source of eternal light: Shed forth your unending day upon us who watch for you, that our lips may praise you, our lives may bless you, and our worship on the morrow give you glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Like most of the other weekend prayers in the Daily Office, this collect draws upon both night-day imagery and Cross-Eternity theological references. God is the source of eternal light who brings unending day, thus our response of praise is found in our lips and lives, with “our worship on the morrow” as a specific example thereof.  Thus, once again, the life of salvation is marked by worship both now and forever.

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An evening prayer for Friday

Dating back to at least the Didache, if not the apostolic age itself, Fridays have been a day of special devotion and discipline in Christian tradition.  This is linked to why we worship together on Sundays: as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord on the Lord’s Day, so we also observe the death of our Lord with a fast on Friday.  It is the part of the weekly rhythm of the Christian spiritual life: fasting and penitence upon our Lord’s death, sabbath rest on the day of his repose, and gathering with joy to worship the risen Lord on his resurrection day.  Along those lines, this prayer directs us right to the death of Christ, celebrating the victory Jesus wrought thereby, referencing  texts such as 1 Corinthians 15:56 and Romans 6:5.  We then turn to the reality of our own death – we pray that we would die a “peaceful” (that is, prepared-for and accepting) death, faithfully following Jesus through death toward our own resurrection unto glory.  It is an eschatological prayer, looking ahead to the end of all things, through and beyond even death itself.

A Collect for Faith

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death:
Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way,
that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness;
for your tender mercies’ sake. Amen.

This collect seems to have originated in a supplemental liturgical volume called The Priest’s Prayer Book, by R. F. Littledale and J. E. Vaux, which went through several edition throughout the 19th century.  It first entered the Prayer Book tradition in 1892 as one of the Additional Prayers supplied at the end of the Burial service.  There it remained in the 1928 Prayer Book, in the Rite II Burial Office in 1979, and in 2019.  In 1979, however, it was also introduced as a “Collect for Fridays” in Evening Prayer, where it remains in the present book.