Introduction to the Episcopal Church
Session
6
Understanding
the Book of Common Prayer (BCP)
Part
2
The
Book of Common Prayer is a strategy of prayer to invoke God upon the times of
our life. Prayer is not so much to “convince”
God to be involved in our lives as much as it is a practice to attune ourselves
to live in the state being aware of how God is always already involved in our
lives. The BCP provides a strategy for
praying at regular intervals as a habit.
One of the results of the Reformation was to bring an end between two “kinds”
of Christians, the ordained and monastic “heroic” Christians who were called to
a higher calling of poverty, chastity and obedience, and “regular” Christians, the
laity who were called to keep the Ten Commandments. Reformation Christianity was a call for
everyone to be “equally Christian” in their practice. So in the Church of England, poverty,
chastity and obedience became the call of fewer people as the call to pray in
one’s own language was made the requirement of all baptized persons. To do this the strategy of prayer had to be
made accessible to all baptized persons.
The monastic communities had a daily habit of prayer, spiritual reading
and work. Following the Psalmist’s
promise, “Seven times a day, I will praise thee…O Lord,” the monastic community
had the habit of seven prayer hours during the day. Of course, non-monastic lay people could not
drop everything seven times a day to pray. Archbishop Cranmer, who wrote the first Book of Common Pryaer, collapsed the pre-noon prayer hours into one Morning Prayer and
the post-noon prayer hours into one Evening Prayer in the Book of Common
Prayer. This was a call to all baptized
persons to elevate their lives of prayer as there was to be an end to these two
classes of Christians. All Christians
were called to the vocation of prayer as the regular and ordinary habit of
life. The prayers were no longer locked
in the monastery in a Latin breviary for the “professional people of prayer who
used Latin.” The Book of Common Prayer
was in fact a kind of democratization of Christian citizenry by requiring all
Christians to be involved in the official prayers of the Church. Since prayer was in the common language of
the people it could be done with understanding by all English speakers. Morning and Evening Prayer in the parish church
at the center of the village was to be the new norm for prayer even as monastic
institutions were closing down.
As we see now in America our life style leaves
us long distances from the parish church and secular life does not cater to a “stop
everything and pray” habit. One of the
ways that we can incorporate Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer into our habit
of life is through the online Morning and Evening Prayer sites. These sites include the appointed lessons
from the Bible for Morning and Evening Prayer.
If one does this one is praying through the Psalms on a regular basis as
well as reading a majority of the Bible in a two year cycle. Two such sites are: http://www.missionstclare.com/english/ and http://dailyoffice.org/
. For your convenience, the St. John the
Divine Facebook page links these two site each morning along with the popular
Daily Meditation from Forward Day by Day. http://www.facebook.com/pages/St-John-the-Divine-Episcopal-Church-Morgan-Hill-CA/147286963103 Obviously where there is community of people
who can join for prayer, it is preferable to join others in prayer for Morning
and Evening Prayer but these online sites provide “virtual” prayer together. Online Prayer is really another manifestation
of the “commonization” that began with
the Book of Common Prayer.
The
philosophy of the Book of Common Prayer is that prayer should be common or accessible
for people to pray. The church will
always be looking for ways to make prayer common or accessible to people to
encourage prayer as the regular strategy of life.
Exercise:
Look in the Prayer Book at the Daily Prayers. You
can find them at this site online: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/bcp.htm
Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Noonday Prayer. Compline. Daily Devotions for Individuals and
Families. Order of Worship for
Evening. You will notice that there is
Rite One which is the older English style, and Rite Two which is the less
ornate modern English style. Try the
Daily Devotions Prayers with your children or at dinner time. Go to one of the online sites and acquire the
daily habit of Morning and Evening Prayer.
No excuse: It is very accessible, which is the true meaning of common. No fumbling through the Bible looking for
readings.
Father
Phil
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