The Book of Common Prayer
Posts in Comfortable Words tagged ‘The Book of Common Prayer’
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The final prayer of the Litany in the Book of Common Prayer.
This Collect was appointed as the closing prayer of the Litany in the English Book of Common Prayer of 1549. In later editions, it was added to Morning and Evening Prayer, and it was also attributed to St John Chrysostom (347-407), as it comes originally from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, the holy communion service of the Eastern churches.
Four short passages from the New Testament appointed to be read aloud in the English Book of Common Prayer of 1549.
In the Prayer Book of 1549, four Scriptural passages were appointed to be read out aloud as reassurance for those presenting themselves at the rail to receive Holy Communion. These are the Comfortable Words.
A Prayer for the Sunday after Whit Sunday.
This prayer was set as the Collect for Trinity Sunday, one week after Pentecost or Whit Sunday, in the Sarum Use, the English service book of the Middle Ages. During the Reformation, it was translated for the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, without significant alteration.
A short prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, for use at morning and evening.
Although much of the Book of Common Prayer was simply a translation of the mediaeval Latin service books, this prayer, from the start of Morning and Evening Prayer, was newly added in 1552. Commentators are quick to observe that it was no less than St Basil the Great (330-379) who declared that all prayer should begin with some acknowledgement of our shortcomings.
A short declaration of faith, from the early years of the Western churches.
The Apostles’ Creed dates back to the middle of the fifth century. It was a development of the Old Roman Creed, which was dubbed ‘the Apostles’ Creed’ by Ambrose of Milan, and probably emerged in Gaul. It was not unknown in the East, but it became widely used in the West through the efforts of Emperor Charlemagne in the eighth century.
A prayer for the King, from the sixteenth-century Book of Common Prayer.
This prayer came at the close of Morning and Evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, the service book of the Church of England following the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Notice the phrase ‘high and mighty’, which has negative connotations in everyday speech but not here.