After the best (or worst!) part of nine days without a phone or internet connection, we have now rejoined civilization.
What a lot has been going on, and what a lot I would quite like to have blogged about. But maybe it was good to give us all a rest.
Ironically, in the light of the Pope’s ongoing visit to these shores, I was away from Friday night to Saturday at the annual conference of the Prayer Book Society. (Ironic, because although the religious establishment of this country has been enthusiastically warm towards the Pope, the Book of Common Prayer was of course written to embody and impart doctrines precisely opposed to those held then and now by Rome.)
Until yesterday, I was not a member of the Prayer Book Society, but I’ve now been signed up as an honorary member. It was very useful, however, being forced to think more carefully about the entire Prayer Book ‘project’ for the purposes of producing a coherent talk.
One of the things I realized as a consequence was how the most significant element of Morning and Evening Prayer is — oddly enough — not prayer. This is what we read in the Preface, ‘Concerning the Service of the Church’:
There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted: As, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find, that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness. For they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year; intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should (by often reading, and meditation in God’s word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth; and further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion.
The liturgy is indeed there ‘for a great advancement of godliness’. But how is this achieved? By ‘the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) being read over by the clergy and heard by the people every year — actually the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice and the Psalter every month.
The prayers surrounding the Bible readings are a ‘delivery system’, designed to put us in the right frame of mind (as the introduction to each service puts it),
... when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul.
Of course, the agenda is more than just Bible reading — otherwise we would just have the Bible read. But the reading of the Bible is the sine qua non of the daily offices, the necessary condition without which Morning and Evening Prayer would fail to achieve what they were designed to achieve.
And so, likewise, when we read in the Ordinal, that the priest is to
... continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost; that, by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax riper and stronger in your ministry ...
we realize that, taken in conjunction with the rest of the Prayer Book, the way he will do this is through the daily exercise of Morning and Evening Prayer, wherein he will indeed read through the Scriptures, in large chunks, sequentially, with little ommitted except, as I recall, parts of the book of Revelation.
Incidentally, isn’t there something significant in the fact that although the Declaration of Assent ties us to the Book of Common Prayer as a witness to the truth of the faith we inherit, the Church of England website didn’t contain the full text of the BCP until it was recently added — thanks to the Prayer Book Society?
John Richardson
19 September 2010
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19 September 2010
John,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I live here on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, I've been a member of the PBS (UK) for bought eight years. We've used only the 1662 BCP for the last seven years. It is a pity that such a wonderful resource has gone unnoticed by so many of the people and, sadly, clergymen in the C of E. A number of years ago I embarked on amassing the entire set of the Parker Society volumes. The majority of them that arrived from private owners, seminary libraries, bishop's libraries etc. h ad never been sliced open or read. This indicated to me that folks over the last Century and an half had subscribed and never read them. Like the BCP of 1662, folks may have subscribed, but never taken the time to read it. I urge those who have a copy to read it, particularly the Preface and other notes at the beginning. I would also urge those interested in learning more about the English Reformation to read the Parker Society volumes, many of which have been reprinted by Wipf and Stock Publishers.
This is a superb post. I have never thought of the Daily Office as a "delivery vehicle" for the whole of Scripture, with framing prayers to place us in the correct frame of mind to receive the message of the written Word. But that is surely what it is. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteNo phone? No Internet access? It must have been like living in the 17th Century!
ReplyDeleteAs for what BCP says about the Daily Office, the author may have made the assertion that daily Scripture reading is the most important part of prayer services, but I'm just not convinced. Is this assertion backed up by Holy Scripture, by tradition, by anything at all? Is reading the bible really more important than praying? Or praising God? Is it even possible to order the importance of each component of prayer services?
We are blessed with a vastly superior volume for Divine Office in the form of Common Worship Daily Prayer. It's written in intelligible English, it balances the components of praise, prayer and Bible readings. There's more richness in the services, with different orders for each liturgical season, and each day of the week in Ordinary Time. It offers flexibility in patterns of prayer, ranging from simply reading Prayer During the Day, to a full four-fold pattern of prayer. The Daily Prayer Psalter has a short prayer after each psalm that puts it into a Christian context - I'd recommend the book for that alone.
The only potential sticking point is that it's intended that the Bible readings are those appointed in the Common Worship lectionary. Personally, I haven't got a problem with that. In fact I rather like the fact that (most days) I'm reading the same texts as a huge proportion of the global Church are each day. I believe you've hinted in the past that you have reservations about the CW lectionary because it tends to skip over certain "difficult" passages, but I don't think it would be a problem to use the BCP lectionary with the CW liturgy.
Go on, John, try it out for a week and see what you think! If you haven't already got a copy of CWDP, I'll gladly send you one as a gift!
James, you ask, "Is this assertion [that daily Scripture reading is the most important part of prayer services] backed up by Holy Scripture, by tradition, by anything at all?"
ReplyDeleteThe Preface to the 1549 Prayer Book gives a positive answer, and sets out clearly its justification for what follows:
"There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted: As, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find, that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness. For they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year; intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should (by often reading, and meditation in God's word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth; and further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion."
We must be careful not to confuse the point and purpose of the daily office with the point and purpose of praying generally. The question here is not 'Why do we pray?' but 'Why do we have this set office?' In other words, the emphasis on the reading of Scripture in the context of the office has no bearing on the importance of prayer more generally.
However, even if we disagree with the reasoning of the compilers of the Prayer Book, we must acknowledge that they are very clear about their original aims.
As to Common Worship, it is fascinating to compare the preface above with the Introduction to Common Worship daily prayer, which begins,
"From earliest times, Christians gathered at regular hours during each day and night to respond to God’s word with praise on behalf of all creation and with intercession for the salvation of the world. By the fourth century, if not earlier, morning and evening had emerged as the pre-eminent hours for the offering of this sacrifice of praise."
Gone entirely is the Prayer Book's understanding of the ancient tradition with listening to Scripture at the centre!
My own concern for the Prayer Book is not primarily with the language (liturgical revision in favour of intelligibility is, after all, part of the Prayer Book agenda) but with theology. I think the PBS are planning to post my talk somewhere, and then you may be able to see the whole argument in context.
If you take up the daily habit of reading the Holy Scriptures, you will find much in the Bible to support this habit, particularly in the Psalms and the New Testament. In the first letter of Peter we read that we are called out of darkness into God's marvelous light in order to proclaim his excellencies. How then we do that if we have not read and studied God's word in which his great merits and mighty deed are made known. The apostle Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that all things must be done for edification. What better way of building up the people of God than for them to attend the daily reading of God's word in which his excellencies are made known.
ReplyDelete