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This coming week, on June 9, we will commemorate the first use of the Book of Common Prayer. On the day of Pentecost in 1549, the first BCP was used in worship. And it was revolutionary in its way. Great Cloud of Witnesses tells us that the Book of Common Prayer was assembled from a great wealth of resources including “the medieval Latin service books of the Use of Sarum (Salisbury), with enrichments from the Greek liturgies, certain ancient Gallican rites, the vernacular German forms prepared by Luther, and a revised Latin liturgy of the reforming Archbishop Hermann of Cologne. The Psalter and other biblical passages were drawn from the English “Great Bible” authorized by King Henry VIII in 1539, and the Litany was taken from the English form issued as early as 1544.”
A good deal of the inherent beauty in the prayerbook is often the work of Thomas Cranmer. The graceful language of some of our favorite prayers and the cathartic structure of the liturgies such as the Rite of Burial, can be attributed to his hand.
But what makes our prayerbook a transformational text, is that it makes simple and clear the movements of the liturgy, it offers tools for private worship and it provides a treasury of Scripture, poetry and guidance in the native tongue of the intended user. That is to say, the BCP is a statement of faith that no intercessory person is necessary for prayer. We can speak to God and God to us, immediately, intimately and confidently.
You can imagine that the rigid structure and hierarchy of the Church Universal until that time, recognized the threat inherent in that liberation of worship, piety and prayer. But it is worth pointing out that what was threatening to the status quo was not that we, the common people, could pray directly to God, but that we would realize that we always could have been. The danger was that people who had been humbled by the structures of the church would realize that those structures were never binding on them… and then begin to question more and more.
We are privileged to have our Book of Common Prayer, in all its versions over time and with all its authorized additions, not because it confines us, but because it liberates us. It comforts us with its familiar words and the understanding that these forms and phrases are ringing around the world all the time, but it is also an outward and visible sign of some eternal and holy truths:
- There is no wrong way to pray to God.
- We cannot ask for God’s help or guidance incorrectly and God won’t hear or respond.
- We can’t lift our voices in praise and thanksgiving and do such a good job that we get more.
- God is yearning to be in relationship with us, to hear from us, however we reach out.
Do those statements seem obvious to you? Good, thank your prayerbook and the gracious God who worked through its designers and editors over the years.
If you need help doing that, try the collect for the Feast Day: Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your Church: Make us always thankful for this heritage; and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
You remain in my prayers,
+Shay
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