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Rev. Heather J. Blais
Part 1: Tradition of Morning Prayer, Opening Acclamation, Confession, & Absolution
Across religious traditions and cultures, people have been pausing to pray at particular times throughout the day for thousands of years. Some of you may be familiar with the phrase ‘praying the hours’, this idea that communities of faith stop at set times to remember that God is walking with us. Praying the hours binds a people of faith together, even as they are physically apart. Monastic communities have played a critical role in the development of these liturgies, such as the Benedictine practice to stop and pray at eight intervals throughout the day. When Thomas Cranmer offered the first prayer book, he simplified the number of set times for prayer, what we commonly refer to now as the Daily Office. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer features Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline. Today, we’ll focus on Morning Prayer. Morning Prayer is a rich resource, which can be used by individuals at home, or as the chief liturgy on a Sunday. It may be led by the laity or the clergy. We begin with an opening sentence from scripture, praying that God open our lips in order that we might praise God. We then move into a confession of sin, where we confess not only our individual sins, but also our failures as a community--such as poverty, racism, and violence. At the heart of the confession is our recognition that sometimes we choose selfishness, instead of love for God and neighbor. Then in the absolution we pray for God to forgive us and strengthen our resolve to live a life of love. Part 2: Venite/ Jubilate/ Christ our Passover, Lectionary, & Canticles Morning Prayer is rich with poetry and song, most of which is drawn from scripture. One of the places we really notice this is in the selection between the Venite, the Jubilate, and Christ our Passover in Easter season. The Venite is taken from Psalm 95, “Come, let us sing to the Lord…” The 1545 Primer of King Henry VIII calls the Venite a “...song stirring to the praise of God”.* The Jubilate is taken from Psalm 100, “Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands…”. The psalm invites us to come before God’s presence with a song and to marvel at the goodness of our creator. In Easter season we’ll say Christ our Passover, which draws from Paul’s letters’ to the Corinthians and Romans to celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We will use the Sunday lectionary readings, just as we do when we have services of Holy Eucharist, featuring lessons from the old and new testaments. For those interested in praying the daily office at home, I will be posting links to many resources with this sermon, including links to the daily lectionary. One difference with Morning Prayer, is that we have the psalm prior to the first lesson, followed by the Glory Patri, more familiar to us as “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit…” The most unique and beautiful part of Morning Prayer may be the canticles which follow the lessons. Depending on the number of lessons, we will have one or two canticles. For those of you who are longtime Morning Prayer fans, you may notice that we are using a more diverse selection of canticles than what is found in the prayerbook, as we are also drawing from canticles found in Enriching Our Worship 1. The word canticle is derived from latin, and simply means a ‘little song’. Canticles are generally drawn from biblical texts other than the psalms, though three of the ones adopted in Enriching our Worship 1 are taken from other sacred texts written by Anselm of Canterberry and Julian of Norwich. Today we will get to hear one of the Julian of Norwich canticles, as I know we have several Julian of Norwich fans in our faith community. If now is not the time to embrace Julian’s teaching that ‘all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well’ then I’m not sure when it is! Part 3: The Apostles’ Creed, Prayers, Suffrages, & Collects One of the differences we’ll notice with Morning Prayer is that in lieu of the Nicene Creed, we say the Apostles’ Creed. The Apostles' Creed dates back to at least the fourth century, and is sometimes referred to as the baptismal creed because it is what we say at our baptisms. It is a brief summary of the core beliefs we embrace when we seek to follow Christ, which we remember at every baptism, daily office, marriage, and burial service. Following the creed, we then transition into a series of prayers, suffrages, and collects focused on expressing our concerns to God. We begin with the Lord’s Prayer, which is the prayer Jesus offered to the disciples, and we use it in every service. Then follows the suffrages, which are responsive prayers of petition. You may notice we are using an unfamiliar form of suffrages today--these too are taken from Enriching Our Worship 1. Like many other parts of Morning Prayer, suffrages are composed of various psalms assembled in a call and response format. Following these suffrages, are a series of collects. A collect simply means a prayer that collects the thoughts and prayers of all. The Collect of the Day is focused on tying together the themes of that day’s assigned lectionary readings. We will hear a variety of other collects during Morning Prayer, such as the one for Sundays, for the renewal of life, for peace, for grace, for guidance, and for mission. This time of lifting up our concerns to God concludes with intercessory prayers where we are all invited to lift up our thanks, prayers, and praise. Part 4: Peace, Offertory, General Thanksgiving, Prayer-St. Chrysostom, Dismissal Next comes the Peace. The Peace is an ancient Christian practice where we share a sign of reconciliation, love, and renewed relationships by greeting one another. While the Peace is not formally a part of Morning Prayer, it is an important part of our primary worship as a faith community. Similarly, the offertory and doxology are not routine parts of Morning Prayer, but they are an essential part of our communal life and so we include them. At the offertory, we offer ourselves as well as our material gifts to God and we conclude by singing the doxology as a means of praising God: our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Morning Prayer offers two concluding prayers. The first is a General Thanksgiving, which may have been inspired by a private prayer of Queen Elizabeth I. We know part of why it appeared in the prayer book was pushback from Puritans, who were frustrated by a lack of prayers focused on thanksgiving. The second is a prayer attributed to Saint John Chrysostrom. Saint John was Bishop of Constantinople and is remembered throughout history for his way with words. You might remember hearing his famous Easter sermon at one of our Easter vigil services. The very last part of the service is the Dismissal. The Latin phrase that describes this portion of the service translates to, “Go, it is the sending.” At this point, the worship service has ended, but our service as ministers of Christ is just beginning. We are to go into the world in the name of Christ. Resources:
* Mariot J. Hatchett in Commentary on the American Prayer Book, pg. 105. Comments are closed.
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