Customer Reviews

Selections from the Book of Common Prayer/Large Print

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The Book of Common Prayer (1979) is the latest, complete BCP used by the American branch of the Anglicans, the Episcopal church. There have been many books that have had the title 'Book of Common Prayer' since the first one appeared in 1549; it has been used continuously in one edition or another in the Anglican tradition since 1559; the 'main' edition remains the 1662 edition. The American church modified the Book of Common Prayer for its own use beginning shortly after the Revolutionary War -- this book is the successor of a long and worthy tradition.

A bishop in the Episcopal church once said to me, 'We don't have a theology that we have to believe -- what we have is the prayerbook.' Please forgive the absence of context for this phrase -- while he would say that this statement in isolation is an exaggeration, and I would agree, nonetheless his statement serves to highlight both the importance of and the strength of the Book of Common Prayer.

In this edition, the print is very large (font sizes double the standard print size, with leading and spacing leaving generous white space on the page for the eye to more easily follow). The most commonly used sections of the BCP are included here:

Morning Prayer, Rite 1
Daily Devotions for Individual and Families
Holy Baptism
Holy Eucharist, Rites 1 and 2 (with Penitential Orders as well)
Special Circumstances Communion
Reconciliation
Ministration to the Sick
Ministration at the time of Death and the Burial Office
Selections from the BCP Psalter (Psalms 1, 22, 23, 27, 46, 91, 98, 100, 103, 121, 122, 138, and 146)
Prayers and Thanksgivings

My one major concern with this edition is that the page numbers do not correspond to the regular, official Book of Common Prayer, and for a prayer book people, where you need the page numbers to follow along, this is a significant issue. Altar books for celebrants include marginalia that shows the corresponding page numbers to the primary BCP even though the altar book page number differs; there should have been some thought in that regard for this text. Also, for the Prayers of the People, Forms III and VI are included under Rite 2, but none of the others. For Rite 1, there is no choice in Prayers of the People.

To be an Anglican (in the United States, read Episcopalian for the same in the context of this article), one does not have to subscribe to any particular systematic theological framework. One does not have to practice a particular brand of liturgical style. One does not have to have an approved politico-theological viewpoint. One can be a conservative, liberal or moderate; one can be high church, low church, or broad; one can be charismatic, evangelical, or mainline traditional -- one can be any number of things in a rich diversity of choices, and the Book of Common Prayer can still be the book upon which spirituality and worship is centred.

From his first edition, Cranmer distinguished in his terminology the words minister and priest, and the two should not be viewed as interchangeable. A priest is a minister, but a minister need not be a priest. This become part of the early development of the idea of all people being ministers to each other, which is also a concept that has varying acceptance and fulfillment in actual practice over the history of Anglicanism.

One of my favourite prayers derives from this book, part of the English prayer book from the very first one in 1549:

Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication unto thee, and hast promised through thy well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his name, thou wilt be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be best for us, granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come, life everlasting. Amen.

This prayer, like many things in the BCP, has moved to a new location from the first edition, but nonetheless the spirit of the BCP shows a circuitous but continuous development from this first English Prayer Book to the current varieties. Likewise, other denominations have gleaned insights, prayers and structures from this and other versions of the BCP.

The current Book of Common Prayer is not copyrighted material. The purpose for leaving the BCP out of copyright is to permit free and easy duplication and incorporation into worship materials; however, it also serves the purpose (deliberately intended) of permitting people, Anglicans or not, to use portions of the BCP as inspiration and material for their own worship. The Book of Common Prayer is an Anglican gift to the world.