What is Morning Prayer?
Join us this Sunday for a service of Morning Prayer - a bit different from our usual service of Holy Eucharist.
If you were worshiping in an Episcopal church before 1979, you would be very familiar with this order of service. Until that date, when the current Book of Common Prayer was ratified for use in the Episcopal Church, most parishes only celebrated Eucharist once a month. Every other Sunday service was in the pattern of Morning Prayer.
Where did our service of Morning Prayer come from?
In many times and places, daybreak has been a time of prayer. Jews prayed in their synagogues at sunrise as well as at other times each day.
This Jewish pattern of prayer formed the basis of the Christian monastic Daily Office, with its prayers or “hours” at seven times in each day.
Thomas Cranmer’s revision of the Daily Office for the first English Prayer Book (1549) reduced the number of services to two-one for morning and one for evening. In the Second English Prayer Book (1552), the morning service was given its present name, Morning Prayer.
Morning Prayer remains a beloved service in our tradition, one that can be led by a deacon or lay person in the absence of a priest.
You can pray Morning Prayer on your own, too - it's a wonderful way to start your day, and connects you to the broader tradition of all those praying upon waking, all throughout the world and throughout history.
You could use a physical Book of Common Prayer to do it - find Morning Prayer on page 75.
But - it's a bit hard to follow in the print version. An easier way is to use this website, that has the current Bible readings for the day, and is presented in an easy-to-read format.
You can also download a free app called Venite, and use your phone to pray Morning Prayer.
This Sunday will give us a chance to engage in this pattern of prayer together.
peace,
Mother Mary Lynn
Rector
|