As a home hospice chaplain this past year, I have spent more time with the actively dying than in my previous 10 years in parish ministry. Accordingly, I have become much more acquainted with pages 223–245 in the Book of Common Prayer (2019). Although the BCP works as a “plug-and-play” resource, I thought a few…
The Canticles: A Rookie Anglican Guide
The canticles are not liturgical garnish. They form part of the rhythm by which Scripture becomes prayer and prayer becomes praise.
Bless Me, for I Have Sinned
What I was really asking God for was relief, happiness, help, healing, strength, and understanding.
The Five American Prayer Books: A Rookie Anglican Guide
Neither the ACNA nor the Book of Common Prayer in our hands today is a present-day import from England. Our Prayer Book, like our Church, has been a native, naturalized inhabitant since 1789.
The Monthly Psalter: A Rookie Anglican Guide
In the Prayer Book, the Psalter follows a 30-day cycle, assigning Psalms for both morning and evening each day.
Why Anglicans Bow in Worship: A Rookie Anglican Guide
Bodily gestures like bowing cultivate inward devotion. Reverence shown externally helps train reverence internally. Our liturgical rituals are modes of teaching ourselves—bodily habits shape the soul.
Miserable Offenders and the Mercy of God
In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, we confess, “O Lord, have mercy on us, miserable offenders.” Those are deep, strong statements that reveal our condition and status.
The Prayer Book’s Exhortation for Faithful Priests
On a crisp, bright Alabama day in December of 1994, I received my commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. I proudly stood before my friends and family in my dress greens (an abominable polyester creation) as each of us new officers received the gold bars of our new rank. One of…
Choir Dress: The Vestment That Is Never Wrong
Though you may be accustomed to seeing your priest in an alb and stole, choir dress is always an appropriate vestment in the Anglican tradition. Indeed, I would argue that there are many reasons it may be the preferred choice! Choir dress is the vestment that is never wrong.
O Emmanuel
It is folly to the world wrapped in darkness, but our pleas to God to send us Immanuel find their answer in God’s naturally ordered creation by sending us a baby.
O Rex Gentium: O King of the Nations
Traditional Antiphon O King of the nations, and their desire, The Cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel O come, Desire of nations, bindin one the hearts of all mankind;Bid thou our sad divisions cease,And be thyself our King of Peace. It…
The Standard of Prayer Book Worship (Jerusalem Declaration 6)
We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.