In Praise of Anglican Worship

Today, let me offer an appreciation of the Anglican style of worship as practiced through recitation of the Daily Office. My day started this morning at 5:45 a.m. with an email from an aquaintance saying that his father had died. He didn't ask for anything specific; he had just notified his email group of his loss. Well, Morning and Evening Prayer both offer the opportunity to add Collects appropriate to the circumstances of the day. In Evening Prayer, the first Collect I said was that from Proper 22 since today was a Feria. (Fans of the Breviary will note that today is not in their Kalendar truly a Feria, but actually a semidouble in honor of St. Francis Borgia; but this blog is from your Daily Officer, not your Daily Breviarier... that may come later.) Anyway, then came the last Collect on page 123 of the B.C.P., according to my own home-made devotion as follows:

Collect for Peace -- Monday (p. 123)
Collect for Aid Against Perils -- Tuesday (p. 123)
Collect for Protection -- Wednesday (p. 124)
(etc.)

Then came time to add a collect for my friend in Christ. The Book of Common Prayer offers a beautiful example; just look at page 253 ("Almighty God, we remember before you..."). It became a great way to remember my friend's loss, while also welcoming the departed into eternal life. One fan of the Breviary said that one of the advantages of using scripted, or pre-written, prayer is that one avoids a certain "sentimentality" that comes along with extemporaneous prayer. I actaully rejoiced the first time I read that, because I'm not good at extemporaneous prayer and I never have been. So it's great that the Book of Common Prayer allows us to induge ourselves in common prayers--what a gift! In Morning and Evening Prayer we have an opportunity to add "authorized" intercessions, which in my mind means Form I-VI of the Prayers of the People (pp. 383-393), followed by a suitable Collect. Plus additional Collects earlier as indicated.

Lest anyone think that I understand that to be a prohibition against extemporaneous prayer, Noonday and Compline offer a chance for "free" intercessions. So twice per day we can say our own extemporaneous prayers (Noonday and Compline), and twice per day it is sufficient to use just our scripted prayer from the B.C.P. in our devotions (Morning and Evening Prayer). How fantastic that our church embraces both styles of worship within each and every single day. For those (including your Daily Officer) who are quite bad at extemporaneous prayer, it is comforting to know that the Book of Common Prayer allows us to exercise our devotions without the anxiety of having to "make it up as we go."