A Lay Minister's Guide to the Book of Common Prayer

Clifford W. Atkinson

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 1988
• ISBN:
  9780819224705
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Instituciones y organizaciones religiosas

Deepen the lay minister's knowledge of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the various duties of this ministry with this guidebook to lay participation in the Eucharist and Offices of the Church.

LAY PARTICIPATION IN THE OFFICE

The Nature and Structure of the Office

Although the lay minister works under the direction of a priest or bishop, from time to time it will be necessary to plan and officiate at Morning or Evening Prayer when it is a principal service of Sunday worship. It is possible to do so simply by following the rubrics, but it is easier if one has some notion of the rationale and structure of the Office.

There are three prime determinants of any service of Morning or Evening Prayer. First, and most generally, there is the rationale for the service, as the BCP defines it. Second, and somewhat more specifically, there is the season of the Christian year in which the service is being offered. Third, and most specifically, the lessons for the day provide the Office's most immediate context.

Taking first things first, in a passage derived from all the prayer books since 1552, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer defines the purpose of the Office thus:”…we have come together in the presence of Almighty God our heavenly Father,…to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his holy Word, and to ask, for ourselves and on behalf of others, those things that are necessary to our life and salvation….” (BCP, pp. 41 and 79). When we hear the Word of God in the Office, we respond with praise for God's majesty and with prayer for our weakness. In such a pattern, the proclamation of the Word of God is central, and the response from the faithful is related to that proclamation. If we view the Office in a pattern of proclamation and response, the structure looks like this:

Introduction to the Office

The Liturgy of Praise

The invitatory and psalter as proclamation

The Gloria patri as a response of praise

The Liturgy of the Word

The lessons as proclamation

The canticles as response

The sermon or homily as proclamation (N.B. This may appear elsewhere)

The creed as summary response to the liturgy of the Word

The Liturgy of Prayer

The prayers are the response of the People of God to the Word of God

Conclusion of the Office

In this outline, the pattern of proclamation and response is quite clear, and provides a rational structure within which to make the various choices that must be made by the officiant.

Planning of the Office

Any time one plans any service, there is a series of decisions that must be made, particularly if the service is to have an internal coherence. In order to rationalize and simplify these decisions, the following worksheet has been prepared. In the text of this book, the decisions themselves will be discussed. The worksheet will provide a listing of the alternatives and a place to record the choices.

The first prerequisite to planning any service is a Church calendar. Most parishes have one. Morehouse Publishing sells a calendar that includes the lesson choices and some hymn choices. Since the lessons for the eucharist and the Office are ordinarily the same (cf., the rubric in the second paragraph of BCP. p. 888), it will be particularly useful. On pp. 19-30 of the BCP, there is a month-by-month listing of all the commemorations. Be sure to check it, and list any commemoration for the day. If there is not going to be a eucharist on any major holy day of the week (printed in boldface type), you may wish to include the commemoration in the Office. This calendar information provides the “spine” from which the rest of the choices about the Office depend.

Having found the calendar information one must decide whether to use Rite I or Rite II. Both Morning and Evening Prayer come in two styles: traditional or contemporary. Rite I is in the traditional “thee/thou” and “-eth/-est” forms. Rite II uses the vernacular “you” for the second person and verbs in their customary form. In addition to the difference in language, the Morning Prayer version of Rite II has a number of additional canticles to be used after the lessons. Where Rite I provides seven, Rite II provides fourteen. Aside from these differences, however, the two are identical. The Rite II canticles may be used with Rite I (BCP, p. 47). The Morning Prayer canticles may be used with Evening Prayer (BCP, p. 65).

When a choice of form has been made, set about selecting among the options that make up the Office. A careful reading of the rubrics will show that in the BCP great emphasis is given to the seasons of the Church year. This book, with the books since 1892, provides seasonal opening sentences. In addition, there are seasonal canticles and invitatories. Since there are a large number of canticles, those responses can be specifically targeted to the lessons for which they are a response. Since the opening sentences and the antiphon or invitatory set the whole tone of the service, it is well to look at them carefully and give considerable thought to their implications.

There are several ways to open the Office. One must use the versicle, “Lord, open our lips,” (BCP, p. 80 or p. 42) in Morning Prayer or its equivalent, “O God, make speed to save us” (BCP, p. 117 or p. 63) in Evening Prayer. In addition, one may preface that versicle with an opening sentence, general or proper to the season. If one wishes to do so, after the sentence one may use a general confession introduced by either a long or a short invitation. Please note that the proper form for the absolution to be used by a lay reader is in the rubric immediately following the priestly absolution. When these decisions have been made, note them on the worksheet. Note that the “alleluia” is not used during Lent.

The Invitatory follows the Preces. At Evening Prayer, there is only one printed, but those for Morning Prayer may be read. At Morning Prayer, one must choose among three options. The Venite is the one that was provided in the prayer books beginning in 1549. The Jubilate has followed the second lesson as an optional canticle since 1552. It now has been moved to a position as an alternative Invitatory. Seasonal and general antiphons have been provided for these two invitatories (BCP, p. 43 and 81). The third option has even a more complex history. The bulk of Pascha nostrum was arranged from texts of St. Paul by Archbishop Cranmer as a paschal introit. It was used thus in the 1549 book. In 1552 it was used as an Easter Sunday substitute for the Venite. In 1662, the opening section (I Cor. 5:7-8), not included earlier, was added and the Gloria patri was attached at the end. Now Pascha nostrum joins the rest of the invitatories and may be used throughout the paschal season until the day of Pentecost. One of the three must be used. Place is given on the worksheet for that choice.

The psalm is found in the lectionary for the Sunday. If your calendar does not list the lessons, then determine the cycle year and the Sunday within it and look in the lectionary. This starts on p. 889 with the First Sunday in Advent for Year A. It lists all the possible Sundays for Year A. It then lists Year B and Year C the same way. Following Year C, on p. 921, the lessons for the Holy Days that appear in the calendar in bold face print are listed. The readings following Holy Days are not for Sunday use. The rubric notes that if the selected psalm has a longer and a shorter number of verses listed, the longer selection is to be used for Morning or Evening Prayer. The psalm always ends with the Gloria patri.

ORDER FOR THE DAILY OFFICE

	Hymnal	Prayer Book
The opening hymn	_____
The opening sentences: yes/no		_____
The Confession and absolution: yes/no

The preces	_____	_____
The Invitatory	_____	_____
The psalm(s)		_____
The first reading
The canticle	_____	_____
The second reading
The canticle	_____	_____
The third reading (optional)
The sermon (optional at this point)
The creed		_____
The Lord's Prayer		_____
The Suffrages: A/B	_____	_____
The Collect for the day		_____
The Office collects		_____

The Office hymn or anthem (optional)

_____

The sermon (optional at this point)
The prayers: #s ____________ or
The Great Litany		_____
Other devotions		_____
The grace		_____

The sermon (optional here or after collection)
The collection, with hymn or anthem	_____

The closing devotions		_____
The closing hymn	_____

N.B. Everything within the box must be included in the Office, unless it is marked “optional.” Everything with a single bar on the left side is either optional or flexible.

After the recitation of the psalm, the lessons are read with canticles after the first two readings. One must, therefore, determine how many readings there are to be and which ones to select. When the Office is the main service on a Sunday, it is inappropriate to have fewer than two readings. If one is to have two readings, the first must always be from the Old Testament (BCP, p. 934). For a second lesson, the choice is between the two readings from the New Testament, if one is going to have only two readings. Although there are no criteria for choice in the rubrics of the BCP, the following considerations are reasonable.

If the Sunday is in a green season, the choice should be made so that the Old Testament lesson will match the New Testament lesson. Since the Old Testament lesson ordinarily matches the Gospel lesson, the continuity of the course reading will be kept. If the Sunday is in a special season, since the readings are not in course, the criterion for choice is the extent to which the Old Testament lesson, and whatever New Testament reading is chosen, underline the season's theme. Remember that the Old Testament lessons in Lent have their own coherence.

Since the Office is historically the service of the Word, and since the lesson choices are deliberately laid out to provide a balanced knowledge of Scripture, one can maintain that there is value in using three lessons, rather than two. Although the rubrics make a three-lesson Office an option, and although two lessons have been the norm for the last century or so, for the first three centuries of our separate existence, Anglicans ordinarily heard full Morning Prayer and ante-communion on a Sunday morning. This provided four lessons. There is, therefore, a sense in which three lessons is an “Anglican compromise.”

Whatever the decision on lessons, it is important to read them ahead, preferably aloud. Note the rubric on announcing the lessons. The announcement is: “A Reading (Lesson) from _____.” One may also announce the chapter and verse. At the conclusion of the lection, one may simply say: “Here ends (or endeth) the Lesson (Reading).” One may, however, finish the lection by saying: “The Word of the Lord.” To this, the congregation is to respond: “Thanks be to God.” It is to be assumed that parish customs (under the direction of the rector) will grow up around this and will rapidly become the local norm.

When there are two readings, each reading is accompanied by a canticle. All of the canticles to be found in Rite I are to be found in Rite II. Rite II has seven additional canticles. Of the canticles available in Morning Prayer I, only the Benedictus Dominus Deus has any particular seasonal connotation. In the 1928 book, the Benedictus could be shortened except in Advent, vaguely implying that Benedictus (in its full form) was an Advent canticle. There is a negative connotation, however, in the tradition that neither the Te Deum laudamus nor the Gloria in excelsis is used during Advent or Lent. The rules governing the use of the Gloria in excelsis in the Eucharist are found on p. 406 of the BCP. In the Office there is no provision that the Gloria must be used, but the rule as to when it should not be used can be considered to apply. The custom concerning the Gloria is parallel to the one concerning the Te Deum. Beyond these customs, there is no particular guide to the use of canticles in Morning Prayer I.

Morning Prayer II, in addition to providing twice as many options as Morning Prayer I, provides one canticle, The Song of Moses or Cantemus Domino (#8), which is particularly suitable for Easter. It provides another, A Song of Penitence or Kyrie Pantokrator (#14), that is especially suitable for Lent. In addition to these, and in addition to the canticles available in both Morning Prayer I and II, as described above, several of the more general canticles have reminiscences of other seasons. Quaerite Domi...