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Administering the last
rites (Dutch School, c. 1600).
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QUOTE: ALMIGHTY God, with whom do
live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls
of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in
joy and felicity: We give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to
deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching
thee that it may please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish
the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom; that we, with all those
that are departed in the true faith of thy holy Name, may have our perfect
consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting
glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [Burial
of the Dead 1662]
AUTHOR:
The
Book of Common Prayer is the
short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion,
as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and
other Anglican churches. In addition it is used in the Lutheran Rite Church in
America. The original book, published in 1549 (Church of England 1957), in the
reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English Reformation following the
break with Rome. Prayer books, unlike books of prayers, contain the words of
structured (or liturgical) services of worship. The work of 1549 was the first prayer
book to include the complete forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in
English. It contained Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, the Litany, and Holy
Communion and also the occasional services in full: the orders for Baptism,
Confirmation, Marriage, 'prayers to be said with the sick' and a Funeral
service. It also set out in full the "propers" (that is the parts of
the service which varied week by week or, at times, daily throughout the
Church's Year): the Collect and the Epistle and Gospel readings for the Sunday
Communion Service. Old Testament and New Testament readings for daily prayer
were specified in tabular format as were the Psalms; and canticles, mostly
biblical, that were provided to be said or sung between the readings (Careless
2003, p. 26).
The 1549 book was
soon succeeded by a more reformed revision in 1552 under the same editorial
hand, that of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. It was used only for a
few months, as after Edward VI's death in 1553, his half-sister Mary I restored
Roman Catholic worship. She herself died in 1558, and in 1559 Elizabeth I
reintroduced the 1552 book with a few modifications to make it acceptable to
more traditionally minded worshippers, notably the inclusion of the words of
administration from the 1549 Communion Service alongside those of 1552.
In
1604 James I ordered some further changes, the most significant of these being
the addition to the Catechism of a section on the Sacraments. Following the
tumultuous events leading to and including the English Civil War, another major
revision was published in 1662 (Church of England 1662). That edition has
remained the official prayer book of the Church of England, although in the
21st century, an alternative book called Common Worship has largely
displaced the Book of Common Prayer at the main Sunday worship service
of most English parish churches.
A Book
of Common Prayer with local variations is used in churches inside and
outside the Anglican Communion in over 50 different countries and in over 150
different languages (Careless 2003, p. 23). In many parts of the world,
other books have replaced it in regular weekly worship.
Traditional
English Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian prayer books have borrowed from
the Book of Common Prayer, and the marriage and burial rites have found
their way into those of other denominations and into the English language. Like
the Authorized King James Bible and the works of Shakespeare, many words and
phrases from the Book of Common Prayer have entered common parlance.
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