WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:02.160 Good morning and thank you for being back. 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:03.600 Great to see you all. 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:07.519 Our topic today is the Book of Common Prayer. 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:14.160 So this is one of those things that actually makes us pretty unique in practice as a denomination. 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:26.399 Reminder historically that when we talked about this like a month ago, the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Church was Thomas Cranmer. 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:33.039 Now he was the Archbishop of Canterbury as a Roman Catholic when England was a Roman Catholic nation. 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:38.960 But remember, Henry VIII decided that he was going to be the head of the Church of England. 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:42.479 He got Parliament to support that with the Act of Supremacy. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:55.119 And then, because he was in charge of the English Church and not the Pope, Thomas Cranmer really became sort of like the Pope in England, if that makes sense. 00:00:55.359 --> 00:01:01.280 The Pope in England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, I mean that the title stayed, the position stayed. 00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:03.840 Unlike the Pope, he is not elected. 00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:07.680 The Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed by the Crown. 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:12.879 So if you know right now, the Archbishop of Canterbury is Justin Welby. 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:16.879 He was not elected by anybody except for the Queen. 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:23.439 The Queen of England picks the Pope of the Anglican Church. 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:35.599 Thomas Cranmer's first idea of how to make the church not just this sort of uh English church that was completely Roman. 00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:49.040 Thomas Cranmer wanted to make a new kind of church, quite honestly, because Thomas Cranmer had been a monk, had been celibate, was a bishop, but fell in love with a lady and secretly got married. 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:52.000 So he he he wanted that to work out. 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:59.519 So these these are some of the ways that Thomas Cranmer started to change the Anglican church was clergy could marry. 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:06.000 But his biggest insight was there could be something to unite Christians in prayer. 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:15.360 Literacy was growing, the printing press had been invented, they were missiles and uh English translations in every church. 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:19.280 Remember, uh, Henry VIII put a translation of the English Bible in every church. 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:25.360 And what Thomas Cramer wanted was for the wealth of monastic living. 00:02:25.599 --> 00:02:31.520 If you were a monk or a nun, there were certain spiritual practices that almost were unique to you. 00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:34.159 He wanted that to be accessible to everybody. 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:47.680 So Thomas Cramer went around the continent of Europe talking to Lutherans and Roman Catholics really, and compiled prayers and traditions that became the basis of this. 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:56.800 So this is not a prayer book for monks and nuns, it's a prayer book for you and for monks and for nuns. 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:03.759 It's common prayer because it's meant to unite us in a common set of spiritual practices. 00:03:03.919 --> 00:03:20.240 And in that way, Cranmer believed that if we were essentially being formed by the same prayers and traditions, even though we might have thought they meant different things, we would have community in the commonness of the words and belief. 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:24.960 There's a book we always have to read in seminary called Praying Shapes Believing. 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:32.080 It's because we understand that the way we pray shapes the way we believe in God and the way we live our lives. 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:37.759 So if we pray every day, God get even get even with our enemies. 00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:42.000 God, we don't like those people. 00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:43.759 Strike them with lightning. 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:49.280 If we believe that every day, we'll probably live our lives in such a way as to act like that. 00:03:49.680 --> 00:04:02.639 On the other hand, right, if we pray prayers like, Almighty God, in whose perfect realm no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, well, that might change the way we behave. 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:05.199 So that was Cranmer's idea. 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:12.080 Now I do want you to know that even though it's the book of common prayer, there's several prayer books in the world. 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:16.720 So the Anglican Church, the English folks, have their own book. 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:28.879 In the Episcopal Church, we have our book, and you should know that the Episcopal Church is not just in America, it's in places like Hong Kong and Puerto Rico and the Philippines. 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:32.079 In fact, it's in 17 different countries. 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:36.959 Um the South African Church has their own prayer book. 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:41.360 Um, the most famous prayer book probably is the New Zealand prayer book. 00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:43.519 We've really come to fall in love with that. 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:45.600 Um several different prayer books. 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:51.759 There's not one book of common prayer, there are many, and what's interesting is that we now borrow from them. 00:04:51.839 --> 00:05:05.279 But I want to talk to you about our prayer book that we have now today and the richness of its contents, and let you know that this is actually the fourth book of common prayer in the Episcopal Church. 00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:14.079 So the first one was made in 1793, it stayed for a long, long time, and then they updated it in the late 1800s. 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:20.240 They updated it again in 1928, and then we got this one updated in 1976. 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:22.319 Updated, what does that mean? 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:28.959 Well, um, theology might change a little bit, words and phrases might change a little bit. 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:36.079 I think I told you before, before 1976, many churches had the Lord's table against the wall. 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:39.759 And the priest did the communion like this. 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:49.040 You saw the priest's back, which is why, in general, on the chazu, when you see the fancy seal that's on the back, because you were looking at the priest's back most of the service. 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:55.439 What we haven't figured out, like with the garments, is now we do this, the seal needs to go here. 00:05:55.759 --> 00:06:00.639 I sometimes wear the garment backward, but it it's funny, like it rides up on the neck. 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:06.639 But I do it anyway, because you you really should see the seal the whole time, because now I'm frontward facing. 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:10.560 So the prayer book has had to respond to changes like that. 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:21.040 As I told you way back when uh we we're still trying to figure out in the prayer book and in the service, is it an altar or is it the Lord's table? 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:26.959 Of course, it can be both things, but those terms of phrases are a little bit different. 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:29.839 Anyone grow up with the 28 prayer book? 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:30.800 Okay. 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:38.319 Then you you probably know that there's this interesting thing called the prayer of humble access. 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:41.920 Oh Lord, we're not worthy to gather the crumbs from your table. 00:06:42.079 --> 00:06:43.759 Now we didn't pray that here at St. 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:44.399 Thomas. 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:50.720 It's in the right one service, it's in there, but it's one of those vestiges from the 28th prayer book. 00:06:50.879 --> 00:06:55.920 The reason I don't do it is because it's we've already been forgiven, right? 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.199 In the service, we've already confessed and been forgiven. 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:02.959 So we in fact are worthy to approach God's table. 00:07:03.279 --> 00:07:05.839 Before the confession, maybe we weren't. 00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:08.480 You you you you understand what I'm saying? 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:14.079 Before the confession, in a state of sin or abandonment, we weren't worthy. 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:17.040 But see, once you're absolved, you are. 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:19.600 I and that's why I don't do it. 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:24.480 Because it's it's like going backward theologically to something we already did in the service. 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:30.319 Now, that I don't know what's going to happen to that particular prayer when we update the book again. 00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:31.199 And we're going to do that. 00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:32.800 We voted at General Convention. 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:36.160 We're going to study to update this book. 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:39.279 But again, this is our fourth iteration. 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:48.240 And again, part of what changes is there are theological trends that we want to have reflected in here so that they can be common prayer. 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:52.000 Let me let me just pause on that. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.120 At any point you're gonna say, Mike, I don't like what you said. 00:07:57.279 --> 00:08:00.480 Tell me more about the other editions, whatever you want, right? 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:01.920 You're gonna tell me that? 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:03.120 Okay. 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:07.360 So then let me start with how this is composed. 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:16.240 You may not know this, but monks and nuns, I mean people who live in monasteries or convents, they gather to worship seven times a day. 00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:19.040 Now you probably know some of these things. 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:29.920 There's like matins in which you get up at like four in the morning and you do this service, and there's vespers, it's three in the morning, sorry, and there's vespers, which is like at midnight. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:33.759 Now, monks and nuns, they didn't stay up all the time. 00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:37.440 They went to bed and then they got up and they did vespers. 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:40.960 So don't think they stayed up till midnight and then had a worship service. 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:43.360 By the way, they did that every day, seven days a week. 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:46.320 And don't think that then they stayed up till three in the morning. 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:53.120 They went to bed and then there was a gong, get up for matins, and they got up and they ran, they did matins, and they went back to bed. 00:08:53.279 --> 00:09:03.919 And that was so that their day was punctuated consistently with prayer and scripture, and this is still true in monastic communities. 00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:04.720 Seven. 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:13.840 Thomas Cranber thought that was unreasonable for people who were farmers and um butchers. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:16.639 I mean, they're just tired, you know, you'd be tired all the time. 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:23.840 Thomas Cranmer decided that every Christian should pray four times a day. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:30.240 I don't mean like, God help me through my homework or Lord help me, you know, butcher this pig appropriately. 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:36.960 No, uh hear scripture, confess sins, and be absolved, pray with other folks. 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:42.639 So Thomas Cranmer decided that should happen in the morning when you woke up. 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:44.480 People wake up at different times. 00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:50.960 So when you woke up, morning prayer, prayer at noonday, which is uh sort of lunchtime. 00:09:51.039 --> 00:09:53.919 Note now, you know, has anybody ever been to Spain? 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:58.960 If you go to Spain at lunchtime, nothing's open. 00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:00.159 Have you noticed this? 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:01.919 They have a siesta, right? 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:03.679 Um, this would be really great. 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:10.000 Uh in Spain, things open at 9, they close at 12, they open back up at 3, they close at 4:30, right? 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:13.120 I mean, it's really difficult to conduct business there. 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:18.879 Um, but that was sort of the older habit of living because lunch was the big meal and dinner was the small meal. 00:10:19.440 --> 00:10:22.000 We had this cultural change about 200 years ago. 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:24.559 Um, nobody cares about that. 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:31.679 But umday was this pivotal moment where you were going to get nourished, so that became a pivotal time for prayer. 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:39.519 There's prayer at evening when you had your evening meal, which was usually just sort of like bread and cheese, quite honestly, and then prayer at bedtime. 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:41.519 That was Thomas Cranmer's idea. 00:10:41.679 --> 00:10:45.279 Every Christian should pray those four times. 00:10:45.440 --> 00:10:49.279 Okay, not just priests or bishops or monks or nuns, everybody. 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:56.559 So the way the prayer book is written, actually, is that the first things you run across are those. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:59.440 Well, actually, I should tell you, the calendar you get first. 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:05.519 The calendar tells you which days are feast days and whom we're celebrating. 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.600 It'll tell you, you know, St. 00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:13.039 Patrick's Day is March the 17th, and St. 00:11:13.279 --> 00:11:16.080 Agnes is January 21st, etc. 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:22.720 So you get to hear what the holy days are and the feast days, and then it tells you what you do every day. 00:11:23.039 --> 00:11:24.399 Morning prayer. 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:26.080 You notice that's the first thing. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:35.600 If you notice, and I'm just sort of flipping through, not in a not necessarily at beginning, but on page 37, morning prayer Roman numeral one. 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:37.519 Okay. 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:44.080 Now, this prayer book we've got has a morning prayer one and a morning prayer two. 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:56.000 Morning prayer one maintains that sort of Elizabethan English, and you'll see it most characteristically in the words the thou thy. 00:11:56.399 --> 00:12:00.799 If you're an eight o'clocker, that's the language of your service. 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:02.320 The thou thy. 00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:11.279 The reason there's a morning prayer too is because most of us, as we go about the day, do not use those words. 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:16.639 How is thy day? 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:19.600 How go it with thee? 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:25.600 Thou should knock before thy comest to my room, mother. 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:29.519 Very few of us use that parlance. 00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:35.039 Now remember, thee, thou thy is actually the you personal greeting. 00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:37.600 It's the more intimate of the words in English. 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:39.039 We've lost that tradition. 00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:40.559 Now we just use the word thee. 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:48.399 But thou, the, thy was were words you used only for family and intimate relationship folks. 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:51.840 So what's kind of sweet, right, is that we address God that way. 00:12:55.120 --> 00:13:05.279 The Lord be with you, says the priest, formally, and you say to the priest, and with thy spirit. 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:06.879 Isn't that interesting? 00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:13.039 I use the formal address to you, and you use the intimate address back. 00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:23.440 Some people, I'll be honest with you, um, I think part of the reason we do this is because we find this language, which is starting to become a little bit obsolete. 00:13:23.679 --> 00:13:23.840 Right? 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:25.759 I mean, we don't speak this. 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:32.559 Uh we find it to be this high ideal of elocution and rhyme and meter. 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:40.320 Many, many folks, I'll tell you, who um, when there's a funeral, they pick right one language because they believe it's more proper. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:43.440 I'm not sure that they're wrong. 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:44.799 I'm not sure that they're wrong. 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:46.879 Um, but you'll see in morning prayer. 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:48.720 Anybody done morning prayer before? 00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:55.919 Um, remember, Thomas Cranmer didn't think you should do this once a week. 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:01.679 Thomas Cranmer believed you should do morning prayer every single day. 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:04.879 Whatever your job was. 00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:09.120 Let me ask you this, and this is not to get a jewel in your heavenly crown or anything. 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:11.759 Anybody done morning prayer every day for a week before? 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:12.639 I mean, for a week. 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:13.360 Yeah, a week. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:15.919 Anybody done it for a month before? 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:20.559 Anyone done it for well, obviously a few people then have maybe done it more for more than a month. 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:28.480 It's kind of an interesting experiment, even if you only did one of these, to do it every day for a week. 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:34.559 Um and particularly if you do it every day for a month, you start to anticipate what's coming next. 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:37.600 You get used to this rhythm of what's happening. 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:44.000 And uh, sure enough, what Thomas Cranmer set up, he's really thoughtful, is that every season has a different emphasis. 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:44.240 Right? 00:14:44.320 --> 00:14:48.799 During Easter, we think about the resurrection, and during Advent, we think about the Lord's coming. 00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:53.519 So he's got different things for us to meditate on in each season. 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:58.320 You always start with a with a prayer for the season. 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:01.679 And then you start with a confession. 00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:05.039 Now, you'll see this when we do the end of the day. 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:07.200 You confessed your sins before you went to bed. 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:12.960 This is in case something happened between then and the time you got up. 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:21.279 Maybe you had a bad dream, or you had to get up and go to the bathroom, and you had some particular thought or something, or you realized you left something out. 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:26.000 There's always, always a pronunciation of forgiveness. 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:31.039 You don't have to have a priest to do this, but if you do, the priest gets up and does it for you. 00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:33.279 You always read some of the psalms. 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:34.240 Always. 00:15:34.559 --> 00:15:40.480 This is the Psalms, um, we talk about this in Bible study, are actually the hymns of the early church. 00:15:40.559 --> 00:15:41.679 It's the hymnal. 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:49.440 And um Thomas Kramer decided that memorizing hymns is extremely important to what we believe about God. 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:53.600 Now, this is probably true because there's church songs we sang when I was a kid. 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:55.440 I could tell you all the words. 00:15:56.639 --> 00:16:00.080 What can wash away my sin? 00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:02.960 Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:04.159 Don't you know that one? 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:04.559 No. 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:07.600 If you're not, if you grew up Episcopalian, you probably don't know it. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:08.639 It's a good song. 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:11.600 Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:15.360 Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:17.600 The old rugged cross is the one I think of. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:19.759 I will cling to the old rugged cross. 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:26.159 You know what's funny is I don't haven't memorized a lot of episcopal hymns because I became an Episcopalian later in life. 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:30.320 Those little Southern Baptist hymns, I know them probably better than I know my Bible. 00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:36.480 Thomas Cranmer knew that's how we how we relate to Psalms, so you get the Psalms every day. 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:43.360 If you're a monk, if you're a monk, you read the Psalms, all 150 of them, every week. 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:44.799 You hit every single one of them. 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:51.919 If you go through the four movements a day, you read all the psalms every month. 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:53.039 Every month. 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:54.879 Not every week, but every month. 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:01.679 There's always a couple readings from scripture in the morning prayer service. 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:05.920 There's always the lessons have these things called canticles. 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:14.640 So you might hear a reading from the book of Luke, and then you'll get to say something like, Blessed are you, God of our parents, praised and exalted above forever. 00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:17.759 So these canticles are a response to readings. 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:20.240 There's a few closing prayers, and that's that. 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:24.240 I mean, morning prayer actually takes about ten minutes. 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:26.319 Not very long. 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:35.359 I would challenge you, if you've not done it before, to uh to do it for a week and just see how it feels. 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:37.200 Just see how it feels for a week. 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:39.839 It still will be a little bit clunky at the end of the week. 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:44.960 If you can go for a month, you really will figure it out and you'll get sort of get in a rhythm. 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:50.559 As I told you, there's um there's prayer at noonday, that one comes later. 00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:54.240 The next thing you see in the in in the book is the evening prayer. 00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:58.480 Now that's not at bedtime, that's like at the evening meal or right before it. 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:10.880 There's only one noonday prayer, it's in right two language, and there's only one bedtime prayer, it's in right two. 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:15.680 But so you get morning and evening, you get right one choices. 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:17.599 Which one's better? 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:22.720 Well, the fact that they're in the prayer book says neither one's better, it's choose your own adventure. 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:24.960 In Lent, here at St. 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:27.680 Thomas, we do, we alternate years. 00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:31.119 So in Lent, every Sunday we'll be right two this year. 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.079 Right two at both services. 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:42.640 Next year, every Sunday we'll be right one, and that's so we can just have a taste of the different language and remember there's something bigger than ourselves. 00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:43.200 Okay. 00:18:43.759 --> 00:18:46.079 You'll see on page 75, morning prayer two. 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:49.119 Like I said, that's just really different language. 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:51.839 It's a little bit more contemporary than Val Dai. 00:18:53.359 --> 00:18:55.839 Lots more canticles show up. 00:18:56.079 --> 00:18:57.039 Lots more. 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:01.200 And you can change those. 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:04.240 I mean, you can change the canticles every single day. 00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:06.000 You can use any ones you want. 00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:07.839 You can use the same ones. 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:16.400 If you use the same ones, you start to memorize them, which was Thomas Cranmer's idea, is that you can memorize the morning prayer service and not need the book anymore. 00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:22.000 If you do it every day for a month and you use the same canicals, I suspect you'll start to memorize them. 00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:23.200 Which is what he wanted. 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:25.119 That would be a good Linton discipline. 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:28.400 That would be a great Linton discipline to do morning prayer every day. 00:19:28.559 --> 00:19:33.920 Yeah, forget the other three, but if you just did one, you may say, Well, Mike, I want to do the whole thing. 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:40.720 If you want to run a marathon, in the first day of your training, you try to run a marathon, you're going to get hurt. 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:42.400 I know because I've done that. 00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:47.680 So it's great if you just start out, if you start out with something like the morning. 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:50.240 Page 103 is the service for noonday. 00:19:50.319 --> 00:19:53.200 Like I said, it doesn't matter whether you're right one or right two. 00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:56.319 This is your one, your one service. 00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:02.000 Then you get evening prayer too. 00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:05.279 And then you get, and this is the word we've maintained. 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:06.799 We don't say vespers anymore. 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:09.119 We don't say vespers because we don't get up in the middle of the night. 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.279 We have complain, and that's before bedtime. 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:12.240 Compline. 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:16.079 It starts with a confession. 00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:17.359 This is a great one, isn't it? 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:21.440 The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:37.039 There are just some wonderful, wonderful phrases that came out of both scripture and prayers people have been praying for years and years and years and years. 00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:39.839 Which is, this is a great one on page 132. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:45.039 I just want to lift up how this is really, really helpful as a discipline and as a meditation. 00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:53.759 Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.119 Keep us as the apple of your eye, hide us under the shadow of your wings. 00:20:57.279 --> 00:21:00.480 That's something we're supposed to pray every day at the end of our day. 00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:11.839 Despite our worries and our successes, our anxieties, our celebrations, we say, I'm commending my spirit into your hands. 00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:14.000 That's a lovely meditation. 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:16.160 I mean, it's extremely meditative. 00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:24.240 There's a really fantastic turn of phrase in the New Zealand one that says, Lord, it is night at the end of a busy day. 00:21:24.559 --> 00:21:26.079 What is done is done. 00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:28.480 What is not done is not done. 00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:30.079 Let it be. 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:34.400 Such a lovely phrase. 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:43.920 Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace. 00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:48.000 I mean, really beautiful prayers. 00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:49.920 And this is what I want to say up front. 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:53.279 I used to teach at a fundamentalist Christian school. 00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:58.000 I was a math teacher, and they wanted us to teach to open every class with prayer. 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:01.519 And I would tell you, uh, I was an Episcopalian then. 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:03.119 I had decided to do that. 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:07.279 That was questionable at the fundamentalist school. 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:10.160 But I wrote out prayers to start every class. 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:10.960 I wrote them out. 00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:15.839 And many of my students said it's not a real prayer if it's written. 00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:20.079 Because you're reading somebody else's words and not making up your own. 00:22:20.160 --> 00:22:23.920 And my experience, that had been my experience. 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:26.400 Prayers had to be spontaneous to be real. 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:30.960 But what I realized is that I often am without inspiration. 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:37.279 If I'm really upset or I'm really happy, I have those feelings, but I'm not always even sure how to express them. 00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:45.200 And this became the interesting thing for me about written prayers, is that they expressed how I was feeling better than I could in the moment. 00:22:45.599 --> 00:23:00.480 It was a way in which I could pour myself into these specific words that weren't magic, but quite honestly, not only expressed me better than I could, but that Christians around the world had been praying sometimes for more than a thousand years. 00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:10.799 This is Cranmer's idea, is that we can pray the same prayers that people have been praying for more than a thousand years and talk about common prayer, right? 00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:17.359 That's a communion that unites us to the dead and the living. 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:23.440 And some, again, some of the phraseology is just incredible. 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:27.200 Much of it comes from the Psalter, from Psalms. 00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:29.200 Into your hands I commend my spirit. 00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:34.559 Jesus says that on the cross, but it actually also comes from Psalm 37. 00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:38.160 I made that number up, but it's one of the comes from one of the Psalms. 00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:39.119 I read it this week. 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:41.200 I mean, it's just, it's fantastic. 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:49.599 Any questions about the four movements about Compline, evening prayer, morning prayer, noonday? 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:52.160 I have a question about collects. 00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:53.599 What is a collect? 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:54.960 Let me get let me get there. 00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:56.079 Let me get there. 00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:05.599 Again, you might decide as a way to experience this, like, hey, this week I'm going to do morning prayer every day. 00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:10.319 Next week, I'm going to do noonday prayer every day, even if I do it before I go to bed. 00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:15.680 The week after that, I'm going to do evening prayer when I have dinner, even with my friends over. 00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:19.359 And nighttime, I'm going to do this prayer before I go to bed. 00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:23.920 I will tell you, my favorite complain is the New Zealand service. 00:24:24.079 --> 00:24:29.680 The New Zealand rite is, to me, is again, that's the one that said, Lord, it's night at the end of a busy day. 00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:30.720 What's done is done. 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:32.640 What's not done is not done. 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:33.680 Let it be. 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:41.759 Why is it that we are so quick to get up early and stay up late and eat the bread of anxiety? 00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:44.880 I just find that describes my life. 00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:46.720 I mean, it's a really interesting question. 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.279 That's out of the New Zealand Compline. 00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:54.160 So it's great to kind of tour how other cultures have done this in their prayer book. 00:24:55.440 --> 00:24:59.599 If it does not enrich your life after doing it for a week, don't do it anymore. 00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:01.839 But I almost promise you it will. 00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:08.960 And the difference between us doing it every day and not at all is that we choose to do it. 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.759 So I offer to you, it's a really great thing to experience this week. 00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:17.200 What follows are daily devotions for individuals and families. 00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:21.680 Now you might say, well, geez, Mike, we already did that in the morning prayer. 00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:32.720 This is really so that you can, as a family, see, Cranmer believed in, he knew he was the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he also believed in the priesthood of all believers. 00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:40.960 And this was the opportunity of families who did not live in monasteries to read scripture and talk about it together. 00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:44.240 You can do this alone. 00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:45.920 This is additional readings. 00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:56.640 What happens, and you'll find this in the back of the prayer book, not the front, is Cranmer divided most of the Bible into a two-year reading cycle. 00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:58.640 It's called the Daily Office. 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:09.920 Every day you'll read a psalm, you'll read part of the Hebrew Bible, or we call the Old Testament, you'll read one of the letters of Paul or John or Hebrews, and you'll read some of the Gospel. 00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:15.519 And if you do that every day, you'll read the Psalter, all the Psalms. 00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:30.880 I think you read that again once a month, you read all the Psalms, you'll read all the Gospels twice every two years, and you'll read most of the Old Testament and most of the rest of the New Testament on a two-year cycle. 00:26:31.759 --> 00:26:36.240 And you'll find all that table actually in the back. 00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:45.359 Like just to tell you, if you flip just to the very back, on like page 944, where does it start? 00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:56.079 You'll see in the very back, Daily Office Year 1, Daily Office Year 2, and it'll tell you, like in the fourth week of Epiphany, on the Sunday you read Genesis, Galatians, Mark. 00:26:56.240 --> 00:26:58.880 On the Monday, you read Genesis Hebrews John. 00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:02.000 And it tells you chapter and verse. 00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:07.759 Yeah. 00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:11.359 You have to look in the bulletin. 00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:16.240 And you know, in the and I'll tell you more about how we do the readings on Sunday, too, because it's a totally different way. 00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:18.400 It's on a three-year deal. 00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:19.440 I know. 00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:20.079 That's great. 00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:24.160 It's on a two-year deal for every individual people to read the whole Bible. 00:27:24.319 --> 00:27:25.680 Forget the Bible in a year. 00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:27.359 You're supposed to read it in two. 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:32.400 You'll get the gospels twice, and you'll get the Psalms 24 times. 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:39.680 Any questions about devotions or morning or evening prayer? 00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:41.359 I'm going to tell you this. 00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.599 Most Episcopalians that I know don't ever look at this book. 00:27:47.200 --> 00:27:51.839 This is part of the reason why in our bulletin I don't print the Eucharistic prayer anymore. 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:53.440 Number one, it takes a lot more paper. 00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:55.359 And number two, we never pick the thing up. 00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:59.119 But this is really the wealth of the Episcopal Church. 00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:01.839 It's one of the things most other churches don't have. 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:07.599 Our Catholic friends, they've got the missile, which is the Eucharist service and a few other things. 00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:17.359 But there's not necessarily understanding that this is for everybody, priest, deacon, bishop, layperson to be using all the time. 00:28:17.680 --> 00:28:20.319 That's really unique to the Episcopal Church. 00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:33.359 You can use it on Rogation Days, which we don't really do. 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:36.400 Those are like harvesty days for farmer people. 00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:43.039 And then you run into on page 159 the colicks. 00:28:43.119 --> 00:28:45.519 And this was Ellen's question: what's a collect? 00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:52.960 Now you'll see that there's colic's traditional and there's colic's contemporary in the next part. 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:55.359 Traditional would be the right one language. 00:28:55.599 --> 00:28:58.000 Contemporary would be modern language. 00:28:58.240 --> 00:28:58.880 What page? 00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:01.680 Colicks begin on page 159. 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:05.920 And you'll see they're actually for Sundays. 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:10.799 So colicks are not for, they're not for Mondays through Saturdays. 00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:18.480 Colics are really only for when we get together in church, whether we're doing morning prayer or the Eucharist, that's when we use the collect. 00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:21.519 Morning prayer or the Eucharist. 00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:28.799 Morning prayer can happen on your own at home, but on Sunday it happens in a bigger community, which is why we have the colic. 00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:30.880 Now, I told you there's a daily office. 00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:31.920 Everyone is. 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.480 Kramer thought everybody's supposed to do that every day. 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:40.160 But then there's something else called the lectionary. 00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:47.279 The lectionary takes most of the Bible, and I say most, it's really more like 60%. 00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:50.240 There's a lot of things the lectionary skips. 00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:52.400 Sometimes because they think it'll be boring. 00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:55.839 More often than not, it's because it's a little too dicey. 00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:05.599 There's a story, never mind, I'm going to tell you, there's some really kind of R or NC17 stories in the Bible. 00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:06.640 They're just R. 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:16.160 And we don't read those in worship because, well, they're R-rated, or NC17, and not everybody in there is 17 and up. 00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:19.759 The Daily Office gets some of them. 00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:22.240 The Daily Office doesn't even get all of them. 00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:22.799 Okay? 00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:34.880 The revised common lectionary is something we share with a few other traditions, like the Lutheran Church, the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. 00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:41.440 Depending, we sometimes share it with Methodists and sometimes with Roman Catholics and sometimes Presbyterians. 00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:48.559 There's a little bit of variance in there, but theoretically, you read four things every Sunday on a three-year rotation. 00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:51.279 Year A, year B, and year C. 00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:57.920 We're in year C right now, started in Advent, which is mostly reading the Gospel of Luke. 00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:03.279 In year A, next year, we'll read Matthew, and in year B we read Mark. 00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:04.880 When do we read John? 00:31:05.039 --> 00:31:08.079 Every year during Easter, because Easter is seven weeks. 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:15.759