Morning Prayer

Dear Friends,

Periodically I hear from parishioners who miss the Morning Prayer service, with its lovely cadences and canticles.  Morning Prayer is part of the Daily Office, the set of worship services intended for all Episcopalians to pray each day.  Longtime Episcopalians (like me!) grew up with Morning Prayer as the usual Sunday liturgy, a practice begun when there were not enough clergy to lead Sunday morning worship and so communion was not possible.  The Book of Common Prayer, crafted and adopted in the 1970’s, returned us to the pattern of the Early Church, where Holy Eucharist was the normative form of Christian worship.

In January, we marked the start of our 100^th year with a service of Morning Prayer from the 1892 Book of Common Prayer.  Afterward, a number of folks mentioned how much they liked that liturgy.

After thinking it over, I decided to schedule two more Morning Prayer Sundays this year—Morning Prayer Rite I on Sunday, May 19; and Morning Prayer Rite II in November.  Both services will end with Holy Eucharist so that we do not miss out on the Lord’s Supper.

Whether Morning Prayer is familiar to you or is something altogether new in your experience, I pray that our worship with it will be a blessing to you.

Anne+