Book of Common Prayer

“ Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
or this
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. ”

“ Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting. Amen.
Grant us grace to entrust N. to thy never‐failing love; receive him into the arms of thy mercy, and remember him according to the favor which thou bearest unto thy people. Amen.
Grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of thee, he may go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in thy heavenly kingdom. ”

“ Parliaments, prelates, convocations, synods may order forms of prayer. They may get speeches to be spoken upward by people on their knees. They may obtain a juxtaposition in space of curiously tessellated pieces of Bible and Prayer Book. But when I speak of the rareness and preciousness of prayers, I mean such prayers as contain three conditions—permanence, capability jot being really prayed, and universality. ”

“ To Christ our Lord who loves us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory in the Church evermore. Through him let us offer continually the sacrifice of praise, which is our bounden duty and service, and, with faith in him, come boldly before the throne of grace [and humbly confess our sins to Almighty God] . ”

“ For the absolution and remission of our sins and offenses, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy. That we may end our lives in faith and hope, without suffering and without reproach, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
Defend us, deliver us, and in thy compassion protect us, O Lord, by thy grace.
Lord, have mercy. In the communion of [___________ and of all the] saints, let us commend ourselves, and one another, and all our life, to Christ our God. ”

“ Remember the multitudes who have been created in thine image but have not known the redeeming work of our Savior Jesus Christ; and grant that, by the prayers and labors of thy holy Church, they may be brought to know and worship thee as thou hast been revealed in thy Son; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. ”

“ Now, for more than three hundred years, the Common Prayer has been the manual of worship in use with the greater number of the people of that race which, meanwhile, in the providence of God, has been growing up to be the leading power on earth. Everywhere the English language seems to be going forth conquering and to conquer, and whithersoever it penetrates it carries with it the letters and the social traditions of a people whose character has been largely moulded by the influences of the Prayer Book. ”

“ Our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself to be sacrificed for us to the Father, and who conferred power on his Church to forgive sins, absolve you through my ministry by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and restore you in the perfect peace of the Church. ”

“ And it was chiefly because of this need for some simple petition for the common people that Jesus at this time consented, in answer to Thomas’s request, to teach them a suggestive form of prayer. Jesus gave this lesson one afternoon in the third week of their sojourn on Mount Gilboa.
2. THE DISCOURSE ON PRAYER
“John indeed taught you a simple form of prayer: ‘O Father, cleanse us from sin, show us your glory, reveal your love, and let your spirit sanctify our hearts forevermore, Amen!’ He taught this prayer that you might have something to teach the multitude. ”

“ The modern invocations have a dignity of their own, but they are not to be compared for devotional power and simple majesty with the more ancient ones. But for an "enrichment" so good as this, it is too much to hope.
RESOLUTION VII. Prayers and Thanksgivings.
The Maryland Committee [83] have much to say in criticism of this section, and offer many valuable suggestions, the best of them being a recommendation to print the Prayer entitled, "For Grace to speak the Truth in Love," in Canon Bright's own words. ”

“ In the devotional literature of the Anglicanism of the last fifty years, to go no further back, there may be found prayers fully equal in compass of thought and depth of feeling to any of those that are already in public use. ”

“ You are to preach, to declare God’s forgiveness to penitent sinners, to pronounce God’s blessing, to share in the administration of Holy Baptism and in the celebration of the mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood, and to perform the other ministrations entrusted to you. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that after the damsel had repeated the words of that Holy Tradition the doctor cried, "Thou hast replied aright: now say me, what is prayer?" "Prayer is communion between the slave and his lord, and in it are ten virtues: (1) it illumineth the heart; (2) it maketh the face shine ”

“ Unless every clergyman is to settle the form of worship for himself, and there are to be as many forms of worship as there are parishes in the land, who is it that, in his opinion, is to determine what the rubrics of the prayer-book enjoin?—for we suppose him to consider himself bound by the directions of the prayer-book. ”

“ We make our prayers in that tongue which all our people, as meet is, may understand, to the end they may (as Paul counselleth us) take common commodity by common prayer, even as all the holy fathers and Catholic bishops, both in the Old and New Testament, did used to pray themselves, and taught the people to pray too, lest, as Augustine p. ”

“ In like manner, when the Lord's Prayer is 'set' for Prayer, the thought of human wants will be present in every petition. We have great need to pray that God will cause His Name to be hallowed, His Kingdom to come, and His Will to be done, on earth as in heaven, as well as to ask Him for the necessaries of life, the forgiveness of sins, guidance, and deliverance from evil. ”

“ We have already defined Praise as that kind of Worship wherein we think of God, and not of ourselves.
Forasmuch as a Creed contains, chiefly or entirely, {93} the proclamation of God's Nature and Being, it is the form in Worship which is most entirely Praise.
The Apostles' Creed is so placed in the Morning and Evening Prayer as to be the highest of several kinds of Praise.
The Psalms have a considerable mixture of thoughts of man, and of human dependence on God.
The Old Testament Lesson, with its Respond, draws from Man's History the joyful thoughts of God's mercy. ”

“ Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven, Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. ”

“ Do not let men hear your personal prayers. Prayers of thanksgiving are appropriate for groups of worshipers, but the prayer of the soul is a personal matter. There is but one form of prayer which is appropriate for all God's children, and that is: "Nevertheless, your will be done."
12. All believers in this gospel should pray sincerely for the extension of the kingdom of heaven. Of all the prayers of the Hebrew scriptures he commented most approvingly on the petition of the Psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. ”

“ It follows, therefore, that prayer is a necessary and most important means of grace—a duty growing out of the nature of the case, and a duty upon which depends, in a great measure, the well-being of the human spirit. ”

“ Prayer recited or chanted—prayer extemporaneous or in forms grown venerable by use, is common alike to public and private worship, to the worship of the individual in his closet, the family, or the gathering of families. It cannot be the essential element of public worship. ”

“ The Royal Psalmist voices the sentiments of a deeply religious soul in many expressions of grateful praise to God, of joy in the Lord, and of absolute confidence in Divine Providence. Religion gladdens the heart by inspiring trust in the goodness and mercy of God. ”

“ If we have at all seen that prayer is the great need of our work and of the Church, if we have at all desired or resolved to pray more, let us turn to the very source of all power and blessing—let us believe that the Spirit of prayer, even in His fulness, is for us.
We all admit the place the Father and the Son have in our prayer. It is to the Father we pray, and from whom we expect the answer. It is in the merit, and name, and life of the Son, abiding in Him and He in us, that we trust to be heard. ”

“ It is called Common Prayer, because it is to be used by the Congregation in Public Worship, and is thus distinguished from prayer in private. As such it comprehends the needs, feelings and devotions common to all. The efficacy of Common Prayer consists in its being a united service and to this end arises the necessity of a prescribed form. Such prescribed form had its origin in the Christian Church from the very earliest ages, and so early were Liturgies introduced that four of them are mentioned under the names of St. ”

“ Prayer is entirely a personal and spontaneous expression of the attitude of the soul toward the spirit; prayer should be the communion of sonship and the expression of fellowship. Prayer, when indited by the spirit, leads to co-operative spiritual progress. The ideal prayer is a form of spiritual communion which leads to intelligent worship. True praying is the sincere attitude of reaching heaven- ward for the attainment of your ideals. “Prayer is the breath of the soul and should lead you to be persistent in your attempt to ascertain the Father’s will. ”

“ The entire Book of Psalms brings prayer to the front, and prayer fairly bristles before our eyes as we read this devotional book of the Scriptures.
Nor must even Solomon be overlooked in the famous catalogue of men who prayed in Old Testament times. Whatever their faults, they did not forget the God who hears prayer nor did they cease to seek the God of prayer. While this wise man in his later life departed from God, and his sun set under a cloud, we find him praying at the commencement of his reign. ”

“ Now, almost all the ancient liturgies, both Eastern and Western, are so constructed that the point upon which each service converges is the saying of the Lord’s Prayer. That is the point up to which they climb. That is their central act; because the highest thing in the way of worship that the Christian can do is to say Christ’s own prayer in the freedom of that approach to God once won for him by the Son of Man. ”

“ Yet if we have only once or twice experienced what unpremeditated prayer may be, when it is offered in the true priestly spirit, in deep sympathy with the needs and longings of those present, diverse though they be, and in close harmony with the peculiar demands of the time and place, we know how such prayer can, as nothing else, gather up our hidden desires and bring our whole souls with it into the sense of communion with the source of the strength and help that we need, towards which our arms stretch out as we listen, and are not stretched in vain. ”

“ Let us pray then, most beloved brethren, as our teacher, God, has instructed us. It is a welcome and friendly prayer to petition God from his own, to mount up to his ears by the prayer of Christ. Let the Father recognize the words of his Son. When we offer a prayer let Him who dwelleth inwardly in our breast, Himself be in our voice; and since we have Him as our advocate with the Father for our sins, when as sinners we are petitioning for our sins let us put forth the words of our Advocate. ”

“ Prayer is the key that unlocks the holy place where Jesus meets his people at the mercy-seat, to dispense the gifts which have been purchased by his precious blood. And when the united petitions of ministers and people ascend in an unceasing stream of sacred incense to a throne of grace, blessings may be expected to descend in rich abundance on the church. ”

“ We lay stress on true praying, which engages and sets on fire every high element of the preacher's being—prayer which is born of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the Holy Ghost, which springs from the deep, overflowing fountains of tender compassion, deathless solicitude for man's eternal good ”

“ Pray for all saints—God’s holy ones—throughout the Church, that the Spirit of holiness may rule them. Specially for new converts. For the saints in your own neighbourhood or congregation. For any you are specially interested in. Think of their special need, weakness, or sin, and pray that God may make them holy.
HOW TO PRAY.—
The things that are impossible with men are possible with God. When we think of the great things we ask for, of how little likelihood there is of their coming, of our own insignificance. Prayer is not only wishing, or asking, but believing and accepting. ”

“ Another case may be noticed as showing the truth of our proposition that sinners had faith in prayer in the Old Testament dispensation, thus indirectly proving the preëminence of prayer in those days, for certainly prayer must have had a prominent place and its necessity must have received general recognition, when even sinners by their actions give endorsement to its virtue and necessity. ”