My Sisters and Brothers,
I recently received a note from a parishioner who had a death in their family. They wrote: “The whole way there I was praying. I thought “I wonder if they will let someone pray for him as he passes?” Then I remembered the comforting words of the BCP. When the time came one of his granddaughters asked if we should say a prayer and everyone said yes. Then they went around the group asking who would pray and it fell to me. Those words fell from my lips and brought peace. I am so very thankful for our church and the guiding words the BCP offers. They gave me strength, hope, and peace.”
The Episcopal Church is sometimes criticized because we often “pray” from the Book of Common Prayer. I have frequently heard comments about our “reading prayers,” not understanding that yes we do, but we also have them as a guide when we just cannot find the right words on our own. In times of distress, those times when I find myself with, as we hear in Romans 8:26 “sighs too deep for words.” What I often find, as did my friend above, is that the Spirit guides us to words we repeatedly use, words we say so often that they become ingrained in us, perhaps for times of need. I have repeatedly told of the time I was at a workshop and after a long day found myself lying on a row of chairs in the chapel thinking about my mother laying in the hospital with inoperable cancer when suddenly the words I had repeated so often from the Song of Simeon when saying Morning Prayer popped into my head: “Lord, you now have set your servant free * to go in peace as you have promised; For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, * whom you have prepared for all the world to see: A Light to enlighten the nations, * and the glory of your people Israel. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: * as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.” A great peace came over me for I knew that regardless of the outcome, she was a child of God, and was in Gods arms.
I remember hearing from Admiral James Stockdale, the highest-ranking American officer, held for seven and a half years as a prisoner in the “Hanoi Hilton” during the Viet Nam war, that one of the things that helped him survive his imprisonment was his ability to recite so much of the Book of Common Prayer during his isolation and torture. Many of our prayers have been in use for centuries, many composed by some of the greatest wordsmiths of the English language. So many flow off the tongue like poetry, like song. Yes, some take them for granted, some just read them, and yet, how often when people recite the Lord’s Prayer, do they really contemplate what they are saying? No, we should not be ashamed of prayers in a book. We should not be ashamed by the Book of Common Prayer. Do those who criticize its use also criticize the Bible? Do they realize that nearly 80% of the Book of Common Prayer is from the Bible? For me, when I pray its words, I am comforted knowing that somewhere else in the world, someone else is probably praying those same words, maybe not in English, but the same words at the same time as I am . We truly are part of the community of all the saints.
Peace
Bryant+
