1662 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Prayer: Morning Prayer: December 13th

Due to popular demand I have decided to try to keep up with the devotional posts in my other blog,  1662 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Prayer.   For those of you who have never read through the morning and evening prayers in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, I think you might find comfort and edification in knowing that God is sovereign.  

In addition, the lectionary reads through the entire Old Testament in one year, including the Apocrypha.  The Apocrypha were originally a part of both the Geneva Bible and the King James Authorized Version.  The New Testament books are read in one year and the Psalter is read through in its entirety once per month.  The catch is that you will need to read both the morning and evening prayer services daily to keep up with it all.  This takes a bit of discipline to accomplish.  I find it difficult to do every day myself.  However, even if you only read the morning and evening prayers once or twice a week you are getting a good cross section of Scripture readings.  The 1662 Lectionary includes readings from entire chapters of the Old Testament and New Testament, not just selected pericopes.  

In short, the cut and paste lectionaries or Readers Digest approach to lectionary readings adopted by most congregations and churches today was not the common practice in previous ages.  Something has been lost in our high tech world where everyone is in a hurry and modern media has shortened the attention span of the average person.  Would that we could all sit back with a hot cup of coffee and savor the reading of the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer!  

Many people complain that they are unable to understand King James English or Elizabethan English.  These same people probably have never read Shakespeare or Chaucer either.  Canterbury Tales was one of my favorite historical readings when I did my high school Enlish classes.  Basically, if you want to know more about American and British culture and where we came from you are obligated to familiarize yourself with the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  Both of these books helped to standardize written and spoken English and their impact on spoken English today is still evident to anyone who has read them.

Has no one ever heard the expression, "Lord have mercy!"?  That pithy exclamation comes from the Book of Common Prayer in the Morning and Evening Prayer services and in Holy Communion:  "Lord have mercy upon us."

You can read this morning's prayer service by clicking here:  1662 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Prayer: Morning Prayer: December 13th