Opening the Book of Common Prayer

When you are sitting in the pews of the Church of the Nativity, you might be asked to turn to a page of the Book of Common Prayer. And when you pull the book out of the book holder and open the book, you notice that the pages are yellow in a certain section of the book. As you move to open the book, the book pages automatically fall open to a certain page, most likely page 355: The Holy Eucharist: Rite Two. Generations of hands have been opening these books, and turning to that section so that the book knows where you need to go.

And chances are, after a while, you don’t need to open the book to page 355, because the rhythm of the opening of the service is inscribed in your brain:

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever. Amen.

And now because you know it by heart, you have noticed the people around you saying “And blessed be GOD’S kingdom…” and so you start saying it too, because the idea of God being confined to one gender has opened up your ideas about God, and you are experiencing the Book of Common Prayer being just that – a book that the people of God use to express their prayers to a God they know in their own language.

And you do need to turn to the page with the Gloria (356) or if you are attending 10:30, you don’t need to because you are singing it and it turns out that singing helps you memorize texts and those tunes and those words get deep into your soul so that one day you find yourself singing it to yourself when your soul needed to feel the presence and reminder of God, “For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord…”

And after a season or two of turning to page 361, or page 367, for Eucharistic prayers A or B, you start to recognize which prayer, and again, your soul remembers those words, “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.” And you notice you don’t need to scramble for the book after communion and can join the rhythm of “Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members…” and later in the day in the grocery store line as you feel guilty for all that you didn’t accomplish during the week or weekend, those same words come into your mind and you remember what it feels like to be graciously accepted.

The words of the Book of Common Prayer are soulful words spoken by generation after generation. When we reach for the prayer book, we are joining with Episcopalians and Anglicans around the world who might not agree on every theological tenant, but we do agree that these words can still express our soul’s deep longing for a living experience of God.

And yes, we can read those words in a printed pamphlet just as well, and we will use the printed bulletin during certain seasons of the church year because our tradition holds a wealth of other prayers to say new things to our souls. But there is something important in opening the book, holding the weight in your hands, flipping through and noticing the abundance of other prayers found there, not just what we do on Sunday morning. When our children play with the books and read those prayers because the sermon is going on a bit too long, they are joining generations of children who have sat in pews in Episcopal churches doing the same, feeding those growing souls with the words they need, helping the language of the prayer book become their language too.

Is it confusing the first few times you use the book? Yep. Is it awkward to balance a prayer book, hymnal, and bulletin? Absolutely. Will it feel that way forever? No. These next few Sundays, I encourage you, when you hear, “Our service begins on page 355,” take a moment to feel the weight of the book in your hands, notice the yellowed pages, and allow the words to sink into your soul. Be grounded and present in that moment, and may you feel God there with you.

— Rev. Stephanie