The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, still broadly considered to be the traditional norm of Anglican Christian worship, has a long history and has left an indisputable mark on the development of English-speaking culture worldwide (one need only think of such iconic phrases as “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” originating from the Prayer Book’s Burial Service). It has also influenced and enriched the spiritual life of not only Anglicans, but Catholics, Orthodox, and non-Anglican Protestants as well.

The Prayer Book frames the Christian’s day through daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the heirs and successors of the sevenfold divine offices of Western monastic prayer as it had developed into the late middle ages.

These offices, so highly praised by many (including, but not limited to, Catholics like G.K. Chesterton and Louis Bouyer, and appreciated for their cultural worth even by diehard atheist Richard Dawkins), provide a steady diet of Scripture along with time-hallowed liturgical compositions of the Western Church (from the Te Deum, to the Athanasian Creed, to the rich collection of prayers in English translation, many of which go back to the first millennium).

They have also revived and kept alive in Western Christianity the immemorial custom of the Church praying together as one regardless of clerical status—in contrast to (on the one hand) the Latin Church where the breviary eventually became the private devotional of priests and religious, largely falling out of common use and public celebration; or (on the other hand) the churches of the Continental Reformation, in most of which divine offices fell by the wayside altogether, except for the Lutheran tradition.

One could go on. In this reflection, I want to point to something at the beginning of these two offices that has really struck me as one of the most unique and salutary features of the English Prayer Book tradition.

If you already know or pray these daily offices, the below will be familiar to you:

Note the structure of the above, which is how both Morning and Evening Prayer open in the English Prayer Book tradition:

1. One or more sentences of Scripture that speak of repentance, encourage the acknowledgement of sins, and promise God’s mercy.
2. An exhortation to confession in which the officiant, in the name of the Church, calls those present to “acknowledge our manifold sins and wickedness” and warns not to “dissemble or cloak them before the face of almighty God our heavenly Father, but to confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart.”
3. A confession of sins by which, in answer to Scripture’s and the Church’s call, the faithful acknowledge their sorry state, that “we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health [that is: salvation] in us.”
4. An absolution pronounced by the priest, or the Collect for the 21st Sunday after Trinity (if officiated by a layperson), both of which serve to effect the promise of God’s forgiveness when sincerely sought.
5. The Our Father, our New Testament prayer par excellence, which “we are bold to say” after having been assured of God’s mercy for repentant sinners, with its doxology (“For thine is the kingdom…”), closing the circle begun with God speaking to us through the Scriptures, with an acknowledgment that this process is all of God’s doing by his power, for his glory and the realization of his kingdom.

These elements together serve as an “office before the office” that is a perfect summary and true enactment of the Gospel, and the move of the sinner from repentance to being restored in grace by God as a son or daughter.

Ever part is integral—none dispensable.

Consider:

The opening Sentences from Scripture are always penitential in nature (contrary to more modern iterations of the Prayer Book, or the American prayer book tradition, where the sentences are both optional and they are seasonally selected to frame the entire celebration, rather than serving a specific purpose of calling to repentance and promising forgiveness).

The exhortation segues naturally from them, opening with “Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places” [N.B. as exemplified by the foregoing Sentences!] “to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness…”

But if we only heard or said the above and stopped there, we would not be doers of the Word, but hearers only.

So the actual Confession follows, falling on our knees and acknowledging those “manifold sins and wickedness” before God and each other, a necessary condition for forgiveness.

Necessary, but not sufficient.

This is what set Judas apart from Peter. Judas knew he had sinned by betraying the Lord, but he despaired of God’s mercy and killed himself. Peter tearfully sought and gratefully received mercy for his triple betrayal.

So, the Confession of Sin must for the Christian be followed either by the priest’s absolution as a minister of the Church, or (in absence of a priest) at least a sincere prayer for the forgiveness of the sins acknowledged (as wonderfully expressed by the Trinity XXI collect: “GRANT, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.“).

Lastly, what is all the foregoing directed to?

What is the final cause of this whole process?

We repent and are forgiven each time, precisely in order that we can live as adopted children worthy of the name, bold to call God “Our Father,” trusting him for our daily and super-substantial bread, relying on his protection, and extending his mercy to others just as he is gracious to forgive us our own trespasses.

Every time we enter (both in our daily lives and in the effective sign of the liturgy, repeated daily) into this cycle of repentance, confession, seeking mercy and absolution, and once again boldly calling upon the heavenly Father, we can be confident that all this can and has been effected, for his indeed is “the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”