Day 32 - Creed, Responses and Collects
- Congregational Federation
- Mar 21
- 2 min read
According to my SPCK Diary, (useful because it contains the Lectionary and important because the first day of the week is Sunday and not Monday) today we remember Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and Reformation Martyr.
My interest in Cranmer for the purposes of today`s reflection, is not his archepiscopy or even his martyrdom but rather his gift to the Universal Church in the Book of Common Prayer.
The Act of Uniformity passed by the House of Lords on January 15th, 1549, abolished the Latin mass in England. Now for the first time the only legal services throughout the country were to be those in English provided in the new Book of Common Prayer. The new book was approved by a committee of thirteen clerics who had met during the previous Autumn. It was drafted by Thomas Cranmer, who had been working privately on a new liturgy for several years and whose prose has been one of the glories of the English language ever since.
Cranmer produced a new and more radical Protestant prayer book in 1552, which was revised in a more Catholic spirit in 1559, to be succeeded eventually by the 1662 Anglican prayer book, more Catholic still and the familiar one which has lasted down into this century.
I encourage you to take the time to listen prayerfully to the extract I have chosen for today, Creed, Responses and Collects, sung by the Choir of Lichfield Cathedral.
The Apostles' Creed
Minister. The Lord be with you.
Answer. And with thy spirit.
Minister. Let us pray. Lord, have mercy upon us.
Answer. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.
The Lord`s Prayer
Priest. O Lord, shew thy mercy upon us.
Answer. And grant us thy salvation.
Priest. O Lord, save the King.
Answer. And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.
Priest. Endue thy Ministers with righteousness.
Answer. And make thy chosen people joyful.
Priest. O Lord, save thy people.
Answer. And bless thine inheritance.
Priest. Give peace in our time, O Lord.
Answer. Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God.
Priest. O God, make clean our hearts within us.
Answer. And take not thy Holy Spirit from us.
The Collect for the Day, followed by Second & Third
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that both our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Alan Kennedy
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