(The latter part of this entry will be boring to some and of more interest to people familiar with the Church of England's most recent liturgy for Morning and Evening Prayer - i.e. Cuddesdon ordinands and my priest friends)
Despite the sacristy announcing that there would be no Morning Prayer on Thursday because it was a holiday (even though we had classes that day), I signed up to lead it. (MP here is optional and led on a volunteer basis). I decided to use Common Worship but keep the readings from the Episcopal Daily Prayer lectionary. I wasn't trying to inflict 'my ways' on people - I just thought it would help people engage with the day since Common Worship daily prayer is seasonal, whereas the Episcopal Church's is the same wording throughout the year.
Since Brian had transformed the chapel on Wednesday evening, we all sat in one long line against the wall, looking at the garden he'd made. Also, I left the chapel door open to let people know that there was MP that morning. So we were praying the office on Maundy Thursday, in a garden, listening to the birds singing!
It was interesting for me personally to notice the same differences that hit me when I started going to Morning Prayer here at the beginning of the year:
- the Episcopal Daily Office is much closer to the format of our BCP than it is to Common Worship
- I found it weird not saying the Apostles Creed with Common Worship MP, having got used to it here
- I felt much less lopsided during the day having had both an OT and NT reading when we used Common Worship. There are three readings in the Episcopal Daily Prayer lectionary to be spread between Morning and Evening Prayer so we just have an Epistle reading in the mornings at CDSP
- I found it refreshing being led to engage more with the liturgical season in Common Worship
- I noticed how much more silence there was on Thursday morning. That was partly my personal style, but Common Worship does explicitly suggest silence in places.
- Here we stand for intercessions, so when I asked people to sit (we couldn't really kneel) for the intercessions it felt a bit 'lazy' for a second but then I found I could concentrate more and was more willing to pray because my body was comfortable.
- I prefer the CDSP way of ending with "Thanks be to God" on your feet then going straight into your day, to the Cuddesdon style of sitting back down again. A seamlessness of MP leading into the next activity...
