Daily Office Rubrics (1928 BCP)

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Daily Office Rubrics (1928 BCP) are the directions that govern the conduct of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the American Book of Common Prayer of 1928. They assign speech to minister and people, prescribe postures, establish the sequence of psalmody, lessons, canticles, Creed, and prayer, and identify authorized alternatives or omissions. They are therefore part of the liturgical text, not merely editorial comments.

The two Offices retain a stable theological movement: the congregation is summoned by Scripture, confesses sin and receives a declaration of forgiveness, praises the Triune God, hears the Old and New Testaments, answers with biblical canticles, confesses the faith, and intercedes for Church and world. The rubrics protect that common order while allowing defined pastoral flexibility.

How to read the rubrics

Edward W. Averill, writing immediately after the 1928 book was adopted, explains both the name and the practical distinction on which careful use depends:

The directions for using the service, printed before, after or between the vocal parts of the service are called Rubrics because they were formerly printed in red (rubor) and sometimes are now. They should be carefully studied. It is important to distinguish those which are mandatory, and use the word “shall” and those which are permissive, and use the word “may”; also those which are alternative, using the form “or this”.

[1]

This grammar prevents two opposite errors. A direction containing shall is not an optional custom; a permission containing may does not compel its use. An alternative introduced by Or this remains an authorized form, not an invitation to compose a replacement. In both Offices, the sign ¶ marks a direction rather than words to be recited.

Opening the Office

Morning Prayer begins with Scripture and then provides a conditional shortened path:

The Minister shall begin the Morning Prayer by reading one or more of the following Sentences of Scripture.

[2]

The next direction is permissive and bounded. Outside a fast or day of abstinence, or when the Litany or Holy Communion follows immediately, the minister may move from the sentences to the Lord’s Prayer:

On any day, save a Day of Fasting or Abstinence, or on any day when the Litany or Holy Communion is immediately to follow, the Minister may, at his discretion, pass at once from the Sentences to the Lord’s Prayer.

[3]

This permission does not make the Office formless. If Confession and Absolution are omitted, the following rubric directs where the Lord’s Prayer is moved and how the service resumes at “O Lord, open thou our lips.” Evening Prayer contains the same controlled route from the opening sentences to the Lord’s Prayer or versicles.[4]

Penitence, ministry, and posture

Where the penitential opening is used, the rubrics distinguish the acts of the whole congregation from the priest’s declaration:

To be said by the whole Congregation, after the Minister, all kneeling.
To be made by the Priest alone, standing; the People still kneeling.
Then the Minister shall kneel, and say the Lord’s Prayer; the People still kneeling, and repeating it with him.

[5]

The order joins doctrine to bodily and ministerial action. All confess because all have sinned; the priest stands to declare the Gospel’s absolution; minister and people then kneel together in the prayer Christ taught. The sequence accords with 1 John 1:9, where confession is answered by God’s faithful forgiveness, and with Psalm 51:15, whose plea becomes the next versicle: “O Lord, open thou our lips.”[6]

Psalms, lessons, and answering praise

After the opening versicles, the rubrics order praise before and after the lessons. Morning Prayer requires a portion of the Psalter, a concluding Gloria Patri, the appointed First Lesson, and a canticle:

Then shall follow a Portion of the Psalms, according to the Use of this Church. … at the end of the whole Portion, or Selection from the Psalter, shall be, sung or said the Gloria Patri.
Then shall be read the First Lesson, according to the Table or Calendar.

[7]

The rubrics therefore do more than place readings in a schedule. The Psalms school the Church in prayer, the lesson is heard corporately, and a biblical or ancient canticle answers the word with praise. John Wallace Suter and Charles Morris Addison interpret this inherited architecture:

But the more we know of God, the more we shall be moved to praise him. The service of Matins had a lesson consisting of three or nine short passages, and Lauds and Prime had a short chapter and these were each followed by a burst of praise.

[8]

The appointed reading is thus framed as an ecclesial act of hearing and response. Saint Paul’s charge, “give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine,” supplies a direct apostolic basis for public reading.[9] The Daily Office Lectionary chooses the lessons; the Office rubrics determine where and how they are read.

Common confession of faith and common prayer

The change of posture at the Creed and prayers is explicit:

Then shall be said the Apostles’ Creed by the Minister and the People, standing. … And after that, these Prayers following, the people devoutly kneeling.

[10]

Standing marks the corporate confession of the faith; kneeling marks supplication. The words “by the Minister and the People” also exclude a performance model in which the congregation merely observes. Conrad A. M. Stewart makes the same theological point about the salutation before the prayers:

The Salutation “the Lord be with you,” etc., reminds us that Divine worship is not a solo; priest and people are co-operating together in the salutation of the Majesty of God.

[11]

The ordered dialogue gives liturgical form to common prayer: the minister leads, the people answer, and both pray. Romans 10:9–10 connects confession with faith, while 1 Timothy 2:1–2 directs the Church to make supplications and intercessions for all, including civil rulers—the scope taken up by the Daily Office suffrages and prayers.[12]

Authorized shortening and joined services

The 1928 book gives Evening Prayer a specific one-lesson option, but preserves the principle that Scripture is answered by a canticle:

But, Note, That the Minister, at his discretion, may omit one of the Lessons in Evening Prayer, the Lesson read being followed by one of the Evening Canticles.

[13]

Morning Prayer also anticipates a joined service. After a first lesson and one Morning Canticle, the minister may proceed directly to Holy Communion:

On any day when the Holy Communion is immediately to follow the Minister at his discretion, after any one of the following Canticles of Morning Prayer has been said or sung, may pass at once to the Communion Service.

[14]

At the end of Morning Prayer, the relation to the Litany or Communion is again governed by text rather than improvisation:

The following Prayers shall be omitted here when the Litany is said, and may be omitted when the Holy Communion is to follow.

[15]

The contrast between shall and may matters. When the Litany is said, the later Morning Prayer intercessions are omitted; when Communion follows, their omission is permitted but not required. The joined-service rubrics reduce duplication while retaining Scripture, praise, and the principal prayer proper to each office.

The fixed core is followed by authorized freedom in choosing additional prayers or ending:

And Note, That the Minister may here end the Morning Prayer with such general intercessions taken out of this Book, as he shall think fit, or with the Grace.

[16]

Evening Prayer similarly allows the minister to end after the Collect for Aid against Perils with prayers “taken out of this Book.”[17] The permission is broad within the Prayer Book and narrow outside it: the rubric authorizes selection from the Church’s common treasury, not unrestricted extemporization in place of the Office.

Historical character of the 1928 directions

The flexibility is a deliberate feature of the American 1928 revision, not an accidental looseness in transcription. E. Clowes Chorley, Historiographer of the Protestant Episcopal Church, summarized the result in 1929:

As compared with the two previous American Prayer Books the new Book has two outstanding characteristics—it is much more flexible in its use and there is a marked tendency to shorten the regular services; especially those of Morning and Evening Prayer.

[18]

Chorley identifies concrete examples: the shorter invitation to confession, the Benedictus es as an alternative to the Te Deum, one lesson in Evening Prayer, an abbreviated Morning Prayer before the Litany, and permission to end after the third collect with authorized prayers or the Grace.[19] These are precisely worded options within a common order. Flexibility and integrity are therefore complementary: a minister follows the rubric when using an option and also when retaining the fuller form.

The deeper historical structure predates the 1928 revision. Suter and Addison explain that the English reformers condensed the monastic morning hours into Morning Prayer and Vespers and Compline into Evening Prayer.[20] The recurring pattern of psalm, lesson, canticle, and prayer preserves that inheritance while placing extensive vernacular Scripture and congregational response at its center.

Anglican theology of liturgical order

Article XXXIV supplies a doctrinal frame for rubrics. Ceremonies are not immutable divine law, but neither are they left to private preference:

Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.

[21]

The Daily Office rubrics are an exercise of that ecclesial authority for edification. Their mandatory provisions secure intelligible common prayer; their permissions adapt the service without dissolving it. Their sequence also keeps the Church under Scripture: biblical sentences call the assembly, biblical Psalms form its praise, appointed lessons address it, biblical canticles answer the lessons, and prayers shaped by Scripture carry the needs of the Church and world to God.

This order is Christological and Trinitarian. Penitence seeks the forgiveness proclaimed in Christ’s Gospel; the Gloria Patri and canticles praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the Creed confesses the saving economy; and the collects are offered through Jesus Christ. Rubrical obedience is therefore not an end in itself. It serves faithful hearing, common confession, reverent praise, and united intercession.

Practical use

To follow the 1928 Daily Office rubrics faithfully:

  • Begin with the appointed Scripture sentences and use seasonal material where directed.
  • Treat shall as mandatory, may as permission, and or as a genuine authorized alternative.
  • Preserve the assigned parts of minister and people and the stated postures of kneeling or standing.
  • Use the applicable Psalter and lectionary, placing canticles after lessons as directed.
  • Use shortened forms only under their stated conditions, especially when the Litany or Holy Communion follows.
  • Select additional intercessions from the Prayer Book where the rubric gives that discretion.

This approach avoids both mechanical maximalism and casual abbreviation. The 1928 book expects judgment, but judgment disciplined by its printed order.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Edward W. Averill, Talks on the Prayer Book (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin: The Parish Press, 1929), chapter III, “The Daily Offices and Litany,” pp. 19–20, Project Canterbury transcription.
  2. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” p. 3, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 50–51.
  3. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” p. 3, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; verified against the Standard Book facsimile, PDF p. 10. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 57–62.
  4. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, Morning Prayer p. 3 and Evening Prayer p. 21, Society of Archbishop Justus Evening Prayer transcription; local comparison sources: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 63–69, and sources/justus1928/EP.htm, lines 51–64.
  5. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” General Confession, Declaration of Absolution, and Lord’s Prayer, pp. 6–7, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 204–205, 226–233, and 251–254.
  6. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, 1 John 1:9 and Psalm 51:15.
  7. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” pp. 9–10, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 366–383.
  8. ↑ John Wallace Suter and Charles Morris Addison, The People’s Book of Worship: A Study of the Book of Common Prayer (New York: Macmillan, 1919), chapter V, “Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer,” section II, Project Canterbury transcription.
  9. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, 1 Timothy 4:13.
  10. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” pp. 15–16, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 593–598 and 635–637.
  11. ↑ Conrad A. M. Stewart, How to Make Mattins and Evensong Real: Some Practical Suggestions, Little Books on Religion no. 40 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1926), section “The Creed and Lesser Litany,” Project Canterbury transcription.
  12. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Romans 10:9–10 and 1 Timothy 2:1–2.
  13. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Evening Prayer,” p. 26, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/EP.htm, lines 293–297.
  14. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” rubric before Te Deum, p. 11, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 384–389.
  15. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” p. 17, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 727–729.
  16. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Morning Prayer,” p. 17, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 732–735.
  17. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, “The Order for Daily Evening Prayer,” pp. 31–32, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile. Local comparison source: sources/justus1928/EP.htm, lines 608–612.
  18. ↑ E. Clowes Chorley, The New American Prayer Book: Its History and Contents (New York: Macmillan, 1929), chapter VII, “The New Prayer Book: Revision,” Project Canterbury transcription.
  19. ↑ Chorley, The New American Prayer Book, chapter VII, Project Canterbury transcription.
  20. ↑ John Wallace Suter and Charles Morris Addison, The People’s Book of Worship (New York: Macmillan, 1919), chapter V, “Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer,” section I, Project Canterbury transcription.
  21. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, “Article XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church,” in The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book adopted in 1928, p. 610, Standard Book facsimile, PDF p. 616.

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