Lord's Prayer in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)

Lord's Prayer in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP) is the first full congregational prayer after the General Confession and Absolution in Morning Prayer in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It stands at the hinge of the opening penitential order and the office's praise, Scripture, Creed, collects, and intercessions.

In this place the Lord's Prayer is not a decorative devotion added to the office. The people have confessed their sins, received the declaration of God's pardon, and then pray to God as "Our Father." The 1928 rite therefore joins repentance, adoption, forgiveness, obedience, daily dependence, and deliverance in the prayer Christ taught his disciples.

Place in Morning Prayer

The rubric after the absolution gives the Lord's Prayer its immediate setting:

Then the Minister shall kneel, and say the Lord's Prayer; the People still kneeling, and repeating it with him.

This rubric matters because the minister who stood to pronounce absolution now kneels with the people. The congregation remains kneeling, but no longer only in confession. They kneel as forgiven worshippers, saying the prayer of Christ together. The office moves from declared remission to filial address.

The Prayer Book's sequence is therefore theological as well as practical. Morning Prayer does not begin with the congregation claiming spiritual confidence for itself. It begins with Scripture, honest confession, absolution, and then the Lord's Prayer. Only then does the office proceed through the versicles, Gloria Patri, Venite, psalms, lessons, canticles, Creed, suffrages, collects, and further prayers.

Text and Petitions

The 1928 BCP prints the traditional English form:

OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

The opening words teach that Christian prayer is made in the Son's own pattern. The congregation says "our," not merely "my," because Morning Prayer is common prayer. The address to the Father also follows absolution naturally: those who have heard the Gospel promise of pardon pray as children brought home by mercy.

The first petitions are doxological and obedient before they are concerned with daily needs. God's Name, kingdom, and will come first:

Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

This order shapes the rest of the office. The Venite summons worship, the psalms give inspired praise and lament, the lessons teach God's will, and the Creed confesses the kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Lord's Prayer therefore gathers the office's purpose before the office unfolds it.

The second half turns to human need:

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us.

"Daily bread" is especially fitting in Morning Prayer because the day is just beginning. The petition receives ordinary life as dependent on God. The petition for forgiveness also returns to the confession and absolution just completed, but it extends that mercy into reconciliation with others.

Christ's own explanation makes that reconciliation inseparable from prayer:

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

The office has just taught the congregation to seek pardon as sinners. The Lord's Prayer then prevents that mercy from being treated as a private possession. The forgiven are sent into the day under the obligation to forgive, so Morning Prayer joins absolution, petition, and neighbor-love.

The final petitions ask for moral preservation and deliverance:

And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Morning Prayer sends the faithful into the day under this request and immediately returns the petition to praise. The office does not treat devotion as escape from temptation. It teaches the congregation to ask the Father for guarding grace before the day's work, duties, and trials, and to confess that kingdom, power, and glory belong to God.

St. Paul gives the same petition a promise of divine faithfulness:

God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.

The petition is therefore not fatalistic. The Church does not ask to escape discipleship, conflict, or ordinary testing; it asks the faithful Father to preserve his children from being overcome by evil and to provide the grace needed for obedience.

Scriptural Foundations

The Lord's Prayer is received directly from Christ's teaching. St. Matthew records the fuller form:

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

In Matthew, the prayer belongs to the Sermon on the Mount. The Prayer Book's use of it in Morning Prayer therefore places daily worship under Christ's own instruction in righteousness, secrecy before God, forgiveness, and trust.

St. Luke records the disciples' request and the Lord's answer:

Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven.

This Lukan setting is important for Anglican catechesis. The Lord's Prayer is not merely a text to be analyzed; it is a school of prayer. Morning Prayer makes the Church repeat what the disciples asked to learn.

St. Paul gives the address "Our Father" its doctrinal depth by connecting Christian prayer with adoption in Christ:

ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

This helps explain why the prayer follows absolution rather than preceding confession. The congregation does not approach God as naturally confident children, but as sinners restored by grace and taught by the Son to call upon the Father. Morning Prayer therefore joins penitence, pardon, the Spirit's witness, and filial prayer in a single ordered act of worship.

The petition for forgiveness is inseparable from the Gospel's call to forgive:

if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

That warning gives force to the Prayer Book order. The congregation has asked for mercy in the General Confession and heard absolution declared to the penitent. It now asks forgiveness while pledging the forgiven life of mercy toward others.

The doxological ending belongs to the received liturgical form used in the 1928 Morning Prayer text:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

The doxology keeps the opening Lord's Prayer from ending with evil as the final word. The office has moved through confession and absolution, asks for bread, forgiveness, and deliverance, and then confesses that all rule, strength, and glory belong to the Father. The following versicles and Gloria Patri continue that movement from petition into praise.

Catechism and Anglican Doctrine

The 1928 Catechism makes the Lord's Prayer one of the ordinary foundations of Christian instruction. It asks:

What desirest thou of God in this Prayer?

The answer teaches that the prayer contains adoration, obedience, providence, forgiveness, grace, and deliverance. Morning Prayer therefore uses a prayer that Anglican children and confirmands were expected to know and understand. The office and the catechism reinforce one another.

The Catechism also explains why the Lord's Prayer follows the Commandments:

thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace.

This is exactly the theological logic enacted in Morning Prayer. After confession and absolution, the people do not proceed as if they now possess spiritual strength in themselves. They ask the Father for daily provision, forgiveness, defense, and deliverance because the Christian life requires grace from beginning to end.

The Catechism also identifies the Christian's duties toward God and neighbour before it expounds the Lord's Prayer. That context keeps the prayer from being sentimental. To pray "thy will be done" is to enter the obedience taught by the Commandments; to pray "forgive us" is to live in charity and repentance; to pray "deliver us from evil" is to seek grace for holy living.

For classical Anglican and Reformed Episcopal readers, the Lord's Prayer displays the sufficiency of Christ's teaching and the evangelical character of common prayer. The Church prays in words given by the Lord rather than inventing a spirituality detached from Scripture. For High Church and Tractarian readers, the same placement shows catholic continuity: the Church's daily office is visibly ordered around the prayer universally received from Christ.

Relation to Confession, Absolution, and the Office

The Lord's Prayer follows the absolution, but it does not leave repentance behind. The petition "forgive us our trespasses" keeps the forgiven life humble. The petition "lead us not into temptation" asks for persevering grace. The office therefore refuses both despair and presumption.

It also prepares for the versicles immediately following:

O Lord, open thou our lips. Answer. And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.

The forgiven congregation asks the Father for bread, pardon, and deliverance; then the minister and people ask that their lips be opened for praise. The Lord's Prayer is thus the office's gateway from penitential preparation into worship.

In the larger shape of Morning Prayer, the Lord's Prayer also anticipates the collects and intercessions near the end of the office. The prayer Christ gave remains the measure of all later petitions. The Collect for Grace, for example, asks God to defend the people through the day and order their doings by his governance; the Lord's Prayer has already taught the Church to ask for daily provision and deliverance.

Use in Worship and Teaching

In public Morning Prayer, the Lord's Prayer should be said as a congregational act, not as a clerical solo. The rubric explicitly directs the people to repeat it with the minister. This makes the whole congregation participants in the office's transition from absolution to praise.

In family and school use, the prayer offers a concise map of Anglican devotion: worship God, seek his kingdom, obey his will, depend on him for daily needs, receive and extend forgiveness, resist temptation, and trust his deliverance. It is therefore a natural companion to Opening Sentences in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), General Confession in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), Absolution in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), Apostles' Creed in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), and Collect for Grace (1928 BCP).

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Daily Office (1928 BCP)
• Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Evening Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Opening Sentences in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• General Confession in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Absolution in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Apostles' Creed in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Grace (1928 BCP)
• Lord's Prayer in the 1928 BCP Catechism

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer